1. What Is Meditation?
Meditation is a simple process
Of watching your own mind.
Not fighting with the mind
Not trying to control it either.
Just remaining there, a choiceless witness.
Whatsoever passes you simply take note of it.
With no prejudice for or against.
You don't call it names
That “This should not come to my mind”
That “This is an ugly thought and
This is a very beautiful and virtuous thought.”
You should not judge.
You should remain nonjudgmental.
Because the moment you judge
You lose meditation.
You become identified.
Either you become a friend, or you become a foe.
You create relationships.
Meditation means
Remaining unrelated with your thought process.
2. Utterly unrelated, cool, calm.
Watching whatsoever is passing.
And then a miracle happens:
Slowly & slowly one becomes aware
That less and less thoughts are passing.
The more alert you are, the less thoughts pass.
The less alert you are, the more thoughts pass.
It is as if traffic depends on your awareness.
When you are fully aware
Even for a single moment
All thinking stops.
Immediately, there is a sudden stop
And the road is empty, there is no traffic.
That moment is meditation.
Slowly & slowly those moments come more and more.
Those empty spaces come again and again
And stay longer.
And you become capable of moving easily
Into those empty spaces with no effort.
So whenever you want you can move
3. Into those empty spaces with no effort.
They are refreshing, rejuvenating
And they make you aware of who you are.
Freed from the mind you are freed
From all ideas about yourself.
Now you can see who you are
Without any prejudice.
And to know oneself
Is to know all that is worth knowing.
And to miss self-knowledge is to miss all.
A man may know everything in the world
But if he does not know himself
He is utterly ignorant.
He is just a walking Encyclopedia Britannica.
Freedom without awareness is only an empty idea.
It contains nothing.
One cannot be really free without being aware
Because your unconscious goes on dominating you
Your unconscious goes on pulling your strings.
You may think, you may believe that you are free
But you are not free
4. You are just a victim
Of natural forces, blind forces.
So there are two types of people.
The majority
Follows the tradition, the society, the state.
The orthodox people, the conventional, the conformists
They follow the crowd
They are not free.
And then there are a few rebellious spirits
Drop-outs, bohemians, artists
Painters, musicians, poets
They think they are living in freedom
But they only think.
Just by rebellion against the tradition
You don't become free.
You are still under the rule of natural instincts.
You are possessed by lust, by greed, by ambitions.
And you are not a master of these things
You are a slave.
Hence I say
Freedom is only possible through awareness.
5. Unless one transforms one’s unconsciousness
Into consciousness, there is no freedom.
And that is where only very few people
have really lived in freedom
Because they lived out of awareness.
That has to be the work for every seeker:
To create more and more awareness.
Then freedom comes of its own accord.
Freedom is the fragrance of the flower of awareness.
6. https://www.bodhana.com/meditation-mallorca/
https://www.osho.com/meditation/meditation-tool-kit/questions-about-meditation
1st
three Qs.Fromabove link.
https://meditate.org/
what is meditation…
many people still believe that meditation is only related with sitting cross-legged with eyes
closed or chanting mantras or watching the breath in a yoga session. these are only three
techniques of many, which we can practice in order to learn how to come out of our mechanical
mind for some moments and reconnect with who we really are… underneath all the layers of
conditioning and protection. different techniques which suit different people at different times,
exercises which allow us to learn and to feel what it’s like to come out of the chatterbox and
back to ourselves until we get the knack of being able to integrate the quality of meditation into
daily life, without needing to take extra time off to do so.
anything can become meditation, which doesn’t mean meditation is an activity, but it means
any activity of life can become meditation. it means doing every act with awareness. awareness
means being in the present moment.
it’s very difficult to have a single second in which we have no thought, no mind activity. every
moment many thoughts are seeking our attention. meditation means just watching those
thoughts, without the need to analyze them or get involve with them.
actually, not one of the thoughts is ours. they all come from outside. we cannot stop these
thoughts from coming to us, but we can stop giving attention to them. this process of stopping
to give attention to thoughts is called witnessing. when we witness the thoughts then they
cannot affect/distract us. we will be in present moment doing all our everyday activities, yet at
the same time, meditation is happening.
slowly as we become mature in witnessing, thoughts then one day stop bothering us, they may
be there, but we don’t have any interest in them as we have become skilled in witnessing them.
slowly as we understand the mind and its games then things become clearer to us. we come to
know how we are trapped by mind again and again.
“methods are needed only until the state of meditation – of relaxed awareness, of
consciousness and centering – has become not just a passing experience but as intrinsic to one
as, say, breathing”.
why meditate…
7. meditation is a way of settling in oneself, at the innermost core of your being. once you have
found the center of your existence, you will have found both your roots and your wings.
the roots are in existence, making you a more integrated human being, an individual. and the
wings are in the fragrance that is released by being in contact with existence. the fragrance
consists of freedom, love, compassion, authenticity, sincerity, a sense of humor, and a
tremendous feeling of blissfulness.
the roots make you an individual, and the wings give you the freedom to love, to be creative, to
share unconditionally the joy that you have found. the roots and wings come together. they are
two sides of one experience, and that experience is finding the center of your being.
we are continuously moving on the circumference, always somewhere else far away from our
own being, always directed towards others. when all this is dropped, when all objects are
dropped, when you close your eyes to all that is not you -even your mind, your heartbeats are
left far behind – only a silence remains.
in this silence you will settle slowly into the center of your being, and then the roots will grow
on their own accord, and the wings too. you need not worry about them. you cannot do anything
about them. they come on their own.
you simply fulfill one condition: that is, to be at home – and the whole existence becomes a bliss
to you, a benediction.
the inner revolution brings freedom and the only way to make oneself go through the inner
revolution is meditation. meditation simply means learning to forget all that you have learned. it
is a process of deconditioning, a process of de-hypnosis.
the society has burdened everybody with thousands of thoughts. meditation simply helps you to
come you of that world of thoughts, into a state of silence. it is a process of cleaning your slate
completely, it is emptying all that has been forced and stuffed inside you.
once you are empty, spacious, silent, clean, the revolution has happened, the sun has risen; then
you live in its light! and to live in the light of your inner sun is to live rightly. in fact, that is the
only way to live. others are only dying, just dying slowly, moving in a queue goes on becoming
shorter and shorter every moment, and any moment you may be the first in the queue. in fact,
everybody is trying to be first in the queue; a great desire to be the first everywhere.
the ordinary life is only called life – it is not. it is only so-called life. it is a process of gradual death
or to be more accurate, a process of gradual suicide.
the moment you become silent and aware and clear and your inner sky is full of delight, you
know the first taste of true life. one can call it god, one can call it enlightenment, one can call it
liberation; the experience of truth, love, freedom, bliss – different names but the phenomenon is
the same.
8. meditation is not…
(some common misconceptions about meditation)
1) only for people who are on a spiritual search.
the benefits of meditation are manifold. chief among them are the ability to relax and to be aware
without effort. useful tools for just about everyone!
2) a practice to gain “peace of mind.”
peace of mind is a contradiction in terms. by its very nature the mind is a chronic commentator.
what you can discover through meditation is the knack of finding the distance between yourself
and the commentary, so that the mind, with its constant circus of thoughts and emotions, no
longer intrudes on your inherent state of silence.
3) a mental discipline or effort to control or “tame” the mind,
to become more mindful. meditation is neither a mental effort nor an attempt to control the mind.
effort and control involve tension, and tension is antithetical to the state of meditation. besides,
there is no need to control the mind, only to understand it and how it works. the meditator does
not need to tame his mind, to become more mindful, but to grow more in consciousness.
4) focusing, concentrating or contemplating
focusing, like concentrating is a narrowing of awareness. you concentrate on one object to the
exclusion of everything else. by contrast, meditation is all-inclusive, your consciousness is
expanded. the contemplator is focused on an object – perhaps a religious object, a photograph or
on an inspiring aphorism. the meditator is simply aware, but not of anything in particular.
5) a new experience
not necessarily – sportsmen know this space, which they refer to as “the zone.” artists know it –
through singing, painting, playing music. we can know it through gardening, playing with the
kids, walking on the beach or making love. even as children we may have had experiences of it.
meditation is a natural state and one that you have almost certainly tasted, although perhaps
without knowing the name of the flavor.
