Let the flavour of meditation spread all over your life..

Drop the ego, howsoever bitter it is, howsoever painful it is, and you will be tremendously rewarded.

Meditation sharpens your brilliance. Ordinarily your sword is rusty. You have never cared about it, you have not even taken it out of its sheath. And it needs constant sharpening, otherwise it is not even useful in cutting vegetables’ And it has great work to do — it has to kill you! That’s what sannyas is all about: cutting your head-off with your own hands. It is real suicide. It is not of the body, it is the suicide of the ego — and the ego is very subtle and very cunning. Unless you are sharp enough it will go deceiving you. You throw it out from one door and it will enter from another. And it is so cunning that it can even come in the name of humbleness.

You can watch the so-called humble people and you can see their egos. They are egoistic about their humbleness, they are egoistic about their simplicity, egoistic about their saintliness, even egoistic about their egolessness. A man without ego is neither egoistic nor egoless. Both are dropped. He is simply there. To create that state is very great intelligence is needed. Mind is not enough, only meditation can help.

So concentrate on meditation. Make it a point that this is the topmost priority in your life, everything else is secondary. I don’t say anything else to my sannyasins, all that I want them to do is to become meditators, and everything else follows of its own accord. Freedom comes, bliss comes, peace comes, celebration comes, virtue comes, transformation comes, and ultimately the experience of god.

Become an image of meditation, become meditation. Walk in meditation, sit in meditation, eat in meditation, sleep in meditation. Let the flavour of meditation spread all over your life — breathe in, breathe out, but meditation continues.

Meditation simply means an awareness of all that is happening. That which is happening outside — that is the outermost circle of your life. Then that which is being done by your body — that is the second concentric circle, closer to you. Then the third concentric circle is that which is done by your mind. And then the fourth is that which is done by your feelings and emotions.

And within these four concentric circles is your centre, the fifth. If you become aware of all that is going on, sooner or later you will become centred at the centre and you will be able to see the whole panorama, the whole drama of the outer world, of physical activity, of psychological activity, of emotional activity. And when you are able to see all this you become free of it because immediately you come to know that you are the seer, you are not the doer. That is the greatest revolution in life, when this shift happens, that you are no more a doer but just a seer, a witness. Than one becomes an image of meditation — a Buddha, a Christ, a Zarathustra.

Meditation releases great creativity. It is an explosion; all your seeds start sprouting. For the first time you see how much potential you were carrying within yourself: a great garden with so many flowers, such beautiful bushes and trees and so many birds singing… a whole paradise! But we are not ordinarily aware of it. We are completely closed, we have not opened up; we are living like a capsule which has no opening, no windows.

Leibniz has the right word for it. He calls man a monad, a windowless house; no doors, no windows. Meditation throws open all the doors and all the windows. Suddenly you become aware of the vast sky, the stars, the moon, the sun, the wind, the rain, the rainbows, the clouds — the whole infinity of it, the whole spectrum of it. And the moment you become aware of it your heart starts singing and dancing.

That’s what I mean by a poet. I don’t literally mean a poet; not that one starts just composing poetry, but that one’s whole life becomes poetic. To whatsoever one does there is the golden touch of creativity. You touch dust and by your touch it is transformed into gold. Wherever you move it becomes a sacred place; wherever you sit it becomes a temple, a shrine of infinite beauty and grandeur. Whatsoever you do releases the imprisoned splendour within you. And this goes on happening; it is not something that happens once.

Meditation starts an explosion which is infinite, which goes on and on, unending; there is no end to it. There is a beginning in meditation but no end.




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Lovely Thoughts for Lovely People Just Like You

Meditation & Breathing

The question of how to start meditating and what to do can seem a little scary to those who have no experience with it. There are a million books out there on the subject, and many of them say contradictory things, which adds to the confusion. Since the question came up on a few of the groups I post on, I wanted to put something up to help those who are looking for a place to start. Keep in mind, I'm no Guru, but I can share what I've found works well for most of he people.

Every mystical or spiritual tradition I've studied have certain key aspects in common, but the most basic one seems to be controlled breathing. Even the most advanced meditation techniques usually start with some basic breath techniques. Here's a place to start:




Sit in a comfortable and relaxed position. Some people prefer to sit cross-legged or in the lotus position, but a comfortable chair with both feet planted on the floor works equally well for these exercises. If you're having trouble concentrating, feel free to close your eyes or sit in front of a blank space like a wall so there is nothing distracting you visually.




1) AWARENESS. Become aware of your breath. Notice if it is slow or rapid, shallow or deep. Don't try to alter or change it, just notice the body's natural rhythms. As you do so, you may become more aware of other things, such as the feel of the air on your skin, your pulse throughout your body, and so on. As you become more comfortable, allow your body to relax, bit by bit. Start at the soles of your feet and work your way up to the top of your head. Become aware of each part of your body, how it feels, what sorts of things it's doing as you relax. You might get a twitch here and there, or the occasional itch. Don't worry about it; scratch where it itches and maintain your state of relaxation. Keep your focus on your breathing throughout this exercise, noticing if it changes or stays the same.

This can be done at work, at home, in bed, or wherever the urge strikes you. This is particularly good to do if you feel stressed out, angry, scared or frustrated. Try it three times a day, seven days in a row. You might be surprised at the results of such a simple exercise.




2) CONTROL. Once you're comfortable with the above exercise and wish to move on to something a little more involved, start to focus on deepening and controlling the breath. A key point here is to focus on pulling your breath deep into your belly and diaphragm.

Start by making a slow, controlled inhale for eight seconds, hold for a second or two, then exhale for ten seconds, and hold for another second or two. Doesn't sound like much, but for those of us with asthma or a smoking habit even this can be a challenge. If you find this too easy, see how many seconds you can comfortably inhale and exhale for, and then work at extending the inhales and exhales by a second or so every couple of days.

You might find yourself getting a little dizzy or light-headed during this exercise due to a combination of hyperventilation and increased energy flow. This is fine, just return to the earlier technique of observing your body's natural breathing rhythm until you feel comfortable again.




3) FOCUS. In the above two exercises you might have noticed that your mind tended to run off in different directions at the slightest provocation. Worries about the day, mental to-do lists, thoughts about work or school, random memories of conversations, and more are constantly fighting for attention in the mind. Many of us are not even aware of how much internal dialogue is actually taking place on a constant basis. This technique will help you to focus and calm the mind.

As you're breathing deeply and comfortably, think of something that evokes a feeling of peace in you. It can be anything, as long as it's simple; the image of a clear lake or sky, the sound of a stream running over rocks, or even just slowly repeating a single word, such as "love" or "peace" itself. If you have a water fountain in the room, try to focus on the sound of the trickling water. If you have trouble maintaining a mental image, you can even start by looking at an actual photo of a peaceful scene. If nothing else seems to work, try mentally or verbally chanting a basic vowel sound, such as "Aaaahhhh" or "Ooooohhm".

At first it may be difficult to stay focused. Your mind will try to skip around from thought to thought. Don't worry about it and don't get upset with yourself; just notice the thought, let it go, and return to the object of your focus. If you start getting frustrated, go back to counting your breath for a while until you're ready to try again.

It helps to have an egg-timer or digital watch while doing this. Set the timer for three minutes the first time. Once you can maintain focus for three minutes, work your way up to five, then ten, then fifteen. Do this at least once a day, preferably twice; once as you're getting out of bed in the morning, and again just before you go to sleep at night.

If you can maintain your focus on one word or image or sound for fifteen minutes without distraction, and do so every day, Congratulations! Not only will you find your body is less tense and your mind more focused in your daily life, but you are also ready for pretty much any meditation technique or spiritual discipline available.






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Reaching for higher ground

What is spirituality, or, rabbaniyat, to use the Quranic term? It is the elevation of the human condition to a plane where the mind is focused on the higher, non-material realities of a godly existence.

The one who gives all his attention to worldly things and who centers his attention on mere appearances is regarded as being material-minded. Conversely, one who rises above material things or appearances, who finds his focus of interest in non-material things, is regarded as being spiritual or godly. The latter is one who follows the injunction of the Quran: ‘Be devoted servants of God’ (3:79). That is, one who lives a God-oriented life.

Spirituality can answer the questions, ‘Who am I? What is the purpose of my life? What is the creation plan of the Creator?’ A seeker is able to find true spirituality by finding rational answers to such questions, whereby he receives spirituality at the mind or thinking level. True spirituality is based on contemplation and reflection, it is an intellectual activity. When the seeker discovers the truth, his life enters a new phase -- that is, building his personality according to spiritual principles. This intellectual journey is two-fold, one is to solve the riddle of why human beings undergo negative experiences in this world and the other is to offer positive solutions. It addresses the paradox of human beings having been given the freedom to make their own moral choices, and their frequent misuse of this freedom -- a course of action which causes them to repeatedly face situations in which people do each other harm; losses are incurred because others’ injustice; severe provocations are suffered because of untoward experiences. At such times spirituality helps us to convert negativity into positivity.

Rabbaniyat provides us with the right philosophy of life. It is a guide book, leading us out of the darkness of ignorance, and ushering us into the light of reality. Spirituality is our helpful companion in times of difficulty. It saves us from succumbing to adversity. It is the art of crisis management, from which we derive intellectual inspiration when in need. Everyone is in need of spirituality, whether rich or poor, powerful or powerless. Spirituality provides a man with a starting point for life. Anyone who is deprives of spirituality will also be deprived of this starting point.

The spiritual path enables us to see things that remain invisible to the physical eye. It enables us to learn lessons from the past and see the future in the present. It is the source of human progress.

Repeatedly, we find occasions in life, when we feel helpless. It is when we feel that life has become rudderless and without direction, that a spiritual savior holds out hope, as a source of courage and conviction.

How is that one who seeks out the divine and who treads the path of enquiry is able to acquire superlative human qualities? The answer is that the ends of a seeker and what he seeks are inseparable from God who is the source of all goodness. God is thus the source of inspiration for everyone.

Spirituality produces God-oriented thinking in him. His life thus becomes a God-oriented life. This is what makes a spiritual person unassailable. A spiritual person enters into such profound communion with God that he becomes very powerful indeed.



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Harness the 'power of three'

Our Vedic culture gives a lot of importance to the ‘power of three’. In fact the entire creation is sustaining on this power of three, i.e the Trinity–Lord Brahma, Lord Vishnu and Lord Shiv. Harnessing this power in your daily life will energise and refresh you. Here is a practice from the Sanatan Kriya that will help you do just that.

The ancient texts indicate that the emergence of sound marked the beginning of physical Creation. And the first sound was OM (AUM). Divided into four parts (A, U, M, and silence) it represents the journey of the spirit. Before sound, i.e., Creation, there was eternal silence, or absolute stillness. It was from here that the journey of an individual began. Sound has a deep and profound effect on the physical body of a being, whether we are able to immediately feel the effect or not depends on the kind of sound one interacts with. Grosser and heavier sounds affect the physical body, the grossest layer of a being, and have a short lived effect, while subtler sounds touch the lighter layers and the effect lasts for a longer time.

The syllable ‘A’ (as in approve) represents the force of Lord Brahma, the Creator, the syllable ‘U’ (as in ouch) represents the force of Lord Vishnu, responsible for the preservation of all that is Created, and ‘M’ (the humming of the male bee) stands for the force of transformation of Lord Shiva, as well as for stillness, that is, evolution, or coming back to where you started from, stillness the fourth part, the touchstone of evolution, since it is stillness that leads you back to where you began from.

Sit in a comfortable position with your eyes closed and back straight. Take a few deep breaths and begin chanting A-U-M followed by silence. As you chant ‘A’, your awareness moves up your body till the naval, while paying reverence at the feet of Lord Brahma; as the awareness rises from the naval till the shoulders you chant ‘U’, paying reverence at the feet of Lord Vishnu; the awareness further rises from the pit of the throat with the chant of ‘M’, paying reverence at the feet of Lord Shiv; finally ending in silence.

Repeat the above as many times as you can. When you open your eyes look at the centre of your palms, then your entire body, then anywhere else. A word of caution here, do not suddenly get up after the practice and always do it under the guidance of your Guru.

Practice of this will open the subtler dimensions while giving you a healthy body, beautiful glow and peace.



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Being present – how to be present with what is already present

The present moment has always been available to spiritual seekers, but as long as you are seeking you are not available to the present moment. “Seeking” implies that you are looking to the future for some answer, or for some achievement, spiritual or otherwise. Everybody is in the seeking mode, seeking to add something to who they are, whether it be money, relationships, possessions, knowledge, status.. or spiritual attainment.

This is it. There is no more. If you can be present, it’s the whole ball game. The immediacy of life in the present precedes the mind and all concepts.

It’s hard for the mind to understand what being present is because the mind is never present. Yet, we do have moments of presence, when we are awed by beauty or those times when we are in flow.

You will find being present is ordinary. Don’t expect the extra-ordinary; that will take your right out of presence. Don’t expect some sort of psychedelic or out-worldly spiritual experience. And yet, with continued presence, there is a shift. The extra-ordinary is contained in the spaciousness of the ordinary.

Try it. It is not an effortful presence. The ego is capable of creating a mental space of presence, and you can tell because ego-presence feels effortful, artificial and dull. That’s not presence. That’s trying hard to be present.

We are already always present, so it’s little misleading to say “be present.” What we mean by “be present” is really to be Awareness, absent of the constant lurching for the next moment, the grasping, or the becoming.











Be present with what is already present. The body is always present, so we can always bring attention deeply into the body or breath to be present. Perception is always present–taste, touch, smell, sight and sound.


Do the following to be present:

Sit down, shut your eyes, and watch your breath. Become aware of breath going in, and going out. Breathe freely, there is no need to control or change the flow. Become aware of the sensation of air passing through your nose and nostrils. Pay attention to the lungs filling up and emptying. Pay attention to the belly expanding and relaxing. If attention is distracted by thought, gently bring it back with a smile.

Expand your attention to the sound of breathing. Don’t label or analyze, simply listen to the undulating sound of breath. Notice that there is no time between perception and hearing. Time only happens when there is thinking about hearing. Hear without thinking. Is there any effort required to hear? Pay attention to the way the sound is heard. As you notice the sound, pay attention, just to hear the sound, without decision or interpretation or judgment. Hearing just happens. There is no thought required. Meet the perception half-way. Is there any time delay between the sound and the hearing? The hearing of sound is thought-less, time-less. Relax, and be the awareness that hears the sound, without thought.

Expand your attention further to any sound that comes into perception. Don’t label or measure or judge. Just pay attention to the sound. Notice the sounds pop up in Awareness, inside of you. There is no space or time between awaring and the occurrence of the sound.

If thoughts rise, let them and shift attention back to the sounds.

Now feel your weight. Feel your skin touching your clothes. Feel your skin touching air. Don’t label or figure out what it is touching, just simply feel the perception of touch. Go inside the body to feel it. Put attention inside your hands and soon you will feel a tingling, an aliveness. Notice there is no time between feeling the sensation and being aware of the sensation. Just to feel, is there any time required between the sensation and the feeling of it? There is no decision, no effort, no thinking; it just happens. Time only happens when you interpret the sensation with thought.

Move attention to taste. Do you taste anything? Is there a taste? Don’t figure out what it is. Just be aware of it.
Move attention to smell. Is there any smell? Don’t label it or figure out what it is, just abide in the perception of it.
Open your eyes. Look around the room. Don’t label anything. Simply take in the seeing. Take in colors without labeling them. Take in the background, the ceiling, floor, the walls, the sky, clouds, anything without labeling. Feel the colors rather than seeing them. Notice there is no time delay between seeing and awaring. Perception takes no time. It is right here, right now. Don’t label anything, see it for the first time. Trace the contours and edges very slowly with your eyes. This is just Awareness. Everything you see is Awareness seeing in Awareness. The entire visual field and beyond is in Awareness. All these objects are simply perception in Awareness.
Move deeply into the Now.

When you are deeply in the Now, look at the grasping and running-away feeling in the mind, with Awareness.


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Vipassana : The meditation technique of Gautama Buddha

Vipassana is the technique of lord Gautama Buddha . The path of Buddha is considered as Golden Mean because he teaches that there in no need to go to any extreme – neither in indulgence nor in abstinence. His path is a Golden path, which does not demand affiliation to any idea, belief or dogma. Even after the lapse of more than 2500 years since he walked on this earth, there is no decline in his teaching or in the relevance of his miraculous and amazingly simple meditation technique ‘Vipassana’. In fact this meditation technique is often considered as the technique of the future because of its extremely simple yet very powerful method. For the busy and extremely complicated life of 21st century, Vipassana is the kind of friendly meditation which can be done by anybody, anywhere and at any time.

What and why of Vipassana

Vipassana means ‘to come and see‘. To be more precise - to come inward and see. It is the way of the Buddha. He do not give sermons on reality. He only says ‘ “come and see – ‘Eehee Pissico‘. Just come inward and see for yourself the reality.

In a single sentence :What is Vipassana ?

Vipassana is :

“To watch your breath with awareness. “

That’s all ! It is just simple . To be watchful of your breath as it comes and go. It is Vipassana. The easiest meditation technique of all time.

Breathing is the most of important life process of our body. Nobody can exist without breath even for a single moment. In fact breathing is so important that nature has made it automatic in all living being. Nobody has to remember to breath. Just like internal vital process of our body like pumping of heart, circulation of blood, digestion of food etc, the breathing also happens on its own. Numerous meditation techniques are centered around breath. Almost all spiritual schools has developed a majority of their meditation techniques around breath. The reason for such infatuation with breathing is that it (breathing) is not merely a process of inhaling oxygen and exhaling Carbon Dioxide. Breathing, in reality, is a bridge between our body and our self.

From the moment we come into this world – till the moment we die, we continue taking breath. Breathing is a link between our soul and our body. So when one meditates on breathing, invariably, he gets connected with his self. As already described in ’What is meditation‘ (that all meditation techniques are the methods through which our true self is revealed to us), when you mediate in Vipassana , you will realize your real identity – Self.

In Vipassana you have to be just aware of your breath. A simple rule is that no matter what you do, no matter in whichever action you indulged in – just be aware of your breathing process. Be watchful of breath as it comes inside your body and goes outside. Don’t try to control your breath. Vipassana is not ‘Pranayam ( the yogic exercise in which one control various movements of breath). If your breath is deep let it be, if it is shallow let it be. Just let your breathing in its natural rhythm.

Understand this by this analogy: Just imagine that a river is flowing. Now the flow of the river may be fast or slow. What you have to do is to sit on its bank Just watch the river as it flows. Don’t try to create ripples in it. Don’t do anything that affects its flow. Just be a watcher. This river is your breath. The breathing process is going on. Just be a watcher of this process. Slowly slowly as you watch your breathing, your mind will start calming own. You will see that all thoughts are disappearing on their own. Eventually as you keep practicing, such moment will start coming when you see that everything has come to a standstill. There will be no thoughts, there will be no emotions. However, there will be full awareness. The state of choiceless awareness. In this state you will know the real you.

Some important things about Vipassana:

(1) Though this extremely easy meditation can be done anytime, anywhere, initially it is strongly advised that you allocate some fixed time for it on daily basis. Choose a separate room and sit in a comfortable position. Them meditate by watching your breathing.

(2) The real success will come when you can be aware of your breath while doing all kind of daily activities like reading, playing, driving, swimming, or doing any domestic task. However this stage will come after a regular practice for a considerable amount of time. At that point there will be two aspects of your existence – doing and being. You will be doing everything, fully involved in your tasks, yet inside there will be a center of awareness in you undisturbed by outer circumstances. That will be the true state of a meditator – the one who will be creative outside and meditative inside.

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spare a thought

Have you ever thought about thoughts? What they are and where they come from? Thoughts are not the product of our mind for it is incapable of producing anything. Everything already exists, even thoughts – and they do not reside in the mind. Their abode is elsewhere, not in the physical body.

Every thought is a potential manifestation. The level of consciousness of the person who is thinking is directly proportional to the ability of manifestation of his thoughts. That was the science behind the curses and blessings of the saints.

What is the source of thoughts? Sit down comfortably with eyes closed. Take yourself to a state of thoughtlessness where your mind is absolutely blank. Now slowly become aware of the first thought. Be fully aware of where this thought is coming from. Is it from within your physical form or from somewhere outside? Follow the path of this thought till you know it has come and touched your physical. Every time you do this exercise you will find that thoughts are always coming from outside, and never from within. Yog talks of blocking these thoughts to achieve a state of shunya or stillness.

The physical is a dimension. Similarly, there are other dimensions of other beings also which lie beyond the physical. Thoughts are beings, residing in another dimension, beyond. Thought already exists there, in the manomaya kosha. What we refer to as ‘thinking’ is actually connecting to that layer, those beings. When Brahma created the Universe, all kinds of thoughts were created, too. We only connect to a particular thought depending on our composition and that of the thought.

We connect to thoughts by their chakras – a sexual thought would be connected by the swadhishthan chakra. The respective chakra collects thoughts and sends it to the ajna or master chakra which translates the language of the thought world to the physical and sends it to the brain, and then the body acts. When it is said that all great men think alike it means that they are all connecting to thoughts of the same nature.

Thoughts have certain compositions, like every other object of creation; they are composed of a specific frequency of sound or colour, which is audible or visible at the time of connection. Imagination in the form of sight or sound is again connecting to the thought dimension.

Prana manifests in the form of sound or colours. Different thoughts evoke feelings of calmness, peace, cheer, romance, depression or fear, for example. Similarly, there are various compositions of colours – some are dull, depressing, and others are vibrant, pleasing, each having a different effect on the physical.

Thoughts in the form of sound and colours constantly keep the mind engaged. The mind is never still, never at rest, at any point of time. The flow of thoughts from the manomaya kosha never ceases to happen unless awareness is taken to layers beyond the thought dimension. This state is that of dhyan. When consciousness expands and reaches a state where thoughts cease to exist, you experience thoughtlessness, where you don’t realise the passage of time. You then exist in the dimension, which is above time, for here there is no time, everything that exists there is still, because time is actually the distance between two thoughts. Time is an inherent part of manifested Creation. Here a yogi goes over the boundaries of manifested Creation and so goes over ‘time’.


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Joy of Meditation

When meditation is mastered, the mind is unwavering like the flame of a lamp in a windless place. In the still mind, in the depths of meditation, the eternal Self reveals itself.

Bhagavad Gita

Health, a light body, freedom from cravings, a glowing skin, sonorous voice, fragrance of body: these signs indicate progress in the practice of meditation.

Shvetashvatara Upanishad

Meditation brings wisdom; lack of meditation leaves ignorance.

Gautama Buddha

When a seeker merges in the beatitude of samadhi, he does not perceive time and space or name and form, the offspring of maya.

Ramakrishna

Don't seek experiences in meditation. The path to God is not a circus.

Paramahansa Yogananda

Cry Within. Meditate within. Dive within. Your inner achievements will far outweigh your outer imperfections.

Sri Chinmoy

Meditation is the tongue of the soul and the language of our spirit.

Jeremy Taylor

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