The Path of Meditation is to search and seek for that which we have never lost. The world has to realize that lost happiness and peace are not outside of us; we cannot find lost happiness and peace so long as we focus our search outside. We lost it inside of us, and can only find it inside of us. That is the path of meditation, to search and seek for that which we have never lost.
As we perceive the world through our senses - seeing, listening, hearing, being open to the outside world - we get used to the world of the periphery, forgetting the Center. We become attracted to externals and our senses pull us out all the time. We forget that there is an internal life too. Internal life is not objective but more clearly subjective. The practice of meditation is grounded in this subjective principle of life.
We can use an analogy to understand. If I have left my car key in my bedroom, and then forget where I left it, I may search all around the world; I may spend days and nights searching for the key out on the pavement, in the garage or all over the city. But I will never find it outside. For I have never lost it outside. I forgot that I left it in my bedroom, in my home. Till I come to my home and search in my bedroom I will not find it. When I find it in my bed room, I may think, how foolish of me to go around searching and seeking outside when it was just in my home!
So it is with the truth of our life. We never lost our peace and calm outside of us. But we think so. This illusion drives us to search in the objective world for that which we have in the home of our subjective Self. We have all the Peace and Happiness we are looking for inside our Self, if we only look there to find it!
Meditation is not a technique. It is your realization that you have not lost your happiness outside of you. No amount of searching in money, beauty, name and fame will help you be at peace. Just retreat back into the shrine of your Home. Peace is within you. It is in the silence of your restless mind. It is in the humility of your humbled emotion acknowledging the supremacy of Divine Wisdom. It is your connection of Body Mind with your Spirit within. It is your connection of individual self with the Cosmic Self. It is the journey of an individual to find the Universal. It is a simple art of opening your heart and mind to the Higher Light that guides the destiny of trillions of galaxies and Milky Ways. It is how you rejoice within you like a child in the lap of the mother.
Meditation helps you to find that natural self within you. It helps you to get to that inner rhythm which is inseparable from the Universal Rhythm. It helps you to feel you are ever interconnected, interrelated interdependent, to the rest of Cosmos. Once your sense of assumed separation melts in the light of awareness that is created in Meditation, you feel the expansion; you feel the essence of life as expansion enveloping everything as the manifestation of the Self within. That is a beautiful state of harmony and peace. It is so natural and effortlessly spontaneous. This state is the deepest state of Meditation called Samadhi, which is dissolution of the dualism and merging into the Unified Field of Consciousness.
Meditation is The Inner Journey to the Self Within
As I have said meditation as a practice is an effort to stop the mind from its natural tendency to weave thoughts. In the practice of meditation you try to relax yourself. You begin to focus your mind. You can focus on your Chosen Ideal, a Sacred Sound or chant, or on your own physical body, your own breath or your own thoughts. The effort in meditation is always to be effortless. Here, you are working to expand your subtle awareness, so you can feel the non-physical dimensions of your physical self and of this physical world. You begin to experience the stillness of your mind, the lightness of your body, and illumination of your intellect. You are flooded with Cosmic Energy in the process. As you persevere through the initial obstacles in meditation, you experience your natural connection to the universal field of energy. You feel the calm state of your mind. Mundane emotions transmute into joyful experiences of giving and forgiving. You feel your body and mind in rhythm with the universal rhythm. You are not struggling to be happy any more.
Meditation is an inner journey toward the Self. It is a journey to discover the real "I", the eternal transcendent “I”. The smaller "I" with whom you identify in your everyday consciousness is affected by all the ups and downs of the relative world. When meditation deepens, your eye of wisdom opens. All ignorance, ego, attachments, all aversions, all fear of death, gradually leave you. You become the conqueror of death and of limitation. That is what Meditation gives us. It opens the window to our Inner Self. It brings us closer to who we are. Meditation is to move from matter to energy, the Divine Energy.
The Not so Subtle Difference between Prayer and Meditation
In conclusion, when one prays, one is essentially thinking or doing a task, for one is either asking for something or being grateful for a prayer answered. And this state is usually manifested in words, or thoughts. Prayer implies a doer and a Receiver, Meditation implies that the DOER and RECEIVER are One in the Same! The difference between prayer and meditation is really not so subtle. It is the difference between mind and No-Mind, where the mind of the individual ceases and the Communion happens with the Universal Mind.
See Baba's website at www.feelinghearts.org
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