Meditation muscles

A person went to the gym for body building. The instructor asked him whether he had any physical problems. He said, not much, just some arthritis, a bit of asthma, ulcers and spondilosis. But he wanted to do weight training. The instructor told him, first cure your ills, make your body suitable for weight training and then come back. 

Meditation is body building for the mind. We suffer from rigid attitudes, we start wheezing with anger at any provocation, our mind is full of bleeding ulcers from prejudices, and we are pains in the neck personified. Yet we think we can just plop down onto the ground, sit cross legged and experience a serene mind? 

Read up Patanjali's Yogasutra, O aspirers to meditation, and first makes your mind fit to sit. Yama and Niyama are perhaps the toughest stages to cross.

Muscles for the mind

 

We all are keen to do meditation. But is it that simple? This is what I read.

A person went to the gym for body building. The instructor asked him whether he had any physical problems. He said, not much, just some arthritis, a bit of asthma, ulcers and spondilosis. But he wanted to do weight training. The instructor told him, first cure your ills, make your body suitable for weight training and then come back.

Meditation is body building for the mind. We suffer from rigid attitudes, we start wheezing with anger at any provocation, our mind is full of bleeding ulcers from prejudices, and we are pains in the neck personified. Yet we think we can just plop down onto the ground, sit cross legged and experience a serene mind?

Read up Patanjali's Yogasutra, O aspirers to meditation, and first makes your mind fit to sit. Yama and Niyama are perhaps the toughest stages to cross.

Mind's brain

In meditation we become watchers of our own mind. How can the mind watch itself? How can it separate into two, the watcher and the watched? Actually the watcher is said to be beyond the mind, but when we start meditating, a corner of the mind itself has to act as proxy and watch the rest of it.

It happens in the body as well. The brain is part of the body, but it has a will of its own that decides and directs the rest of the body. It is as if it is a thing at a different level than the rest of the body. It has an added function of thought.

Similarly, in meditation, a part of the mind rises above the rest of it, anchored in the original observer, and works on the rest of the mind during meditation. The smaller the 'watcher mind' in proportion to the 'watched mind', the more effective is the meditation and the more authentic the watcher.

Live for death

The most important state of mind is that which happens at the point of death. 

That is the the only travelling-case that is carried from this life to the next one, and the contents are very important. The serenity, peace or calmness that we so desire to achieve should actually be a constant state. As if, if I were to die now, I should be able to do so without regrets. 

But how many of us can say that right now? It is difficult to keep cleaning the house all the time expecting a surprise visit from your mother-in-law. 

So do it once a day, thoroughly and honestly, and not just shoving the dirty things out of sight into drawers, but also throwing them out altogether. Look at yourself in the mirror. Are there black marks on the serenity? Wash your face during meditation. Use prayers and gratitude as soap. If every morning the house is clean, your mother-in-law can never find much dirt, no? 

Preparing for death is not an old man's job. The purpose of life is to prepare for death. So the earlier we start preparing, the better prepared we are.

Meditation is like popcorn and coke

You know, when there is an interval in a movie and the lights come on again, and you pull yourself out of the story and the characters of the movie you were so engrossed in till now, and look around and feel the hardness of the seat again and see the people around and maybe buy a popcorn and coke .......... get back to the real world from the unreal. 

Meditation takes us back to the real Self from the unreal world around us. This is also nothing but a 3-D film show. Meditation provides the break or relief from the fantasy that exercises our minds and emotions all the time.