Sunday 20 July 2014

Welcome to meditation in all its aspects and mystery



Fellow Spiritual Seekers, Brothers and Sisters


Something like meditation should be approached in the spirit in which it is practised. Practical aspects and techniques can be outlined, but the essence of it can’t be described intellectually. In order to understand meditation, the meditation-mind has also to awaken and listen, because the voice that describes meditation can never define so completely that there is automatic understanding. 

It's like having something precious and wonderful and holding it up to the light and turning it and seeing it reflected from different angles in the changing light. One moment it looks like this, another moment it’s different, and looks like that, and yet in essence it is always the same. So how to describe it? We build a picture from different images which come gradually more and more into focus as our observation and understanding increases.

So the aim is to look into and reflect the spirit of meditation. It will not be a focus on technique. There are many books, and thousands of practices to try, and choose from. The cornerstone of developing our understanding will be: That whatever the practice, there is a constant. And awareness of the constant brings a different dimension to practice. And what is the constant? Think about it for a moment… It's so obvious we may miss it. It's the one who is having the experience: you... you are always present. So what is the experience at any given moment. And that can be taken to great depth in meditation

Much of what is revealed as wisdom in meditation often sounds mundane and obvious at first, but behind some of those obvious thoughts, when deeply considered and applied directly in practice, turn out to be very sound guidelines when we encounter the many experiences that arise during the long journey of meditation, some of which reflect the light accurately and some of which are confusing and misleading.

And much of the journey is spent coming to terms with many things, that we know, and so many more things we don’t yet know about ourselves, that we have not met with, though we may suspect they are there within us. Perhaps we have either not yet had the inclination to look deeper, or perhaps the will is there but we have not known how to go about it; we have not had a suitable set of directions to guide the way accurately.

The one who is always present – you, me, having the experiences of a lifetime – can be recognised and in time seen more accurately. This is the basis of discovering our innate wisdom. If we are able to internalise for some time, and awaken and develop our own inner awareness, everything in life becomes clearer and more meaningful. This is what happens in meditation. And meditation when understood correctly and practised properly can provide the answer to every important question in life. 

So be an adventurer in the inner world, and look into this wonderful mystery we call meditation.

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