Beyond the superficial techniques of meditation and fleeting moments of stillness, there exists a profound journey of self-discovery, an odyssey into the depths of our being.
Welcome to a transformative exploration of how to meditate, where we transcend the ordinary and find a well of ever-expanding inner growth and knowledge.
One Formula: Grab Hold of the Essence
When it comes to meditation or how to meditate, here’s an outline to keep in mind:
First, find out the essence of meditation.
Questions to ask:
- What’s the true purpose for which humans (and even monkeys1) have been meditating for thousands of years?
- What’s the purpose you want your meditation to serve?
If you end up getting the right answers to both of these questions, they are likely to look like this below:
“The essence of meditation is aspiration for growth and knowledge. For this essential purpose, humanity has been meditating from the beginning, which shall also be the purpose of my meditation.”
Secondly, understand what growth and knowledge are.
Questions to ask:
- What are true growth and knowledge for a human being?
- What are true growth and knowledge for me?
Let’s talk about growth first:
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Is it wealth, fame, ever-growing happiness, or an increasing number of experiences, sexual and otherwise?
Sorry to say, but meditation does not serve these growth areas so well, probably doesn’t serve them at all.
So, what are the growth areas served by meditation?
Meditation serves the growth of you as an evolutionary being. Growth of your consciousness.
Now, let’s talk about knowledge:
Is it math, science, or history? Well, not so much, but surely much more about unraveling the mystery.
The knowledge that illuminates the mystery of your existence. Math, science, and history help. In a broader view of things, any kind of pursuit of knowledge must fall under the scope of meditation. The pursuit of knowledge is a form of meditation.
But the knowledge meditation tries to achieve pertains to the math, science, and history of your inner self.
The inner self is actually the only self you have. Because you feel yourself within your body, right? You exist within your body. All that you experience outside are processes within you.
In the end, there is nothing that exists outside of you.
So, the main formula of meditation is aspiring for the essential form of growth and knowledge, which is inner growth and knowledge.
It is as simple as that!
Then, dive in!
Expansion of the Main Formula
Let’s expand on the main formula a bit.
Meditation is any internal activity of a living being aspiring for the essential form of growth and knowledge, that is inner growth and knowledge, to go beyond or beneath the ordinary states of mind/being/consciousness/existence.
Any kind of growth attempts to go beyond the present state. That’s the definition of growth. And any kind of inner growth must involve those four esoteric terms mentioned.
But what are ordinary states of mind and existence?
That depends on the being in question; in this particular instance, we are talking about you here.
- What are your ordinary states of wakeful consciousness?
- What are the usual activities your mind occupies itself with?
- What is the overall environment of your inner existence?
- What’s the nature of the observer that observes within you?
- What’s the nature of the observations of the observer within you?
Whatever the answers to these questions may be for you, meditation aims to take you beyond or beneath these usual planes of inner existence.
The usual stuff that you might have read online about meditation is fine, but they are all too generic, naive, and almost at times useless against the immense complexity of our beings.
The everyday online tips and tricks about how to do meditation can only go so far as making you sit down for a day or two, only to find yourself back where you started. Many people find it hard to continue meditation for this very reason.
Yes, if you continue struggling long enough and force yourself to sit down for long enough, you will eventually get a glimpse of true meditation and touch the essential purpose of the practice.
But starting with the essence from the very beginning helps to eliminate the initial struggles that can continue to trouble new meditators for years and even decades.
This brings us to the pivotal question – how to meditate?
As stated at the beginning of this article, the answer is starting with the essence first. Know the essence of meditation, which is going beyond, beneath, or above the ordinary, whatever the ordinary might be for you.
Meditation is borne out of the very desire to surpass the usual state of being and knowledge.
If you can get hold of this essential force of desire within you, you will find meditation easy for you. You will find the essential route of self-inquiry and, from then on, move ahead on the path laid in front of you.
Even enlightened beings meditate. Why? Their ordinary is the enlightened states, but still, they strive to go even beyond to higher realms of enlightened realization. That’s why our motto at Growth Cosncious is, “And still there is a beyond.”
So, establish this truth in your being about meditation – meditation will take you beyond and keep taking your beyonder2!
Beyond what?
Beyond your ordinary states of being.
So, true meditation is first knowing the ordinary so that you can transcend them.
That’s why, at first, it is best to start with contemplation meditation on your being.
Go back to the questions asked at the beginning of this post –
- What are your ordinary states of wakeful consciousness?
- What are the usual activities your mind occupies itself with?
- What is the overall environment of your inner existence?
- What’s the nature of the observer that observes within you?
- What’s the nature of the observations of the observer within you?
Now, add another question into the mix-
- What or how is the inner mechanism making it all happen?
At this stage of meditation, you need intense focus; that’s why the sitting posture is the best by all means. Sitting in a lotus-type pose affords you the most focus, speaking both from personal experience and vouched by thousands of gurus and experts.
So, just sit tight and contemplate your inner workings. Note down the answers to the questions above.
It is also very helpful to always have a watchful inner eye on yourself at all times. The self is the most complicated thing in the universe; to understand it from all sides, you need all the help you can get.
Here’s a simple meditation process:
- You are sitting with your eyes closed, intently focused on yourself.
- You are aware of your body and the myriad of thoughts hovering in your mind.
- Observe your thoughts and bodily sensations.
- Do this for a long time, repeatedly.
- Do this even when you are engaged in daily regular activities.
- Gradually, try to find the source of your thoughts and feelings.
- What is it in you that is thinking those thoughts, feeling those feelings, and who is observing this process of thinking and feeling?
- Gradually, try to let go/silence/eliminate all these thoughts and feelings during meditation.
- What happens when all of your thoughts and feelings are no longer there?
- Keep repeating and contemplating all this for as long as you do not get the answers leading to a non-dualistic realization.
- The non-dualistic realization will show you how the comprehending and apprehending consciousness is the same consciousness with different poises to facilitate the mechanism that is yourself – the observer and the observed.
Once this realization has been sufficiently established with your being, it’s time to meditate on going beyond yourself. That’s when comes more mystical terms of intuition, trance, ego-annihilation, total silencing and purification of the being, unification with the higher realms of consciousness, unification with the infinite, etc.
Now, these are the states that are difficult to explain and transmit.
Once you have a clear understanding of your inner being, you have fulfilled the primal socratic directive of knowing thyself. This very knowledge of yourself would then be sufficient enough to take you to the next beyond.
This diligent self-inquiry will illuminate all the parts of your being and unlock intuition that will further guide you on your path of meditation.
Examples of parts of your being getting illumined:
The ever-increasing shine of the light of consciousness will uncover the thick layers of impulsions, past conditionings, patternings, and structures of your mental being.
- What are your compulsions, and why are they there?
- You will know what triggers what within you. Why did you suddenly become angry at your son or your mother the other day?
- What triggers your anger, and why do you feel remorse after bursting out?
- Why do you find yourself becoming in a certain way whenever you see someone with specific characteristics?
- What kind of occurrences make you suffer the most?
- What is the nature of your suffering?
- What do you find joyful, and what is the nature of your joys?
- Is there a possibility within you that can eliminate the cycles of joy and suffering altogether to reach everlasting peace?
- Answers to all these questions will gradually blossom within you through constant meditation of self-inquiry.
- From where do the thoughts come from, and where do they go?
- What are the forces driving you at all times, and can you go beyond them?
- What keeps you awake at night?
- Why do you feel very focused and motivated at times and so depressed some other days?
- At any given moment, what are the elements, i.e., thoughts, emotions, feelings, that make up your inner environment?
- What are the usual routes of your inner trains?
- What remains there when there are no thoughts, feelings, emotions, etc.?
- What are the main driving forces of your life?
- What motivates you?
- Do you know the purpose of your life?
- Why do we suffer from so many different things in life?
- What are your sufferings, and why do you suffer?
- What is your joy, peace, and happiness?
- What happens when you meditate while feeling sad?
- What happens when you meditate while you are happy?
- Would you be able to be the master of your compulsions?
The questions are endless, meditation helps find the answers. Of course, reading and learning from other people and their life experiences is also another avenue of growth, knowledge gathering, and finding the answers. But most of these core questions of our existence only get answers from within – through meditative self-inquiry and inner clarity.
So, meditation, first and foremost, is contemplating all the questions about your existence and finding the answers.
The first point of realization is that you are what resides within you. From there on, meditation starts!
When to Meditate?
Are mornings or evenings better for meditation?
Before sleep or after waking up?
Well, there is no one-size-fits-all solution to this. So, I suggest that you experiment at different times of the day.
The key is to focus on the quality of your meditation each time you are doing it.
Focus on how difficult is your mind acting.
How difficult are you finding it to silence or focus?
Does it seem more volatile than normal?
Is the level of mental chatter too fast or much calmer?
How are you feeling overall after meditating for a certain amount of time compared to before meditation?
As a rule of thumb, avoid meditation right after a heavy meal.
After collecting enough data on all the qualitative factors of experimentation with meditation at different times of the day and different mood settings, you will be much better equipped to create a personalized meditation routine that aligns with your lifestyle.
Footnotes:
- Monkeys do meditate. Don’t believe me? Think deeply and openly about these two events:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0nohx7auDw
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/chilling-out-hot-springs-may-help-japans-snow-monkeys-reduce-stress-180968686/ ↩︎ - “Beyonder” is not an actual English word, but I used to mean there’s always another beyond after a beyond. ↩︎
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