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To learn meditation, go to:
Meditation – What, Why and How Let's start off by asking an important question – perhaps the most important question:
What is the one thing you want more than anything else? You may say different things: freedom, success, love, money; but the essence of all these is happiness. We want them because they give us happiness. Happiness is a sweet feeling; a flow of love; an expression of joy. We want it limitlessly and all the time. "There is in the living being a thirst for limitlessness" Shrii Shrii Anandamurti
Maybe you like chocolate icecream, and someone else likes vanilla. Two different icecreams – two different responses. So where is the happiness? Not in the icecream! It's in the mind. It's a mental experience; a mental feeling. Happiness is a state of mind. If you think your chair is a throne, then for you it will be a throne! There's three things wrong with looking for happiness externally: for one, it's always limited. You can't find anything infinite in this world – it always has a fixed size and shape, so it can't give unlimited happiness. Two, it never lasts forever. What's the best part about eating an icecream? The beginning! After a while you get used to it, then you get sick of it! And so it is with every worldly object – it can only give a limited and temporary experience; a limited and temporary amount of happiness. And three, there's always pain to counteract the pleasure. The universe is a world of opposites – for every action there is a reaction! There's the same amount of pain for every amount of pleasure. So we can only find infinite happiness in the mind, not in the physical world.
If that's so, then that's where we should look for it – in the mind. You don't use a torch
to look for light – the light's already within the torch.
Happiness is in the mind, and that's where we should look for it.
So we want happiness, and not only happiness but infinite happiness, and that happiness is in the mind. Now what's the process of looking for infinite happiness in the mind? Meditation. Meditation is the process of looking within yourself for infinite peace and happiness. But don't believe a word I've said! Why? Because you have to experience it for yourself! It's a personal experience. You have to actually eat a banana to know what it tastes like! Meditation is an internal process, and the important thing is to practice it. There's a story about a fisherman who took a well-read intellectual out on his boat. The intellectual asked the fisherman if he could read. "No" was the reply. "Then half your life has been useless," the intellectual remarked. Suddenly the boat was capsized by a huge freak wave. They were both in the water, when the fisherman asked, "Can you swim?" The intellectual was swallowing water as he just managed to reply, "No!" "Now your whole life has become useless!" the fisherman concluded. What follows is a brief explanation of how meditation works, and how to practice it. It's not difficult. It's a very simple technique. You just have to do it, because as in the story, it's the doing that counts! Let's go on now to see how the simple and effective technique of meditation can change your life for the better. But before we go on, allow me to introduce myself:
Gunamuktananda lecturing at the Le Meridien Phoenicia Hotel, Malta Now I'll explain a little about the psychology of the mind and how meditation works, then you can sign up for the free online email Meditation Course to learn more.
In a nutshell, we have to concentrate on the idea of infinite happiness. Concentration means only one thought. But there's usually many different thoughts in the mind, almost all at the same time! So how do we control them? Try this exercise: Close your eyes, and for about a minute try not to think about a pink elephant. You can think of anything you like, but not a pink elephant! Try it now. Did it work? Probably not. Why? Because when you tell your mind not to think of something, it doesn't take any notice of the "not". It only sees the "something." Suppression doesn't work. The mind is too curious for that! Then what's the answer? If you have a garden full of weeds, the best way to control them is to plant a tree right in the middle of them. As it grows, it will naturally smother the weeds. And so it is with the mind. We have to channelize all our thoughts towards a greater one; a stronger one; a more positive one. And the strongest and most positive thought is that of infinite happiness; what in meditation we call bliss – perfect peace and contentment.
So how does meditation work? That positive thought is introduced into the mind through what we call a mantra. Of course you've heard the word before, but what does it really mean? It means a word or phrase that "liberates the mind." Although we rely mostly on our eyes, sound has the most powerful effect on the mind. So the internal sound of a mantra is a very powerful way of creating a feeling in the mind. Here's how: First it acts as an object of concentration, because the mind has to have something to focus on. Then it vibrates the mind. Everything has a particular vibration; everything and everybody. You like someone when their vibration suits your own. You like music that suits your own vibration. The mantra gives your mind the vibration of infinite happiness, and you feel it as bliss. Then last but not least is its meaning. "As you think, so you become." If you think negatively, your life will be negative; but your life will automatically be positive if you think positively. We're continually in the process of becoming the object of our ideation. So the meaning of the mantra is vital. It must be the most uplifting ideation; the most positive of thoughts. Again: infinite happiness; perfect peace and contentment – bliss.
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