Meditation Matters

Each life is a river flowing to the sea. From the perspective of the river, its current appears to be its own doing, its own driving force. Yet when we step back and view from a larger perspective, we see it is actually the ocean that is drawing the river towards it.
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Each life is a river flowing to the sea. The current of a river flows always strongest in its depths. This underling current is the guarantee that the river will reach its destination. When you look at the surface of a river, you may see little eddies and swirls flowing in many different directions. Rocks and snags initiate all manner of disturbances, convolutions and conflicts in the surface flow.
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A tadpole and a frog appear completely different creatures. Yet they are one and the same. A tadpole can live only in water. Like a fish, it uses its tail to swim around. A frog can live both in water and on land. For the tadpole to become the frog, it must first develop legs.
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You live the richest, most varied and fruitful life that any human could imagine. And yet … and yet … after all, you are still no closer to answering: Who am I? Why am I here? Where have I come from and where am I heading?
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In addition to the senses you had as an animal, you now have that most marvellous instrument of awareness – the mind. It is as though your world has just exploded in scope, variety and possibilities. The power of the mind to perceive, to analyse, organise, classify, quantify and control is dazzling and unparalleled.
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Eventually you become a huge tree, with magnificent strong branches and countless fluttering leaves, offering shade and protection to all and sundry, great and small. You bear flowers and fruits. You are admired by the world. You live a long, full and fulfilling life as a tree.
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To answer this question, let us embark on an imaginary journey. Immerse yourself, allowing no outside thought or distraction to enter. Sit somewhere where you can be quiet and alone. Assume your meditation pose, breathe calmly and close your eyes.
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Two little boys were extremely fond of a particular red lolly. Every day they would visit the corner store and purchase their supply, served in a white paper packet. They were agreed: nothing could equal these red lollies. They loved everything about them: their unsurpassable taste, texture, colour and shape.
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Meditation is self-discovery, the purpose and meaning of life. Tour Guide: everything is within. Meditation takes us by the hand and leads us from our floundering fixation on the outer, step by step into the fathomless depths and wondrous vastness of our limitless inner realms.
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Up to now, our evolution has been unconscious, determined by some unseen force of nature. As long as our journey is unconscious it is bound to be fraught and haphazard, with many false starts, wrong turns and missed opportunities.
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In school we learn about evolution. We learn about how we humans have evolved from animals, most recently from apes and chimpanzees. We learn about Charles Darwin, his theory of the Evolution of the Species and of Natural Selection. When I was in school I readily accepted and subscribed to these theories as fact.
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This is a traditional story… Six blind men lived together in a forest. They had heard rumours of the elephant, which they were not able to verify since none of them had seen the elephant. They agreed one of them should find the elephant and report back.
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Order reigns even in chaos; within order, chaos lurks. All outer phenomena bear the signature of hidden forces. If you want to achieve, influence or become anything, go to its source. We regard the landscape around us as a fixed anchor of our existence. Yet even solid rock is a veneer, a thin crust floating atop a slowly seething sea of molten magma.
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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.
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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.
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This is a creative visualisation exercise. 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.
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The world is a white wall. 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.
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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.
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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.
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“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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Meditation is like surfing. A good surfer practises techniques and hones skills. Preparation is essential; preparing the board, preparing oneself, finding the right break at the right beach.
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Meditation is self-discovery. Pure meditation is not something we do, it is what we are: not an action, but a state of being.
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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.
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For this experiment you will need a piano and a trumpet. In our previous episode we explored the mechanics of a piano, and how its strings produce various notes according to the frequency to which they are tuned.
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Recently I was driving along the freeway, my mind a tangled knot of problems, anxieties and stresses of the day. Suddenly, with the distant mountain range for its stage, was an unutterably glorious sunset. Spontaneously I let out an “Ah!”, my mind’s petty preoccupations arrested and banished in a panoply of glory, beauty and serenity.
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Swami Vivekananda often told this story… In ancient times, there was a most rare and precious jewel, renowned throughout all the lands. It had many owners over the years: it was traded for great riches; bestowed as a highest reward; even battles were fought over its possession. In time, this jewel came universally to be regarded as the most precious object in all existence.
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Aspiration is the single secret of meditation. Aspiration is the inner cry, inner yearning for something truer, higher, vaster, deeper, freer, ever more perfect and divine.
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We all feel there is something missing in our lives; something subtle, indefinable, somehow always beyond our reach. This sense of missing something makes us feel incomplete. This sense of incompleteness drives us, motivates us to fill this void, either temporarily, or once and for all…
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Imagine thoughts during meditation are birds in the sky. You are not the birds. You are the sky. Perhaps the biggest hurdle we encounter in meditation, is the very first hurdle: the stream of thoughts flowing through our minds. What to do with these thoughts?
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We know that the goal of meditation is to enter into a completely vacant, still and silent mind. Yet even after years of practise, I am still being bothered by thoughts and distractions. Does this mean I am a useless meditator, wasting my time? Not at all! To be able to silence the mind at will is a monumental achievement requiring an enormous effort of will, practise and persistence.
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We are so used to our mind’s constant clutter, that we become inured to its incessant activity. The only time we notice so many thoughts is when we sit down and try to meditate. It’s as though all of a sudden there are all these thoughts at the precise moment we don’t want any! Of course the thoughts have been there the whole time…
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If we are inspired to feed the hungry, we must first grow and harvest some crops. If we are inspired to give money to the poor, we must first earn the money. The same applies to inner wealth: peace, love, happiness and satisfaction­. We must first find and cultivate these qualities before we can offer and share them with the world at large. Many feel a calling to save the world. There is so much suffering, unhappiness, ignorance, anger, fear, stress and despair.
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All of us have a sense that there is something or someone superior in wisdom and capacity – whether part of our own being or beyond us – to which or to whom we would ideally turn for guidance, instruction and inspiration. Be it a family member, friend or counsellor, a scripture, our spiritual heart, soul, God or some other deity, we all feel the need to turn to some source greater, deeper and more illumined than our own minds and emotions.
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There is a widely held view that we are all either “morning people” or “NOT morning people”. Those who regard themselves as NOT morning people tend to find it more difficult to meditate successfully in the morning, and report better quality meditations in the evening.
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Next time you are angry, stressed, confused or depressed, look at yourself in the mirror. What do you feel from this face? Do you find it attractive – or otherwise? One time after you have had a good meditation, do the same: look at yourself in the mirror. What do you feel from this face?
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Every day is a new game, a new song, a new journey, a new examination. Our instrument is our consciousness. Just as an athlete prepares with stretching and warm-up exercises, a musician carefully tunes their instrument, a traveller packs their bags and a student studies for an exam, so our morning meditation prepares our consciousness so we are in shape for our daily game, song, journey and examination.
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Meditating first thing in the morning is like putting money in the bank.

When we have money in the bank, we can withdraw it to spend whenever the need arises. It is said: “Morning shows the day.” When we wake up we are relatively unconscious. What we do first thing after waking can hugely influence our state of consciousness for the remainder of the day.
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The original source of musk fragrance is the male musk deer, which produces the famous scent from a gland in its body. The story goes, that when the deer first becomes aware of this fragrance, it becomes enchanted, and starts to follow it, seeking its source. The deer walks around in search of this alluring wonder. No matter which way it turns, the fragrance remains always slightly out of reach. It cannot locate the source. Obsessed, the deer starts to run and run, madly pursuing the elusive unattainable.
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There is an infinite universe around us … and an infinite within. To embrace the infinite, it is customary to identify with something vast, like the ocean or the sky. You can instead choose something very small. The finite realm we inhabit, which dominates our present awareness, is a fine, flimsy gauze covering the infinite reality within and all around. Just as height and depth in meditation are ultimately the same; so the same truth is embodied within the vast, as in the tiny. Vast and tiny are conceptions of our mind; beyond the mind’s domain, vast and tiny alike dissolve in the One.
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To meditate, we must focus the mind. Our tool is concentration. The better our concentration, the easier it is to enter into meditation. As a chef cannot work with a blunt knife, so one cannot meditate with a scattered and wandering concentration.
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Sit alone, somewhere quiet. Dive deep into your heart. We feel our spiritual heart in the region of our physical heart, in the centre of our chest, but deeper within. Imagine you are not your body, mind or emotions but only your heart of peace, love, light, joy and gratitude blossoming and spreading with the sweetest fragrance. You are all heart from top to bottom, within and without.
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When you go into a dark room, if you want light, you turn on the light switch. This is exactly how meditation works to dispel our inner darkness – our problems, worries, doubts, fears and anxieties. If you want light in a dark room, you don’t blunder about in the darkness, exploring all the dark corners in the expectation that somehow the room will miraculously become illumined.
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Sit alone, somewhere quiet. Focus on your breathing, bringing it under your conscious control, calming, slowing and making your breath one steady flow – in and out, in and out, through your nostrils. Breathe with your diaphragm, your upper body remaining perfectly still.
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The present mind and heart are two entire ways of being, each seeing and feeling the world and ourselves differently. The mind craves control; the heart seeks love. We can only control what is fixed and certain; hence the mind’s mission to define, delimit and detain. The mind wants to reduce the universe so it can be possessed, known and dominated.
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The present mind and heart are two entire ways of being, each seeing and feeling the world and ourselves differently. The mind craves control; the heart seeks love. We can only control what is fixed and certain; hence the mind’s mission to define, delimit and detain. The mind wants to reduce the universe so it can be possessed, known and dominated.
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It’s not that we don’t like the mind. The mind is not bad. It is potentially extremely good. It has just headed in a wrong direction. The mind is like an adorable little boy of the family who thinks it great fun to splash paint over everyone’s food – at every meal. At some point, his ways need to change, before we all starve.
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The mind and the heart perceive and comprehend reality differently. The mind’s modus operandi proceeds on the understanding that it is observing something separate from itself. The mind constructs models of reality based on evidence it receives from the senses and other sources. These models are constantly changing as new evidence comes to light, just as the mind itself is subject to constant change.
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Why does the smallest dog always bark the loudest? He knows he is small, so feels he has to project an impression of greatness and power to impress the world and hide his weakness. It is all front, all a bluff.
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The mind divides; the heart unites. Yesterday I was poring over some accounts; George was studying calculus – we were both much in our minds. We met and started a conversation. It happens that George and I like different colours, different kinds of music, different foods, movies and sporting teams. After 5 minutes, we made a long list – of all our differences.
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Our mind is the servant that has become the master. Fire can be used to cook, to warm us and give light: or it can destroy. The mind is meant to be an instrument for our use, processing information from the senses, and applying its intellect for our own and the greater good. The mind is a wondrous power, an indispensable tool to aid us to live and operate in the world.
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We have seen that of the five levels of our being, the lower three levels – body, vital and mind – are finite, while the higher two levels – our spiritual heart and soul – are infinite. The qualities we seek: peace, love, joy and satisfaction, all are infinite. All abide in our heart and soul. Yet our present consciousness is most dominated by our finite parts: in particular, our mind.
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At the heart of the human condition lies a contradiction which gives rise to a unique and dramatic tension. This contradiction is in the very character and attributes of the various levels of our being: body, vital, mind, heart and soul.
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The soul is our source, the only part of us which is eternal – yet we have of the soul, only a vague awareness. We have become estranged from our own true self.If you ask people if they have a soul, most will immediately answer, “Yes”. But ask them to prove it; you will likely get a blank stare of bewilderment.
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Make a list of all the qualities you most treasure; the qualities you, and the world, need most urgently. Your list might include peace, love, oneness, joy, fulfilment, compassion, forgiveness, gratitude, wisdom, courage, strength, belonging, kindness, tolerance, patience, beauty, sweetness, perfection, satisfaction.
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Level three is where most of us spend most of our time, energy and focus, the locus for most of the conscious awareness of present-day humanity, the level which rules the world – for better and for worse. We are speaking of the Mind.
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There are two convenient ways to represent a model of our five levels of being. One way is as a 5-story building, where the body is the ground floor and each succeeding level is the next floor above. This model is useful to understand some aspects of the relations between the various levels.
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We are complex beings… infinitely more complex than the physical Universe around us. While no model can ever adequately represent the multifarious levels of our consciousness, nevertheless for our purposes it is helpful to envision ourselves as comprising five essential levels of being.
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