WHAT IS MEDITATION?

 

WHAT IS MEDITATION?

One question which is often asked by seekers to a spiritual Guide, is, "What happens during meditation"

Well, the curious mind, which has, so far, identified itself with its conditioning, thoughts, and own conceptions, yearns to transcend itself, to know the truth about the truth, to reach the unreachable. Meditation, is a step to introduce this mind to the truth.

During meditation, the meditator strives for maximum awareness. And this striving is paradoxical - it comes only after complete relaxation and ‘at easeness’. One should not be, therefore, rigid or conditioned even about approaches to meditation.

In due course, the mind perceives many new sensory lights, sounds and smells, which for it, did not exist earlier. These serve as indicators of progress. The mind now knows that there is nothing known as soundless. That in fact, the absence of noise which we call silence, alone leads to anahata, the eternal reasonance, vibrating the universal sound of Aum.

Similarly, that, which we have known as darkness, is actually permeated by lights. And the air around you seems to carry the scents of the Divine, which are now tangible, real.

So, meditation, in fact begins to sharpen our senses, and they discover newer dimensions, get hooked on to frequencies which were unknown to us earlier.

Then, in a more advanced stage, the meditator becomes conscious of an energy formation that rises slowly, up the spine. The steadily rising energy reaches the brain and explodes into a grand awareness. There is nothing more to be seen, heard or smelled; only a knowingness. This knowingness is known by itself.

The mind that has been so stilled by the meditator into perfect awareness, knows that it has transcended itself, that it stands in the truth. That, it is experiencing eternity, void, nothingness, everythingness, all at once.

You are at once the knower and the known, the experiencer and the experienced, and you are also the experience itself ! You ARE the knowing. This is called Self realisation, enlightenment, Atma vyapti.

The concept of time too, stands radically altered, because you know you have taken a cosmic journey in a split second; indeed, you have experienced time immemorial in a fraction of the present. Later, when the mind returns to the level of intellect, and then reflects upon the experience, it may be called ‘near death’ since there was no body or mind consciousness at the time; and you are trying to understand it through memory. You are filled with the wonderment again, who was it that experienced all that?

Only pure Consciousness reflecting upon pure Consciousness- A declaration of the primordial state of being, what you were before you were born!

Aum Namah Shivaye.

~ Shail Gulhati: Shiva and Mysticism.