Summary: Explains about meditation and how it leads to the awareness of the inner Self. Elucidates about the changing identities and emotions and the unchanging ‘I’; also the fact that life must be more than material existence and therefore the need to look inwards.

How to get to meditation? What is meditation?

For meditation you have to first arrive at the inner quietness.

Ordinarily you are always out, you are looking out. How many moments do you look within in your daily living?

How aware are you of your inner presence?

Really, meditation is all about yourself, to feel the presence of your Self.

We are always ‘meditating’ on something… Our attention is always on something and that something is mostly outside. Meditation is about attention. As I said, meditation is all about yourself.

Then what is yourself? Who are you? What is the truth about you, your identity? All this comes within the definition of meditation.

When you are a child you say, ‘I am a child,’ when you are a youth you say, ‘I am a youth,’ when you grow old you say, ‘I am aged’ – changing identity. Then when you pass away, when you are dead, there is no one to say, ‘I am dead.’ There is always someone else who says it… Gone, gone with the wind – all those years of experiences. So the question is, is there something more about yourself? Otherwise you invest so much time, energy, and in the end – graveyard! Surely you would not want to invest in a bank where you get no returns – or would you? You would never do that. But it surely seems like you are investing in a bank wherein there is no return… Of course, when you are young, you do not give this much thought. It is only when the hair starts to grow grey and the body does not move as much that these questions come up in your mind. But they are very valid questions, so they require answers.

Meditation is a means to get answers to these questions. They are very valid questions – they are all about yourself, and that is why it is important to understand who you are first. And that is why I gave the example of how ordinarily you are looking upon yourself as a changing identity. When you are a child, you say, ‘I am a child,’ but when you grow up you are a teenager and you say, ‘I am a teenager,’ you go to college, you identify thus, and so on. So it keeps changing – it is all relative.

In the past, few people – pioneers you may say, who wanted to find these answers – looked into themselves rather than looking out all the time. Looking out, that is the normal thing to do. You look out, from the time you open the eyes in the morning, you always are looking out. Your attention is always drawn out – always out. Your mind pulls you out. You only shut your eyes to sleep. Of course meditation can happen with open eyes also, when you are aware of the presence of your Self, something behind and beyond what you now see yourself as. That position you are never aware of ordinarily – you do not have the time. Everything is all the time pulling you out: you are involved in the outside.

Meditation is about becoming aware – it is called self-awareness – aware of the presence of your Self. And you will see that your mind will prevent you from doing it. It is not that your mind is your enemy; it is the nature, the function of the mind to be outwardly active, ordinarily. But you are beyond mind. You are not the mind. Now, whenever there is a thought you identify with the thought; whenever there is a feeling you identify with the feeling. When you get angry, you say, ‘I am angry’ – you have become anger. But you are not always angry. You are also many things besides that.

There is a being, and therefore the becoming.

You are also an observer of your emotions, your feelings; but rarely do you focus on that, because you observe things outside you; you observe situations, circumstances outside you, meaning outside your body. So you also identify yourself as the body. But really you can also observe your body; the sensations in your body, the movements of your body. So each time you can stand behind. Then ultimately you can watch your mind also and see that you are not the mind, but it is your mind, it is your thought so to speak. Really there is only thought. The same thought can be experienced by anybody. They may be in India or they may be in England, the same thought can appear. So it goes across boundaries and borders – it is universal, and yet at the same time can be personal. Anybody and everybody can experience any and every emotion. Anger is universal, love is universal. But when you experience them at any particular moment you say, ‘I am angry,’ ‘I am loving.’ So who is this ‘I’? Who is this ‘I’ that is all the time mutating, that is all the time changing and you do not even give it a thought? You accept it, you take it for granted – this is how it is. It is so.

So is there something more to this ‘I’, or is this – that which you experience and know presently – all there is?

Usually everyone lives in this way, as if this is all there is. But meditation is about the unusual – not the usual. So you are a mystery really. What we are is not the figment of someone’s imagination. It is an actual experience of people, an actual realisation of people. And today it has also become an important therapy. Because there is so much stress in today’s world, so much stress. They are not even aware of quietness. They do not know how to relax. Of course meditation is all this – and much more! It is all about yourself, all about your identity. It is all about understanding yourself. But very few moments are given to this understanding, very few moments. You get so busy with the outside. You get so busy to become comfortable physically, emotionally, so there is not much time for the spiritual. Could one balance one’s life in such a way that you develop yourself spiritually as you would materially? But that is not how the present society looks at it. Its whole emphasis is on the material. That is why you have to be different. Or – you end up in the graveyard! So what ends up in the graveyard – and what ends up elsewhere? Is there an elsewhere? We hope – otherwise it is a wasted, meaningless life. Everything is forgotten in the end; everybody is forgotten. It all becomes memory and then even that fades away, because we are always busy. Someone you may have loved much fades away into memory. And even that fades away after a while. You are helpless.

Meditation is all about not being helpless and to be masters of your life; it is all about knowing, knowing about yourself. It is inquiring, inquiring about yourself. Is there more to us than what we know now? There seems to be – no, there should be! Otherwise life seems meaningless. You work hard, you spend all your time; you have children and then they grow up; they have children… And this is just carried on and on. Fine, there is nothing wrong with that. But surely it seems like we all end up finally in this graveyard and that is the end. And yet I am sure there is something in you that wants to live forever. That is called the Immortal, the Eternal. Meditation is all about that – it is about your immortality!

No one wants to get old. It is there, inherent in your consciousness, this thought, this feeling. No one wants to die: everyone wants to live forever. Why is it so? Is there something in you that is eternal, that is immortal – so that you can look upon the passing away of this body, this ‘death’ so to speak, as just another event? So meditation is all about discovering this, inquiring about this, finding about this. It is a journey about yourself. Really all of life is a journey about yourself. It is looking within, rather than all the time looking without. Meditation is about the Eternal in you, not just the temporal. Really meditation is all about eternal life. It is all about seeing rightly what life is all about. So meditation is all about looking within, it is about the quietness within – to be centred, to be able to observe your thoughts; and as you observe, to become aware of the presence of the observer. That presence, that self-awareness, that is the door – door to this mystery, door to the mystery that is you.

To be able to reach to meditation you require help; you require to be trained. It is like with anything else: you require tools, you require techniques and you require guidance. We use two types of breathing. First, the vigorous breathing, strong and vigorous to lighten up. If you are heavy, if you are lethargic, it prevents you to be centred. And if you are restless, if your mind is too active, then too, you cannot reach to this quietness. So the breathing helps you to be quiet and centred. This technique first shifts your attention from the outside to the breath, then from the breath to the presence of your Self. These are the steps.

When you begin the breathing you bring the attention on the breath. And then you begin strong and vigorous breathing. That will lighten you up. You may even feel a slight intoxication, and that will make you feel good to be in yourself. Then you follow up with the rhythmic breathing, which is a longer breath, deeper breath, as long as you can make it. You should be able to hear yourself breathing. In that way you can keep your attention on the breath. Otherwise the mind carries you here and there; it prevents you from being in yourself. These are the steps.

Thoughts will come up – whatever that comes up, you allow them to pass – you do not become them. Stay with the breathing – rhythmic breathing, breathe long and deep. This is the practice. Normally you are all the time with your thoughts; in this way you are shifting the attention, you are practicing, you are learning to shift the attention to the breath. Then from the breath you will start to become aware of the presence of your Self. Then you stay with that presence, the self-presence. Now you have entered the realm of meditation.

Remember it is a journey, it is the greatest journey. All other journeys begin from here and end here.

When you are centred in that presence, then you have arrived at meditation – that is the beginning of meditation.

But you have to keep the breathing going, that is what will keep you centred, will keep you energised and will help you to let go of thoughts and whatever that comes up. They will appear and they will pass away. You remain a witness. Just like clouds in the sky, just like birds in the air, they appear in and out of your awareness – but you remain centred in the presence of your Self.

Pushkar

24 Jan 2005