2019 – The Year of Raising Awareness Through Meditation

(This article is based on the New Year Discourse delivered by Sirshree at the beginning of January 2019)

If You Are Aware, Happy New Year!

If you are able to maintain higher awareness, then the year can be traversed in happiness. This year, let us work on ourselves to develop such practices or habits that can catapult us to the ultimate state of awareness, joy and peace, while also achieving success in our endeavors.

When surveys were conducted on the practices followed by the most successful individuals in the world, it was found that there were certain common practices that many of them followed. But there was one practice that was followed by all of them—the PRACTICE OF SILENCE.

Practice of Silence

Some may call it meditation, some as “being in the zone,” while some as “quiet time.” It is essentially the practice of being with yourself, spending some time in the solitary presence of your own self. This one practice can bring about miracles in our lives – apart from worldly success, it can bring sustained peace, harmony, and causeless joy.

What’s more, this state of equipoise that grows with the ‘practice of silence’ also touches your surroundings and evokes the same peace and joy within others around you.

Ten well-known benefits of meditation are:

1. Increased concentration and creativity
2. Enhanced capacity, productivity and consistency
3. Higher problem-solving and decision making ability
4. Advanced listening ability and sensitivity
5. Ability to witness emotions and having better control over emotions
6. Elimination of mental lethargy and developing detached enthusiasm
7. Ability of being in the present
8. Higher level of awareness
9. Improved health in every facet of life
10. Inner peace and bliss

Besides these and many more benefits, the main benefit of meditation is that it leads to the recognition of the true Self, the real you. When you continue with the practice of silence consistently, it leads to conviction in your true nature. You are then established in the experience of your true Self – which is beyond all thoughts, emotions, bodily sensations, concepts, time, and form.

Offer the Merit of your Austere Practices Towards the Wellbeing of AllBeings

This year, you can progress with the practice of meditation by taking small measurable steps. It is often seen that one finds it difficult to practice meditation regularly, citing various reasons. Hence, this year, let’s change the reason for practicing meditation. Let’s practice meditation for the wellbeing of all. One might wonder why one should meditate for the benefit of everyone! Let us understand this with the help of a narrative of King Janaka from Indian mythology.

King Janaka of Mithila had led a very pious and benevolent life. Upon his death, when his karma was being assessed to determine his afterlife, it was found that his life was pure, without blemishes. It was decreed that King Janaka will surely attain heaven. Yet, considering the subtlest trace of ego that could have been present even among the most pious of souls on Earth, his journey was deemed to simply pass through hell on its way to heaven.

When King Janaka witnessed the suffering of the people in hell, he was moved and out of boundless compassion, asked how he could help them. He was told that the merit of his noble deeds and austere practices could be offered to rid them of their suffering. King Janaka readily agreed to offer all the merit he had accumulated in his life.

It was found that the merit of King Janaka’s noble deeds on Earth far outweighed the sins of the people in hell. He compassionately gave his merits for the wellbeing of those suffering in hell, thus leading to their liberation.

Such is the power of noble deeds, penance and meditation! We too can help in changing the state of our world. We can begin by practicing meditation and offering its merit or fruit towards the wellbeing of all beings.

You may choose to consider 20 minutes of meditation as one merit or one noble deed. So, whenever you sit to practice meditation for 20 minutes, you may begin by mentally dedicating your endeavor for the wellbeing of all. At the end of the meditation session, which lasts 20 minutes or more, you can cup your hands together before you, symbolizing the offering of the merit of your meditation for the good of all. This is an act of love, that will awaken compassion and purity in your heart.

Keep Expectations at Bay

When you practice meditation, expectations can pose an obstacle in the journey. Whenever meditation yields a blissful experience, the mind begins to expect the same outcome of every meditation session. If this expectation is not fulfilled, it leads to frustration and depression and finally giving up the practice. The fact is that the experience of the true Self is not in the realm of the mind. The mind cannot willfully attain it, try as it may. In fact, its very attempt to re-experience it becomes an obstacle. Knowing that expectations can pose a hurdle in the journey of meditation will help in keeping them at bay.

Meditation Does Not Cause Troublesome Aspects, But Brings them to Light

It is likely that a beginner of meditation will encounter a barrage of troublesome thoughts while meditating. When one closes one’s eyes and there is nothing else to do, it may appear that one is getting flooded with a storm of thoughts. There are many, who give up the practice of meditation, just because they are unable to tide through this barrage of thoughts and emotions. They blame the practice of meditation for these undesirable aspects.

It is important to bear in mind that meditation is not responsible for creating more thoughts or arousing uncomfortable feelings. Meditation only brings to light what is already present within you. The more you meditate, the more you become aware, and the more you get to see what is already present within you.

Someone who is sinking into quicksand is not aware of it as he is asleep. If you wake him up, he would suddenly realize that he is sinking. Would he then blame you for the fact that he is sinking? No! He will thank you that he is now aware that he was sinking.

Similarly, meditation only serves to bring what is hidden in the dark within yourself to light. Hence, it does not help to blame meditation for undesirable experiences that trouble you. Rather it is a time to rejoice that you are doing well in the journey. Meditation does bring some uncomfortable aspects from within you to light. Let them appear, for they are appearing, only to be released from within you for good!

A Small Step Each Day Can Help Achieve anImmensely Enormous Goal

You would have seen what is popularly known as the Domino effect, where a tiny block can cascade a series of increasingly bigger blocks, toppling the next bigger one in succession, ultimately leading to the fall of a large block. When this effect is applied in the physical world, even a 2-inch block of wood has the potential to topple the biggest of monuments, when laid in a series of increasingly bigger blocks.

You can apply this concept in the journey of raising your awareness through meditation. A little practice today can raise your awareness to a point which can help in raising your practice even further. With the raised level of practice, your awareness, in turn, will rise even higher, gradually but surely leading to the pinnacle of awareness or moksha.

Regular Practice of Meditation

There are many techniques of meditation that are known around the world. But all these techniques can be ultimately equated to a few broad techniques, which can lead you to the ultimate purpose of meditation. These can include breathing meditations, self-inquiry (“Who am I?”), Neti-neti (I am neither this, nor that), witnessing meditation, japaor chanting, etc.

Of these broad techniques, you can consider practising a particular technique each month, which will help you progress on a particular facet in this journey. Let’s practice each technique for a given month so vigorously that it becomes a natural way of being for us, even whilst we are in the thick of activity.

The practice of meditation can be embraced as a regular and essential activity, just like brushing your teeth every day; you can make meditation a natural way of being. This is what will help you to connect to your true divine nature and get established in it. This is what will liberate you from all sufferings and contribute in the healing and liberation of all other beings.