53. 85. Don't meditate.
# 85. Don't meditate
- Doing meditation by merely sitting down physically is a good exercise. That is all. Involving mind also along with the body is a good ritual. There is nothing more than that. If you involve fully and totally all the three (i.e.) body, mind and spirit while doing meditation, then only it is true meditation.
- For a meditator sincerity is a great treasure. It is a basic qualification too.
- For an insincere person, he cannot get the best benefits of meditation.
- If we learn to bring deep sincerity in whatever actions we do, then all the actions that we do will become meditation.
A Zen disciple and a Sufi disciple...
Zen: What is the interesting part of your life?
- Sufi: That particular day when I realized the truth that 'I am a fool'.
- Zen: What is the difficult part of your life?
- Sufi: All those days when I was thinking 'I am intelligent'.
- Zen: Which one will you point out as amusing?
Sufi: When we are in the ignorant state only our positive side comes to our notice. That is amusing.
Zen: 'The Wheel of Life' – How to explain this briefly?
Sufi: There is no necessity to do meditation for a fool as well as a mystic. Whoever is remaining in between these two states must and should do meditation. Knowingly when one does it, it is called as meditation. Otherwise what man does is a world feat. The examination given to your mind through the world is called achievement. Meditation is an achievement! Achievement is a meditation! A man cannot escape from meditation, which is the axle of the life wheel and is in between being a lunatic and being a Buddha – the two extremes of man-kind.
Meditation is your life.
Your life itself is a meditation only.
Ritual which is done sincerely and in all its totality is also a meditation.
Whatever is done with a lack of sincerity and without total involvement, even if it is meditation, it is only mere ritual.
When you hear this does it feel like you had an electric shock?
Rituals and customs are not ordinary matters, as many may think.
For the man to live peacefully, and in permanent bliss in the present moment, out of the various methods discovered, rituals are one such.
If you have to say it still more correctly, they are also methods of meditation only.
But today's condition has changed up-side down. They have been changed into compulsory rituals which have become compulsions that should and must be carried out according to one's own religion, caste and creed.
Rituals have become an ordinary matter because people do not perform it with sincerity and involvement.
On the other hand, meditation has its own value and respect in the minds of the people.
Even though they have not involved themselves in meditation, meditation should be done. Meditation is good for you. You will be joyful if you do meditation -- Many such ready-made statements are available in plenty with the people.
Some times, some people do certain things in the name of meditation and believe that they are progressing in spirituality.
A vagrant's story which gives a solution to all the above:
Lee Majoli felt grief that he had not yet got salvation even after doing 'Sasen' meditation for many years.
Lee Majoli's long time craving, 'I must find a solution by approaching a living Master' got fulfilled that day.
Lee Majoli had the opportunity to meet the mystic Isakkiya Minda.
Lee Majoli paid his respects to Isakkiya Minda and said, 'I have been doing 'Sasen' meditation for the last 15 years. Yet I have not got salvation. You have to give me a solution.
Isakkiya Minda shouted angrily at the top of his voice to his disciples, 'Who allowed such a fool like this man to come inside? Any number of times I tell you, don't you all have any sense?'
Lee Majoli felt as though he himself got slapped on his cheek harshly. Due to these insulting words of Minda, anger was boiling within him. But he was craving for an answer to his question and he wanted to have a solution. So again he started, 'For the last 15 years, I...'
Barely had he begun and Isakkiya Minda firmly said, 'I do not wish to talk to you. You go and come later.'
Though the sadness of 'I have not got the solution' affected Lee Majoli very much, Isakkiya Minda's contradicting words 'do not wish... go and come...' were ringing in Lee Majoli's mind again and again.
Next day, Lee Majoli had a chance to meet Isakkiya Minda on the way.
After bowing to him, Lee Majoli asked him, 'Even after doing meditation for 15 years, I have not had any benefit. What can I do?'
Isakkiya Minda said just two words, 'Don't meditate' and started walking.
Lee Majoli felt as though his mind had broken into two. Lee Majoli felt hatred towards life. Having lost his faith Lee Majoli took a decision to commit suicide by jumping into the nearby river. He thought, 'All right. Let me do meditation for one last time.' So he started to meditate.
Suddenly he could feel someone touch his head. Lee Majoli raised his head and looked up.
Fondling his head, there stood Isakkiya Minda near him.
When Lee Majoli was struggling to understand what was happening there, he saw a man on the same bank of the river, keeping a statue of Buddha, saying...
Buddham Saranam Gachchami. Dhammam Saranam Gachchami. Sangam Saranam Gachchami.
A Buddha devotee was worshipping with devotion.
Isakkiya Minda pointing to that man said to Lee Majoli, 'Did you show the same involvement and sincerity that man is showing in his worship, in your meditation?' After asking this question, he started walking away.
The more and more Lee Majoli thought over it, truths dawned on him one by one.
He began to understand that in the last fifteen years of his practice of meditation not even once he had done it with devotion and sincerity. This was his problem.
When the question arose in him, 'When it is possible to do even a ritual with full involvement like meditation, why not I do meditation with full involvement?' the fifteen-year-old foolishness dropped from him!
What is your state of meditation? Is it done with devotion and sincerity? Or is it done as a compulsory ritual done on a superficial push which is again on a compulsion from some persons?
Think well about it... Involve yourself fully in the method of meditation. I again tell you.
If done with full sincerity, even ritual is meditation. Even if you do without sincerity a meditation method taught to you by a living enlightened Master, it will be a mere ritual only.
The result of a meditation method depends upon your sincerity.
A meaningful incident.
Dr. Murali Krishna asked me once, 'Master, shall we list out what all diseases, meditation will heal'.
I told him, 'Meditation done with sincerity will heal all diseases, which could be named by you as well as diseases which cannot be named by you.'
- There is only one root cause for all diseases. That is a deficiency of energy! Also meditation too knows to do only one action. That is to set right the energy deficiency. As the energy becomes all right, disease becomes all right.
Meditation chisels. Chisel No. 40.