You Think That You Are Meditating. But You Are NOT!

Abstract: You may be sitting straight and you may be thinking you are meditating. You are doing something with the mind but it is not meditation. Meditation requires a different mind. The outgoing mind, the objectifying mind, the mind with desires and ambitions, this mind cannot be really meditating. Yes, it may be trying to concentrate and do some exercises and going through valuable training, a valuable process of discipline. This is not completely useless.

Meditation is the ultimate process when one has laid the foundation of spiritual life, when one has overcome the constant pull of the senses and has become the master of one’s senses, when one through true discrimination and true inquiry, has realised the absolute hollowness of all that is perceived and therefore has overcome the natural tendencies of the mind towards appearances and has succeeded in turning away completely from the desire for names and forms and attachment to objects and experiences, when one has learned the techniques of withdrawing the mind from the outer appearances, and when one has cultivated and created within a state of quiescence, balance, and equipoise. In that condition of being firmly grounded in virtue, that condition of perfect sense-control and self-restraint, in that condition of conquest of desires and the mastery of one’s passions, in that condition of inner stability and equipoise, one begins to gather oneself and move towards the concept or idea of what you feel of the Reality as opposed to appearances. This–the ingathering of the totality of your being, and the centralising of this ingathered power in one specific self-chosen direction,–is the object of your meditation, and the keeping up of a continued and unbroken movement of the ingathered totality in that particular direction of your entire being. This ingathered and directed, when this continued unbroken movement succeeds, you are in a state of meditation.

So it is the successful movement, continuously, in a self-chosen direction, of the totality of your being, ingathered in a unity–a unified whole–that is called meditation. All other things are individual private notions of meditation. All other things are only what you think to be meditation. Meditation requires being perfectly grounded in virtue. Virtue means certain spiritual qualities which are absolutely indispensable prerequisites for the interior life of meditation, without which meditation is impossible. There are certain spiritual qualities, which are the building blocks for the structure, which ultimately attains the pinnacle of meditation. Meditation is, as it were, the point of the pyramid. It cannot be created in air. It is created from the broad base on hard earth. The structure goes on and on and then you attain that point where there is that one stone–that is meditation. And, therefore, it is a process which is grounded in virtue. Virtue means spiritual qualities and why those spiritual qualities are insisted upon is very simple to understand. Because they are the refined qualities which keep out of your nature forces that are the direct antithesis of the Divine experience–factors which are direct contradictions of the state of meditation and of the spiritual experience. As long as these contrary forces and factors are there, it is not possible to rise in spiritual experience. You cannot be wet and dry at the same moment. And in order to put out those factors and forces there is only one way. That is, you have to create in your nature a strong positive movement within yourself and then they are no more. They are countered and overcome. They cannot remain, because they are merely the negation of certain virtues or positive forces. They have no separate or independent existence and identity by themselves. So to overcome them, certain positive factors (virtues) have to be created in you. Those positive factors are called virtues for want of a better term. They are spiritual qualities which are essential in order to keep out of your nature those factors that are unspiritual and directly contradictory to and the antithesis of the experience which you are trying to attain.

Based upon this essential ethical change and readjustment meditation is an interior process. The senses always have as their main task the keeping of your entire psyche in an exteriorised condition. That is the very nature of the senses, and unless you know how to control your senses, the psyche can never be ingathered. The ingathering of your psyche is absolutely indispensable and necessary for meditation. So, control of senses comes as the next preliminary condition. But if the psyche is in a constant state of effervescence within, then even in spite of having success in making it ingathered, you cannot initiate this process, which requires a certain degree of stillness. Therefore, next comes the calming of the mind, its desires, the passions, the various ambitions, the constant attachments and the cravings that keep the mind always in a state of flux and ferment. They have to be overcome, and this does not come in a day. This is a process that takes time. This process of attaining a certain extent of absolute quiescence of this mind takes many years. Even if it takes years, it is worthwhile. Spiritual life cannot be in the presence of impatience. It cannot be done in the presence of haste. The eagerness must be there, tremendous eagerness–tremendous enthusiasm,–and at the same time it should be accompanied by patience. So, this state of quiescence can come about only if you are able to cast out of your mind miscellaneous desires, attachments, overwhelming ambitions, plans and schemes and what not. All these things have to give place to a unified aspiration. The mind wants only one thing. In that it should not want anything else. Total elimination of wants is impossible. Hunger, the desire for food and drink, desire for clothing and other desires by their very immediacy in your life are so very demanding and you cannot get rid of them. A father will have plans for his child, but all miscellaneous desires have to be completely out along with all ambitions and planning, and there should be unified aspiration, meaning that, by and large, the maximum predominant emphasis in your mind will be upon that ultimate goal. The mind is relatively unified, even though there may be in its periphery some of these unavoidable desires of the immediate life you are living. Mainly, it will be unified, and when it is thus unified, all dispersal will go. There will be no ambitions, no other desires, no other attachments, no other passions, and cravings. The mind will be totally in a state of ingatheredness and unity. We call it in Sanskrit Ekagrata.

Ekagrata means attainment of a state of one-pointedness. This mind alone, which has now been rendered subtle by giving up gross sensual experience, by totally eliminating the sensual desires, and by renunciation, attains a state of purity. See, mind is also matter. It is a very subtle matter compared to physical matter. Compared to spirit it is also matter. When it is filled with earthly tendencies, passions and greeds, it is full of Tamas and full of Rajas, i.e., it is very close to the presence of the quality of inertia and becomes still more gross due to the presence of the quality of restlessness, selfish desires and activities. When these have been transcended and to a certain extent mastered, then mind attains a state of purity and subtleness. Then the mind assumes an upward direction. It is always horizontal in its dynamics.

It assumes a state of upward direction only when it attains a state of subtlety and purity. Such a mind, rendered pure, rendered subtle by absolute purity and virtue, sense-control and elimination of desires and passions, only becomes the instrument which can think of the Atman–the Reality. Otherwise normal gross mind has not the state in which it can think of the Atman–the Truth or the Reality. It only gets the capability of thinking about the Atman when it is thus rendered subtle and pure. That mind should be engaged in meditation. Thinking that you are meditating is only a thought in your mind.

You may be sitting straight and you may be thinking you are meditating. You are doing something with the mind but it is not meditation. Meditation requires a different mind. The outgoing mind, the objectifying mind, the mind with desires and ambitions, this mind cannot be really meditating. Yes, it may be trying to concentrate and do some exercises and going through valuable training, a valuable process of discipline. This is not completely useless. It will always prepare the mind in a certain way, but ultimately this total transformation in your interior, by bringing the mind into that state of subtleness and purity, is absolutely necessary to initiate the process of meditation inside, because that is the instrument. A subtle, pure mind, completely still and calm and totally inward, that is the instrument for meditation. With that mind alone one can really meditate.