People from across the world come and ask: “What is Meditation? And, how can I meditate? Meditation is not a technique or mental effort or physical exercise to connect with higher dimension. There is no need to follow strict rules of ethics and renounce world. It doesn’t matter what you do or where you live; it’s simply ask for empty mind.
Some ask: “Is reading or hearing teachings of scriptures or spiritual epics or any other similar ones is also occupation. The answer is “yes”. When you do something the awareness goes out. In non-doing, the same awareness turns inwards at the center. In Zazen meditation, this center is known as “Tanden” or navel-button in common parlance.
Look at a tiger in the wild: it does not carry the burden of yesterday’s hunt or the worry of tomorrow’s prey. It simply is alert and completely alive in the moment. Meditation is not something to practice as an activity, but something to recognize as your original state. It is the joy of simply being with nature like a tiger resting in effortless awareness.
What is Meditation?
What is the simple definition of meditation to a person who is beginner? You may give hundred definitions of food to a hungry person; but he will never understand anything. Meditation is like that. Have you ever wondered why people love driving fast? When a car moves at high speed say 120 km per hour, you can’t think. No thoughts can come in mind.
In classical text “Vijnanabhairava Tantra”, Shiva says while having intense pain like piercing a part of your body by sharp needle, put your whole awareness at the point and forget the whole body. Only that point should be in your awareness. How it can leads to meditation? When you practice this meditation, it disperses all thought and turns your mind thought-less (nirvikalpa).
Meditation is simply non-doing. It is a state where nothing needs to be achieved or controlled. Then, you may wonder why there are so many techniques taught in meditation courses, especially in Rishikesh. The reason is simple: the mind is conditioned to keep doing something all the time, so it cannot easily understand what ‘non-doing’ means.
Because of this fact, yoga teachers begin with methods such as focusing on the movement of breath, repeating a mantra, or observing thoughts, since the mind understands the language of doing. These meditations techniques are only starting points; gradually, they lead you beyond all doing into a state of pure stillness. And that is meditation.
“When thoughts dissolve, and only seeker remains in stillness, this is meditation”
Who is behind the Masks?
You wear many masks in a day, don’t you? In this world of roles and costumes, it almost seems that one who refuses to wear a mask risks failure or misery. A gentle person can turn harsh in a moment, and a sinner may suddenly act like a sage. The masks keep changing, flowing with situations but behind all these shifting faces, there is something in you that never changes.
When a mask is worn for too long, it starts to feel like your real face. In the same way, your mind, body, senses and even your intelligence begin to feel like who you are. But they are only tools you use to experience and understand the world. Before trying to know the world, first know the one who knows it. That knower is your true “Self”; it is you.
Meditation is simply being without any mask (the mask of the doer, the thinker, or the one lost in emotions). For a moment, you drop all roles and stop trying to be anything. You just are. No effort, no pretending, no burden. And in that simple, naked being, a quiet joy begins to arise. That is effortless delight that has always been there, waiting behind the masks.
“When you rest in what doesn’t wear any mask, you enter meditation”
Meditation: Silence is Connection
The noise of the past and the whispers of the future do not cling to you; it is you who cling to the disturbance. Thoughts have no weight of their own. It’s your attachment that gives them heaviness. The moment you stop holding onto them, they lose their grip. When you no longer feel the burden of thoughts, you move beyond the mind.
In that state of non-clinging, no dust of disturbance can settle within you. Meditation can be understood very simply: it is the state where the mind stops creating noise. When thoughts disappear, everything becomes crystal clear. The purpose of a yoga and meditation retreat is to help seekers experience the same deep silence within themselves that exists in nature.
Stay with the present moment without inner commentary. Let your mind be like a mirror that reflects whatever comes through the senses and then lets it go. Do not let it become like a camera that keeps storing every impression. When you stop holding onto thoughts, the mind naturally becomes silent. In that silence, meditation begins to happen on its own.
Meditation: Space beyond ‘Thoughts’
Just as people pass by on a busy road and you stand watching from the side, thoughts keep moving through you; you see them, but you are not part of them. The mind keeps shifting from past to future, like the pendulum of a clock moves to and fro. Meditation is that quiet space within you where you stop reacting.
You wear clothes, but you are not the clothes. In the same way, you have thoughts, but thoughts don’t belong to you. The mind keeps moving from past to future, like a pendulum swinging to and fro. And, meditation is being in the present moment. Mind and meditation cannot exist together, when one is present, the other disappears.
Thoughts pour like countless raindrops in a heavy storm. They appear like stars in the night sky. Whether you look or not, the stars are always there. And, meditation is that constant stillness behind the changing thoughts in mind. It is that stillness where no storm, no rain and no disturbance of thought remain in your being.
“You are the observer, not the noise you observe.”
Beyond Experience to Realization
Meditation is not about chasing special feelings, seeing mystic lights, or hearing divine sounds. These may come and go, but they are still just experiences created by the mind. It is a state beyond thoughts and beyond focus on any external or internal object. In fact, as long as you are seeking something to happen, the mind remains active.
It begins only when all experiences settle down; when there is no desire to see, feel, or achieve anything, and the mind becomes completely quiet and still. Stillness of thoughts is not known through the senses, nor understood by mind. It is a direct knowing through pure awareness itself. It is steady, unchanging, and ever-present.
In the beginning, meditation may feel like an experience—peace, silence, or calmness. But its real purpose is to go beyond these experiences. It helps you understand your true nature. You stop just feeling something, and you start knowing who you really are. This knowing is called realization. In this state, you merge into the universal consciousness of Shiva.
You do not feel separate; but feel connected with everything.
Going Beyond Mind
Imagine your mind is like a garden. At birth, it’s like an empty garden waiting for flowers to grow. As you grow up, people around you like family, friends and nearby environment plant seeds (ideas, beliefs & thoughts) in your garden. These seeds grow into plants in form of habits and temperament that shape how you think, feel and behave.
But here’s the amazing part that your mind also have the power to set you free. By using your mind in a meditative way under certified yoga teacher training course (YTTC), you can transcend your thoughts, feelings and connect with something deeper and wiser within you. By practicing mindfulness techniques, you feel more calm and peaceful.
“When you go beyond mind, the beyond recognizes you. That is meditation”
Satbodh yoga school firmly believes that your mind is like a tool; it can be used to transcend worldly dimension of awareness or to abide in embodied limitations. By using it wisely, you can create a life of wonder, joy and endless possibilities. In a nutshell, you transcend your limitations and reach your full potential.
