Choosing a meditation

Choosing a Meditation

FROM the very beginning find something which appeals to you.

Meditation should not be a forced effort. If it is forced, it is doomed from the very beginning. A forced thing will never make you natural. There is no need to create unnecessary conflict. This is to be understood because mind has a natural capacity to meditate if you give it objects which are appealing to it.

If you are body oriented, there are ways you can reach towards God through the body because the body also belongs to God. If you feel you are heart oriented, then prayer. If you feel you are intellect oriented, then meditation.

But my meditations are different in a way. I have tried to devise methods which can be used by all three types. Much of the body is used in them, much of the heart and much of the intelligence. All the three are joined together and they work on different people in a different way.

Body heart mind – all my meditations move in the same way. They start from the body, they move through the heart, they reach to the mind and then they go beyond.

Always remember, whatsoever you enjoy can go deep in you; only that can go deep in you. Enjoying it simply means it fits with you. The rhythm of it falls in tune with you: there is a subtle harmony between you and the method. 

Once you enjoy a method then don’t become greedy; go into that method as much as you can. You can do it once or, if possible, twice a day. The more you do it, the more you will enjoy it. Only drop a method when the joy has disappeared; then its work is finished. Search for another method. 

No method can lead you to the very end. On the journey you will have to change trains many times. A certain method takes you to a certain state. Beyond that it is of no more use, it is spent.

So two things have to be remembered: when you are enjoying a method go into it as deeply as possible, but never become addicted to it because one day you will have to drop it too. If you become too  much addicted to it then it is like a drug; you cannot leave it. You no more enjoy it – it is not giving you anything – but it has become a habit. Then one can continue it, but one is moving in circles; it cannot lead beyond that.  

So let joy be the criterion. If joy is there, continue, to the last bit of joy go on. It has to be squeezed totally. No juice should be left behind ... not even a single drop. And then be capable of dropping it. Choose some other method that again brings the joy. Many times a person has to change. It varies with different people but it is very rare that one method will do the whole journey.

There is no need to do many meditations because you can do confusing things, contradictory things, and then pain will arise.

Choose two meditations and stick to them. In fact I would like you to choose one; that would be the best. It is better to repeat one that suits you, many times. Then it will go deeper and deeper. You try many things – one day one thing, another day another thing. And you invent your own, so you can create many confusions. In the book of Tantra there are one hundred and twelve meditations. You can go crazy. You are already crazy!

Meditations are not fun. They can sometimes be dangerous. You are playing with a subtle, a very subtle mechanism of the mind. 

Sometimes a small thing that you were not aware you were doing can become dangerous. So never try to invent, and don’t make your own hotch-potch meditation. Choose two and just try them for a few weeks.