121. What is the right way to approach Meditation?

The first thing is, be sincere. Keep an open mind. Have the openness to experiment. Be enthusiastic.

There is a beautiful term in the Zen tradition to describe the attitude – the beginner's mind. It means looking at every single thing in life as new, so everything in life excites you.

The second thing is, be optimistic. Bliss is a perfectly realizable goal for you, even if you are completely unfamiliar with meditation.

Once a man approached the great enlightened master Ramana Maharishi and asked him, 'Bhagavan, am I qualified for spiritual life?'

Ramana answered him with a question, 'Are you alive?'

The man was startled. He said, 'Yes, of course!'

Ramana replied, 'That is enough. You already have the necessary qualification for spirituality!'

The very aim of human life is enlightenment. The possibility of becoming enlightened lies in the Kundalini shakti, an extraordinary potential energy which is hidden inside every human body. If it can be awakened, it will take you to a different plane of consciousness, a different plane of Existence.

The possibility to become a different conscious being is present only in human beings. Animals don't have this potential to become enlightened, to become different conscious beings.

The third thing is, be playful! Meditation is a big adventure. To become serious about meditation is to miss the whole point. Celebrate meditation. Simply enjoy it!

The fourth thing is, have patience. Don't start worrying about results the moment you start meditating.

A small story:

Three monkeys once found a ripe, juicy mango. Like all monkeys, they fought over the mango for a while. Then somehow, they had a moment of clarity, a moment of intelligence.

Instead of eating the mango right away, they decided to sow the mango. They knew that once the mango seed sprouted and grew into a tree, there would be more than enough mangoes for all three of them.

Each of them decided to take up one part of the task of caring for the mango plant.

The first monkey said, 'I will water the plant every day!'

The second monkey said, 'I will keep the soil healthy and rich, add fertilizers and ensure that the plant grows well.'

The third monkey said, 'I will guard the plant carefully and protect it from harsh weather and other animals.'

One month passed, then two, then three. There was no sign of any plant growing out of the soil.

The three monkeys called for an urgent meeting to discuss the issue.

The first monkey declared, 'As promised, I have been watering the seed every single day.'

The second monkey cried, 'As promised, I have been adding fertilizer and making the soil rich.'

The third monkey said, 'As promised, I have been guarding the seed very carefully. Not only that, I have been taking the seed out every single day to check whether it has sprouted or not!'

If you are greedy for instant results, you actually prevent the process from settling down in your system. You yourself block the whole process.

The fifth thing is, enjoy solitude. Give yourself a chance to experience your inner environment. When meditation becomes a part of you, bliss will flower naturally.

Why Meditation?

Four states of consciousness

Let me give you a simple diagram so you can understand what meditation can do and why meditation needs to be practiced.

Various States of Consciousness
	With Thoughts	Without Thoughts
With "I" Consciousness	Jagrat Wakeful State Thinking	Turiya Blissful State State of Full Awareness
Without "I" Consciousness	Swapna Dream State Dreaming	Sushupti Unconscious State Deep Sleep

We experience two states of mind in our day-to-day life, one is with thoughts, the other is without thoughts. We know we have thoughts when we are awake. In deep sleep, do we have thoughts? No. So there are two states of mind: with thoughts and without thoughts.

Our being also experiences two states. In one state we have a clear identity of 'I'. When we are awake, all of us are very clearly connected with the 'I' consciousness, we have an identity about ourselves – I am a doctor, I am an artist, etc. When we are awake, our 'I'

There is a fourth state that we have not experienced. It is called turiya.

consciousness will be like an undercurrent, alive all the time. But in deep sleep, we

do not experience the 'I' consciousness, am I right? When we are in deep sleep, we don't have the awareness of 'I'.

So understand that in the mind we experience two states, one with thoughts and one without thoughts. In the being also we experience two states, one with the identity of 'I' and another without the identity of 'I'.

Now let us understand how these two states of mind and the two states of being connect with each other and create different states in our consciousness.

The first state is the waking state, 'jagrat', when we are with 'I' consciousness and also with thoughts. When we are in the waking state, we are very conscious of our identity and we also have thoughts. In this waking state, the frequency of 'I' is higher than the frequency of thoughts. That is why, with the help of the strong 'I' identity, we are able to control our thoughts in this state. If we wish to, we can create a thought, control it, or expel it. This is possible in the waking state.

The next state is the dream state, 'swapna'. In the dream state we have many thoughts but there is no 'I' consciousness. We are not conscious of our identity in our dreams, but thoughts exist. That is why possibly in your dreams, you might see yourself studying in school but sitting with your son next to you! This shows that there is no clear, logical identity of you in the dream state. In the dream state the frequency of 'I' consciousness is lower than the frequency of thoughts. That is why you are not able to control the thoughts. That is also why you frequently have erratic and illogical thoughts.

In the waking state, the frequency of 'I' is higher than the frequency of thoughts, and that is why we are able to control our thoughts. In the dream state, the frequency of 'I' is lower than the frequency of thoughts, and that is why we are not able to control the thoughts in our dreams.

In the third state, the deep sleep state, there is neither 'I' consciousness nor thoughts. This state is called sushupti. We neither have thoughts nor an identity in this state.

These are the three states that we constantly experience in our lives – the waking state, dream state and deep sleep state.

But there is a fourth state that we have not experienced. It is called turiya. In this state the 'I' consciousness exists but without thoughts. It is called thoughtless awareness. Very few people experience this in their lives. Some people experience this for a few seconds and then go back to their regular waking state.

If you get a sudden shock or if you are sitting with nature in a completely relaxed state and in deep silence, it is possible that for a few moments you experience this thoughtless awareness. The identity is alive, the 'I' consciousness is alive, but there are no thoughts. This is the fourth state of turiya.

All our physical and mental illnesses take root in the dream state. The dream state starts penetrating and overlapping the deep sleep and waking states.

If our waking state is penetrated by the dream state, it is called daydreaming. We fantasize or imagine endless things that we wish to do. If our deep sleep is penetrated by dreaming, it is called disturbed sleep.

Continuously during the day or night, our dream state disturbs us. When our deep sleep state is disturbed by dreams, it results in problems like chronic fatigue and insomnia. When our waking state is disturbed by dreams, we will be daydreaming with much less awareness of the world around us.

You might have experienced that sometimes you will get into your car, drive for thirty miles and reach your office. Only when you stop in your parking lot, take the keys and get out, suddenly you realize you have driven for so many miles! You would have made hundreds of decisions from the time you got into the car to the time you reached your office like deciding to press the clutch, to press the brakes, to press the accelerator, to put on the turn signal, or to stop at the traffic light, etc. You would have made all these decisions, but without any awareness of making them. Suddenly you realize, 'Oh! I have reached the office!' When this happens, be clear, the dream state is overlapping or penetrating the waking state.

The more the dream state penetrates the waking state, the more the frequency of our consciousness decreases. We may be living in our human body, but we will not be living a truly human life.

When the frequency of consciousness comes down, we will not be fully aware about the decisions we make. We will not be aware of the kind of words we are thinking. We will not be aware of what is going on inside of us. It will be as if we are living in a house, but we do not know everything that is happening inside that house.

Living in the waking state, continuously disturbed by the dream state, is what I call living in hell.

All our physical and mental disorders are directly due to the dream state penetrating either the deep sleep or the waking state.

Meditation is needed to infuse deep awareness into both your waking state and the deep sleep state.

If both the waking state and the deep sleep state are penetrated by the dream state,

we will have physical andmental disorders.

The waking state being penetrated too much by the dream state is what we call depression, because then we will not have the clarity to think fresh thoughts. We will not have the freedom or energy to move beyond our negative thought patterns. When depressed, we feel like all the doors are closed, all the possibilities are exhausted.

You ask, 'Why should I meditate?' Meditation is needed to infuse deep awareness into both your waking state and the deep sleep state. Instead of the dream state penetrating the waking and deep sleep states, with meditation the turiya or blissful state will start penetrating the waking and deep sleep states!

Meditate to bring turiya into every moment of life

The more we meditate, the more our awareness increases, and the closer we move to the consciousness of the fourth or turiya state. Turiya itself means fourth. You cannot give an exact name to this state. It is known by many other names: samadhi, enlightenment, atmagnana, brahmagnana, nirvana, satori, to name some of them. They all denote the same state of consciousness. When this state starts penetrating and overlapping the waking and deep sleep states, we will see good health happening in the body, mind and being. We will start experiencing causeless bliss. Then our very state of being becomes meditative!

The purpose of meditation is to experience this fourth state at least once. Once we experience this fourth state, we can bring the influence of it more and more into our waking and deep sleep states.

If our waking and deep sleep states are completely influenced by the fourth state, turiya, that is what we call jeevan mukti or living enlightenment.

The purpose of meditation itself is to bring the fourth state of turiya into our waking state and deep sleep state.

Why do we need meditation techniques?

Meditation techniques are not there to help you achieve anything. They are there to help you remember that you have not yet found eternal bliss!

If I suddenly tell you, 'Slip into bliss!' is it possible for you? No! You are not even aware that bliss is your natural state. But when you hear so many masters prescribing meditation again and again, you continuously remember that you are still seeking.

Meditation techniques are the lifebuoys that help you cross the ocean of bliss. When you are just learning to swim, will you directly jump into the ocean on your own? No! You need a lifebuoy to keep you afloat. In the same way, to enter into the ocean of bliss, you will need a method to help you initially. Meditation is the most natural method for you.

Meditation techniques are nothing but lifebuoys. Once meditation becomes your way of life, you will automatically drop all the techniques, because meditation will become the very quality of your life, no longer a routine that you make time for each day. Every moment will be meditative. Meditation will be a continuous happening in you, irrespective of what you may be doing in the outer world.

People ask me why are there so many meditation techniques available today. First, there are so many different techniques because there are lots of different types of people. Each person has a different mental setup. A technique that suits one person may not suit the other. So you can experiment to see which technique works best for you. Second, when you keep trying one meditation after another, the very effort of doing all the different meditations will eventually make your mind drop into restfulness, into the ocean of bliss!