This is the final part of my series of emails on Meditation. I hope you have been enjoying them and have gained deeper insights into meditation. Please reply and let me know (you may not get a response due to the volume of emails I receive), but I'd love to hear from you.
If you missed the previous parts, click here: Part 1 and Part 2
Contrary to common belief, meditation does not always result in peace of mind. We like to think this. We assume this because we don’t understand the mind, but this is not the case.
What’s the first thing you encounter when you begin to meditate? The answer is your subconscious mind. It was my guru who taught me this, and even though I’ve heard and read so much about meditation prior to meeting him, I’ve never heard anyone articulate this so clearly as him.
When you begin to meditate, you start to quieten down the external mind (the conscious mind) by the process of sitting still, closing your eyes, regulating your breath, and so on. As you do this, awareness begins its journey past the conscious mind and enters the subconscious mind. Our subconscious is a repository of all our past experiences, habit patterns, and more. Learning how to deal with the subconscious and what we encounter there is a critical part of learning to meditate because as we go into the subconscious, we stimulate it. Stuff arises, and we need to know how to handle this. And often, this experience can be uncomfortable and at times even overwhelming as we encounter the darker, unpleasant parts of our subconscious.
Meditation and Arguments
A meditator avoids getting into arguments and should also avoid highly emotional states. The reactions of these states are too harsh on his nervous system, which he is learning to refine in his meditation. When a person goes through a highly emotional state, it is observed that it takes about 72 hours for the basic emotional state to quiet down. So, it is very important, if you are serious about your meditation, to avoid arguments and other highly charged emotional experiences. That is why structuring our lifestyle, as I shared in Part 2, is a critical piece in the meditation process.
What is the ultimate goal of meditation?
This comes down to what tradition you belong to and what it defines as the goal. In the Hindu tradition that I belong to, the highest purpose of meditation is to take your awareness from an external state of mind and go within yourself to experience the Self (God in the aspect of timeless, formless, and spaceless known as Parasiva in Hinduism). The experience of doing so helps you realize that you and God are one, inseparable. You are God. And there is no greater experience on this earth worth pursuing than this.
Preparing to Meditate
Your preparation for meditation is as important as your meditation practice, if not more so. The better you prepare, the better your meditation will be. Look at it this way: if someone very important were coming to your home for dinner, you would prepare for this, would you not? You would clean your home, perhaps decorate it with some fresh flowers, purify the air, spend a few hours preparing a delicious meal, shower, and dress up. In this process, you get mentally, emotionally, and physically ready for your guest. With all this advanced work, you are setting the scene for a wonderful experience. Meditation should be treated with the same attention as an important event. It is as if you are inviting your Higher Self over for dinner. You need to have the same level of regard and preparation for this event.
Within you, your higher Self awaits you. There is no greater experience in life than experiencing this. But know that not all meditation practices take you on a journey to the Self. If the Self is what you seek, then you need to find a meditation practice that is structured to get you there.
The ultimate goal of the meditation practice that I was taught, and that I teach in my meditation course, is Self-Realization. My meditation course gives you the foundational training and teachings needed to begin this journey. You can learn more about it here: Introduction to Meditation course.
