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Meditation? Why me!
Well, this is one question many of us ask, or would like to ask. Let us understand what meditation is. Before that, let me ask you another question: ‘Success’? Did I hear “why me…?” Not really! How about ‘Respect’? Or ‘Love’? And ‘Self-confidence’? At least ‘Peace’? Well, I hear no negative replies at all! Oh OK, these are few words we are fully aware of. In fact these are the words we have been living for.
Many of us quote “I am already in peace and am not in a state of mental unrest. I don’t need it”. Or, “I am too restless to sit in meditation. I can’t”. Many of “I can’t” people mention lack of time as a reason too. Interesting, powerful reasons. Understanding the importance of meditation only vaguely, we have convinced ourselves for a 'no' in many logical ways. Result – meditation is not for me!
To evaluate the above result better, it’s important that we understand what meditation is.
Most of us are aware of the term meditation. Many understand it as simply sitting idle with all the sense organs possibly closed and thinking of nothing. Few people think of it like an anesthesia given to the brain. In fact many people think of meditation as something that makes them ‘cut off from the senses’ or, if I can say, ‘going out of senses’. None is right.
So what is the true definition? Meditation is the process or a state when one entirely focuses on ‘the other one’, known as ‘the object of focus’. The zenith of this process is when the meditating entity achieves unity with the meditated entity. And how does that matter to me? Another good question!
The answer is in the very initial questions thrown in the article. ‘Power’, ‘Love’, ‘Respect’ and ‘peace’ are few things we all desire in our lives. Throughout our lives, we keep hunting for various methods to achieve these objectives. Many of us don’t achieve all of these. May I rather say that no one achieves all these things at one given time? This is what the truth of life is. A student may have all the fun in life, but he has not yet become a successful man. As a successful man he may have all the wealth in the world, but true peace may still be a distant star for him. It is like a child trying to fly several kites together and he can pay attention to only one or max two at a time.
Our life has several limbs. All are like those kites. You, the one controlling these, cannot take care of all the threads at the same time. While you raise one high, some others come down. And you remain juggling among these threads, in the mirage of hoping to strike ‘the perfect balance’ between them all. These threads are nothing but the routes that lead to our requirements, e.g. peace, love, respect, power etc. So how can meditation help me here, sir? Now this is the right question. Meditation is the tool that helps you strike ‘the perfect balance’ between all aspects of life.
There are two approaches in life: top down or bottom up. You may think of a pyramid here. Bottom up means you take care of several small topics and then grow towards the top goal. The top down approach means catching hold of the most important or the key object, which ensures the capture of all other requirements.
The bottom up approach requires minimum initial effort. At the same time, the growth is usually slow. Reaching till the top is not guaranteed if you are in a hurry. The top down strategy requires more planned, single targeted effort. Here, most of the effort is limited only till achieving the key target. After that, the process is easy. If a quick and effective method of finding the key target is achieved, the whole process becomes very easy.
Most of us live our lives bottom up.
We try hitting the smaller, individual targets. It may be first education, then career, then love, then money, then health and so on. A permanent state of absolute peace and bliss is supposed to be the end goal that we try achieving through these individual targets. This goal is the peak of the pyramid. This peace is achieved only when all the aforesaid smaller, individual targets are achieved.
In the present practice, as we have just seen, it never happens. Still, as a hope we continue chasing these targets the whole life. Few brave people call it the battle of life. They name it a challenge and glorify the ones taking it on. No matter how good the glorification has been, one continues to swing between phases of happiness and grief.
His Holiness Sadguru Sadafaldeo Ji Maharaj says in the Holy book Swarveda:
Kshan mein sukh kshan dukh miley, Jag viyog yoga aye |
Sahaj Yog sukh kawan hai, Sab din ek rahaye||
-- Swarveda, 4/5/25
Purport: In this world, just in a fraction of a second one gets happiness, and in another second one gets grief. The cycle of happiness and grief always continues. But which is the happiness that remains constant at all times?
The smart ones believe in winning and not ONLY in fighting.
Imagine a top down approach where you know how to strike the right cord. Imagine an approach towards life where you directly achieve the principal objective of life and everything else follows.
Brahma Vidya Vihangam Yoga is the key through which all doors of success open, in all phases of life, with the Sadguru’s grace.
Chaaron fal guru charan mein, Chah amit fal paay|
Sadguru jan raksha karein, sarva tham jas aay||
--Swarveda, 6/1/3
Purport: By serving the Holy Feet of the Sadguru, in addition to all four necessities of life – wealth, duties, worldly desires and moksha (liberation from the cycle of birth and death) – the Supreme Soul is also attained as an infinite, unasked reward. The sense conveyed is that by serving the Sadguru and being devoted to Him, the Lord is attained and the disciple being liberated in life-time, enjoys infinite and divine bliss in life. Sadguru protects His devotees and disciples at all places, whenever and wherever the same is needed.
So how does the Sadguru help me strike that ‘Right Cord’? And which cord it is, by the way?
There is a zone, a superset that contains every single thing of this universe, including us. This zone is called the Supreme Soul. This is the zone supreme: the zone of supreme happiness, the zone of supreme peace. It also is the zone permanent. In fact it is the only thing perfect and permanent. When we connect our consciousness to this source, every subset becomes readily available to us. Swarveda says that God loves the one who loves Him. And the ones loved by Him are loved by the whole universe.
This top down approach makes it possible to reach the root objective of human life: to achieve a state of absolute peace, absolute bliss. The one on the path of god realization achieves everything in both the worlds: spiritual and material. The closer one gets to the goal, the better it gets for him. This means that even before achieving the Supreme Lord, the benefits start showing up as we journey ahead.
But God realization is a subtle subject. God is all pervading, yet the subtlest of all. He is beyond the reach of gross objects such our sense organs. Meditation is the only way to increase our focus so much that we can reach that subtleness. This subtleness is beyond the mind, pranas and intellect too. Then with which medium do we reach Him? Swarveda says:
Chetan sadhan prabhu milaen, Chetan chetan paay|
Mann pragya vaani nahi, antar antar jay ||
Swarveda, 6/5/4
Purport: With the conscious and scientific method of Vihangam Yoga, a soul realizes the conscious God. As long as the consciousness of the soul is attached to mind, intellect, pranas and other sense organs, God is not achieved; since the above are all inert mediums. Therefore, the Surati (consciousness of the soul) detaches from these entities, draws inwards and then enters the internal Conscious Zone.
A conscious entity can never be realized by an inert entity. It requires another conscious entity to do so. To realize the Supreme Soul, the Supreme Consciousness, we need to make use of our conscious form, the true ‘we’, the souls. A meditation practice done by the soul from a conscious platform is the right and only approach towards God realization.
If it is that simple, then why doesn’t everyone practice it and achieve everything in life?
Behind that, there is another simple principle. The ‘Principle of Inertia’ is the backbone of physics. It mandates that every object resists change. Unfortunately it also applies in day-to-day life. The change may be anything, but a resistance is guaranteed. Larger the entity, larger is the resistance. Same is the case with us. Larger we get, the difficult it becomes to accept our shortcomings and open up for a change. We have made ourselves, nay, our ego so big that we feel we do not need any improvement. We desperately resist anything that doesn’t come in line with our line of thinking. We also fail to, rather refuse to, recognize that we are not what our true self is. One may be the ruler of one’s own world, but in the world of spirituality, different rules apply. One has to come as a true seeker to learn anything. He has to surrender and be humble. Only then opens the door to spiritual growth. Of course this has to be only towards the Divine and it is necessary to be done. If this is something you find impossible to do, perhaps spiritually is not for you. This is where most of us wash our hands off from spirituality. But this can be changed. All the aforesaid virtues can be achieved – even if you don’t have even one bit of it! Only thing is if you have the courage to do it. Seva or selfless service as per the Guru’s instructions makes it possible.
To strive for it all, one has to feel the importance of meditation and the correct guide, the Sadguru.
We have all understood that love, peace, respect etc are no luxuries in life but necessities. But we have also seen that with the current method of chasing small, individual goals, it is just not possible to achieve all of these at one time. With this reason, meditation is no luxury but a necessity. With our inability to take the first step, we label it differently. Meditation is something that hardly takes any effort. But the results are quick and, certainly, rewarding and amazing.
Meditation is fine. But how do I know which one to practice? There are so many spiritual practices and breathing techniques available. And how does the above mentioned technique work when I don’t know who my guru is? There are so many beliefs in this path. How to find the best one?
This requires a detailed answer. The meditation where there is no vibration, where there is no upward pull, cannot be a correct process. To recognize the right approach towards this top objective, you need to evaluate the path as per the guidelines of the Holy Scriptures. When you search for a right path from among the many paths known in the world today, find out the platform from which meditation is done in these paths. Is it the platform of the mind, the sense organs, the intellect or the pure conscious being, the soul? Who is the Guru? In the journey to the Supreme, the Guru plays the most important role. Without a Guru, we can excel only in the things that we can conceive through our available tools of communication. We don’t know how to work with the soul. It is beyond the scope of any science we know. The only science that can do it is the science of consciousness. And the master of this science is the Supreme Guru, the Sadguru. The Sadguru entity is not about a person, or a scholar who has learnt a lot. Sadguru is a divine, conscious entity. It is an eternal entity like the soul and the God. At the same time, it is neither a soul nor the God. However, it bears all qualities of God. Omnipresence, omniscience and omnipotence are few properties of the Sadguru energy as well. Vedas say:
Antisantam na jahatyati santam na pashyati|
Devasya pashya kavyam na mamar na jiryati||
-- Atharva Veda, 10.8.32
Purport: There’s a saint near you. You don’t see Him but He looks at you. Find out His yogic powers. He neither dies nor grows old.
Which saint is this? This is none but the Sadguru. When a practitioner takes shelter under the Sadguru, achieving the prime objective of life becomes easy. In fact, once a seeker is able to find the Sadguru, half the job is done.
Prathame Sadguru khojo hansa|
Sadguru milan milahi prabhu ansha|
--Swarveda, 6/5/chaupai
Purport: O souls seeking the Lord relentlessly! First search for the Sadguru because by finding the Sadguru, one partially achieves the God.
Open up for new learning. Believe in achieving higher goals. Trust yourself. Trust God. You’ll find yourself at the zenith of life. Success is no mirage. It is achievable by the stalwarts who strive to reach the perfection. Don’t think that meditation is something to be done only by retired people or by people who have no confidence in themselves. Truly speaking, it is a necessity for everyone. In fact, it is the brave and courageous who take up this path and persevere in it.
