X: Madman what do I gain from my meditation?
Madman: This reminds me of a story. Someone once asked Buddha,
you have meditated for so many years, what have you gained? Buddha says ‘nothing’.
Shocked the man says ‘nothing?!? ‘so why have you struggled so many
years if you were gaining nothing? . Buddha answered. I gained nothing, but I lost
my anger, suffering, delusions, pain, worries, sickness etc.
This is the true reality of meditation. You gain nothing. There is nothing to gain,
what you need to gain is already within you. You were born with it; it is your true
nature. Buried deep within your ego centric contaminated mind. Only when this contamination
is cleared, your own true divine nature reveals itself to you. Meditation is the
process of getting rid of the garbage under which your mind has buried itself, to
reveal your true divine nature to yourself.
Broadly speaking there are two types of meditation. Concentration meditation and
Receptive meditation where you listen to the universe within yourself. What are
you practicing?
X: Receptive meditation
Madman: Ah that is good, You learn to ignore the ‘I’
faster and become a mirror of the divine universe.
X: Why do i feel groggy and feel like I am fainting when I meditate
or have a headache sometimes after meditation?
Madman: Very simple and clear if you understand how meditation
works
X: Did i make a mistake?
Madman: From the symptoms one knows exactly what mistakes the person
is making. Here are two points to consider, as regards the mistake you may be making
1) The mind that you have is like a piece of wood floating on an ocean of consciousness,
the harder you push it down by force into the water,. the harder the water will
push the block of wood out. . That is why when you use force to concentrate. and
push it your mind hard into silence............it will push back with the same counter
force. This may lead to headaches and in some cases severe disorientation and even
complete passing out.. One has to ease the mind in gently. This mind is very sensitive
equipment. 2) The second may be coming out of meditation too quickly. After a deep
long session of meditation, bring the mind out slowly. If you wake up suddenly or
open your eyes suddenly. You may have symptoms from a headache to red bloodshot
burning eyes. 3) In meditation if one gets disturbed by sharp sounds. Its feels
like a shock to the nervous system as you come out with a jerk. from deep mental
focus.
In receptive meditation any mental effort to concentrate is prohibited. The belief
is that the natural state of a human is purity and calmness.. That is what we were
born with. Our minds become hyperactive and confused, as it accumulates garbage,
destructive habits and stress over our stressful lifestyles, we are lead astray
from our natural states. If you leave the mind without activity and with just being
alert and passive. The mind will naturally throw out the garbage it has accumulated
and go back to its purest natural state over time, if there is no intervention by
us in our current deluded or ignorant states.
X: What about the mantra for meditation?
Madman: Don’t hang on tightly to the mantra given by your
guru with ferocity when other thoughts come, sit comfortably and lightly put your
mind on the mantra. Thoughts will bombard you, but let it drift and lightly go away,
don’t engage in it. If you fight hard to keep the thought away so the mind
remains on the mantra, it’s a big mistake. Too. Isn’t that what you
are doing, Fighting hard to keep other thoughts away so your mind can be on the
mantra all the time?
X: Yes if I don’t focus on the mantra. other thoughts keep
appearing unendingly. In fact it’s a flood of many thoughts. I can’t
still my mind on the mantra beyond a few seconds without a new thought appearing.
Madman: It is called the monkey mind in meditation. This is the
mind that we live with daily. It is so agitated that it can’t stop it and
be still beyond a few seconds, it continues like this, one random thought to another,
till we get tired and become sleepy and we fall asleep out of exhaustion at night.
X: Sometimes I realize I am using force to close my eyes to concentrate.
Madman: That is why you have headaches.
In our day to day life, we bury all disturbing thoughts, our mistakes and conscience.
These thoughts never disappear. They become buried deep in our sub consciousness.
When we keep ourselves busy, we bury those disturbing thoughts. However when we
first start to sit in meditation, Our massive unresolved backlog of stressful memories
which were buried in the sub consciousness is pushed out for resolution into our
conscious thinking minds.
X: The things that surface are those that happened recenty. My
dreams from last night, or things that happened last night in office.
Madman: Good you noticed that it was recent memories first. The
brain is like a sequential library, old memories are in the bottom shelf. new memories
are on top and they keep piling up in that order. For the beginner when you meditate,
the new memories that worry you are brought to your conscious mind first. We call
these stressful memories stored in your sub conscious. You have to let your mind
be relaxed, and let them flow one by one. Your body is saying, look this happened
yesterday. Then you became distracted with something else so it’s not resolved.
Now I represent it to you for resolution. What do we do now?
X: Do I resolve it, by pondering about it?
Madman: You have to just ignore it. Let it drift away like a passing
cloud and very gently bring your mind back to the mantra. In effect what you have
just told your mind is............it is ok this issue is not important to me anymore.
That stress dies a natural death instantly, as you have just told your body it’s
no longer something to worry about. You let go of that worrying thought and lighten
your mind and body.
Initially u will be bothered by several thoughts or worries of the days activities
and then the previous days, but as time goes by , and you have more experience in
meditation, memories recede to, previous week, then previous month, previous years
, later child hood, and finally you previous lifetimes.
X: For sure this process will take a very very long time?
Madman: You are going deeper and deeper and cleaning out your entire
memory bank of stressful thoughts deeper and deeper back in time and in the process
you are releasing your mind and body from deep rooted stress buried in your body
over a lifetime or several lifetimes. Yes it takes a long time. One can’t
predict how long, It depends on the person and how much Karma he has accumulated
over this and previous lifetimes. The good news however is, you are releasing these
distressed thoughts from the mind and forgiving yourself and making place for newer
and more divine thoughts every inch every day. So you are always gaining by replacing
bad thoughts with good ones.
X: I don’t want to remember incidents that happened when
I was young.
Madman: In meditation never say, I want this or I don’t want
this. You will only block yourself from progress. Surrender to the divine vibration
of the mantra. Trust its capacity to do what is right. Never doubt it.
X: The deeper stuff is scary.
Madman: Who do you think brings these memories to you? There is
a divine force unleashed by the mantras. It knows what has to be done, trust in
its vibrations and let it do what it needs to do. You say nothing, You decide nothing.
The moment you decide anything the ego centric ‘I’ is strengthened.
The entire purpose of meditation is to get rid of the ego centric and contaminated
‘I’. You have to surrender to the divine force of the mantra, which
is in a way surrendering to the divine. Trust the divine to do what is best for
you. After all it’s to reveal the divine we meditate. So just trust the divine
intelligence and give yourself up to it without hesitation.
Why would you want to avoid some memories? Is it not the same as saving garbage
within yourself? Would not cleaning those memories too, make you free from them
forever? A momentary discomfort for permanent freedom!
X: Is it possible that just by imagination you can clean yourself?
Madman: Did we not agree we must not examine or indulge all the
thoughts that arise in detail?....You are supposed to let the thought drift away
as soon as it surfaces by bringing your mind back to the mantra, as soon as you
realize your mind was drifting and engaging in the thoughts. When your conscious
mind lets the thought drift away, you are free of it forever. Consciously you have
told your sub conscious mind, This does not matter anymore. The vibration of the
mantra does what needs to be done with the thought. It does not have to concern
you anymore. This is the beauty of the cleansing process of the mind.
These disturbing thoughts are called stresses.. When there are too many disturbing
thoughts buried in your sub consciousness, The body becomes sick. The side effect
of meditation is People reporting healthier blood pressure, better sleep, lesser
sick days in a year. Improved moods, better concentration, lesser depressive thoughts,
and a feeling of better well being.
Thoughts that did not bother you will not surface in meditation. So it’s not
that you will remember every event in your life, Only unresolved emotional issues
will surface.
X: Ok
Madman: Troubling thoughts are like files on your office desk that
has not been processed. Just because you ignore them or forget them, they don’t
go away. They sit there. It will sit there till you say this has to be resolved
by either saying this is not important so put it in trash can, or sign and send
it away.
X: On the contrary, these thoughts trouble me and i don’t
want the mmemory to resurface.
Madman: You have to understand, normal humans don’t have
complete control of their minds. The mind controls them. Just because someone can
concentrate for short periods of time on a task does not mean he has control of
his brain. His mind rides him with the habits he seeded into it, The prejudices
he fed it, The beliefs he filled it with, habits that he developed to take short
cuts in life. These inputs to the brain have now set up a control system in his
own mind, to which he has become a slave. This is something one has to understand
very deeply. As time goes by we become deeper and deeper victims of our own minds.
People develop destructive habits and thought processes, and finally victims of
their own habits. .The older you become, the more rigid you become and the harder
it is to change.
If anyone claims he has complete control of his mind just ask him to sit for 20
seconds without a single thought crossing his brain, He has to be honest after the
experiment. It’s impossible for an average human to keep the mind without
stray thoughts even a few seconds.. That is why everyone, complains in initial meditation
practice sessions, their mind is never silent. A million thoughts bother them. This
is the revelation one undergoes when you try meditation. They realize that they
have absolutely no control of their own minds, That is why meditators call it the
monkey mind.
Don’t fear these destructive memories arise too? It’s critical to get
rid of them. As you get rid of these thoughts and what I call mental conditionings
that arise from troubled memories Your mind becomes more supple, and clearer. You
have a better vision and appreciation of situations in life as the mind is not biased
by prejudiced views. And you regain control of your mind.
Madman: Just remember, the fact that thoughts run through your
brain like wild horses without you being able to stop them, is proof that you don’t
control your brain.
Now you have to understand a very subtle point. Suddenly you begin to realize that
there is a new you,,,,,,,,,,, it is the one that is seeing what the brain is doing
and realizes you have no control over it? There is another part of your own mind
seeing your own out of control brain. It’s like there are two people within
you. One out of control, and the other watching it. This watcher is called the observer
within you. It just watches and informs you with no emotion, just complete honesty.
It’s like when you commit good or bad actions in life. There is a very honest
independent observer evaluating your actions and telling you inside your own mind.
Hey this is good this is bad. We usually shut this voice down and get on with what
we want to do or believe, to make life bearable.
It’s very important that you recognize this pure voice within that never lies
to you. You should recognize these two you’s within you.
The contaminated ‘you’ is the ego centric you, an artificial creation
by you in response to this contaminated world. That pure voice within is the one
you were born with and you slowly buried over time. This pure you lies buried under
this contaminated you.
The ego centric mind has a very deep rooted fear of this pure natural mind with
which you were born, as it always exposes and always shows you your contaminated
desires lusts, fears , insecurities, survival instincts, ego centric existence.
Greed for money of emotions, self cherishing attitudes. This creates stress and
dissonance in our selves. So we quickly bury this pure mirror or conscience over
time.
This pure mind of yours is hard to listen to, as it always exposes your egocentric
contaminated self and holds up this image in front of you to see. Whereas the ego
centric mind indulges you.
This very pure self we are born with deep within is possessed by everyone. This
is the divine self god gave us. Depending on how deluded a person has become with
his ego, the extent to which this pure self is hidden, varies from person to person.
For some people it’s completely buried, and nearly impossible to reach.
For some it’s buried lightly and easier to reach into with light dusting.
When you still your mind and remove all the junk thoughts in meditation, just
believe in your mantra and completely surrender to it. Through continuous practice
of meditation You kill your ego centric self and bring this pure genuine self out
from its depths within you
X: Explain the role of the mantra?
Madman: The mantra for meditation is given by your trusted guru
who knows you well. The guru knows with his divine vision, what vibration best resonates
with you. Every mantra is pure vibration that will affect all your levels of consciousness.
This mantra will take you deep within your inner-self. In reflective meditation
it’s recommended to go slow clearing the layers of depth slowly. If you go
in too fast with very hard concentration, Nature kicks back as previous upper layers
have not been cleared. So as you go in deep suddenly, the upper layers of memories
collapse on you. If on the other hand you clean each layer slowly and sequentially.
Over time you will find you can go in deeper faster without effort, although this
may not seem so initially.
This is why in reflective meditation, we actually say when thoughts arise it’s
a good sign. Because it means cleansing has started. This is contrary to popular
belief where it is believed we must prevent other thoughts from coming. This is
incorrect.
There is another reason why you should not prevent other thoughts from coming.
The moment you fight other thoughts, by admission you are no more focusing on the
mantra. Your mind is involved in fighting other thoughts.
What is more critical is to let thoughts float in and then let them float out
by continuously bringing your mind back to the mantra slowly.
As your meditation develops, you will find that over time. Your mantra starts to
become blurred, mispronounced and like a dull memory. This is a very beautiful stage.
It means your mind is going in so deep, that even the mantra is getting lost. This
is lovely. This is the first indication that soon you will experience long periods
where you suddenly become aware you were never reciting the mantra, and you had
no thoughts. This is called deep meditation, Samadhi or in a transcendental state.
This is the goal in reflective meditation. The longer you are in this state. The
greater the chances that you will have visions of the cosmic universe.
There is also a state which is beyond visions as well. But this is not for discussion
with at this level of discussions.
X: Will it take forever?
Madman: There is never a constant a speed or consistent speed of
cleaning; it’s never the same for everyone. Everyone has different Karmas
and samskaras in this and previous life times. Some people have been known to go
into Samadhi in their very first attempt or within a few months. Some take several
decades. The critical point to understand is, Every second you meditate its beneficial.
Nothing is wasted, every second counts. For those who take longer, you have to remember
someone who seems to have taken shorter, may have spent previous life times in Samadhi,
when you are having fun. This universe is extremely fair and balanced, it does not
play favorites. Everyone has the same deal, although to you it may not seem so to
you, The gurus know it to be true.
One should also be aware that, as you clean your memory banks of troubled thoughts
and misconceptions. The rate of progress becomes rapider, although it may seem in
the initial months and years that you seem to be progressing slowly.
First the glimpses of the goal of meditation, comes in blur of sharp jolts. It’s
like the clouds slowly clearing. First you have brief hazy glimpses, then as you
go along, the visions become more frequent and then sharper.
One has to just go on and on in his or her sadhna.
X: When the picture starts to become clearer does it mean you have
reached the final stage?
Madman: Far from it. It just means you have reached the first marker
on a long journey. But on a positive note. The first marker is the hardest to reach.
If you have reached here, the journey will from now on be much more rapid.
It’s at this stage one enters a very hard phase of confusion. On one side
you would have seen direct visions of the universe and gods perhaps. Yet you seem
to have bad qualities lingering. This is extremely confusing. Sometimes you will
be called a pretender, a fake. You will have the same doubts yourself. Be patient.
The explanation is simple. While your karmas are clearing and purity is increasing.
Old habits are harder to shake off. The mind adapts faster, the body and tissues
with their old ingrained habits take longer to readjust.
Be patient, continue your sadhna. Overtime these too will be overcome and there
will be a new transformed you, internally and externally.
Reflective meditation attributes
· Effortless sustained attention.
· A more universal bare awareness.
· May shift into intuitive insightful modes.
· A bare choice less awareness develops.
Concentrative meditation
· Effortful sustained attention.
· Deliberate and one pointed.
· May involve into absorptions.
· Attention skills more than awareness skills develop.
About Author - In search of the ultimate truth beyond concepts and notions, in that
silence, after 20 years in soulless corporate board rooms.
https://twitter.com/#!/sanjayrao1010
