Click here for Hindi, Spanish, French, German, Russian, Italian, Chinese
What is meditation? Is meditation concentration or is it something normal people cannot do? Is meditation simple? Who can do meditation? Why should one meditate? What is the essence of meditation? Isn't relaxation equal to meditation? What is required to do Meditation? Can I do Meditation on my own? Do I need a guru to help me teach meditation? What are the effects or after effects of meditation? Will I become a yogi or ascetic if I start doing meditation? What will my family and friends think if I meditate regularly? Is meditation a practice of old people? Can young people do Meditation? Is meditation branding me? Will I be considered an outsider from my community if I start meditating? Is meditation the technique what was taught by Indians, Chinese and Japanese? Do I have to embrace a particular cult/ realigning to practice meditation and understand the deeper essence of what meditation is? Is it true that practicing meditation regularly will make me enlightened? Can I be meditating while working? Does it increase my creativity? If I introduce meditation in my company, what change will it bring in my organization? Can meditation help improve my employees productivity and company's profitability? Meditation helps in removing stress, is it true?
So many questions and myth about what is meditation. Yet, we are not clear about what meditation is. Some say meditation is concentration, others that meditation is controlling you mind. But, is meditation really that? I would say meditation is neither concentration, nor controlling your mind and thoughts. Neither can meditation be a synonym of relaxation. Rather meditation is No Mind, letting go of the mind, un training the mi nd...Relaxing the body certainly helps in allowing body to enter swiftly into a state of meditativeness but relaxation cannot be termed as meditation. The more relaxed one's mind is, more deeper can one enter into meditation. More deeply one enters into meditation, all the more relaxed one's mind and body becomes. It is like an ongoing cycle. One facilitates the other.
Well, let us take an example. Have you ever watched a sunset or sunrise? Have you ever sat by the ocean, taken a walk in the forest or held the hand of your beloved and felt complete inner peace and well-being? Have you ever been involved in work so deeply that past, present or future cease to exist? While jogging, exercising or making love, did you ever feel that none exist except you and the other person, and the other person also become a part of you so much that there is no distinction for a moment between the two? That is the same feeling that is experienced during meditation practice. A deep calm, stillness and peace, the feeling of oneness with the universe, so much so that everything seems to cease. Meditation is that root which gives life energy to the blooming flowers and fruits on the tree. As our beloved master Osho says,
" Meditation is a single lesson of awareness, of no-thought, of spontaneity, of being total in your action, alert, aware. It is not a technique, it is a knack. Either you get it or you don't."
Our beloved master Osho says,
"MEDITATION is not concentration. In concentration there is a self concentrating and there is an object being concentrated upon. There is duality. In meditation there is nobody inside and nothing outside. It is not concentration . There is no division between the in and the out. The in goes on flowing into the out, the out goes on flowing into the in. The demarcation, the boundary, the border, no longer exists. The in is out, the out is in; it is a no-dual consciousness. "
"Concentration is a dual consciousness; that's why concentration creates tiredness; that's why when you concentrate you feel exhausted. And you cannot concentrate for twenty-four hours, you will have to take holidays to rest. Concentration can never become your nature. Meditation does not tire, meditation does not exhaust you. Meditation can become a twenty-four hour thing - day in, day out, year in, year out. It can become eternity. It is relaxation.
Concentration is an act, a willed act. Meditation is a state of no will, a state of inaction.
"
"One has simply dropped into one's own being, and that being is the same as the being of All. In concentration the mind functions out of a conclusion: you are doing something. Concentration comes out of the past. In meditation there is no conclusion behind it. You are not doing anything in particular, you are simply being. It has no past to it, it is pure of all future, It what Lao Tzu has called wei-wu-wei, action through inaction. It is what Zen masters have been saying: Sitting silently doing nothing, the spring comes and the grass grows by itself. Remember, 'by itself - nothing is being done. You are not pulling the grass upwards; the spring comes and the grass grows by itself. That state - when you allow life to go on its own way. When you don't want to give any control to it, when you are not manipulating, when you are not enforcing any discipline on it - that state of pure undisciplined spontaneity, is what meditation is."
"Meditation is in the present, pure present. Meditation is immediacy. You cannot meditate, you can be in meditation. You cannot be in concentration, but you can concentrate. Concentration is human, meditation is divine."
Meditation is an experience which is not easily described, like the taste of cheese or being totally and completely in love -- you have to try it to find out A child is in blissful state of meditation in womb.You are born in a state of meditativeness. Meditation blossoms and nurtures you in the mothers womb. It is that nectar which we all have been born out of. We haven't just tasted it, we are that nectar itself. This is the only fact, a person evolves in meditation, one is born in meditation As we come out of the womb, we forget our essential nature. If you ask is it simple then you are asking the question whether you can breathe, walk, talk, eat and do other functions normally.
Meditation comes naturally to one. How much more simple you would want it to be, when it is inborn? Yes, one's forgetfulness can make it seem difficult. One's mind can deceive when it comes to mediation. It is because we have allowed our mind to control our destiny and our state of being. Rather than giving ourselves the freedom, we have authorized the mind to decide for us.
One can meditate easily. You can meditate as easily as you take breath. You do not have to meditate forcefully. You just have to allow yourself and mind to relax. Swiftly you go into meditation. Can you meditate? If you ask so because you are a buddhist, christian, muslim, hindu, jew etc. or a man/ woman, gay/ lesbian, a teen or a child ...Let me tell you that anyone can meditate, irrespective of color, caste, creed, sex, nationality. You do not have to change your religion, beliefs, sect, community, work etc to meditate. As aforesaid, meditation is inborn. If someone tells you to change your religion, be a part of some dogma, let me warn you, do not ever do that. Meditation never teaches you to form a religion, It rather frees you of all the religious aspects and bring you in touch with your own self. It brings you in harmony with all the truth. The ultimate truth that all the Enlightened people have pointed out. Religion has been formed on the name of those enlightened masters who never wanted a religion in the first place. All they wanted was spirituality, the truth to prevail.
Meditation is not a technique yet enlightened masters have given us many techniques to help us go into meditation. Read More..
Contact for meditation and courses/ classes and link exchange information : ivedas@ivedas.com