Preksha Dhyana

Anjay Mohnot

Beginning to Meditate ?

Lesson 1 - "Many Things" to Deal With

Desperate states of mind are disturbing many people these days. They are caught in emotional turmoil and entanglement, scarcely knowing how to get themselves out of it, or even fully realizing what state they are in. This condition, which often deteriorates as the years go by until nervous difficulties and mental illnesses set in, can be alleviated by the simple practice of meditation. Those who are content to live in a mesh of mental conflict, which is not only conscious but subconscious, will never get around to meditation or even the preliminary step; concentration. But a person who is wise enough to struggle with his own mind, to try to gain the mastery of his mind, will learn the vital practice of meditation. Just a few moments each morning or evening enables him to cut the entangled conditions that creep into the conscious mind during the day. The consistent practice of meditation allows him to live in higher states of consciousness, with increasing awareness and perception as the years go by.

There are surprises, many of them, for the beginners in meditation, as well as for those who are advanced. Unexpected consequences that are often more than either bargained for, because on the road to enlightenment, every part of one's nature has to be faced and reconciled. This can be difficult if the experiences of life have been unseemly, or relatively easy if the experiences have been mostly comfortable. What is it that meditation arouses to be dealt with? It is the reactions to life's happenings, recorded in the subconscious mind, both the memory of each experience and the emotion connected to it. Buried away, normally, waiting to burst forth in the next birth or the one to follow it, these vasanas, or deep-seated impressions, often come forward at the most unexpected moments after serious meditation is begun. It is the shakti power of meditation that releases them. There can be no repressed secrets, no memories too woeful to confront for the serious meditator. These experiences can be scary if one is "in denial" about certain embarrassing or disturbing happenings.

When this upheaval occurs for you, and it will, combat the paper dragon with the deep inner knowing that the energy of the body has its source in God, the light of the mind that makes thought pictures recognizable also has its source in God, and nothing can or has happened that is not of one's own creation in a past life or in this. Thus armed with Vedic wisdom, we are invincible to the emotions connected with the memory of

formerly locked-away experiences. When they come rolling out, patiently write down the emotional impressions of hurt feelings and injustices of years gone by and burn the paper in an open fireplace. Seeing the fire consume the exposed vasanas, the garbage of yesterday, is in itself a great release.