When Meditation🔗

The next question is when to meditate.

This is always a controversial question! All the youngsters think, 'I can do this in my old age.' All the elderly people think, 'I should have done this in my young age!'

All the young people think, 'I will have enough time in my old age. Now there is no time for meditation. I can do meditation when I don't have anything else to do.' All the elderly people think, 'I should have done this in my young age, when I was fresh and receptive!'

So the question is, not just how long to meditate everyday, but when to make the decision to enter into meditation!

Meditation is just like reading an owner's manual before you start driving the car. The person who does not read the owner's manual before driving the car will naturally meet with accidents! In the same way, the person who has not started meditation before entering into life will inevitably enter into suffering and depression at one point or the other.

I want you to deeply understand and analyze this question, 'when meditation?'

Please understand, meditation is the basic thing needed for life. It is not an option. It is a very basic need.

As I was telling you earlier, meditation is like an owner's manual for your body and for your life. The moment you start living, you need to go through it; you need to enter into it. Don't wait for accidents to happen to start reading the owner's manual of your life. Be intelligent and start this very moment.

After the age of seven, you need meditation, because before then, as a child, you are by nature in a meditative state. It is only after seven that you start getting conditioned by society and drop out of your true nature.

To really understand and enter into meditation, one important thing needs to happen in you - psychological revo-

lution. What do I mean by psychological revolution? It means a clear understanding about the Self, world and god. As of now, the under-

The basic thing needed for human life is a 'psychological revolution'. standing that you are carrying about life is not enough. That is why you are not able to experience a completely relaxed feeling in your system. When I say the words 'psychological revolution', I mean having a clear understanding about the Self, world and god - the source of the Self, the source of the world and the source of god.

If you are able to find solutions for all your day-today problems through just the understanding about you, the world and god, then you have undergone the psychological revolution.

The understanding that is able to give you a completely restful feeling, through which you are able to solve all your problems, through which you are able to find your own life solutions, is called psychological revolution.

If you are not able to find solutions for your day-to-day problems through your understanding of these three, then you need to explore further.

Only a person who has gone through this psychological revolution can meditate. Till then, any technique that you try will seem to only fail at some point in time.

People come and tell me, 'Swamiji, the moment I close my eyes, I get more thoughts than when I did not meditate! If I am in action, doing something, I have fewer thoughts. The moment I close my eyes and try to meditate, I have more thoughts.' The moment you say this, it means that the psychological revolution has not happened.

Psychological revolution is a basic need for meditation.

It now seems like a vicious circle. If you don't have the clarity, you can't meditate. If you can't meditate, you will not

If you add clarity, that clarity will lead to meditation. Meditation in turn will lead to more clarity. Then, it will become a virtuous circle. have the clarity. It appears as a vicious circle!

The dream state constantly penetrating the waking state and deep sleep state, is what leads to more and more misunderstanding, more and more dullness, more and more lethargy, more and more tamas (dullness or laziness). This is what we call pravritti traveling towards suffering. It is the vicious cycle of lack of clarity leading to lack of meditation and vice versa.

If the turiya or blissful state penetrates the waking and deep sleep states, then that is what we call nivritti - moving towards fulfillment. This is the virtuous circle where clarity leads to meditation and meditation leads to clarity.

I always tell people, if you straightaway close your eyes and start meditating, you may have an increased number of thoughts. So in the initial level, I always give a technique which is not directly a meditation, but is more a contemplation. When you work with this technique, it won't lead you directly to a thoughtless state. It will lead you towards more and more clarity. It will lead to the psychological revolution.

The psychological revolution will develop an intense inner space where you can analyze your understanding, consider your decisions and rethink again and again your desires, fears, worries and all that you think as the basis of your life.

Actually, many times we do not really know what our desires are. People brag about their desires in the outside world but they do not really know what they are talking about.

Chapter 5

A small story:

Three old ladies were sitting and bragging about their sons. One of them was saying, 'You don't know about my son. He loves me so much, he personally took me to a travel agent and arranged for my vacation and did the best possible arrangements for a twenty-day vacation for me.'

The second lady said, 'You don't know what my son did. He not only took me to the travel agent but also arranged for a private flight! He arranged for everything for a month-long vacation!'

The third lady said, 'This is absolutely nothing compared to what my son does for me! He goes to the costliest psychiatrist and all he talks about is me!'

Many times, what you think as life or what you brag about as a great life may not be exactly what you mean. It may not be exactly be exactly adding to your life in any way.

So in the initial level, taking up a technique that can awaken you, that can help the psychological revolution in you, is the best way to start.

So, start meditating here and now! Neither can age be the reason to postpone meditation nor time.

The next question people ask is whether they should meditate in the morning or in the evening.

There are three kinds of meditation.

The first is bringing the Truth or awareness into your life.

I always tell people that meditation is not a quantity of life, it should become a quality of life.

This is supposed to be done all twenty-four hours a day. Techniques like vipassana or bringing your awareness to the present moment all the time belong to this category of meditation. It is not a part of your routine. It should become the very quality of your routine. You may be doing anything – like writing, reading, cooking, discussing… but this thread of meditation should be happening in parallel, like an undercurrent.

There are other kinds of meditation techniques for which you need to spend a particular time, like one hour in the morning or one hour in the evening, or any other convenient time.

The Mahamantra meditation technique, where you hum for a few minutes and then remain a witness for a few minutes, can be given as an example for this category of meditation.

Then there is the third kind of meditation techniques, which you neither need to do the whole day, nor spend separate time for. Just the very remembrance of the technique is enough!

Examples of this are the statements of the great timeless Truths. When you are in a highly mature state, you don't need any separate technique. You don't need to practice the whole day or at any particular time. Just the very remembrance of these Truths will put you in the elevated state. You will be in that high state and experience the Truth. This is the third type of meditation. Examples of this are the beautiful Zen koans. They are profound Truths written in a concise way. Just the very remembrance of them will transport you to that zone!

There is a very beautiful story in the Upanishad (Vedic verses) where a disciple comes to the master and asks for a technique or a method for enlightenment. The master just says, 'Tat tvam asi, Tat tvam asi, Tat tvamasi' - 'Thou art that, Thou art that, Thou art that' - 'You are the Truth' and the story says, the disciple became enlightened!

It seems like a very strange story. The master just repeats a few words, and the disciple is enlightened. How could this happen. How is it possible? It looks to be too much! Actually, it is not so. If we have done the first two types of techniques, the technique that needs to be done the whole day and the techniques that need to be done at a particular time, then the very maturity that happens out of it will lead you to the level where the moment you listen to the Truth, you start experiencing it.