Lost in your flight, your song and the thrill of freedom, you are now drawn not by what is below, but rather what is above. Tilting your neck upward, a radiant sky beckons as you bend your being up into its heart of infinite blue. The higher you fly, the brighter and fuller the hue until even its blue is dissipated into pure light as the all-real.
The world is now but a tiny speck far, far below, a miniscule memory dissolving in the fullness-embrace of ecstatic liberation. You are no longer conscious of having wings or of the act of flying or of having any physical form whatsoever: so far beyond the physical realm of relativity, speed has become irrelevant as your consciousness immerses into infinitely expanding, all-encompassing light and delight.
You are peace absolute, satisfaction supreme.
There is no passage of time: only an ever-intensifying present moment of fullness-perfection-bliss.
Gradually you become aware of a faint echo of gloom in your universe of light, and realise that your role is not complete until all is utterly illumined and liberated.
Inspired and determined, you focus your consciousness, arrow-like, to locate and expunge this impediment to your perfection: you will reveal the effulgent light hidden within any lurking shadow.
Dauntless, your search draws you to the finite realm. You perceive your light and liberation already within the heart of the world but masked, hidden, encaged. To free the world – and secure your own ultimate perfection – happily you fly back to your windowsill and hop into your cage … for the world can only see and hear our soul-bird singing its perfection-song and dancing its liberation-dance when it is inside the mind-vital-body-world-cage: hence it is here, encaged, where we must attain integral, ultimate freedom…
In a rush of light and air, instinctively your wings engage to keep you aloft. Dazzled, your world spins in a hurtling rush of colours, shapes, scents and sounds.
You are in another realm. Around the garden you fly, drinking in the array of vivid colours and sweet fragrances. Giddy you rise beyond your own backyard to discover more gardens, vibrant and abuzz with the joy and industry of life. Higher over the city you circle, spanning the myriad activities of people, animals, vehicles, streets, parks and buildings. Children play and laugh, while adults – heads bowed – go through their routine motions.
You fly out over the countryside, ranging over farms, rivers, highways and byways. Everything of the drama below fascinates, amazes and captivates you. Further afield you fly, over forests, lakes, cascading waterfalls, mighty mountains. The vast ocean stretches beyond the horizon, a new wonder to behold. Leaving behind the land with its myriad distractions and activities, you are drawn to the expanse of the sea.
Spontaneously you play with various modes of flight: now you soar, now glide, now dart and swoop, you perform aerial acrobatics for fun. Then, apparently from nowhere you are startled by the most beautiful music – sweet, charming, haunting and alluring – above and all around you. After some time soaring, immersed, bathed in song, you come to realise that you are singing: you are the source of this enthralling music. You give yourself utterly to your melody, your whole being and every cell athrill with the song of freedom and freedom as song.
Until now you have been focussed mostly on what is below: firstly the world and all its activities, and later the ocean calling with its vastness, grandeur and power.
Sit in a quiet place, alone, where you will not be disturbed.
Close your eyes and focus on your breathing for a few minutes, carefully regulating your breath to relax your whole body while calming your thoughts and emotions.
When you have reached a poised stillness, imagine you are a bird in a cage. Your cage has black metal bars. The porch where your cage hangs is all the time gloomy, stuffy and musty. The furniture is old and dilapidated. In a dim far corner a sorry, weary pot plant ekes out its existence, smothered in dust. An occasional spider has to be satisfied with the odd blowfly or elderly cockroach.
Once in a while your owner leaves food in your cage, without so much as a ‘hello’. You sit on your perch, occasionally reorienting yourself to face this way or that. Your days, weeks and months extend in monotonous glum numbness.
And so it continues, until…
One day upon delivering food, your owner neglects to secure the latch on your cage door. From your perch, you gaze in numbed wonder as the door of your cage slowly, gradually swings open.
Although you longed for it, you never expected or planned for this moment to actually arrive. After a long while staring at the gaping cage door, eventually you gather your courage and hop off your perch. You pause at the open door, threshold of your known world. Your pulse racing, you leap onto the windowsill and hop to the far end. With pounding heart you lean against the window to gather yourself…
… all of a sudden the creaky window swings open, you lose your footing and topple tumbling into thin air.
Shine a red light on the wall and it appears red. Shine a green light: it appears green.
Like the wall, we perceive the world according to the light of our own consciousness. When we are sad, the world appears ugly: when we are happy, the world is beautiful. We shine our own light on the world, and so the world appears.
Looking at the world, we see ourselves.
Each level of our being – body, vital, mind, heart and soul – has its own consciousness, its own light. Looking from our mind, we see our mind; looking with our heart, we see our heart.
The mind is finite; the heart infinite. Being finite, the mind sees itself as “inside” and the world as “outside.” For the heart, being infinite and all-encompassing, there is only “inside” – there can be no “outside.”
The mind walls itself in, isolates itself from the world. From the inside there will always be fear, doubt, suspicion, misunderstanding, jealousy and even hatred towards what is outside, toward “the other.” The heart however knows no boundaries, no separativity and hence no outside, no “other”. Where there is no “other” there can be no fear, doubt, suspicion, misunderstanding, jealousy or hatred, for all is oneself.
How can the light of the heart replace the light of the mind? The same way the light of the sun replaces the light of the moon and stars – naturally, effortlessly and spontaneously.
We have only to meditate in our hearts to become our heart’s light.
When we enter into and become our heart’s light, we shine our heart’s light on the world and thus see everything in a new light, the heart’s reality-light, the light of love, peace, joy, clarity, oneness and perfection.
Many of the Hindu cosmic gods and goddesses are depicted with multiple arms, each arm performing a different task, revealing a particular capacity or bestowing a gift or boon.
We too can develop multiple arms. We too can become the 10-armed god or goddess.
Our arms represent our capacities, manifest our talents and convey our gifts in the outer world; through our arms we build, create, reveal and offer.
The source of all capacities, talents and gifts, the source of inspiration, aspiration and the power of creation, is the inner world.
Meditation is the exploration and revelation of our inner world.
All capacities, talents and gifts are within us. We have only to unlock the inner doorway to each particular talent, capacity or gift that we seek. Meditation and spiritual practice are necessary to locate and unlock these inner doors. For some, certain doorways are already open, partially or fully: we may be blessed with a musical ear, a kind heart, a green thumb, a charming tongue, an eye for detail or a vivid imagination. Such existing talents, capacities and attributes can be nurtured, developed and heightened through meditation, while new capacities might either appear suddenly or be gradually cultivated.
Everyone who meditates regularly and sincerely will inevitably deepen existing capacities and develop new ones even without specifically trying. The qualities of our heart – love, sympathy, compassion, wisdom – automatically blossom as our consciousness makes good its escape from the narrow confines of the mind into the heart’s open sky. In this sky, the intuitive light of the soul more and more reveals myriad latent capacities of perception, creativity and spontaneous action.
Now we are sleeping gods, our arms tied behind our backs.
Meditate and awaken to realise, release and activate your many beautiful, powerful, brilliant and blessingful arms.
Everything is in constant motion. Nothing ever stands still. Even the so-called laws of the universe are in constant flux.
We are either jumping up, or falling down. We are breathing in, or breathing out; gaining, or losing fitness; growing, or decaying; learning, or forgetting.
So it is with spiritual progress. There is no standing still: we are either moving forward or we are falling backwards.
To ensure we move always forward, there can be no holiday from the spiritual life, for meditation is not about what we do, but who we are. We eat every day to nourish our bodies; we meditate every day to nourish our consciousness. We eat on weekends and holidays, because our bodies are with us: so we must meditate wherever our consciousness accompanies us – everywhere, every day.
There are no straight lines in Nature. Everything is curves, spirals, pulses and waves – even light, time and space. Our spiritual progress never proceeds in a straight line of continuous and even development. It proceeds rather in a spiral. If you follow the spiral groove of a screw from its base to its point, you will notice it goes up on one side, and down again on the other, yet the overall trend is always upward. Each high point on one side is always higher than the previous high points, while each low point on the other side is higher than the previous low points.
So never be disheartened by a dip in the quality of your meditation. Persist. Take it as a temporary lull preparing for a fresh surge of inspiration and aspiration to carry you upwards to a higher, vaster awareness.
No holiday! When we stand still, we drift backwards. Face forward, strive forward and stride forward, ever forward to the goal.
“Peace begins when expectation ends.” – Sri Chinmoy
Expectation hobbles our meditation.
We are used to always expecting some result from any activity we engage in. Otherwise, what’s the point of the activity?
Yet meditation is an activity like no other. Meditation is much more effective when it is practised with no expectation of any result whatsoever.
Expectation comes from the mind: we can therefore only expect whatever is within the mind’s domain of experience. Yet meditation is precisely the exploration of realms beyond the mind: we are inviting the type of experience which the mind – and therefore expectation itself – cannot grasp. Expectation severely restricts our capacity to receive the rewards, richness, depth and fullness of the meditation experience.
Expectation puts blinkers on us. We may be looking for A, B and C, while meditation is offering us the much rarer X, Y and Z – and we miss out because we are so fixed on A, B and C. Expectation only sets us up for disappointment. Tragically, expectation is one of the main causes why people give up their meditation practise before they have really experienced its many benefits – even though they may actually be meditating quite well.
Especially in the beginning, it is best not to even use the term “meditation.” The moment we give an activity a label, it is very difficult to avoid the trap of expectation. Just say to yourself that you are enjoying 10 minutes of peace and quiet every morning, to step back from the world and its stream of stresses. Expect nothing from it … and you will gain everything!
Don’t regard meditation as an activity: it is pure being. Once we can expel expectation and accept whatever our inner being offers during meditation, we open to the ineffable magic of the Beyond.
Your heartbeat is the constant of your life on earth. Whether you are awake or asleep, healthy or unwell, your heart beats within. No matter how you look or what you wear, your heart beats on. No matter what you are thinking or feeling, what you have been, what you are or will become, your heart beats. In happiness and despair, in victory and defeat, in glory and shame alike – your heart beats on regardless.
Exercise
The following exercise is only for the brave.
Sit alone, somewhere quiet, with your spine straight, yet comfortable. Be fully alert.
Focus on your breathing, slowing its flow till it is smooth, steady and silent. Allow all stress of thoughts, desires, challenges, dreams and aspirations – your very identity – to depart with your outgoing breath, dissipating into nothingness.
You alone are the centre and heart of a silent universe: its motor, your heartbeat. Listen to your heartbeat from within, watch it in wonder, observe, admire and adore it, lose yourself in it, become
only your heart beat.
You have no mind, no thoughts, no feelings, not even any form: you are only your heartbeat. Your heartbeat is the pulse of the universe and of every living being in it. Your heart beats in and through every beating heart, great and miniscule, sustaining the secret life in every thing, from the tiniest particle to the grandest galaxy.
Your heartbeat is your soul’s signature, its sacred gift of life, a gift for you to live, use, enjoy and offer lovingly, wisely, fully, gloriously and unreservedly.
What almighty force impels this marvellous miracle?
To what purpose does your heart beat?
Concentrate yourself utterly inside your heartbeat. Nothing else is. Listen carefully, attentively, exclusively, eagerly and devotedly … you will feel, become and reveal your soul’s purpose.
Meditation transforms us from within. This process is completely natural and normal. If you bring forth divine qualities – peace, light, wisdom, love and compassion – your outer life has to change for the better.
Being a natural process, spiritual growth takes time.
When we are teenagers growing very rapidly, we don’t wake up one morning suddenly a lot taller. From day to day we don’t notice drastic change in ourselves. Yet when we visit our grandmother whom we haven’t seen for 6 months, she exclaims: “My, how you’ve grown!” Many changes in us will be noticed first by others. Our colleagues at work may remark on an air of calm and poise about us. A common question is: “What’s wrong with you? You’re smiling the whole time!”
Because the results of meditation are often subtle, we may not notice them ourselves until sometimes months or even years down the track.
When we live in our minds we are goal-oriented, focused on “success”. Yet when it comes to meditation, the benefits of which are sometimes imperceptible to our conscious awareness, there is no definable criteria for what constitutes success – other than a complete absence of thoughts, which we very rarely achieve. The value of meditation is in its cumulative effects. Each time we meditate we are building on the achievements of all our previous efforts.
We tend to focus on our shortcomings. While aiming at the summit, we see how much further there is yet to climb, neglecting the tremendous distance already covered. Intent on quieting our mind, we are intensely aware of all the thoughts that are still not under control.
Sometimes it’s good to look back down and appreciate how far we have come.
Don’t judge yourself. Enjoy the journey. You will proceed smoother, faster and further.
Every day we cannot enjoy a sumptuous feast. Some days we might have all the ingredients on hand for a full banquet, while at other times we might go to the pantry only to find dry bread. If that is all that is available, then on that day we won’t starve: we get by on dry bread.
Meditation can be like that. On some days, without seeming to try, we find ourselves soaring in bliss without a care in the world. On other days, despite our fervent efforts, we just can’t disentangle ourselves from a maze of thoughts and distractions. Just as we eat every day to keep ourselves alive, so must we meditate every day, regardless of the perceived “quality” of the experience. Even on days when our meditation seems dry and tasteless, our day will flow better than if we don’t attempt to meditate at all. Discipline brings its own reward. The effort is everything.
Meditation is self-discovery.
The journey of self-discovery is eternal.
Imagine self-discovery is a grand palace which you are building brick by brick. Every time you sit down to practise meditation, you are placing another brick in the edifice. Some bricks may be buried away in the basement, yet every brick plays its role, each is as important as every other. Every time we practise meditation, we learn and gain something valuable, regardless of how well we feel we are meditating. Our palace is taking shape, brick by brick.
Every day we miss our meditation, one brick is taken away. So every day we miss, is effectively costing us two days, as we will have to spend one day replacing the brick that was lost before we can start to make forward progress again.
A good surfer practises techniques and hones skills. Preparation is essential; preparing the board, preparing oneself, finding the right break at the right beach.
Yet no matter how skilled, how experienced, how expert, without the wave the surfer is meaningless and helpless. All the best equipment, preparation and capacity is of no avail.
The essence and thrill of surfing is in riding the wave, experiencing its power and perfection. When riding a wave the surfer feels and becomes part of something greater and vaster than his or her self. He or she surrenders to that vaster reality in the freedom and exhilaration of the infinite. If there is no surrender, no letting go, the wave cannot be ridden and the endeavour is fruitless.
Preparation, technique, skill and the right attitude are all essential: yet when the surfer stands on the board, technique, equipment and attitude become secondary, as the wave itself takes over. The best surfer is the one who can most completely surrender to, and become the wave.
So is it in meditation. We must prepare ourselves with the right equipment, technique and attitude. When we are successful in clearing the mind is the moment when the surfer stands up on the board. At this moment, the wave must take control and we become spectators and enjoyers. We allow the meditation-wave of peace, power, light and love to carry us beyond and within to the freedom of the infinite.
After some time, it occurs to us to wonder: if the force of this experience is coming from the wave, from where does the wave derive its power?
Just as the surfer is nothing without the wave, so the wave is nothing without the ocean.
It is this ocean we must aspire eventually to become.
Meditation is self-discovery. Pure meditation is not something we do, it is what we are: not an action, but a state of being.
The active part of the process, the part we are responsible for, is concentration. In concentration, we focus and clear the mind. Meditation is entering and enjoying that infinite sky beyond the mind’s ceiling.
The sun is always shining, though we are sometimes unaware of it. When it is raining or in the night, we might think the sun has gone. In reality it is there, though covered with clouds or on the other side of the world. Similarly, our spiritual heart is always shining with peace, love and light, though sometimes we lose sight of it when our mind’s sky is overcast with the clouds of sadness, distraction and perplexity.
To see the sun on a rainy day, we have to clear the sky: to feel our hearts, we have only to clear the mind of its thought-clouds. This is the role of concentration. Meditation follows.
Meditation is like sunbathing. In sunbathing, we have a role to play: we have to prepare ourselves, find a comfortable place in the sun, spread our towel on the ground, remove our shirt and lie down. The real work of sunbathing is performed by the sun.
Similarly, in meditation we have to prepare ourselves: create the time, find a quiet place where we won’t be disturbed, sit in position and practise our chosen technique. As in sunbathing, the real work of meditation is done by our inner sun, our heart and soul, which spontaneously flood our consciousness with their pre-existent peace, love and light. We are along for the ride. Our role is to be receptive, to enjoy, be grateful and do our best to retain these divine gifts.
Like the piano, our heart has many strings, each tuned to a spiritual quality. Whereas the piano has strings for various notes, our heart has a “Love” string, a “Beauty” string, a “Peace” string and so forth.
Most of the time these heart-strings are not resonating, as the dampers of our mind’s thoughts and problems press against them and prevent them from vibrating. Yet occasionally the mind’s dampers are caught unawares and something causes or allows our heart-strings to resonate.
A glorious sunset is like the trumpet of our experiment. Whereas the trumpet is blasting a “C”, the sunset is blaring “Beauty”. The “Beauty” string of our heart recognises its own quality and, thrilled, vibrates in sympathy with the beauty of the sunset. We exclaim “Ah!” as we are overwhelmed with a sense of beauty.
While we are outwardly seeing the beauty in the sky, nevertheless the actual experience of beauty is perceived and felt within, inside our heart. If our hearts did not possess a “Beauty” string, then when we see a glorious sunset there could be no resonance, and we would feel nothing. We would look up at the sky and just go: “Huh?”
This applies not only to beauty, but to all the spiritual and divine qualities: to peace, love, happiness, wisdom, joy, light, to truth itself.
The outer world is a mere reflection of our inner consciousness. We cannot perceive anything outside of ourselves which is not already within us. When we see or feel beauty, love, joy and other higher and deeper realities, something deep within is called forth or awakened.
So, next time you perceive suddenly a superb sunset, instead of exclaiming: “Ah, how beautiful is the sky!”, you should rather voice forth: “Ah, how beautiful – am I!
