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The open secret of meditation is mental inaction: not-doing.
Meditation means not-doing: perfect mental inaction.
Our usual mode of action is doing, being mentally active, trying to figure the fuck out of everything.
So, when our usual mode of behaviour causes personal problems, particularly in the form of unpleasant emotions, as it inevitably must, we are well established in a “doing” mode of being and behaviour. Our habit is doing, thinking, and controlling, without even trying.
Then we hear of meditation, as a wonderful discipline that could potentially solve all our emotional and mental problems. So we sit down to meditate, usually after joining a group.
The teacher tells us what to do. It is very common for teachers to instruct beginners to count the breaths, from 1 to 10, to repeat a mantra, or to simply observe (feel) the breath.
Me, beginner, then sits and attempts to follow the teacher's guidance. I am then surprised that I don't immediately experience a stupendous sense of peace and happiness. On the contrary, ten to one my experience is just the opposite: more frustration, more emotional vexation. I may even feel as if I am being “burnt” by this practice, which I am therefore now sure is not for me!
The problem? I, beginner, am caught in my usual doing, figuring out, mode of existing. I come from my usual external, outward peering existence, and, unsurprisingly, find that my internal life doesn't suddenly magically change just because I decided to follow the teacher's guidelines. On the contrary, my mind keeps on doing what it has been habituated to do: automatically controlling, ceaselessly commenting, criticizing me without letup (if that is what I have been taught), seeking release from this dreary, mundane, mediocre existence that is my life, here now.
What then is the remedy?
The remedy is to understand that all techniques are skillful means. They aren't the purpose of meditation. The purpose of meditation is mental inaction, not-doing, non-attainment. It is therefore better to focus on a mental concept of non-attainment, not-gaining, while counting the breath from 1 to 10, than to simply count the breath from 1 to 10 with your habitual mental attitude.
Furthermore, consider what is involved in following guidance, such as breath counting. Here am I, a separate entity, and I am going to do something (separate from I: counting my breaths), to achieve a certain outcome (gaining: peace). This meditation practice stinks because it is steeped in the experience of duality. This dualistic mode of being and practice is the only problem, really.
So, all you need is to understand mental inaction, not-doing, distinct from your current doing, gaining, becoming mode of being.
This requires awareness, not thought. Thought by its very nature is judgment and choice. To think is to choose, judge and do. To think, “I am going to count my breaths", is thought: choice, doing, becoming, gaining. How can I drop all this?
A very good answer is awareness of doing and its effects in the form of mental and emotional vexation. How am I to get awareness of my own doing, thus directly observing that my doing is the sole cause of all my mental and emotional problems?
The answer is really simple, but subtle. Any difficulty lies purely in the subtlety of this practice, and not because it is in any way actually difficult.
The answer is to cultivate awareness of I who am reading this. I am what body, mind, thoughts and feelings (objects) appear to. So, when I keep shifting my attention from what I see, think, feel and experience, to I, inside and outside formal sitting meditation, I become aware of my habitual doing, choosing, controlling, manipulating, adjusting, becoming and gaining. Not only do I see this, but I now realize that what I am doing is directly responsible for all my mental and emotional vexations. Not the environment. Not circumstances. Not events. Not anyone else. Not a defect in my own personality. Not because of my past.
Seeing my doing as it occurs here and now, perpetually, I now therefore notice the alternative: not-doing, perfect mental inaction, is perfect freedom from all mental and emotional problems.
Not-doing, mental inaction, requires no thought. Recall that thinking - how do I handle my own anger, anxiety, fear, frustration, or jealousy? - is doing. In not-thinking self-awareness - awareness of I, not awarenessof what I see - the structure of I as a being of form comprised of body and mind, is transfigured. Doing ends. When doing ends, the particular person who did all that, ends: body and mind (as I: who I thought I was) drop off. When body and mind drop off, I am realised as formless, without boundaries, without inside or outside.
In conclusion, what is realised in meditation, skillfully approached, is the nature of awareness as non-dual, formless, without centre or boundaries, without inside or outside, undetectable to the mind that thinks, and undetectable to any senses.
How do I detect something that is invisible, formless, vast and empty like space? Since that is who or what I really am, there is no way for me to realize it. The tooth cannot cut itself. The eye can't see itself. The only way for the eye to see itself, knowing itself as it is, is in reflection. The reflection is this Universe, a giant mirror in which the eye (awareness) can see its own reflection.
Self-realization is only possible as an ineffable reflection in the mirror that is the Universe: the eye can't see itself in any other way
However, for awareness to comprehend its own ineffable perfection in the universal mirror that is my life, the mirror must be without any distortion. This brings us back to the need to see, and drop, what is distorting this beautiful, ineffable reflection. What is distorting it is the experience that “I am this" and “I am that". Thought. Fashioning an identity, as I, from all my knowledge, and then operating from that identity.
Therefore, by first observing how I am defeating myself and my objectives, through awareness of I who am reading this, I arrive at a posture where I don't do a thing. I do absolutely nothing, mentally.
Now,, inwardly, when I experience anxiety, I don't do anything to make it go away. Instead, I turn attention to I (subject), observing what I am doing with my anxiety right now. I also keep a lookout to see what I might do about it. When I notice that I am doing nothing at all, the anxiety either collapses completely, or it is now experienced as having no bearing on who or what I am. Disidentifcation occurs. In either case, I am now free. This is the conclusion of meditation.
This doesn't mean you stop sitting. It means you keep cultivating not-doing, ceaselessly building on the tremendous silence that now reigns within your own mind-body system.
######################
- Our age may be short, but we can live life in this way, even in the last moment of death, that peace can be seen in the eyes, and one can experience the depth of our life.
- Flowers of joy can never bloom in the life of a person who has not known love.
- Turn the stream of life towards spirituality, when this life seems to you monotonous and it seems that nothing is gained from this life and this life is being carried in vain.
- Whether God exists or not is a matter of experience, not of logic.
- The moment you encounter a Buddha or a sannyasi, sit quietly in his company and drink the nectar of knowledge.
Yes, there were many stories that say so.
But you need to check this one thing.
When that sentence was said, whether the to-be-enlightened person was alone or surrounded by other people ?
Definitely, at least in some stories, there were other people around.
If it was just the sentence, then why did not the other people too get it ?
So, it has something to do with the person and not merely with the sentence. Right ?
The totally dried forest needed only a small spark, and the fire was instantly wild.
The baby in the womb when it was time needed only the slightest push and she came out.
The fully ripe mango needed just a small whiff of a breeze, and it happily dropped itself.
The moral of such stories is to ripen you up because you never know when your whiff of breeze is going to blow on you!
Img Src- garden.lovetoknow.com
#####################
Every Sunday I give a session on this. The first thing which I tell everyone that is to wear light clothes and do meditation for at least 15 minutes.
Meditation is something that is helping us to grow our instinct, mental stability, raising concentration and some people do it for Kundalini awakening and so on.
Leave the purpose, let's enter deep about developing a strong habit of doing meditation.
- I would suggest at least morning and evening meditation. In the starting you can do it for 15 minutes, later when you get comfortable then yes you can increase your time.
- When you are developing this habit, start being aware in daily activities too (Eating, walking, speaking, drinking, etc.), it helps you to go deep into meditation.
Remember always - meditation doesn’t mean just close your eyes and your meditation is completed. It means your awareness is deep and your goal is 24 hours meditation.
######################
True spiritual awakening requires great courage and the willingness to take the greatest risk possible for a human being. Many people wish to experience spiritual awakening but very few people really have the courage to take this risk when it finally comes down to it.
What is this risk?
The risk is absolute, complete and utter surrender and dissolution into infinite emptiness, nothingness, oneness without knowing what will happen. The risk is giving up everything, including your life, without knowing what will happen. Nothing can be more important. Nothing.
How many people are really willing to do that?
As I so often say, spiritual awakening/enlightenment is very simple but it is not easy.
When you come to the moment of absolute surrender the mind/ego cries out that this will result in death or insanity or loss of everything. To experience awakening this cannot matter. You must be willing to dissolve into the Infinite Sea of Consciousness, Nothingness, until there is nothing left of you anyway.
So, it does not matter how many years someone has searched, struggled, practiced, learned, understood - at the moment of surrender and dissolution everyone is confronted by the same risk.
I have written a great deal about this at my blog noted in my credential. You are most welcome to read more there and to watch the videos if you feel inspired.
################
When your kundalini energy turns upwards, then yes sometimes you can feel this state onenesss, you feel you are in tree, mountains, rivers, you are the sky, You are Krishna, Jesus, Buddha, you are everywhere.
Post enlightenment, this state becomes permanent.
####################
Why not ?
‘Impersonal’ is not opposite to the ‘personal’.
‘Impersonal’ includes the personal, non-personal, and anything and everything beyond such limiting conceptions.
The beauty of Advaita is that it is dynamic. The moment the mind tries to catch it, it shows a grander picture. Now, the mind catches the grander, and Advaita then gets much more grander, and so on until the mind is tired and surrenders to this inconceivable and the indescribable movement.
Advaita is not a stagnant and scoped theory, which the seeker could conceptualise and discover. It is alive even as an idea and you can listen to its life current even at an intellectual level. So, feel free to explore and play to the full of your heart!
########################
Gautama Buddha was asked this question by his wife, “Tell me one thing, whatever you got in the jungle, couldn't you get in this palace? “
Gautama said, “I could get here too, but I came to know about this when I went to Jungle.”
Not all enlightened masters or spiritual seekers go to the Himalayas, those who go they are unaware that they can get here too.
##############################
The sign for the timeless is monochrome.
–MIKE KELLEY
#####################
#################
####################
The open secret of meditation is mental inaction: not-doing.
Meditation means not-doing: perfect mental inaction.
Our usual mode of action is doing, being mentally active, trying to figure the fuck out of everything.
So, when our usual mode of behaviour causes personal problems, particularly in the form of unpleasant emotions, as it inevitably must, we are well established in a “doing” mode of being and behaviour. Our habit is doing, thinking, and controlling, without even trying.
Then we hear of meditation, as a wonderful discipline that could potentially solve all our emotional and mental problems. So we sit down to meditate, usually after joining a group.
The teacher tells us what to do. It is very common for teachers to instruct beginners to count the breaths, from 1 to 10, to repeat a mantra, or to simply observe (feel) the breath.
Me, beginner, then sits and attempts to follow the teacher's guidance. I am then surprised that I don't immediately experience a stupendous sense of peace and happiness. On the contrary, ten to one my experience is just the opposite: more frustration, more emotional vexation. I may even feel as if I am being “burnt” by this practice, which I am therefore now sure is not for me!
The problem? I, beginner, am caught in my usual doing, figuring out, mode of existing. I come from my usual external, outward peering existence, and, unsurprisingly, find that my internal life doesn't suddenly magically change just because I decided to follow the teacher's guidelines. On the contrary, my mind keeps on doing what it has been habituated to do: automatically controlling, ceaselessly commenting, criticizing me without letup (if that is what I have been taught), seeking release from this dreary, mundane, mediocre existence that is my life, here now.
What then is the remedy?
The remedy is to understand that all techniques are skillful means. They aren't the purpose of meditation. The purpose of meditation is mental inaction, not-doing, non-attainment. It is therefore better to focus on a mental concept of non-attainment, not-gaining, while counting the breath from 1 to 10, than to simply count the breath from 1 to 10 with your habitual mental attitude.
Furthermore, consider what is involved in following guidance, such as breath counting. Here am I, a separate entity, and I am going to do something (separate from I: counting my breaths), to achieve a certain outcome (gaining: peace). This meditation practice stinks because it is steeped in the experience of duality. This dualistic mode of being and practice is the only problem, really.
So, all you need is to understand mental inaction, not-doing, distinct from your current doing, gaining, becoming mode of being.
This requires awareness, not thought. Thought by its very nature is judgment and choice. To think is to choose, judge and do. To think, “I am going to count my breaths", is thought: choice, doing, becoming, gaining. How can I drop all this?
A very good answer is awareness of doing and its effects in the form of mental and emotional vexation. How am I to get awareness of my own doing, thus directly observing that my doing is the sole cause of all my mental and emotional problems?
The answer is really simple, but subtle. Any difficulty lies purely in the subtlety of this practice, and not because it is in any way actually difficult.
The answer is to cultivate awareness of I who am reading this. I am what body, mind, thoughts and feelings (objects) appear to. So, when I keep shifting my attention from what I see, think, feel and experience, to I, inside and outside formal sitting meditation, I become aware of my habitual doing, choosing, controlling, manipulating, adjusting, becoming and gaining. Not only do I see this, but I now realize that what I am doing is directly responsible for all my mental and emotional vexations. Not the environment. Not circumstances. Not events. Not anyone else. Not a defect in my own personality. Not because of my past.
Seeing my doing as it occurs here and now, perpetually, I now therefore notice the alternative: not-doing, perfect mental inaction, is perfect freedom from all mental and emotional problems.
Not-doing, mental inaction, requires no thought. Recall that thinking - how do I handle my own anger, anxiety, fear, frustration, or jealousy? - is doing. In not-thinking self-awareness - awareness of I, not awarenessof what I see - the structure of I as a being of form comprised of body and mind, is transfigured. Doing ends. When doing ends, the particular person who did all that, ends: body and mind (as I: who I thought I was) drop off. When body and mind drop off, I am realised as formless, without boundaries, without inside or outside.
In conclusion, what is realised in meditation, skillfully approached, is the nature of awareness as non-dual, formless, without centre or boundaries, without inside or outside, undetectable to the mind that thinks, and undetectable to any senses.
How do I detect something that is invisible, formless, vast and empty like space? Since that is who or what I really am, there is no way for me to realize it. The tooth cannot cut itself. The eye can't see itself. The only way for the eye to see itself, knowing itself as it is, is in reflection. The reflection is this Universe, a giant mirror in which the eye (awareness) can see its own reflection.
Self-realization is only possible as an ineffable reflection in the mirror that is the Universe: the eye can't see itself in any other way
However, for awareness to comprehend its own ineffable perfection in the universal mirror that is my life, the mirror must be without any distortion. This brings us back to the need to see, and drop, what is distorting this beautiful, ineffable reflection. What is distorting it is the experience that “I am this" and “I am that". Thought. Fashioning an identity, as I, from all my knowledge, and then operating from that identity.
Therefore, by first observing how I am defeating myself and my objectives, through awareness of I who am reading this, I arrive at a posture where I don't do a thing. I do absolutely nothing, mentally.
Now,, inwardly, when I experience anxiety, I don't do anything to make it go away. Instead, I turn attention to I (subject), observing what I am doing with my anxiety right now. I also keep a lookout to see what I might do about it. When I notice that I am doing nothing at all, the anxiety either collapses completely, or it is now experienced as having no bearing on who or what I am. Disidentifcation occurs. In either case, I am now free. This is the conclusion of meditation.
This doesn't mean you stop sitting. It means you keep cultivating not-doing, ceaselessly building on the tremendous silence that now reigns within your own mind-body system.
######################
- Our age may be short, but we can live life in this way, even in the last moment of death, that peace can be seen in the eyes, and one can experience the depth of our life.
- Flowers of joy can never bloom in the life of a person who has not known love.
- Turn the stream of life towards spirituality, when this life seems to you monotonous and it seems that nothing is gained from this life and this life is being carried in vain.
- Whether God exists or not is a matter of experience, not of logic.
- The moment you encounter a Buddha or a sannyasi, sit quietly in his company and drink the nectar of knowledge.
Yes, there were many stories that say so.
But you need to check this one thing.
When that sentence was said, whether the to-be-enlightened person was alone or surrounded by other people ?
Definitely, at least in some stories, there were other people around.
If it was just the sentence, then why did not the other people too get it ?
So, it has something to do with the person and not merely with the sentence. Right ?
The totally dried forest needed only a small spark, and the fire was instantly wild.
The baby in the womb when it was time needed only the slightest push and she came out.
The fully ripe mango needed just a small whiff of a breeze, and it happily dropped itself.
The moral of such stories is to ripen you up because you never know when your whiff of breeze is going to blow on you!
Img Src- garden.lovetoknow.com
#####################
Every Sunday I give a session on this. The first thing which I tell everyone that is to wear light clothes and do meditation for at least 15 minutes.
Meditation is something that is helping us to grow our instinct, mental stability, raising concentration and some people do it for Kundalini awakening and so on.
Leave the purpose, let's enter deep about developing a strong habit of doing meditation.
- I would suggest at least morning and evening meditation. In the starting you can do it for 15 minutes, later when you get comfortable then yes you can increase your time.
- When you are developing this habit, start being aware in daily activities too (Eating, walking, speaking, drinking, etc.), it helps you to go deep into meditation.
Remember always - meditation doesn’t mean just close your eyes and your meditation is completed. It means your awareness is deep and your goal is 24 hours meditation.
######################
True spiritual awakening requires great courage and the willingness to take the greatest risk possible for a human being. Many people wish to experience spiritual awakening but very few people really have the courage to take this risk when it finally comes down to it.
What is this risk?
The risk is absolute, complete and utter surrender and dissolution into infinite emptiness, nothingness, oneness without knowing what will happen. The risk is giving up everything, including your life, without knowing what will happen. Nothing can be more important. Nothing.
How many people are really willing to do that?
As I so often say, spiritual awakening/enlightenment is very simple but it is not easy.
When you come to the moment of absolute surrender the mind/ego cries out that this will result in death or insanity or loss of everything. To experience awakening this cannot matter. You must be willing to dissolve into the Infinite Sea of Consciousness, Nothingness, until there is nothing left of you anyway.
So, it does not matter how many years someone has searched, struggled, practiced, learned, understood - at the moment of surrender and dissolution everyone is confronted by the same risk.
I have written a great deal about this at my blog noted in my credential. You are most welcome to read more there and to watch the videos if you feel inspired.
################
When your kundalini energy turns upwards, then yes sometimes you can feel this state onenesss, you feel you are in tree, mountains, rivers, you are the sky, You are Krishna, Jesus, Buddha, you are everywhere.
Post enlightenment, this state becomes permanent.
####################
Why not ?
‘Impersonal’ is not opposite to the ‘personal’.
‘Impersonal’ includes the personal, non-personal, and anything and everything beyond such limiting conceptions.
The beauty of Advaita is that it is dynamic. The moment the mind tries to catch it, it shows a grander picture. Now, the mind catches the grander, and Advaita then gets much more grander, and so on until the mind is tired and surrenders to this inconceivable and the indescribable movement.
Advaita is not a stagnant and scoped theory, which the seeker could conceptualise and discover. It is alive even as an idea and you can listen to its life current even at an intellectual level. So, feel free to explore and play to the full of your heart!
########################
Gautama Buddha was asked this question by his wife, “Tell me one thing, whatever you got in the jungle, couldn't you get in this palace? “
Gautama said, “I could get here too, but I came to know about this when I went to Jungle.”
Not all enlightened masters or spiritual seekers go to the Himalayas, those who go they are unaware that they can get here too.
##############################
The sign for the timeless is monochrome.
–MIKE KELLEY
######################
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