CONTROL — The Flaw in your Meditation Practise

The correct way of doing Meditation

I am not Judging — at least not till you say, that you practise Mind Control during Meditation. At that moment, I would mostly do an Eye-Roll, take a deep breath and start explaining the following:

Controlling your Mind during Meditation is the biggest flaw which sabotages your Meditation practise. You might as well start shouting at your Kids.

If Meditation is not Mind Control then what is Meditation?

Totally Genuine Question!!

Meditation is getting to know your Conscious/Unconscious Mind as an Organ.

What?

You heard me right. Or rather you Read me right.

Fun Awareness Question: Who is it, that is reading this? — You or Your Mind?

And the method of getting to know your mind as an organ is to stop using the processes the mind is habitual at.

Patanjali, the ancient founder of the Indian Yoga System, called these habitual processes the Six Enemies of the Mind. These are:

1. Desire or Lust
2. Anger
3. Greed
4. Attachment or Fascination
5. Pride &
6. Jealousy

These processes occur at the First Level of Awareness.

This First Level is the level when you naturally and effortlessly identify with each of the six enemies as they occur in your mind. Hence, it is YOU who is angry, not your organ Mind which is undergoing an emotional state of Anger.

This is also the level when the obvious solution to ending the misery of the Six Enemies is by Controlling them.

Except CONTROL does not work. In fact, Control acts as an exercise for the Six Enemies and strengthens them.

So if you try and control Anger, Anger comes back more strongly the next time.

When you control Lust, as does most of the Clergy, Lust comes back even more stronger.

This is the ultimate Catch 22 where you are caught between the Rock and the Hard Place.

If you feed the 6 enemies of the mind they grow worse. If you control them, they grow even more worse.

So what is the Solution?

The solution is to elevate yourself to the Second Level of Awareness.

How?

By practising something which Jon Kabbat-Zinn calls a special type of Awareness which does not include anything the Mind is habitual at. These are actually a set of Non-Doings.

What?

Yes. There is something called as Non-Doing. These constitute of:

1. Non-Judging
2. Non-Striving
3. Non-Attachment
4. Non-Anchoring
5. Letting Go
6. Timeless Patience
7. Acceptance

As you can see, the above list does not include the word Control. (Note: The above list is adapted from Jon Kabaat-Zinn’s list of 7 Attitudinal Foundations for his Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Program).

With these Attitudinal Foundations, the Mind is reduced to just an organ which experiences all the thoughts and emotions and YOU become the observer who Without Judging and Without Striving is observing the Mind Organ and the resultant happenings.

So with the above learning we can finally come to the crux.

What is the correct way of doing Meditation?

1. You sit comfortably.
2. You observe something in the present without judging anything. Most commonly it is your breath. Sometimes it is the sounds. Let us say you are observing the breath. Note — the important thing is that whatever you are observing is in the PRESENT MOMENT.
3. Your awareness for some time will be with the breath.
4. Then on its own the Awareness will start wandering.
5. Something will happen to remind you that your awareness is wandering at that time.
6. At this moment, WITHOUT JUDGEMENT, WITHOUT STRIVING, you have to bring your awareness back to the PRESENT MOMENT.
7. Again your awareness will wander and again WHEN YOU NOTICE, you have to repeat step 6.
8. Repeat Steps 2 to 7 till your meditation session is over.
9. Reflect on the Meditation session for five minutes especially on the flow of thoughts and emotions — again WITHOUT JUDGEMENT.
10. NOW MOST IMPORTANTLY — (A) DO NOT JUDGE (B) DO NOT TRY AND CONTROL, except for bringing your mind back to present moment when you notice that mind has wandered.

You will notice that sometimes the sessions are good where you stayed in the present for longer. Sometimes you will notice that your mind kept on wandering.

1. Do not Judge — this is how it is.
2. Over time, your mind will stay in the present for longer.
3. During the reflection phase of meditation, you will notice all that the spiritual guides say.
4. Thoughts come and go.
5. They are like ripples on a pond. And they settle unless disturbed again.
6. Emotions are strong and they hold your body physically.Notice the emotions like lust, anger, greed, attachment, pride, jealousy — the six enemies of the mind.
7. These Emotions also come and go. Allow them to flow and run out of steam.
8. Your Mind is just an experiencing organ which is just doing its duty. There is no need for you to Feed it or to Starve it. It will quieten on its own.

Happy Meditation & Mindfulness without any need for CONTROL.

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Originally published at https://kindlethemaster.com on March 28, 2020.