Part 3
Preparation for Meditation
Before one is ready for meditation, there are two necessary steps one has to practice. First one should learn to train one’s attention, and then one should learn to concentrate: only then can one learn meditation. One should learn to pay attention toward what one does.
Many people create great problems for themselves by not paying attention, and this keeps them from enjoying anything. Many people fill up their intestines, they stuff their stomachs full, without paying any attention. But they still feel empty because they have not satisfied their minds. Many people do sex while their minds are somewhere else; they do not know how to enjoy it. Many people do not enjoy a restful sleep because they use this time to be somewhere else in their dreams. Many people, when conversing, habitually say, “Huh? I beg your pardon. What did you say?” because their attention drifts somewhere else.
All this dissipation overburdens the mind. Wherever one is physically, whatever one is doing, one should be there mentally also. One should learn to train one’s attention.
Then one should develop the ability to concentrate. Concentration is the fruit of the long practice of attention. Concentration is actually very easy: one simply has to sit down and close off the nostrils. Then if one tries to think of many things, it will not be possible―the mind will think only of breathing.
This means the mind is very closely related to the breath and that it can be trained with the breath. No matter how much someone loves another person or one’s wealth or home, the highest love is the mind wedded with the breath. They are so deeply wedded and committed to each other that they live together all the time. If there is some problem in the mind, it will be reflected in the breath. The highest of all objects for concentration is breath awareness.
Once the mind becomes one-pointed, it is a tremendous force. It can create miracles in the world and increase the happiness and well-being of others. A one-pointed mind bestows immense physical, neural, mental, and spiritual benefits.
The States of Consciousness
The school of meditation talks about the body, mind, and spirit in the following way. One has a body, but he is not the body. Then, when one starts observing himself, one comes to know that he is a breathing being also, and then he learns that he is a thinking being too. When one examines his thinking process, one finds that up to a certain period he thinks, and then he starts dreaming and going into a deeper state of unconsciousness called sleep. One experiences three states of mind: waking, dreaming, and sleeping.
The conscious waking part of the mind is being trained by our educational system, but there is no systematic education anywhere that trains the unconscious mind, the totality of the mind. So far, most people have been trained and educated to see, watch, and verify things externally, but they do not know how to understand their own internal states.
No one teaches people how to dream or how to sleep or what happens when one dreams and sleeps. So only a small part of mind is being educated by the so-called educational system, and no one teaches whether one can go beyond the three states of waking, dreaming, and sleeping, or how one would feel, what one’s condition would be, beyond these three states of mind. If one is not able to go beyond these three states of mind, then one cannot establish a link between the unconscious and the center of consciousness.
Meditation is the method that teaches one how to know all these states. So, if one really wants to understand oneself, one should invest some time in meditation. But if one does not understand the method of meditation, one should not pose to sit in meditation and waste one’s time and energy. If one merely learns to sit quietly, breathe deeply, and gently allow all one’s thoughts to go away, even this will be very helpful and relaxing. Deeper states and higher steps of meditation will lead one to Self-realization, to a higher level of being.
The first path says one should gather enough information through books, teachers, seminars, sages, and sayings and then, with doubts dispelled, follow the path that millions have followed before. The other says one should start practicing and let his experience guide him. Both of these paths should be united―one should learn and know, and at the same time practice.
No one is fully happy when treading the path of the external world. Yet the path of meditation does not condemn the external path. The external path is full of means, but it is not the end. If one is searching for the end, for fulfillment, by following the external path, then he is searching in the wrong place.
The method of meditation systematically leads one to the source of consciousness through experiencing various levels, one after another. Whenever the mind goes from one experiential state to another, it is a new experience, and the mind will definitely be bewildered and confused. One is already confused, though, so one should not be afraid of the new confusion or want to give up. One should learn to understand all the other levels of consciousness.
This path does not promise that one will meet God, because that is a word that has never been analyzed by anybody. People have been wanting this for ages, creating more misery for themselves and having little solace. But they are not trying to understand the Reality. The path of meditation will not give one anything that one does not already have. The path of meditation will lead one to oneself on all levels.
People know themselves only on one level, and therefore they think they are small and limited; they are confused and hate themselves. But the path of meditation says this petty self is not the true Self. When one knows the Reality, one knows that there is no difference between the Reality and oneself. One realizes, “I am That.”
Reprinted from Dawn vol 3, no 4