What Is Meditation?

            From time immemorial man has been in search of his hidden powers.  He knows intuitively that there  is more in life than what he is now experiencing.  His deepest longing is to discover that which is more, that hidden power, and ot bring th at power into action to make this life as a happy, peaceful and creative as possible.

There are many means and ways to embark on this journey but I have found one thing common to all philosophies, faiths and teaching—meditation.  Meditation is at the heart of all religious: Hinduism, Jain Dharma, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Taoism or Zoroastrians.  This universality of meditation points to ward the great potentiality of meditation points toward the great potentiality and power it can tap.  Meditation opens the door to higher consciousness where our treasure is hidden.  Our real self is buried inside; our strength is slumbering.

With the help of meditation you discover your inner potentiality.  You explore that area which is untrodden and untouched.  You reach that core of peace where tranquillity resides.  In meditation you reach the summit of joy and bliss.  You find that there is nothing in the world which a can compare with that blissful peak moment.

Who will find these beautiful experiences, if not human beings? Only as human beings can we reach this height of of tranquillity.  There comes a moment when we experience the universe as our home.  Then we transcend any feeling that the universe is a hostile place where we do not naturally belong.  With the help of meditation, we come home and settle into our own real self.  Now we are not at home; we are all in separate houses.  You know the difference between a house and a home.  Houses are made of bricks; homes are made of feelings.  When you have a guest, you use the expression “Feel at home”; but are you really at home with yourself?

When you meditate, you find your own real home, inside yourself.  When you learn to experience this, outside things do not disturb you as they do now.  You develop the power to keep them out.  You do not allow them to disturb your peace.  You discover a castle inside where you are safe from all attacks.  This is the whole idea of meditation.  Meditation is not a religion; it is a means of learning the art of living, growing and communicating.

Now you are very vulnerable, easily hurt and upset.  One person can make you laugh, another person can make you cry.  One can make you dance, another can put you down.  You may think you are independent, but you are reacting to somebody else’s  words, emotions, actions and reactions.  You don’t know when you will weep or laugh, be elated or depressed.  Can you truthfully say now;  “It is up to me how I react to the acts of the world.  I have balance.  I know how to live with myself”?

Each of you has a vast reservoir of energy.  In fact, you are that energy which reveals consciousness.  In meditation, you unlock this energy so you can grow.  You begin to feel confident and happy.  Now you may become nervous over a small thing like a jo interview.  But why do you worry?  What can the interviewer do to you?  He or she is a human being like you; once he or she came for an interview also.  With this attitude you can go calmly and enjoy a conversation with that person or anyone else.

When you maintain this awareness and this way of thinking, you break barriers which you have erected.  Slowly realize that what was possible for any person in history is also possible for you.  You are also in the line of history.  You belong to the same species.  You share the same energy, the same source, the same light.  The only difference is that some have developed their full potentiality and others have not.  Some have realized their strength to do so, and others have not.

In meditation we come from the circumference of our lives to our center.  Each of us is an individual world.  We act and interact with each other.  We form relationships.  The definition of a relationship is this action and interaction between two worlds.  So far we have had time for everyone else—our children, our husband or wife, our boss, our colleagues and friends—but we have not taken time for the one who is working and relating to all of these people.  These people are on the circumference.  At the center there is one who pays attention to all.  Consciousness is this center.  Meditation means becoming aware of this center.  It is finding our strength, this reservoir of energy, our inner treasure, our own Self. 

Now you may have control over yoour body, but you don’t have control over your mind.  When you begin to meditate you will be surprised and shocked to know that your mind is not under your control.  Your car, your children, your office staff may be under your control, but your own mind is not.  You won’t be able to focus your attention for five minutes on one thing.  In five minutes you will go mentally to five different place, or ten or twenty.  This demonstrates that your mind is not harmonious, If your body were as uncontrolled  as your mind, you would not be able to cross the street.  At least when we want to cross the street we can coordinate ourselves and go there.  But when we tell our mind to do something, it will immediately do something else.

In my school days I had a teacher who would say to one of the students in the middle of class, “When the class is over, please buy me some vegetables so on myway home I won’t have to go to market.”  One day I said to him, “We are here in school, and yet youo are thinking of home and sending us to buy vegetables.”  He said, “Yes, and at home I am planning your lessons and thinking of you here in school.  “He was a good example of how the mind works. In school he thought of his home.  At home he thought of the school.

Look at ourself and see if this does not apply to you.  When you are home with y our family, don’t you think of business and plan for the things you must do the next day?  And at the office don’t you think of problems at home, of your spouse and children, and of things you would rather be doing than the task at hand?  This also shows your mind lacks control.  The incessant jumping of your mind consumes your energy and misdirects it.  When you are not acting, with awareness, your energy is going in another direction.  Sometimes you do not use even a fraction of your energy.  That is why you make mistakes in driving, typing, writing, calculating, or in talking to people without focusing on your words or their impact.

These errors will be minimized by learning to concentrate and by bringing the power of your whole mind to a subject.  When you are talking to someone but thinking of something else, you may use harsh or wrong words.  Later you say,  “I’m sorry, I did not mea it that way.”  But if you did not mean it, why did you say it?  Nobody’s forcing you to say the wrong words or use the harsh tone of voice, Your apology may erase some of the pain, but it cannot erase everything.  Some spot remains.  It is like the typewriter: we may erase and type the correct letter five times, but still a reader can see that some error was made.

Meditation is used to educate our mind.  This is basic.  An uneducated mind is as dangerous as a high-speed automobile with weak brakes.  It can create disaster at any moment.  What we learned in school was formulas, information, repetition.  That was a different thinking from negative to positive.  Then we know how to use all our information properly, precisely and effectively.

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