Q: How does meditation help in feeling contented?
When you continuously meditate, you become soft and vulnerable. You become porous, sensitive and aware. You will find that your consciousness is expanding every moment. Your consciousness determines your feelings and actions. That is why again and again, I ask you to meditate. It will purify your consciousness. Things will become clearer to you.
You will be able to feel your center shifting from your mind to your heart. When the distance between your mind and you increases, your whole being will start vibrating with a different feeling and this feeling is what is contentment, a deep fulfillment, a deep love without a reason towards the whole, a continued sense of joy and bliss.
Then, all the energy that you earlier spent on negative thinking and dissatisfaction is released, and you feel blissful and integrated and filled with energy. Gratitude then becomes your prayer and 'Thank You' becomes your mantra!
When you go to sleep, go to sleep with a feeling of gratitude for having spent one more day with Existence. When you wake up, wake up with the feeling of gratitude for having one more day with Existence! This is the simplest and most effective meditation you can do to make gratitude your very being.
I tell you, just by feeling and radiating gratitude from your being, you can change the face of planet Earth. All terrorism, wars, religious fanaticism, ill health, poverty etc. can be eradicated by just spreading awareness about the gratitude that needs to be brought out of each person.
When each one feels and radiates gratitude, there will be no love, no hate, no jealousy. All the possible roots for global negativity can be destroyed with just this one feeling, because the reasons for all negativity will simply dissolve with it. That is the beauty of gratitude!
Alright, now let us spend some time doing a beautiful meditation technique called the Sahasrara Dhyana – a meditation of gratitude.
Emotion: Gratitude
Chakra: Sahasrara chakra
Location: Top of the head.
In Sanskrit, sahasrara means 'thousand petalled' - from the mystical experience of a thousand-petalled lotus blooming on the crown, when this chakra is activated.
This chakra is closed by discontentment and the attitude of taking life for granted and it can be made to flower by overflowing gratitude and contentment!
Meditation Technique to flower in deep gratitude: Sahasrara Dhyana - a Sufi meditation technique.
Instructions:
Part of this meditation is the Nithya Dhyaan meditation
The Sahasrara Dhyana
(Total duration: 60 minutes)
Why Nithya Dhyaan?
Emotions and thoughts give birth to our mental set up and attitude. Understanding the play of emotions and thoughts is the first and final step towards moving beyond it. Nithya Dhyaan is a 35-minute meditation designed by THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM to unclutch from the mind and move beyond it.
Man by his very nature is an unclutched and blissful Being. What do we mean by the term unclutched?
Every thought that arises in us is like a bubble that forms, rises and dies. Every thought independently rises and dies before the next thought comes up. For example, if you are sitting in a chair and suddenly get up, the moment you have decided to get up, that moment the thought of sitting has left you. If you are working on your computer and decide to shut down the machine, that moment, the thought that you want to work has died. So every thought is unconnected and happens in series, one after the other. One thought has to die before the next one comes up. This is our true nature.
Our true nature is to renounce thoughts every passing moment; to allow each thought to rise like a bubble and burst and allowing the next thought to rise. Our thoughts have only a vertical existence, like rising bubbles.
This process of allowing thoughts to rise and die without trying to connect them is what we mean by being unclutched. As long as this natural process is allowed to happen, things are alright.
But what we do is, we start connecting these thoughts randomly and forming a shaft. By doing this, we convert the vertical and unclutched process into a horizontal one with linear connectivity. Here starts the whole problem. As long as each thought is allowed to rise and die, we can take on any amount of load at the physical and mental planes and our consciousness will remain light and blissful. Once we start connecting the thoughts, our consciousness suffers and we start feeling burdened. It becomes damaging to our Being.
All emotions like worry, lust, discontentment, jealousy, fear, ego and attention-need are purely because we find a connection between independent incidents, between independent thoughts and create a concept for ourselves and start relating with that concept. We create an imaginary shaft with our thoughts and we suffer because of this.
It is these emotions that create all forms of violence be it religious wars, social conflicts or political unrest. The basis or the root of all forms of violence is our emotions and the basis of our emotions is our habit of creating imaginary shafts of our thoughts and empowering them to work on us.
The key thing we do while creating these shafts is, we choose the thoughts depending on whether we want pain or pleasure. We pick pleasant thoughts at random and connect them to form a shaft of pleasure or pick negative thoughts and connect them to form a shaft of pain. We create shafts of pain and pleasure alternately for ourselves and keep oscillating between these two emotions. To unclutch from this shaft is the master key to a blissful life.
If you deeply analyse how we connect our thoughts instead of renouncing them, you will understand how we create suffering for ourselves. It is the mind that finds the connection. As such, there is no connection between our thoughts.
We have been trained to all the time feed on words and thoughts. That is why we create these shafts. We feed on words because we operate out of fear or greed all the time. Out of fear or greed, we create connectivity in our thoughts. We are afraid to let go of this process because if we let go, there is nothing else to hold on to. We have never experienced an unclutched state of mind where there is no shaft, there are only bubble-like thoughts.
In the unclutched state, there is no scope for fear or greed. You will simply BE, that's all. It is a dimension that we rarely experience because we are so used to clutching into the familiar shaft of thoughts.
A small story:
An eye specialist was treating a blind man.
He assured him, "Once I operate on your eye, you will have your vision back and you can throw your stick away."
The blind man became afraid when he heard this. He asked the doctor, "I understand that I will get my vision, but how can I walk without my stick?"
The man was so used to walking with the stick that he could not understand that by getting his vision he can throw away the stick! In the same way, when the truth is that we can live in an unclutched fashion blissfully, we wonder how we can be without clutching into the shaft of thoughts. We see it as something inevitable!
We fail to see how mythical the whole thing is. Our mind is a myth. We have empowered it and become a slave to it. It is nothing but mental slavery.
Just watch the thoughts rising in you. Clearly see how each thought rises and dies and the next thought comes up. Observe how you effortlessly connect these thoughts and create ideas and concepts. Watch the play of these concepts upon yourself; you will understand how you create the whole myth. Connecting thoughts is the original sin.
Living in an unclutched fashion is the only way to a blissful living. Just decide that you will not connect any two thoughts, that you will not pass any judgment on any thought or any incident. The moment you find yourself connecting, simply unclutch from it. Keep on unclutching every time you remember this technique; your mental setup will automatically be transformed.
When you work in an unclutched fashion, you will find your capacity expanding; you will take on a lot more responsibility without getting stressed; you will not experience mood swings between pain and pleasure; you will be blissful all the time. We are so used to happiness that comes in with a reason. This reason is again a shaft that we create with our thoughts. Once you stop creating these shafts, you will be blissful all the time.
The term unclutched, does not mean that you should be aloof and cold to people and situations around you. Just don't connect your thoughts and start the process of creating shafts, that's all.
Remember that you are a beautiful and unclutched being by nature; that is enough. You will stop creating misery for yourself and for others.
Nithya Dhyaan cleanses and energises the vital energy centers in your body which are responsible for the swaying emotions and stored negative memories. It brings intense awareness into your system to awaken the inner intelligence; causes to experience a growing explosion in consciousness that can steer you towards a life of totality. It expels deeply engraved and unwanted negative memories and suppressions.
Meditation as such purifies and lays the foundation to experience the true nature of your body, thoughts and emotions. It is the direct way to connect to the land of the beyond, of eternal bliss, free from the clutches of one's own mind.
Nithya Dhyaan is a technique that gives you what you need to balance your self and be in complete harmony with your body, mind and spirit; to harness the inner intelligence as a propelling force to excel in the inner and outer worlds.
It is a guided meditation technique comprising 5 steps. Please listen to the instructions carefully.
Step 1
Sit in vajrasana with hands on your hips. Sit on your mat on the floor with both your legs stretched out. Next fold both the legs, one after the other at the knees and rest your posterior on your heels with your toes turned outward. Let your hands rest on your lap. You can use a cushion or a rolled turkish towel under your ankles. Sit comfortably with your head,
neck and spine in a straight line. Now close your eyes and breathe chaotically for 7 minutes. Don't follow any rhythm in breathing. Just move your entire body and breathe aggressively and chaotically from the bottom of your stomach.