What is Meditation?
Today we will try to analyze and understand: why meditation, what is meditation, how to meditate and when to meditate. All these initial questions we will analyze. Then I will respond to your questions. After the question and answer session, we will enter into the meditation technique. Tomorrow, we will work on samskaras, or engraved memories. We will also have a question and answer session and meditation technique. The day after tomorrow we will work on a very important truth: unclutching, and we will work with the Nithya Dhyaan meditation technique.
I wanted to start the whole program with these very beautiful words from the Brahma Sutra:
Athaato Bramha Jignyaasaa
It means,
Let us enquire into reality.
These words are really powerful. The guru who is teaching is not saying, let me teach you reality. No! He is saying, let us enquire into reality. We need to understand an important thing: When you start with a sense of simple enquiry, only then can you reach the Truth.
The moment the teacher says, let me teach you reality, the disciple will encounter contradictory thoughts within himself. If the disciple is a little egoistic, he may start thinking, 'Who is he to teach me!' If he is humble, he may conclude, 'You may teach, but I may not understand.' Whether he is based on an inferiority complex or a superior attitude, there will be confusion in him.
These words are beautiful: Let us enquire into reality.
Here, we are starting in this same mood, with this same attitude: let us enquire into the truth of meditation. Let us enquire into the reality of it. When the teaching starts with the mood of enquiry, with a mood of seeking, even the teacher will find so many new things!
Actually, learning never ends. Teaching can be a very beautiful and effective tool for learning.
First let us enter into the question, what is meditation?
It is a question analyzed and contemplated by millions of sages. Just like how the West has done great research and development in the outer world, the East has done, for more than ten thousand years, great research and development in the inner world. The East has researched on the very basic but core question: what is meditation?
If I had to put down the answer in one line, I would say,
Anything that raises your consciousness is meditation. It can be even a simple breathing technique. It can be a simple repetition of a
Any technique, any method, which raises your consciousness, is meditation. word, or it can be just simply sitting! In the Zen tradition, just sitting is meditation. You may think this is the easiest but in fact, it is the most difficult meditation.
Anything can become meditation, if it raises your consciousness.
Chapter 2