Monday, April 30, 2012

Meditation - The Natural Way of All Life

Meditation: this word with all its history and contexts - cultural, spiritual, contemporary. Its one of those weighted words shrouded in mysticism and mystique. It was once known as a spiritual discipline practised only by a fringe demographic - the monks, the ascetics, the masters. In the last half a decade, it has become widely popular in the West as a daily practice to cultivate relaxation, well being and self awareness. In Asia it has been a part of people's lives for centuries. There are many forms of meditation practice each prescribed to achieve different objectives. These range from simpler techniques which focus on breathing, repetition of certain mantras to the more arduos and extreme: kundalini techniques and subjecting the body to extreme physical and environmental conditions among others. But what is meditation? Its a question that I asked a long time ago.

It's like asking someone: What is math? We've all studied arithmetic, algebra, geometry, calculus - some of us have delved even deeper. But in my own experience there are very few occasions I can recall that I ever took the time to question what I was studying and to really develop an appreciation for math in the context of my own life. What is Math's relationship with reality and how do they shape each other? Luckily (or unluckily) for me I did ask that question about Meditation.

Growing up in India - meditation was not a novelty. In fact, it was as mundane as breakfast or geography. A lot of people practised it in one form or another. Kids despised it, parents preached it (but secretly dreaded it) while grandparents told many stories of an uncle or aunt who had met so and so's guru and had had some remarkable out of body experience. Almost everyone I knew growing up had either been a student of or at least consulted with one of India's many 'wise' sages or sadhus (incidently more easy to find than a reliable tax accountant).

In high school, Transcendental Meditation (TM) was part of every morning's ritual. I still remember the vice principal's voice over the PA announcing : "Students, sit back sit comfortably. Close your eyes. Start chanting the mantra and the meditation begins." Try convincing a bunch of 30 odd adolescents to still their minds for 10 whole minutes. Surprisingly though, everyone did it. Except me. I was a troublemaker, I had no choice. I would spend my 10 minutes trying to get the other 29 to follow my lead. Needless to say, the teacher hated me with a passion that verged on murderous. And while the attention-seeking, rebel-without-a-cause persona that I adopted got off on the controversy there was a much more fundamental reason I was protesting.

My introduction to meditation was a very personal affair. One night, at the age of eleven, I was lying in my bed in the darkness waiting for sleep to overtake me. I remember being fascinated by the silence - that loud, all pervading static that would overwhelm me in the quiet of the night. I remember playing games with it, allowing myself to hear it until it got really loud at which point I would turn away from it in fear. This one night the silence was particularly loud and I was feeling particularly adventurous. As it got louder, I sat up in order to listen better. In the pitch darkness of the room there was only me immersed in this vast ocean of silence. And then suddenly out of nowhere the following words popped into my head: "I want to know what God is." It sounds like the worst kind of cliche I know, but that is how the whole journey began for me. The statement confused me because I had had no spiritual motivation whatsoever until that point. Nor was my family particularly religious. They all had their own beliefs and practices but never had any of it been forced on me. And so I began meditating. It became my nightly ritual and I followed my own rules. Sometimes, I'd sit, sometimes stand, sometimes my eyes would be open, sometimes closed. Sometimes I'd repeat a mantra, sometimes I'd just listen to the silence. I practised every night for years.

And so when I began high school I had already cultivated a deep intuition for meditation. I found the daily TM practice in class restrictive and empty of true depth. One day when I decided to play nice and actually meditate with everyone I sat back softly focusing my gaze on the blackboard and naturally fell into a very deep peace. This lasted only a minute before I was rudely roused by my teacher's scowling face, "Shiv Sengupta!" she scolded. "Why are you not meditating?!"
"I am...," I attempted to defend myself.
"How can you meditate with your eyes open??!" she scowled back. What an absurd question? How can you not? That was my response. It was not well met. Needless to say I never meditated in school again.

The experience tainted my perception of the world. It was the first of many similar life experiences that would make me fiercely skeptical of authority, rules and group-think. Meditation to me was one of the purest experiences. To deaden it with rules and ritual to me was the true blasphemy. And so I continued to pursue it in private.

In my early twenties, my meditation practice intensified. It had now become my one fundamental path to that holy grail that is Enlightenment. I wanted it more than anything. And this hunger was reflected in my hardcore and often reckless meditation. The human mind is only an instrument like the human body. It too can be exercised to great lengths and it too can suffer fatigue and injury. I began pushing myself into long intensely focused sessions, a few on occasion lasted over 24 hours. I began to have visions, psychedellic experiences, massive energy surges, feelings of euphoria. It became the way I tested myself and my spiritual determination. And I wanted to do it alone - no guide, no master, no guru. I had heard tales of people having strokes without proper guidance, but it was a risk I was willing to run.

Eventually it took its toll. I became emotionally unstable. While the meditative highs were addictive, the come downs were super low much like it is with most drugs. I became extremely depressed. I began to see the emptiness of my spiritual pursuits.

My relationship with meditation radically changed after my first spiritual awakening.  I had now tuned in more carefully with my inner voice: that quiet voice I'd always heared but most often ignored. I began to trust it and to listen to it. It introduced me to a new relationship with meditation. Whereas previously meditation had been an experience more akin to combat where my mind was an oppressor that I had to master, dominate and transcend, it now became more like a dance. Where the mind was my partner and I the witness. I tried to enter each meditation with little or no agenda. To simply sit and experience myself in relationship with my environment. To watch, listen and learn from the wisdom of my own mind and body. To allow the world to be just as it was without the overlay of an ego. And thoughts still came and went. And opinions still arose about the dog barking in the distance or the noisy neighbors and their family drama. But now I invested little effort in following the thoughts or pushing them away. Instead my primary motivation was one of deep curiosity. Yet, I still followed a schedule and sat down to meditate every morning and evening though the energy and intention was a very different one now.

Then, one day I realized I had to stop. I realized that my meditation had become a crutch - no matter how much peace and well-being it gave me. I realized that the way I felt during meditation and the way I felt in my everyday life were very different. And it was what made me crave solitude and made me value my moments of meditation more than those in 'real life'. And I knew that any state no matter how beautiful or peaceful was not true if it was contrived. It was a difficult choice but a necessary one. I didn't want to feel that deep peace in the isolation of my balcony watching the trees swaying in the breeze - I wanted to feel it in daily life: in traffic, while doing the dishes - in the most mundane of circumstances or not at all.

So I stopped my practice. And I felt the effects quite acutely at first. I was thrown off balance emotionally. I had no safe haven to turn to when I felt confused or clouded. There were many times I was tempted to restart my ritual. But the inner voice always reminded me of the wisdom of letting go into the unknown. Not long after I noticed something different. The meditation found me. It came at the strangest moments - uninvited and unexpected: while driving a car, in the midst of a conversation, while working out. These moments of deep peace, objective clarity and felt oneness started to show up for brief instances throughout my day. And if I tried to hold onto it, it would be gone before I knew it. And so I let it be.

Like a bird that I had once caged and now set free, the meditation returned more and more often. It revealed itself to me in all its simplicity. That question: "what is meditation" that I had pondered for so many years suddenly became starkly obvious.

Meditation is the natural way of all life. It is not a practice although we make it into one. Just like walking is the most natural way for humans to move yet one can make an exercise, a sport and an obsession out of it. Walking can be a means of arriving at your destination. But in essence to walk is to be in movement. Therein lies the simplicity and harmony.

Meditation is the natural way of all life. It is a state of being deeply rooted in one's Self. We are all born in meditation. Every infant, every animal, every plant , every rock is in deep meditation. Every river, every tree, every moment is in deep meditation. It is we who having created these mind made realities-  in which we struggle and strive and achive and fail and rejoice and suffer - view meditation as a practice by which we can achieve peace. But how can you achieve that which is always already present? We see peace as opposite to war, we see peace as opposite to violence, we see peace as opposite to suffering. As long as we mistake peace to be some static state or circumstance that we can get to if we just TRY HARD ENOUGH....

Meditation is the natural way of all life. There is no way to meditate just as there is no way to be. You are. Whether you like it or not. No matter what the story of your life, regardless of who you think you are and what you have or haven't achieved - you are already in deep meditation with the rest of Life. You are already in peace.

Meditation is the natural way of all life.