The Real Meaning of Meditation is not what you were Thinking!
It has got more to do with ‘being’ in Meditation than ‘doing’ meditation!
Many people meditate just for the heck of it, without understanding the real essence of Meditation.
This is why it is of paramount importance to clear the desk and actually understand what it really means!
At some point in our times, we all must have gone through the question that whatever I am doing is temporary which may or may not exist tomorrow so why are we doing what we are doing and how to enjoy the ride.
See, it’s not the things that are temporary which is the problem, it’s not even the pleasures that don’t last long; it’s the attachment with those pleasures that becomes the actual problem.
To fantasize about the saccharinity of mango(or anything) and expect that it will remain all day long is the problem.
The moment any desires take over your mind and slowly observing that these short-term pleasures can make you do whatever they want you to do, and you have no control over it; this is the real meditation.
Seeing something is not the problem, it’s the stories related to what we see, that is conditioned by the society in our mind which ultimately becomes the problem.
Our eyes actually are not just seeing things, they also at times project a whole another film which is superimposed on what we actually see, changing the whole dynamic of the situation.
The good or the bad is all in the mind.
Things that we perceive to be ‘good’ might not be necessarily “good” for us. Similarly, things which we perceive to be ‘bad’ might not be necessarily “bad” for us.
The so-called ‘good’ things and the ‘bad’ things keep on changing, depending on our conditioning.
We all need to understand that whenever we are in a state of pleasure, then we forget everything to attain short term peace. It can be going on a drink with your friends on a Saturday night or watching your favorite star’s movie.
And when things go upside down, then we become all blue and morose. We ask questions like “why me!!!” and start questioning God’s plan or even worse we play the destination and fate card!
Why don’t we ask such questions when we are in a state of joy? Why do we never acknowledge all the infinite things that went right?
Even in our dreams, when something pleasurable is going on then we sleep like a baby; but as soon as the ghost kills us from nowhere, that’s when we actually wake up.
When we are in a state of bliss then we are completely asleep in its pleasure. Our conscience wakes up only when something offbeat or something unanticipated happens.
That’s our basic tendency. We don’t think this way normally.
The guy who’s in a state of bliss doesn’t want to understand this because he’s mesmerized by the pleasure and wanna elongate this feeling for as long as possible.
And the guy in misery can’t understand this even if he wants to. If you are going through unbearable pain, you won’t so much as read any of this stuff let alone think about it.
That’s the ISSUE here. There is actually no difference between pain and pleasure. Yes! You read that right! Your very reason for your pleasure becomes the source of your pain!
They just keep on chasing each other all their life. It’s exactly like a dog running after its tail.
The best time to understand this philosophy is of course when you are happy. People say, ‘oh I just turned 30, I don’t have to understand spirituality just yet, I would think about it when I retire and blah blah blah’. Not cool!
This is your moment guys!!! To increase your understanding right now, not when you are 70! If you indulge in pleasures only till you retire, your mind becomes dull.
The pleasures that you are running after will become your biggest pain in the back and by the time you will understand this, it will be too late!
Have you ever noticed yourself whenever you are at the peak of your desire(of pleasure) or the peak of your fear?
Your very own conscience is out of your control during those particular moments. It overpowers you in such a way that you become mentally dead for some time and these desires make you do whatever they want.
Indulging in those pleasures may give you a temporary positive sensation, but you won’t even realize it when it becomes your worst habit and now you can’t even leave it all of a sudden because you are addicted to it so badly!
Understanding this is real intelligence. You might have heard people opting for engineering in a whole bunch of subjects. Well, this is also a kind of engineering. The human engineering, which should be enrolled by everyone.
Even while meditation, people do all kinds of crazy stuff. Some keep on imagining all kinds of sounds and pictures; I mean they completely go into la-la land. That’s again an illusion.
The thing that makes you happy while you are experiencing it, the very same thing will make you sullen when you stop doing those particular things.
The same is the case with how most people meditate, where they feel good when they are experiencing it and then go back to normal when they stop doing it.
So, in a way, your happiness becomes the cause of your sadness. IRONICAL!
Some uneducated guy told you that meditation is when you see a ray of light in the middle of your mind, now after 5–6 months of practice, you finally see the beam and become elated.
And then it stops after 3 days, so what will happen?
The light (which is actually just an imagination of your mind) that became your source of happiness for 3 days, will make you miserable for the rest of your life.
I will say it again, understanding things like this is real intelligence. When we understand this, then we won’t be attracted to temporary things anymore.
This is actually common sense, nothing rocket science. It is really easy to comprehend. Spirituality is actually common sense! Seeing things as it is.
The real meaning of Meditation is actually to develop the ground for a deeper understanding of life.
To increase our understanding, we do need peace of mind. If it keeps on wandering here and there, then one can’t develop a higher understanding of anything.
Meditation is also not the end-goal, the end goal is to increase your knowledge about your true self.
People consider meditation is a way to escape reality, which is a really toxic trap.
Once you calm yourself from meditation then you need to search for how to make this possible in every aspect of your life; be it health, happiness, or prosperity.
If you want to earn money, then how you can start making it using meditation. If you want to make your relationships better, then how to make it more loveable.
To make yourself more positive, to control your urges, to be happier; meditation is a mere detour to reach the end of your desired destination.
Seeing the reality as it is and knowing what exists is the real meaning of meditation. To look at both sides of a coin is meditation.
Now there are two ways of doing meditation. One is ACTIVE, the other is PASSIVE.
ACTIVE MEDITATION
Active is when you are doing something (anything), then you should be paying your utmost attention towards it.
Give your undivided attention to your WORK. If you are doing something and thinking about something else, then you are not in real meditation.
Now tell me what kind of work is there which can not be labeled as ‘meditation’?
Any work that you do with your blood, sweat, and tear without any distractions of any kind is actually the real essence of meditation.
If you even get angry while paying attention, the anger will vanish.
PASSIVE MEDITATION
Passive meditation, on the other hand, is attentively observing what exists.
You don’t have to do anything physically or mentally. One is ‘doing’, other is ‘knowing’. Knowing what’s happening around and to you is, yeah you guessed it, meditation.
Being conscious while doing anything is the real meaning of MEDITATION.
Active meditation can solve your day to day life problems. If you are a student, then paying attention to studies will make it easier.
To fulfill the basic needs of your life, you can use this type of meditation.
Now you must be thinking if we can solve all our problems using active meditation then why do we need passive meditation at all? Isn’t just paying attention to your work enough?
The thing is when you actively do your work using active meditation, you may get tired after a certain point (which is different for everyone).
This is where passive meditation comes into the picture.
Here you don’t have to do anything. Just knowing. Observing, but not thinking. Calmly and serenely sitting at a corner of the room and paying attention to each and every single detail of what’s happening!
Peacefully watching the flow of your thoughts. This will energize you to the core if you start doing this even for just 5 min a day, which is not a big ask!!
If thoughts are coming, then let them come. You just have to watch how they come. You can focus on your breath and thoughts will automatically stop coming.
Both kinds of meditation have their own importance.
PASSIVE, so that you can become ACTIVE (another irony!), and ACTIVE so that you can; well, you know! GROW.
Now to focus on the important stuff, first get done with the urgent things. If you are entangled financially then you can’t understand all the self-inquiry stuff I am rambling about.
What if you get all the 3? Let’s assume that you are in perfect shape, are financially stable and your relationships are also balanced.
Now, chances are that will get attached to this state and will forget you ever read anything like this. You will feel like on top of the world.
Once you get bored of them or face any substantial challenge then again you will get attached to meditation only.
If not meditation, then you may try to over-extract from one of those 3 pillars to fill that void in yourself, which will ultimately disbalance all the 3, and then you will keep on fixing one pillar or the other in perpetuity.
You should avoid that, but then this begs the question of where to put our attention once we achieve all those 3 things up to a certain level.
Self-Inquiry!
Asking the ultimate question, “Who am I?”.
The biggest myth we all believe so dearly is that we are this body. So let’s start from here only.
What is there in our body that we can actually call ours?
The body is made up of nature. If nature stops supporting our bodies then we are done! So stop calling yourself that you are your body! You are not.
This inquiry also involves understanding that without our senses our body is nothing more than a piece of flesh and bones.
In order to observe all this, you need to have a lot of energy and a ton of patience. You need to have dedication, and a curiosity to know all this.
Patience and Excitement!!
What are the senses? How do I see things? Why do I see? What do I see? What happens when I see? How is all this movement happening?
When you hear someone’s voice, a name pops up based upon your memories, and as soon as the name appears, a whole form of that particular object/person appears in your mind.
Now we don’t see that particular object/person as who that really is but based upon the stories stored in our minds.
Seeing things as it is, without any filter and without any bias, is called control over your senses.
This process is endless, there isn’t a point where you can say you finally understood everything there is to know about all the senses.
The discoveries are INFINITE. Because everything is interconnected! The body and the senses are not separate entities.
Once you rise above senses, then comes feelings and emotions.
What are emotions? What are the feelings that control you? You want to do something else, but these feelings and emotions sometimes have absolute control over you, why?
Are you a servant of these feelings and emotions? They make you do all kinds of wrong things.
And when you do something, which you know is wrong, it further pushes you down because now the guilt engulfs you, which in turn further deteriorates your control over these feelings and emotions. And the cycle keeps on repeating itself.
Emotions are nothing but energy in motion.
You are energy yourself. You get into motion because of feelings, caused by a thought, which ultimately makes you do whatever they want you to do automatically.
Just imagine how peaceful of a mind you need to observe all this!
And where will the kind of intelligence you need to solve this puzzle come from?
The work you did by achieving health, happiness, and prosperity will make you INTELLIGENT.
If a man can intelligently make his body healthy, then he can also start his own business or prosper in his company.
He can then intelligently manage his relationships too. He can also handle his thinking, his point of view, his decision making, once he develops his understanding.
This is not the end but actually just the beginning. Besides, when you do this out of curiosity, you would want to go and dig deeper and deeper.
What can be more interesting than knowing the thing that actually controls us all?
Which is more interesting, knowing about our real self or running in the same race 7 billion people are running in? Chose wisely!
DECIDE NOW. TAKE ACTION.
KNOW YOURSELF. UNDERSTAND.
