The theory is simple: we ingest (eat, drink and breathe in) a lot of gunk – chemicals, additives, processed and refined foods – which are neither easily assimilated or readily eliminated by the body. Their gradual build-up stresses our immune system and clogs or slows essential organs. We become slower, heavier and sicker. The solution: from time to time, undertake a diet designed to reduce the intake of additional toxins, while aiding in the elimination of the built-up stockpile – a ‘detox’.
Yet just as the build-up of chemicals is harmful to our body, so the accumulation of prejudices, negative thoughts and perceptions undermines our clarity, creativity, behaviour and happiness. Not only do we suffer: everyone around us suffers as well.
Daily meditation is the most effective detox for the mind.
In order to “let go” of unwanted thoughts, perceptions and emotions – and avoid the massive damage they cause – we need first to gain some control of the process of thought itself, the flow of mental activity in our brains. Trying to achieve this by analysis or thinking about it, is like the blind leading the blind, or putting the drunk in charge of the pub.
Only by stepping outside of the mind can we gain the perspective and detachment needed to perceive, and hence control the mind’s intractable activity.
Pure meditation occupies a vacant mind. When the mind is emptied of thoughts, our attachment to thought itself is loosened. As we separate ourselves from the thinking process, we come to realise that thought is not the reality. We are not our thoughts, after all. Thoughts which were looming, inescapable monsters are now seen as tiny, weak, expendable things. Unwanted thought-toxins, we let go of.
Daily meditation keeps the mind clear, sharp – and detoxed.
Yet how often do we focus on this most essential component of our existence? Do we ever pause to offer even a moment’s gratitude to our breath?
Ever? … If not, that’s like forgetting your wedding anniversary or neglecting to phone your mother on Mother’s Day – forgivable perhaps, but only just …
So before starting any breathing exercise, offer love and gratitude to the breath itself. This is not only a courteous gesture, it is a practical means to make the exercise more effective – for it is always easier to focus on something we love. You will find the exercise flows more smoothly, enjoyably, easily and you will bring much-needed intensity to the task …
It is our breath that connects us directly with every living thing – every plant, animal and human being – on the planet. We are all breathing the same air, sharing the same life-giving force. Our breath reminds us that we are one with all.
Exercise:
Choose a quiet place. Sit so that the spine is straight, yet relaxed. Close the eyes and focus all attention on your breath.
After a while, picture our planet earth, slowly revolving inside your heart.
You are breathing in time with the earth itself and every living thing. The earth is breathing your breath, as is every plant, animal and human being in perfect synchronicity. There is only one breath – your breath, under your control. You are breathing on behalf of all living beings, on behalf of Life itself. Imagine that if you would stop breathing, life and our earth would cease …
This exercise connects us with our life-giving breath, expands our self-awareness and offers us a private audience with the wonder of Oneness.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
– Matthew 5:8
When engine oil contains impurities, the engine doesn’t run smoothly and may even cease operating. When impurities in the form of germs, viruses or toxins enter our bodies, we become sick and may even die.
For our health, we value purity in our food, water and air: even more essential is the role of purity in our thoughts, intentions and actions.
For just as our bodies operate better when we consume pure food, water and air, so are we happier, more creative and more fulfilled, when our minds and hearts feed on a diet of pure thoughts and aspirations.
Our souls are all purity. The reason we do not constantly feel and perceive our souls is precisely because of the impurities in our consciousness. “Impurities” are anything which covers or clouds our souls’ purity: mostly in the form of thoughts, emotions, desires and distractions. This is not to say that all thoughts, emotions, desires and distractions are impure: just as a clod of dirt or a germ is not “impure” in itself, yet it acts as an impurity when added to engine oil or in a hospital operating theatre; so it is our minds’ attachment to thoughts, emotions and desires, and identification with them, that obscures our perception of our souls’ purity.
How do we obtain more purity in our consciousness? By meditating on purity.
Purity is within us: just as the sun emerges when the clouds are cleared away, so by wilfully putting aside all thoughts and desires – entering into a silent mind – our inner purity automatically comes to the fore. This takes practise.
The more purity we establish in our consciousness, the easier it becomes to meditate: the better our meditation, the more purity is established.
Love is the meaning of life; the most powerful force in the universe; the most basic need of every human being.
Love is power; love is happiness; love is fulfilment.
Love is not an action, not something we “do”. It is the matrix of our being, the power grid of the universe. It is a force within us which we can invoke, enter into and bring to the fore.
Love nurtures all other divine qualities. In love we find hope; we find strength; we find sacrifice; we find compassion; we find sweetness; we find forgiveness; we find patience; we find tolerance; we find knowledge; we find ingenuity; we find newness; we find success; we find progress; we find joy; we find energy; we find youthfulness; we find concentration; we find inspiration; we find determination; we find purpose; we find guidance; we find heroism; we find meaning; we find growth; we find fulfilment; we find glory.
The Beatles were absolutely right: “All you need is love!”
Everything we need, we find more easily, readily and abundantly where there is love; for love connects everything – and everyone – in the universe.
If love is the source of so many qualities we want and desperately need in life, then to find all those qualities, we need only to cultivate love.
But how to do so?
Through the disciplined focus of meditation.
Even in the driest desert there is always water: you just have to dig deep enough.
As we dig in meditation, we cannot but uncover the wellspring of love in our hearts.
While water in the desert, if overdrawn will run dry, our hearts’ love is limitless: the more it is expressed, the more love expands and multiplies.
Love is the root, tree, flower and fruit of meditation.
This is one of the simplest and best concentration exercises which anyone can practise anywhere, anytime.
Sit so that the spine is straight, yet relaxed. Close your eyes and focus only on your breath.
Choose a number that you can comfortably count to with each breath. Count up to this number slowly as you breathe in – hold your breath for two counts in the same rhythm – then count slowly to the same number as you exhale. Continue for 5 to 10 minutes, banishing all thoughts and distractions.
The purpose of the counting is to focus and anchor the mind.
To help focus on the counting, imagine that each number is “larger than life” – picture gigantic numbers being projected onto a massive movie theatre screen or up into the sky, all in different bold colours and designs. Or hear the numbers being called out in a resonant voice inside a vast cave.
Make it a game: try anything new and fun to help keep the numbers the exclusive focus of your attention. If you can be enthralled and fascinated by the numbers, then you will be less susceptible to the charm of other uninvited thoughts.
If you find yourself becoming distracted by thoughts or sounds, don’t be disheartened – simply make a fresh start, return to One and start counting again with renewed enthusiasm, determination and commitment. It is quite normal to have to start again several times in the course of a 5-minute session.
This exercise fulfils three prerequisites for meditation. It:
relaxes us physically;
brings calm and ultimately stillness to the mind;
as our breath goes from outside to inside, our consciousness is turned from the outer to the inner.
We are now at the shore of the meditation-ocean, ready to dive in.
Only two things are required of us: to breathe and to count.
Exercise:
Choose a quiet, uncluttered place where you will not be disturbed. Sit so that the spine is straight, yet relaxed. Close your eyes and focus all attention on your breath.
Now choose a number that is going to be comfortable for you to count up to slowly with each breath. Count up to this number slowly as you breathe in – hold your breath for two counts in the same rhythm – then count slowly to the same number as you exhale. Then repeat the process, over and again.
Imagine the outside world has dissolved. Nothing exists beyond your breathing and counting.
You have no job, no duties, no responsibilities. You do not even have a name or a form – only your breath. You do not have a past or a future. There is only now, this moment, and this moment consists entirely of this breath, in and out, and the counting that regulates it.
You are a breathing being, that is all. Breathing – and counting – are all you do. Live totally inside each breathed breath. Feel that each breath is your project, your creation, your child.
You are an artist of the breath: instead of creating poems, paintings or songs, your artworks are your breaths. Pour all your heart into each breath: all your love, your sense of beauty, purity and longing for perfection. Each breath is your whole world. Make each breath perfect, and then make each next breath more perfect than the last.
Nothing else matters. Nothing else is.
If you can practise this simple exercise for 5 – 10 minutes daily for several months with sincerity and intensity, your life will change for the better unimaginably.
Meditation and love are inseparable. It is through love that we meditate most effectively, and through meditation that we access ever deeper, vaster and sweeter love.
If you need any quality in life, then start by loving that quality and, like a magnet, your love will draw that quality towards you and into your life.
When forced to do something we don’t like – even a simple task – we soon become tired. When engaged in something we love – even a strenuous activity – we will happily continue all day.
If we love an activity we will naturally apply ourselves to it more eagerly and wholeheartedly than otherwise. We tend to do much better at school in subjects we like, and not so well in subjects we dislike. If you want or need to do well at any task, simply find it in yourself to love that task and you will automatically do much better at it. This is not always easy, but is always effective.
The more you love your meditation, the more sincerely and determinedly you will practise and the sooner you will derive positive benefits from meditation – and the more you will have access to the heart’s limitless ocean of love.
This is how love is the secret of meditation: if we approach meditation as a chore, as a dry discipline then it will be very difficult for us to apply ourselves and make progress. If however we approach the task with love, then eagerness, enthusiasm and joy are automatically there. All the qualities we need to succeed in meditation – discipline, determination, patience – come to us much more readily when guided by the power of love.
In meditation, as in everything else in life, love conquers.
According to martial arts lore: “He who controls his breath, controls his destiny.”
Doesn’t this sound a bit far-fetched?
First gain complete mastery of your own breath – under all circumstances. Then survey your destiny, and you will have your answer…
Exercise:
Because this exercise is so simple, it is tempting to allow the mind to wander off leash – yet the point of this exercise is precisely NOT to allow the mind to wander, to get used to sitting at ease inside a vacant mind. It is not an easy task to master, yet even in braving the challenge day by day, we can make tremendous progress in controlling our breath, clearing and focusing our mind while nurturing peace and poise within and without.
Choose a quiet, uncluttered place where you will not be disturbed. Sit so that the spine is straight, yet relaxed. Close the eyes and focus all attention on your breath.
Breathe in and out through the nostrils, with the feeling that you are breathing from the diaphragm and lower abdomen, rather than the chest: when you breathe, your shoulders should remain still, and not move up and down at all. Breathing from the diaphragm helps us to breathe more deeply and effectively, making it easier to relax and focus for longer.
Focus on making the ebb and flow of breath – in and out – as smooth and regular as possible, so that the air is flowing at one consistent speed.
Make your breath so calm that it would not disturb a tiny thread dangling right in front of your nostrils. Focus on an imaginary thread and consciously watch it remain immobile, motionless as your breath flows around it.
Allow no other thought to intrude. Simply breathe. Five minutes daily, unfailingly. Control your breath: control your destiny.
The first few weeks and months of a beginner’s meditation practice are the time we are most likely to give up.
Sitting still and attempting to quieten the mind can be a frustrating and seemingly fruitless task, and it is easy to imagine that one is deriving no benefit from it. One hasn’t yet developed the momentum of habit, nor the powerful motivation of deeper fulfilling experiences.
The whole exercise can seem both tedious and pointless.
Meanwhile, there is the mountain of pressure from a million other tasks and distractions, which invariably appear more pressing and essential right now than sitting down to fritter away time in further fruitless frustration.
Beginning meditators are much like the baby turtles who hatch eagerly in their thousands on the beach, and are immediately beset by predators on every side in their fledgling journey to the sea, with only a few getting to experience the joys of swimming.
We have spent an entire lifetime consciously building up our minds to be more and more complex, sophisticated and cluttered. And now we expect them to be silent in an instant? In your dreams!
Everything takes time. A diamond takes much longer to form than a lump of coal.
The beginner meditator needs the determination, patience and unwavering faith of a baby.
How many times does a baby fall flat on its face before mastering the skill of walking? Does it ever occur to the baby to give up?
Never!
Just as the capacity to walk is latent in the baby, and only needs practise to be manifested, so the capacity to meditate is inherent in everyone.
Once the baby can walk, there is no chance of reverting to crawling to get about. That would be absurd.
We tend to imagine that love is something we will find outside of ourselves.
Yet there is only place we will ever find love: within our own hearts.
While we may find things or people outside us to whom we respond with love, the love they inspire is not created magically out of the ether – it comes forth from our own hearts.
Meditation is the study of our own hearts. The predominant quality we discover there – is love.
The love in our hearts is not dependent on any outer circumstance or any other being. It is inherent in our hearts the way fragrance is to a flower.
To feel, experience and flourish in this love, does not require us meeting any person or being any where or proving any thing.
It requires only a quiet mind, our opening within, our acceptance and surrender to love the way a baby sleeps in its mother’s arms.
The enjoyment of pure, objectless love is one of the most exquisite, profoundly fulfilling and illumining of all the fruits of meditation.
Exercise:
Sit in a quiet, peaceful place with eyes closed and the breath calm and controlled. Imagine a flower within your heart – first in bud form, and then slowly blooming into the most beautiful, delicate, perfect flower imaginable. The flower and your heart are inseparable.
Now place yourself inside your flower-heart. You have become the flower. Immerse yourself in simply BEING the flower. You are four qualities: simplicity, beauty, delicacy and fragrance. Nothing else. Consciously breathe in your own fragrance and appreciate it to the full. This fragrance is pure love. The more you can seep yourself in the fragrance of your flower-heart, the more love will envelop you.
Desire nothing else. Think of nothing else. Love will be your reward.
When we point to ourselves, we point to our hearts – not our heads. We’re not consciously pointing to the organ located in the centre of our chest which pumps blood through our bodies. So what ARE we pointing to? What sense of self resides in this vicinity?
Unlike many languages, English does not have a word for the deeper self beyond the physical, emotional and mental being: our centre of peace, love, light and joy; the intermediary with our soul which we sense and feel most strongly in or near our heart. Yet our language is clever. In the absence of a word, it has ascribed meaning through numerous phrases employing the name of the closest physical organ to this deeper self: the heart. Our language thus hints at the many qualities of our “spiritual heart”:
“Have a heart” – compassion, forgiveness “The heart of town” – the centre, core “Sweetheart” – love, affection “Heart-to-heart talk” – depth, sincerity “Fight with heart” – courage, bravery “Cross my heart” – honesty, promise “Wholehearted effort” – unreserved, giving it all “Wear your heart on your sleeve” – openness, emotion “Home is where the heart is” – security, belonging “A heart of gold” – self-giving, sympathy with all “Big-hearted” – kindness, generosity “Hearty soup” – wholesome, nourishing, substantial “We took heart from the win” – hope, inspiration “To learn by heart” – certainty, identification “Speak from the heart” – conviction, charisma “Heartfelt sentiments” – empathy, oneness “To your heart’s content” – satisfaction, fullness “Follow your heart” – passion, spontaneity above reason “From the bottom of my heart” – aspiration, yearning “Pour your heart into it” – commitment, intensity “In my heart of hearts” – intuition, faith
Combine all these qualities, for a sense of the immense significance and untold wealth which is our spiritual heart. We meditate to claim, become and manifest our spiritual heart and all its riches.
For meditation we must be relaxed yet fully alert and vigilant – otherwise it is impossible to control wandering thoughts.
Just as we need a quiet place to meditate, our posture must be conducive to alertness and vigilance.
First, try lying down – sitting slumped over – and then with your spine straight. You will surely feel that while sitting with your spine straight, you are the most alert and aware.
A straight spine facilitates a free flow of energy up and down the spine and its associated energy channels. This is the posture in which we can sit in a relaxed yet alert state for the longest time without physical discomfort.
To achieve a straight spine with no effort, imagine there is a thread coming from the ceiling, attached to the top of your skull, and you are dangling from this thread: rather than forcing yourself to sit upright, you are simply dangling there.
Be sure our hips, shoulders, back of the neck and facial muscles in particular are relaxed and free of tension.
It is not necessary to sit in the full or even the half lotus pose of traditional yoga, where the legs are crossed with one or both feet tucked up above the opposing knee – as long as the spine is straight, we can meditate most effectively whether sitting on a chair or on a cushion on the floor. Try not to relax against the back of a chair or a wall: dynamic energy flows far better when the spine is straight and supporting itself.
As for lying down, forget it! We can practise relaxation and other useful techniques while lying down, but pure meditation requires all our power of dynamic focus and concentration – which the vast majority of us simply cannot muster while lying down.
There is a strong awareness nowadays of the value of meditation and many have tried it – or at least thought about trying it. Yet still relatively few are actually practising every day, despite all meditation’s myriad benefits.
The main reason for this lack of persistence is the challenge of incorporating meditation into our already-busy daily routines. The irony is our busy lives are crying out for meditation – yet we are too busy to meditate. Catch 22.
To get lasting value from meditation it is not enough to attend a class or read a book – or think about doing so. We have to practise – daily – for months. That means establishing a practice. So let’s get started …
Where to meditate?
We are creatures of habit, so just as it is essential to find a set time, so also it is essential to establish a place – typically a corner of our room – which is set aside just for our meditation. Keep this area clean, neat and pure.
Having a “place” for our meditation is both symbolic and practical.
Symbolically, we are creating space in our lives for meditation, acknowledging that the benefits we hope to gain – peace, love, confidence, joy – are of utmost importance.
On a practical level, creating a set place helps us establish our practice. Just as we associate different places with different activities, and just seeing those places puts us in mind of those activities – seeing the refrigerator we think of food, seeing the bath we think of taking a nice hot bath – so having a place for meditation right there in front of us reminds us of our commitment to meditate, and when we sit down there, the association of place with activity helps draw us into meditation.
