I was introduced to a life of prayer and meditation at the age of 17. Ever since there was meditation in my daily life. In the beginning, meditation was based on some points taken especially from scriptures. It often involved inculcating some virtues or rooting out some defects. A daily examination of conscience at noon and another before bed time gave information about the status of my spiritual life. This spiritual status guided my spirit/soul providing goals. Systematic meditations were done in the morning and in the evening. Spiritual exercises, especially meditations were used to break my worldly ways. Ascetic practices were also set in place to help achieve spiritual goals. Bodily mortifications to tame my senses.were also practised. When one has acquired general indifference to pleasure or pain, success or failure, one would be better tuned to God’s will, and disposed to do what is conducive to God’s glory. These meditations were mostly modeled on Western understanding of achieving holiness and sanctity.
As years passed I got interested in Eastern, especially Hindu and Buddhist meditative experiences. According to Hinduism, each one of us is pure consciousness, and we together are the Supreme Consciousnes of which each one is a spark. Raja Yogic meditations can help to develop yogic (unitive) relationships with God and fellow human beings, and achieve self-realization. According to Buddhism our unattainable desires lead to unhappiness, which is the cause of all misery. The solution is to desire only what can be attained. For this, Buddha proposed the eight-fold path of right knowledge, aspiration, speech, action, living, effort, thought (mindfulness), concentration. Shoonyata (emptiness) and Vipassana (seeing reality as it is) meditations help one attain the needed awareness to see things for what they are to obtain liberation.
What then is meditation? It is a means to come to terms with oneself and the universe. It is a gradual journey to the beyond where being and non-being, illusion and reality, darkness erased by light, and hearing of one hand clapping happen. It is being a spectator of an effortless flow of things even as the witnessing self is flowing. Meditation is capturing the great rhythm of life in awareness of universal harmony marked by love, compassion, forgiveness, surrendering, and tolerance. It is being in harmony with nature and all that there is. The goal of meditation is love and welfare of the entire humanity.
Swami Snehananda Jyoti
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