Even regular practitioners of meditation complain that they cannot focus their minds properly during meditation. It is because unknowingly they become too mechanical in the way they practise it: they don’t find it interesting or they don’t get any joy doing it. Inevitably, it becomes too boring to do it on a regular basis. Gradually, the motivation withers and they don’t make much progress.
The real issue here is not so much about learning how to focus our mind during meditation, but learning how to develop a true liking for meditation. Developing a true taste for something is a matter of experience. The first step in developing taste for something is to have a little exposure to its taste. We have to use this method with a child who is too fastidious about its eating habits. We have to cajole and coax the child to try different foods. If we as adults want to develop a taste for different foods, we have to first try them in small amounts.
There is a difference between talking about the sweetness of sugar and actually tasting it. We may know everything about the manufacturing of sugar: how the sugar cane is crushed, how to build a factory to crush it, from where the machinery is to be obtained, what different varieties of sugar are available in the market, etc. But unless we actually taste it, all this information would be meaningless. If we just take a small pinch of sugar and put it in our mouth, we can get a direct, immediate and first-hand experience of its sweetness. The importance and real worth of any knowledge can only be assessed in the context of actual experience.
Similarly, we may collect all sorts of information about meditation: the different techniques available, how they are supposed to be practiced, where to get the training, and so on. But all this information is meaningless if it is not followed by doing something concrete to get the direct, first-hand experience of meditation.
If we are seriously interested in learning meditation, we should not waste our precious time in merely collecting all such information, but pay more attention to the actual doing of meditation. The information is relevant only when we actually start learning meditation. Otherwise, it amounts to carrying an unnecessary burden in our head, which has no real worth of its own. Why carry such a load and waste our time and energy? It is like burdening our precious brain cells with worthless garbage and waste material.
Once we have the actual experience of meditation, there is hardly any need to collect more information than what is necessary to make progress in meditation. After we have made sufficient progress in the experiential knowledge of meditation, collecting further data about various techniques of meditation would probably have little significance. After the direct experience, nothing else really matters.
It is quite interesting to know that after mastering meditation, even if somebody is critical about it, we don’t get upset about such comments. We don’t feel the need to either justify or vehemently oppose the person. As long as we know the truth, what other people think about it hardly matters to us.
A famous author receives an invitation from a group of aspiring young writers to conduct a one-day seminar on ‘How to be a successful writer’. On the day he asks the audience a simple question: ‘How many of you are really interested in becoming a writer?’
Almost all the students raise their hands. The author tells them, ‘If you are really serious about being a successful writer, my only advice to you is to go to your rooms and start writing.’ After giving this advice, he declares that the seminar is over and leaves the hall. Surprisingly, the students rated this seminar as the best seminar of the year.
I think the author was absolutely right. If we want to learn something, we have to plunge ourselves into action. We will learn more about what we are doing through our actions than mere words, theories and descriptions.
This is true with meditation. In the beginning we do need some initial information about how to start. As we proceed on the path, we certainly have to get proper help and advice from time to time, according to the stage of spiritual evolution we have reached. However, all the while, the practical application of the knowledge should be emphasized rather than mere information. Actual ‘walking’ is far more important than anything else: those who ‘walk’ reach the destination and those who just ‘talk’ reach nowhere near their goal and get lost.
Once we actually taste the flavour of what it feels like to be in a state of meditation, we may choose to gather some information about other techniques of meditation that are described in the authentic scriptures on yoga. But now the situation is different. Having practised meditation for some time and experienced its actual flavour, it is quite fascinating to read the scriptures on yoga. At this point it is more like fun than collecting information. It has a very different meaning and significance. The most important point is that now we can read between the lines, where the real storehouse of wisdom from such literature lies.
It is an immense joy to tap the precious reservoir of wisdom contained in the scriptures. With the help of such wisdom, we can scan the facts we have gathered on meditation from other sources. The scanning is useful for making a right choice about the meditation which is most appropriate for our spiritual progress. When we choose an appropriate type of meditation, we make rapid advancement in meditation and concurrently develop a greater taste for it.
A patient once complained to me, ‘Doctor, I had a problem in my stomach for which I went to a gastroenterologist. He advised me to undergo a long list of different tests and investigations. When he studied the reports of those tests, he could not find anything wrong with my body. I think I made a terrible mistake by going through the ordeal of those tests. I spent a lot of money, which was nothing but a colossal waste.’
The doctor had no choice in the matter: he had to conduct the investigations to arrive at a specific diagnosis to start a specific line of treatment, based on the findings of those tests.
I had to explain to the patient that the purpose of the investigations was to correctly diagnose the underlying pathology of the disease process and to confirm whether he was healthy or sick. I told him, ‘Now, after the investigations, at least you know for sure that there is nothing wrong with your health. There is no organic pathology in your body to substantiate clinical findings. The doctor had no way of knowing this, without having the test reports in front of him. This information was necessary for him to decide about the exact line of treatment to be given to you. And that was the reason why he had to ask you to get those tests done.’
I took the opportunity to impress upon him the importance of starting yoga in earnest by saying, ‘Now you know that you are healthy, so you can safely start with the full course of yoga. There are no restrictions on you.’
It is true that some medical investigations appear superfluous to patients. However, doctors recommend such procedures for several reasons. The foremost among them is of course to work towards a correct diagnosis and treatment. But they should be used more judiciously as patients are often wary of the medical fraternity and the high-tech procedures.
Something similar happens in the case of meditation. There are several methods of meditation to choose from. To find out which one among them is most suitable for us, it is very important that we start with the simple ones first. If they don’t work after initial trials, it is better to approach the ‘doctor of meditation’ for consultation and advice. He is the right person who can ‘diagnose’ our problem and immediately ‘prescribe’ some ‘remedy’. If he is not satisfied with the diagnosis, he may suggest we go through some ‘spiritual investigations’ to arrive at a proper diagnosis of our problem with meditation. The spiritual investigation is mostly in the form of a simple modification or slight refinement in our meditation practice. Thus, he gets a vivid picture of our problem. He may also decide to ‘admit’ us into his ashram or ‘spiritual hospital’ under his direct supervision and scrutiny while carrying out more ‘sophisticated and advanced’ spiritual investigations. In the light of his diagnosis, he prescribes a specific spiritual treatment. It is in the form of doing some spiritual experiments on us. We have to work on ourselves according to the ‘spiritual treatment’ he has prescribed to us for some time before we can expect any results. The best results come when we know which is the right meditation for our spiritual health. We have to spend some time, money and energy to get to the proper ‘diagnosis’ about which particular technique of meditation would be most appropriate for our ‘spiritual health’ and well-being. Obviously, it can’t be considered as a wasteful effort.
Once our problems in meditation are correctly diagnosed and properly treated by a competent ‘doctor of meditation’, we begin to enjoy real spiritual health in the form of profound peace of mind and boundless inner joy. As this happens, our taste for meditation grows in leaps and bounds.
It is very important at this point to be careful not to talk in superlative terms about our own method of meditation and underrate others. What we like about our method is a matter of our individual taste and what others like about their meditation is theirs. To denigrate a different method is a sure sign of vanity. What we need to do is to verify the authenticity of our own progress in meditation, to see whether it is real or imaginary.
No meditation is either superior or inferior to any other meditation in absolute terms. What suits us best may not suit another person at all and vice versa. We have to do whatever is best suited to us and let others make their own choice. We need to learn to respect other techniques, too. There is no point in criticizing other methods of meditation, because such criticism does more harm to us than the method or the person whom we criticize. Why waste our precious time and energy in letting our mind get more agitated and restless?
It is interesting that a true meditator can identify and appreciate another meditator, even though he may be following an entirely different method of meditation. This happens just like a true artist really understands and appreciates the artwork of another artist.
Meditation is the most precious of the arts. It helps us realize the true meaning of the art of living. The art of meditation is practised on the inner canvas of individual awareness, which gradually merges with the universal awareness. Only a person who is grown in awareness through meditation can really see and appreciate what is drawn on the canvases of individual and universal awareness. Thus, they know the real meaning of being happy with oneself and being happy within oneself. Only a truly happy person develops a true taste for meditation.
Now we know that we can improve our mental concentration by developing a true taste for meditation. But the important question is whether there is any difference between the taste for meditation and other tastes? If so, what is it? Developing a true taste for meditation appears very difficult. What can we do to make it easier? How do we develop a liking for meditation?
We ‘like’ certain objects, certain people and certain things from our surroundings and get attracted to them because of our liking for them. Obviously we do not like all the objects around us. We like some and dislike others. Our liking is ‘exclusive’ in nature and remains confined to certain objects only. When we like something, it is because of our individual choice.
For instance, when you are tired of eating the same chicken sandwich or cheese sandwich at home every day, you might feel like going out to dinner to eat a steak or enjoy a five-course French meal. If you like spicy food, you may go to an Indian restaurant. Over a period of time, we develop liking for different types and tastes of food.
A person who is truly mature, wise and has developed the right attitude towards life will not go out to eat steak just because he dislikes a chicken sandwich or a cheese sandwich prepared at home. He eats different food because he likes it as much as he likes his ‘normal’ food. So, he moves from one object of joy to another with ease and enthusiasm. He never complains, but enjoys whatever he is doing at a given moment. Naturally, he remains satisfied all the time and shares it with others too.
In the same way, there is a different kind of fun in being at home doing nothing or doing some household work at leisure or simply relaxing under a clear sky in the backyard. The joy of going out to attend an opera show is also a different kind of joy.
At a superficial level, it may appear that there is no difference between a person who is doing one thing because he has made a choice to do it and the other one who has not made such a choice. But deep down, their mental states could be quite different from each other. One who is planning to attend an opera because he is bored at home is going to spread his boredom further. If we are dissatisfied with something and that happens to be our motivation to do something else, we can never be truly happy in our life.
Being bored at times is quite natural. It only indicates that we are dissatisfied with something. If we try to run away from boredom, it grows. If we are ‘friendly’ towards our boredom, it quickly disappears. We have to try this to believe it.
It is therefore very important not to practice meditation because we want to avoid our day-to-day problems and run away from them. We should also not look at meditation as another novel pleasure that is different from other worldly pleasures.
Right from the beginning of our journey, we have to bear in mind that we have to practice meditation with a fulfilled mind. Our only motivation should be to personally explore, discover and experience the higher states of consciousness. If we practice meditation for the sheer joy of practice, it will reach fruition faster. It is a sure and powerful way of reaching higher states of consciousness, peace of mind and inner joy.
Developing a true taste for meditation is a matter of understanding the subtle differences between inner joy and outer joy. It also depends on the way we think and approach our life in general.
Meditation is essentially a special type of inward journey, but it is never in conflict with any other journey in the outer world. The terms ‘outer’ and ‘inner’ are not mutually exclusive in nature. They are intimately connected and interwoven with each other and represent a fundamental reality of life. We cannot draw a line of demarcation between them. These terms are used for the sake of convenience of description and communication.
It is said that ‘beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder’. An object appears beautiful to us not because it is actually beautiful, but because we are in a favourable inner state of being at the time we perceive that object. When such inner state gets in contact with the external object, it appears beautiful to us. The beauty also depends on our preconceived notions about it and the way we are trained to perceive and appreciate it.
The way we look at the external world gets modified according to our inner state. The world appears to us through the way we look at it. Whenever we look at an object, its image gets reflected in our consciousness. This image is evaluated according to our individual methods of evaluation. The same object may create different inner states, depending on individuals’ methods of evaluation. The inner state transforms the way we look at the object. Therefore, the way an object appears to us depends on the way we look at it. That is why the world looks so different to different individuals.
An ordinary person would feel repulsed at the sight of a poor, shabby beggar in the street, but a compassionate person like Mother Teresa would take him home to bathe, clothe and feed him.
Looking at a beautiful dress on sale in an expensive shop creates different mental states in a man and his wife. The husband may feel like buying it for his wife, but looking at the price tag on the dress, she may feel like spending that money on her husband and children.
There is a beautiful saying in Sanskrit: ‘The sins are not committed by our body, but by our mind.’ When we greet a dear friend, a beloved spouse or a daughter with a hug and a kiss, our body remains the same in each case, but our feelings and inner states are quite different each time. The physical act of hugging and kissing remains the same, but the inner state of being is different each time.
As a meditator, we should understand the subtle differences between experiences of the outer world and the inner world. In this way, we can learn to manage them according to their real worth and individual merit. Thus, we can strike a wonderful balance between our worldly life and spiritual life.
Human beings are different from each other because they approach life differently. For instance, those who ‘live to eat’ are vastly different from those who ‘eat to live’. Those who live to eat good food get attached to it and remain mentally engrossed in its taste. They are constantly preoccupied with thoughts about the food they have eaten or they are about to eat. Naturally, there is hardly any room left in their consciousness for other important issues like meditation. In contrast, those who eat to live never let thoughts about food or its taste occupy their mind for a long time. Both categories of people can eat the same food but, because they have different mind-sets, it tastes differently to them.
A person who is interested only in the food and its taste, eats it for the taste. Whenever he eats food, he wants to satisfy his palate with the taste. Such a person cannot really enjoy the food he is eating, because his mind remains preoccupied with expectations about the taste.
On the other hand, a person who is not very concerned about the taste of the food he is eating remains mentally free to enjoy its taste and appreciates it more. He eats it for the joy of eating. Other things do not matter to him. He enjoys whatever food he eats, regardless of its taste and therefore enjoys it more.
There is a world of difference between the attitude of a person who has sacrificed something for the sake of love and one who has sacrificed something with love. The one who has sacrificed for the sake of love tends to exploit it later to satisfy selfish personal interests. He keeps beating his own drum to cash in on the sacrifice. On the other hand, those who sacrifice something with love do it wholeheartedly. They do it so happily that they get a natural reward of inner satisfaction, without really striving for it. The results of their actions are built into the very act of their sacrifice.
The same thing happens in the case of a person who eats for the sake of joy and the one who eats with joy. One who eats with joy enjoys his food more, because he is not attached to its taste. On the other hand, one who eats food for the joy he derives from eating remains mentally attached to the food while he is eating it, as well as after it has been eaten.
If our mind is attached to food it will get constantly drawn towards its taste, flavour and so on. Naturally, we will not be able to practise meditation properly.
Grooming our mind for the inward journey of meditation can be a little difficult. If our mind is lost in thoughts about different objects from the external world, this journey becomes more difficult than it should be. The practice of meditation will be very difficult for us if we are not able to keep our mind together and gently direct it inwards. We will not be able to enjoy meditation if it is too difficult for us, and if we don’t enjoy it, we will not be able to do it on a long-term basis. Unless we practice meditation persistently and patiently for a long duration of time, we will not be able to make much progress on the path of spiritual evolution.
A person who is ‘eating to live’ and is ‘sacrificing with love’ is a different kind of person. He can stabilize his mind more easily and much faster too. He certainly knows the importance and usefulness of different objects that are available to him in the external world, but he never lets himself get carried away by those objects.
He knows that food is essential for survival, but he is more focused on understanding other important issues in life. He does not attach excessive importance to the food he eats, nor does he reduce its importance. Naturally, his mind is never caught up in thoughts about food he has eaten yesterday or is eating today or will eat tomorrow.
I always wonder why people make such a big fuss if the food they are eating is not to their taste or they find hair in their soup or the spaghetti sauce is too thin or too thick. The wisest thing to do is to simply eat something else or to adjust the taste so that it agrees with our likes and dislikes. There is no point complaining and wasting time on such trivial matters.
A person who is after material pleasures keeps thinking about those pleasures all the time. He keeps constantly complaining about trivial things too. He complains about not having enough pleasures. After he gets some pleasures, he grumbles that they are not adequate and up to his expectations. In short, he moans about having the pleasures as well as not having them. Such a person is dissatisfied ‘with’ pleasures and ‘without’ pleasures too.
When a person who is constantly running after pleasures turns to the practice of meditation, he/she seldom does so because he is interested in learning meditation. He/she wants to learn meditation because he is thoroughly tired of his/her routine pleasures.
For most people like that, meditation provides a welcome change in their routine. They are interested in pursuing a different kind of pleasure through meditation. Some of them do it because they ‘want’ peace of mind. Some do it because they want to proudly talk about it at parties with their friends.
In India, many people go on a religious fast either once a week or at least once a fortnight. You can choose any day of the week, because every day is an auspicious day for the devotees of one deity or the other. You have a wide choice too, because there are hundreds of deities available for worship. But on such days people don’t really fast in the real sense. They only eat specially prepared food that is supposed to be eaten only on the fast days. This special food for the fast is so delicious that the devotees wind up eating more food on those days than they usually eat. Paradoxically, therefore, many of those who fast on one day suffer from indigestion or a bad stomach the next day.
Can we say that a religious fast is successful if it is followed by indigestion? No, we can’t, because the very purpose of fasting is defeated if it leads to indigestion. Real fasting involves giving the digestive system a complete rest so as to restore and revitalize its digestive power. It has a definite physiological purpose and significance.
Traditionally in India, all healthy practices are in some way or another connected with religious rites. It is certainly a very smart way of inculcating healthy habits in the minds of the general populace. Religious fasting is one such practice. The great religious masters from the past thought that it would be more appropriate to ask people to do something as a religious as well as a physical activity. When you are doing religious fasting it is expected that, apart from not eating anything, you will spend all your time in prayer and philosophical reflection. But over the years, many things have completely changed. People doing religious fasts seem to have completely forgotten its true meaning and real significance.
Therefore, it will be wrong if we start practicing meditation with an intention of enjoying a different kind of pleasure than usual. By doing so, we will only fool ourselves, but will never know what real meditation is.
If we carefully observe and study the limitations of various mundane things that are happening around us, we can easily understand the inherent limitations of worldly pleasures. Worldly pleasures do not satisfy our desires completely. On the contrary, fulfilment of one desire breeds new set of desires that need fulfilment. And, the cycle keeps repeating all the time. The most important limitation of every desire is its short lived nature or ‘transience’. Although every pleasure is transient, one’s desire for pleasures is ‘infinite’. Therefore, there is an on-going inner war between transience and infinity. After having understood this process, we can keep our desires within limits and then we will be able to practice meditation more effectively and enjoy it more too. Not only that, but we will also know how to enjoy worldly pleasures and still remain free of their bondage. By doing so, our mind will not linger in the outer world. Naturally, it will be available to go into the inner world. Once we know what it means to enter the inner world, the quality of our meditation practice will begin to improve substantially.
After we have started doing meditation properly, it takes quite some time before we develop a true taste for it. This is the most difficult part of the journey. We have to keep trying and be very patient.
Continuous practice of meditation without losing patience is possible only when we have the right mental attitude.
We do not need to give up pleasures to be able to direct our attention inwards. What we need to do is to be free of the craving for such pleasures. And unless we do that, we will not be able to practice meditation properly or develop liking for it.
Being free of attractions also does not mean that we should never enjoy worldly pleasures or give them up superficially, or turn our back on them. What we have to do is to discover and realize the binding influence of such pleasures on our mind. Once we realize the suffering that goes with such bondage, we will be free of it. Once we are free of the suffering and bondage, we will be free of the attraction to such pleasures. When an excessive attraction for worldly pleasures is reduced to a minimum, our mind becomes free of the disturbing thoughts related to such pleasures and will therefore not get drawn towards them.
Thereafter, practising meditation will be very easy, because our mind will remain silent during meditation as well as at other times. Whenever our mind becomes silent during meditation, we come in direct contact with our true self, which is seated at the core of our being. A contact with the true self is an experience of bliss. As this contact grows stronger and stronger, proportionately our joy in meditation also grows. Once we start getting true joy through meditation, we start looking forward to doing it every day and our mind begins to get settled much faster. At that stage there is no need to try hard to concentrate during meditation. It starts happening on its own and without much effort. Once we have reached this stage, real progress on the path of meditation begins.