Imagine peace is now spilling over from the inner vessel in your heart, flowing into your mind, quieting your thoughts, so that your mind is now the smooth surface of a still lake; from there it flows into your feelings, calming and soothing your nerves and emotions; from there it flows throughout your physical body, easing and relaxing your whole being; from there it flows out into the room, spreading serenity all around.
There is now peace within you and all around you. From the crown of your head to the soles of your feet and to your very fingertips, you have become only peace. You are saturated, marinated in peace, you are the sea of peace. Above you there is only peace; below there is only peace; to your left and right and all around there is only an ever-expanding continuum of peace, peace, and peace…
Continue breathing in peace and breathing out peace: consciously imagine and visualise peace flowing into every part of your body; feel peace embracing, subsuming and inspiring every thought, feeling and emotion. You have become peace itself, your very name is peace.
Continue this exercise for as long as you need. Any thoughts or distractions which appear during this time, simply offer them to the sea of peace in which you are swimming and which you have become: thoughts will simply be lost and dissolved in the vastness of the peace-ocean.
Now imagine that deep inside your heart you have a safe. In this safe you keep not money and valuables but your inner, spiritual wealth. Fill this safe with all the peace you have breathed in. Carefully lock the safe. Now you know where your treasure, your inner peace is, for whenever you might need it.
Sit somewhere quiet where you can be alone and undisturbed. This exercise can be done either with your eyes closed or else open and resting on a simple object such as a flower or candle flame.
Focus exclusively on your breathing. Slow your breath down and make the flow of breath in and out through your nostrils as calm and controlled as possible. Imagine that someone has placed a tiny thread right in front of your nose: focus on that thread and ensure that it is absolutely still and unwavering, so smooth and gentle is your breath.
When your breath is calm and controlled, please imagine that what you are breathing in from the atmosphere around you is not air, but peace: solid, tangible, abiding peace. This peace is all around you and you are breathing it directly into the very depths of your being, where it starts to accumulate. You can imagine there is a vessel inside you, which is gradually being filled with peace.
When you breathe out, exhale the opposite of peace: restlessness, tension and stress. Just let go of these things: they are not yours and you have no right to hold on to them, so let them go, release them, allow them to flow out of you.
Imagine that you are breathing in this peace not only through your nostrils, but also through your eyes, ears, mouth, through the very pores of your skin.
Imagine you are a dry sponge which is soaking up and absorbing peace eagerly and thirstily.
After a while you will have breathed out all the restlessness and stress and your inner vessel will be full to the brim with peace: at this time you are now breathing in and breathing out peace.
The ideal of a secret paradise is woven through fairytales, myths, legends and religions of every race and culture.
This paradise might take the form of a garden, a bodiless realm of light, a heaven beyond the stars. We catch glimpses of such a realm in our sleeping dreams and in our inspired imaginations.
A belief or faith in such a realm is strong in most of us: spiritual seekers and idealists mould their lives in the hope of finding it while some embrace death for a chance of entering it.
This perfect realm is generally felt to exist somewhere else: out of our present reach.
Yet our secret paradise is closer than we imagine: we are living and breathing inside our ultimate secret paradise at this very moment – and every moment.
All the qualities we most treasure and yearn for – peace, love, light, bliss, fulfilment –are within us and all around us. We are in their midst; they are the fabric of our deeper consciousness.
Our problem is we do not perceive our secret paradise because we are so enmeshed in the distractions and complexities of our minds. Our minds are like a huge security fence excluding us from that very domain we most yearn for.
To enter into and become our secret paradise, we do not need to undertake austerities and we certainly do not need to die: we need only to silence our mind.
A silent mind is not merely the absence of sound: it requires the complete absence of thought. Our thoughts are so pervasive that we take their constant presence as inevitable – yet they need not be. Just as they can constantly change, so they can be brought under control and, eventually, stilled.
Inside the silent, thoughtless mind, our secret paradise blossoms.
It has been often remarked, that we come into this world naked and alone – and we depart, naked and alone.
To enter into pure meditation, we must also be prepared to stand naked – that is to say, naked of ego; and alone – without human company.
Our thoughts, desires, habits, attachments, prejudices, beliefs, ideas, ideals, likes and dislikes, fears and fantasies; everything we think we have and we are – all is outer baggage which only obscures our meditation-goal.
Meditation is the pure being which underlies all of these superficial layers of apparent self: this “ego.” Meditation is the ocean: ego is froth on its surface. Meditation is our source, the bedrock, the very basis of our being, upon which everything else stands, and shifts. It is the eternal, unchanging reality: to perceive this reality, we must strip away all that is changeable, all that exists only in time and space.
Meditation ushers us from the finite, through the portal of the infinite. There our nakedness is revealed as the completeness of pure Being; our aloneness blossoms into the fullness of perfect Oneness.
Sri Chinmoy has expressed pure meditation directly and exquisitely in his immortal poem, “The Absolute:”
“No mind, no form, I only exist;
Now ceased all will and thought;
The final end of Nature’s dance,
I am it whom I have sought.
“A realm of Bliss bare, ultimate;
Beyond both knower and known;
A rest immense I enjoy at last;
I face the One alone.
“I have crossed the secret ways of life,
I have become the Goal.
The Truth immutable is revealed;
I am the way, the God-Soul.
“My spirit aware of all the heights,
I am mute in the core of the Sun.
I barter nothing with time and deeds;
My cosmic play is done.”
“Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar…”
William Wordsworth, “Ode: Intimations of Immortality”, 1804
Saints, mystics, poets, seers and seekers in every culture have sought the secret of life eternal.
The ever-growing annals of Near-Death Experiences and the findings of quantum physics offer present-day support to the notion that at least a part of us lives on beyond death. If so, what part? Are we immortal?
Our bodies die and decompose into their original elements. So for anyone who identifies only as being the body: we are not immortal.
We know that our flow of life energy ceases after the body dies; and that our thoughts and emotions constantly change and will therefore not likely last much longer, if at all, than the senses and energy needed to sustain them. So if we identify ourselves as being our vitality or our minds: we are not immortal.
What is left, and does it live on? If a part of us is immortal, then it must be within us now. If within us now, then it must be discoverable now.
Whatever others have to say on this subject, ultimately we can only discover the answer for ourselves. We can either wait till we die, or…
Exercise
Sitting quiet and still with eyes closed, in your imagination separate yourself from your body. Feel that you are floating above your own body. You still exist. Now separate yourself from your thoughts – project them onto a screen, out of the way. You still exist, lighter and freer. Continue in this way, separating your consciousness from any part of you that is finite or changeable.
Eventually, you will find – and become – the answer.
There is so much wrong with the world – but what can I, just one small person, do about it?
Anything? Nothing?
How about … everything!
There is no such thing as “the world.” There is only what we perceive it to be – and what we perceive is a reflection of our own consciousness – which itself changes from day to day and even from moment to moment.
When we are happy, we see happiness and beauty all around us, even on a rainy day: “the world” is a beautiful place. When we are sad or depressed, we see only ugliness, even on a sunny day: “the world” is a gloomy place.
Yet it is the same world, isn’t it? Or is it?
A colour-blind person sees the world differently from how I see it, or how a dog sees it, or how a tree “sees” it. We have this conception that “the world” is a static, definable entity – it is anything but. There are as many “worlds” as there are sentient beings perceiving their environments, multiplied by each moment of awareness.
So – if we want to change or improve the world, how to do so?
Change ourselves, we change our perceptions and “the world” is changed.
We can never control what is happening around us. But we can absolutely control our perceptions and reactions, and thus, we CAN change the world.
Meditation – practised regularly – transforms our consciousness, hence our outlook on life – and hence our perception of the world around us.
Most of the time we perceive our world through the lens of an over-active mind. It’s like driving in dense fog. Clear the fog and suddenly we’re in different, clear, bright surroundings. Meditation clears that fog, enabling us to see and feel a world changed indeed.
We are used to dealing with specific expressions or feelings of love: we speak of being in love with someone, of loving a hobby or a song or the way reflected moonlight dances on the water on a September evening.
While each of these experiences can compel and overwhelm, yet they are mere glimpses of the ocean of Love which we embody, which we house within our hearts. They are rays of light from the blazing Sun of Love within. These glimpses of love are hints to us, signposts to the source within.
To uncover and to grow into this source is the goal of meditation.
Our hearts are all love, but mostly veiled: to reveal the source of love within we need, slowly but surely, to unlock the gates of our hearts. This is meditation.
We say: “Oh, I love this painting” or “I love so-and-so” and this is true – to a point. What we really love are the feelings which that person or object inspires within us. These feelings – of happiness, beauty, serenity, empowerment, freedom – are evoked by our recognition of something we share with the person or object: by a recognition of oneness.
Love is the expression of oneness, the deepest truth of our being.
It is thus Love itself which we truly love.
We love to be in love and to feel love, for love reveals to us our underlying oneness with something vaster than our tiny selves; love expands us by offering a glimpse of a much vaster, freer Self – a premonition of the possibility of true liberation and illumination.
Because love is oneness, it is inescapable. It is the one power from which none can hide.
Thank God the mightiest Power in the Universe is so … loveable.
Freedom has been the guiding light, the catch-cry, the struggle of humanity for aeons. “Give me liberty or give me death!” cried American revolutionary, Patrick Henry.
History is the continuing re-telling of the same struggle in various forms and guises: freedom from tyranny, freedom from slavery, from economic oppression, from injustice, from prejudice, from inequality, from censorship, freedom of religion, freedom from religion, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, artistic freedom.
In all – or most – of these areas, we have made tremendous progress. By any reckoning, we live in one of the freest societies ever.
As history has evolved, so the struggle for freedom has found different voices, causes and expressions. Why does this struggle, despite countless impressive victories, never go away? Are we just never satisfied?
The struggle for freedom is the cry of the soul.
The soul is eternally free. Intuitively we know this: we know we ARE the soul and we ARE pure and free. Whatever outer circumstances stand in the way of that inner condition, we will always fight against and ultimately, overcome. The whole history of human thought, warfare, philosophy, science, politics, art, religion and spirituality – all forms of human aspiration – are expressions of this deep yearning, this cry for freedom. And so it will remain.
So after all the progress: how many of us are truly free? Very few indeed, for we remain subject to two seemingly invincible tyrants: our own thoughts and desires. Until we can silence our thoughts and desires at will, we are not free. We remain slaves.
The next frontier of the battle for freedom beckons within each of our hearts and minds. Today’s freedom fighters meditate, to confront these inner challenges that beset us all.
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.
