What is Meditation?

by Arvind Kaji

I would like to share (my) feelings about meditation. I would like to

request, in the very beginning, that we be very careful about the use of
words as well as the act of sharing. Every word has an association of ideas
and emotions. It is extremely difficult to find a word in any language of the
world that is not loaded with emotions.

Now the word ‘meditation’ has an infinite variety of associations, and

I would, therefore, like to request you to pay special attention to the
implications of the word. I am not going to use the word meditation as
derived from the verb ‘to meditate about’, ‘to meditate upon’. In English
language to meditate implies a mental activity or a cerebral activity, in which
there is a subject and object relationship. I, an individual, contemplate about,
meditate upon some object, some point pre-determined by me, or by
someone else for me. In that sense ‘to meditate’ would be to focus one’s
attention exclusively on a pre-determined point for a given time, and it
would involve conscious effort to sustain attention, to focus attention on that
given point. So people are apt to believe that meditation is a mental activity
of focusing the whole attention on some point and holding it there
tenaciously. Such a mental activity should be called Concentration and not
meditation.

In the Sanskrit language there are two different words ‘Dharana’ and
‘Dhyana’. Dharana means to hold, to sustain attention, for which in the
English language the word is ‘Concentration’. I shall try to translate into the
English language the implications of the term Dhyana. I am going to use the
word ‘meditation’ as a parallel word in English, for the Sanskrit word
Dhyana.

Dhyana or meditation is a state of being in which there is an effortless

or choiceless awareness of what life is within and around. Thus, it is a world
of difference between the two. One can grow into that state of being.
Meditation, in other words, is a way of living in dynamic attention, in
dynamic awareness of what life is; it is an uninhibited, unconditional
movement of the individual consciousness, in harmony with the rhythm of
universal life.

Therefore, I would like to disinfect the word meditation of a number

associations. It is a non-cerebral movement, a movement of the individual
consciousness, but not the conditioned brain, not that part of the brain that is
inhibited by conditioning through education, culture, civilisation and socio-
economic contents of life. The brain, which is a physical organ – a part of
the biological organism, is as much conditioned as the rest of the physical
organism is. There are cerebral patterns of behaviour. There is a kind of
crystallised cerebral body – a psychological body. It is invisible and gets
expressed through words, through physical movements and so on.

Meditation is a non-cerebral movement of the human Consciousness,

in harmony with the rhythm of life within, without and around. It cannot be
a means to an end. Concentration can be a means to an end. Concentration
can relax the nerves, soothe the troubled psyche, create a chemical balance
in the body, stimulate the latent powers of the mind and non – sensual
experiences. All this can take place through concentration. All people living
in a highly industrialised society, going through a tremendous nervous strain
every day, living under a variety of tensions, neurological and chemical
pressures, do need the art of concentration, to develop powers, to acquire
experiences, to sharpen and heighten the sensitivity, to refine and
sophisticate the cerebral organs. If one wants it, one may follow that way.
Such a concentration resulting in the development of powers may not lead to
a radical transformation of the quality of life. It may not have any bearing on
the texture of our relationship with other human beings.

So Concentration may stimulate powers, experiences, make a person

powerful; and those who are troubled, those who are tired of sensual
pleasures, those who live in economic and political security, do like to roam
and wander in the astral, the occult, to obtain non-sensual experiences, to
acquire transcendental powers and so on. It is a game in the psychic world,
and the spirit of adventure creates an inner compulsion to seek these
experiences. There is nothing wrong in it provided one is very clear about
the purpose. Life is for adventures and explorations. Concentration has
nothing whatsoever to do with religion, spirituality, the discovery of Truth,
meditation, liberation or Nirvana. It is absolutely in the opposite direction –
strengthening the I-Consciousness, heightening the sensitivity of the I-
Consciousness, widening the sphere of experience; and deepening the sphere
of cerebral penetration. Thus one has to disillusion one’s mind of what
meditation is. There is no romance about it. It is a transcendence of the
conditioned brain. It is the growth of a person into an entirely new
dimension of Consciousness where experiencing itself comes to an end;
where the experiencer, the I-consciousness, the ego consciousness is held in
complete abeyance; where the boundaries of time and space in which the I –
Consciousness moves from moment to moment, fade away into nothingness;
where duality comes to an end; and the fragmentary subject/object
relationship with life subsides completely.

Unless one has an urge to find out what is beyond mind, unless one
has an urge to find out what is beyond the conditioned brain, what is beyond
the experiencer and the act of experiencing, what is beyond the act of
observation and the observer, the thought and the thinker, what is beyond
space and time, what is beyond all these symbols, what is beyond the
cerebral ways of behaviour; unless there is an innate passion to find out, to
discover for oneself, one will not be equipped to live the meditative way.

Meditation is a total way of living, not a partial or fragmentary

activity. I do not know whether there is an oriental way of looking at it or an
occidental way of looking at it. Life is neither occidental nor oriental. Life is
simple Is - ness. It just is. The boundaries of race, country and religion, the
frontiers of time and space are absolutely irrelevant to life and living.

So have I an urge to find out what is time, what is space and what is
beyond it; what is mind, what is thought and what is beyond it? Have I got
an urge – not as a reaction to the frustrations, failures or disappointments in
life, not as a reaction to the acquisitive ambition, to acquire something
different from the material, economic or political acquisition? If it is a
reaction to the ambitions, frustrations or failures in life, then the enquiry will
carry me only as far as the momentum of the reaction carries me. I will have
to ride upon the momentum of disappointment, frustration or ambition. It is,
therefore, absolutely necessary to have the pure, smokeless flame of enquiry,
which is the urge to find out, to discover, to learn, not for any extraneous
purpose, but as a fulfillment in itself, to find out what the meaning of life is,
for the fun of it, for the sport of it, for the joy of it.

When there is such a flame of enquiry to learn, to discover, to see, to

find out, for the joy of it, the inhibitions of motives, intentions and ambitions
wither away. Such a motiveless state in the beginning of discovery is vitally
necessary. As you know, every motive carries an inhibition and in its own
shadow carries a fear. Every ambition carries in its womb the fear of failure
and frustration. One has to equip oneself for the state of meditation and the
state of pure enquiry. A genuine enquiry is absolutely necessary; one cannot
emphasize this point too much. The enquiry not only eliminates the
inhibitions of repressed fears, but a genuine enquiry creates the pliability of
humility – not the rigidity of ambition. The I-consciousness is very rigid.

So, the tenderness, the pliability which are going to help us to a very
great extent, will be necessary. Fearlessness cannot be there unless there is
the pliability of humility. You know how the children are pliable and tender!
Their whole being is a flame of inquiry. Look at their eyes, their movements,
they want to learn and to grow. Humility releases energy which is neither
physical nor cerebral.

That is why I would like to draw your attention to the dimension of

humility which accompanies a genuine enquiry. The tenderness, the
pliability releases many latent energies – muscular, nervous, glandular,
cerebral and non-cerebral, which were locked up and blocked due to the
rigidity of the I – Consciousness. They get released the moment one is
tender in the spirit of enquiry and wants to know, to find out, to learn
through the eyes, ears, nose, through every nerve of the being. To be in the
state of enquiry is to be in the state of Bliss because the enquiry is going to
explode into Realisation. Realisation or discovery is only the maturity of that
enquiry. Enquiry or Realisation are not two separate things. One is blessed if
one has a genuine enquiry – not a fake one, nor intellectual or emotional
attraction, fascination or excitement. There is no excitement in real enquirer,
there is a depth of intensity, not the shallowness of enthusiastic stimulations
of emotions and sentiments (which) disturb the chemical poise of the being.
So one has to lay the right foundation of that state of meditation in which
one’s physical and biological mechanism is in a state of chemical poise and
relaxation.

I wonder if you have watched how the children between the age of 3
and 6 learn, and those above that age. Have you watched them in classes, at
home, when they do homework, the way they sit, touch the slate, the
tenderness, the pliability, and the gradual development and manifestation of
rigidity of approach as they advance in years? The enquirer is like a pliable
and tender child. He is vulnerable to the touch of life, from every corner
exposed to the Is-ness of life, without any defence mechanism. In the child
the defence mechanism does not work except on the physical level, on the
psychological level the child is exposed to the vibrations of life. In the same
way the enquirer gets exposed to the vibrations of life.

Surely meditation requires that a person is healthy and sound in body

and mind. That is why yogic physical culture, yoga pranayama, which help
in oxidising the blood, the asanas which keep the whole body, all the
systems – muscular, glandular and nervous – in a very pliable, tender
condition, are necessary. The growth into a non-cerebral dimension is
preceded by an encounter with the conditioned mind, the conscious, the sub-
conscious and the unconscious; and this encounter is not easy to go through
unless one has the strength of steel in nerves. Otherwise, one may break
down, and the nervous system may get destroyed. To come face to face with
the content of the subconscious and the unconscious, the neurotic,
discrepancies, deficiencies, distortions in our ways of behaviour is not easy.
It needs tremendous strength to go through that encounter. That is why one
has to lay the right foundations and have a pure, healthy, physical organism.
Otherwise the slightest encounter may bring about the tears, the trembling,
the dancing, or the crying. All these are caused by the inadequacy of the
nervous system to bear the encounter. As we have to go through so many
things, I can tell you about the foundations only.

People rush into awakening powers, without equipping their nervous

and muscular systems with the strength of purity, without laying the
foundation of an inner order. They rush into stimulating powers and
experiences, whether they do so through consciousness expanding drugs like
LSD, Mescaline and the like, or through chanting mantras, concentrating or
taking the help of some Tantrics who indulge in Shaktipat to stimulate and
stir the Kundalini and open the Chakras. Whichever way they go, if they
rush into stimulating powers without equipping their nervous system with
the strength of purity, they rush into something very dangerous, very
unscientific. That is why my first submission is Ma*: lay the right
foundations. This body, this very beautiful, complex, rich instrument that
one has, find out if it is in a state of bearing the intensity of meditation, of
that unlimited movement of the Consciousness in harmony with the
Universal Consciousness.
*Note: Ma means Mother. The author wrote this essay at the request of a
lady whom he refers to here as Ma or Mother.
 The intensity of that uninhibited movement cannot be compared with
the intensity of thought and emotions. These are cerebral movements, which
are pulsations, and have been measured and controlled. The movement of
meditation, the infinite movement of life, has an entirely different quality of
momentum. It is qualitatively different from the movement of impulses like
the sexual urge, appetite, sleep, thoughts, feelings, sentiments have their own
movement, their own mechanism incorporated into the system in biological
results. Meditation has a qualitatively different momentum than thoughts. It
is much more intense, its depth, intensity is immeasurable by the mind. That
is why this foundation of the purification of the whole system is absolutely
necessary; not in a puritanic sense, but with the help of a scientific approach.
All this one has to discover by oneself, no standardised rules and regulations
are possible for all human beings.

Taking for granted that one has done this, the second step is to get
acquainted with the movement of the mind. Physical movement or the
capacity for physical movement does not become a hurdle in the path of
meditation, but cerebral movement can be an obstacle; so one has to
understand what the mind is. One has to get acquainted with the anatomy of
the mind, the chemistry of thoughts and emotions, how a thought moves,
how the reflexes move, how they control one’s perception, one’s responses
to situations, how they govern one’s relationship with others. And for that
one has to learn what observation is. If I am an experiencer then I will be
involved in the process of experiencing, and will not be able to watch the
movement of the mind. So one has to learn the science and art of
observation, not to interpret, not to analyse, not to compare, not to judge, but
to have an awareness of the movement of the mind in the same way as you
are aware of the senses. While you are sitting for a few minutes in silence,
and there is a crying of the child. Did the mind resist it? If the mind resists
then there is a friction, and friction results in a reaction. So resistance leads
to friction, friction results in annoyance, irritation, and the state of
observation is lost. Every reaction is born of resistance. There won’t be any
reaction if there is no resistance to life – so not to resist, not to experience,
experiencing being a very subtle kind of resistance. Have you ever noticed
resistances to the events of life? These get converted into experiences
because emotion creates a resistance, a division. You want to interpret the
event, identify it, recognise it, evaluate it, give a label and put it in memory
under some category so that that experience will be useful to you for further
interpretation of the events. One wants to have a defence, and experiences
are a part of the defence mechanism, just as knowledge is. One is afraid to
be exposed to life, to live in a state of innocence, absolute, unconditional
vulnerability to the naked touch of life as it is, and let the responses come.
One wants to cultivate resistances, acquire responses in the form of
experiences, store them in memory, so that one can open the drawer or file
of memory, refer to it as soon as there is a challenge and bring out the
conditioned response. Memory is a kind of bank balance. As people want a
bank balance in the form of money, so they want bank balance in the form of
experiences; it does not matter whether you buy, borrow or steal
experiences!

Have you noticed the lop-sided growth in man? He has sophisticated

the brain and lost the elegance of simplicity; he has lost the capacity to look
at things without any motive, innocently, without converting the act of
observation and the object of observation into a means to an end. The
elegance, the beauty of simplicity and innocence are lost to man. One has to
grow into the vulnerability, the tenderness, the pliability of meditation and
then only man will be worth the name.

To-day all of us have become lop-sided. That is why there is so much

schizophrenia. Man lives more or less in a neurotic state. Our responses are
inhibited, our perceptions are conditioned. There is no spontaneity in life.
Just a mechanical process of reaction according to conditioning, tradition,
one’s ambitions, motives and so on. The beauty of action is lost. Spontaneity
is lost. Therefore meditation has become relevant to living to-day, to help
man uncondition himself, to help him to see how neurotic he has become,
and to stimulate the desire in him to grow into an entirely new dimension of
consciousness.

So one has to learn to observe the thoughts as they come. One will
have to devote some time to this, sitting quietly – whether you sit in the
oriental way or the occidental is not my concern. The only requirement is
that the spine and the neck should be straight, so that the rhythm of
breathing and blood circulation are not disturbed. One has to be with oneself
quietly for some time to observe the movement of thought, to be in the state
of observation. One has to learn it because the moment you put yourself in
the state of observation, the age-old habit of introspection, of evaluating,
comes up. In even a fraction of a second can the state of observation be lost,
you become a judge, the doer, the experiencer. Day by day one has to
educate oneself. Whether you call it discipline, sadhana, self-regulation or
any other name you like, one has to go through this self-education, learning
how to observe. In the beginning, for a fraction of a second, there is a state
of observation, and then the experiencer steps in and the state of observation
is lost. This happens again and again and may go on for some time. It is not
easy to be in that state of observation where you don’t do a thing, you are
neither indulging nor not doing, neither active nor inactive; where the dual
mental activity is held in abeyance and only the observation is active, neither
the doer, nor the experiencer. Then that state of observation begins to
permeate the waking hours, whether you cook a meal, go to the office, or
while you are talking the state of observation begins to permeate all
activities of the waking hours.

When the state of observation is sustained in the waking hours, one

becomes aware constantly, from morning till night, of the objective
challenge – the trees, the birds, the sounds, the buildings around and the
moving traffic in the street. One becomes aware of the objective situation –
intensely aware – we are not aware today; we are not mindful even when
taking meals, wearing the clothes, we are just floating on the foam of
inattention, distraction, disturbances; half-heartedly we go through all the
activities of the day, sleep, awake; and things escape us. We are attentive
only to our motives, and therefore, our perceptions are warped by our
motives. So at every moment, a fraction only of the unit of perception is
attended to, but when the state of observation is sustained the sensitivity gets
heightened, and from morning till night you are much more aware than
before.

Formerly, there was no awareness. Awareness and attention

occasionally came upon you. Now you are constantly aware, constantly
attentive, attention is heightened, sensitivity is sharpened, and it has become
agile. You are aware of what is happening outside, as well as what is
happening inside. If the state of observation does not result in this agile
consciousness, in heightened sensitivity and sharpened attention, then we are
not observing, we are just lapsing into some benumbed state of
consciousness. That is not observation, that is not silence. Observation opens
new avenues of energy, new avenues of attention and awareness, so that the
state of observation permeating the waking hours results in a take-off of the
consciousness. Formerly we were aware only of a fragment of the object,
qualified and modified by our motives, and the responses were also
conditioned by the motives. Now look at what happens. One is aware of the
total unit of perception, without a motive, without any inhibition. We are
aware simultaneously of the two; for that there must be a take-off of the
consciousness from the previous plane of challenge and reaction. The
momentum of the sub-conscious mind, anger, jealousy, repression of thought
coming up in the form of reactions – it is there, but it lacks its sting, it lacks
its grip over you to distort and twist your responses.

If and when the state of observation permeates the waking hours, it

then begins to percolate into what you call sleep. The state of observation
percolating deep down, percolating through the dream is something
marvellous – to be aware of the sleep as you are aware of the waking hours –
and this is not poetry, it is so. It does happen. Meditation is the relaxation of
profound sleep in waking hours. It is an effortless awareness of the sleep and
waking hours together. The hours of waking and the sleep cause one
movement because they do no become two different dimension.

So the state of observation is then sustained throughout the day and

night and it is only when it is thus sustained that the contents of the sub –
conscious begin to come up and give intimation in the form of visions and
different experiences. We contain the knowledge and experience of the total
humanity in us. All the experience and knowledge of total humanity,
irrespective of races, is contained in the individual Consciousness. When the
state of observation is sustained, those experiences switch on, manifesting
themselves to get exposed to your attention, to your awareness, and the
hidden powers of the psyche begin to manifest – clairvoyance, looking back
into the past or looking ahead in the future, telepathy, thought reading, and
so on. All these become possible. These inner non-sensual experiences have
a tremendous intoxicating effect, much more than any sensual experiences.
It is an experience without the duality of subject-object relationship. It
creates the illusion of freedom, you don’t have to be related to anything
outside you. The stimulation is within, the experience is within. That is why
it is so intoxicating.

The realisation of occult and transcendental experiences results in

release of new capacities, new powers. Such a person becomes powerful.
His eyes become different, the way he walks is differnent. There is a new
strength in him, a new sense of liberation, although it is not liberation – it is
still in the realm of the psyche. He becomes qualitatively different from
other persons, and more often than not the state of observation is lost as soon
as the stimulation of new powers and experiences takes place. Man loses his
sleep, the nervous system gives way, and he bows once again to the dictates
of the I–consciousness, the ego–consciousness. Ambition comes back. Lust
gets related to occult experiences. Such a person can sacrifice anything for
gratifying that lust. He loses the balance.

To sustain the state of observation while you pass through the result of
non-sensual experiences is extremely difficult. Not to be swept off one’s
feet, one needs the pliability and humility of an enquirer. I am speaking this
out of great agony. I have observed in years how people get increasing
enthusiasm, how they become prisoners of the psychic experiences – young
people around the world – what damage this addiction to non-sensual
pleasures does to them! It is the agony of a sensitive friend that is speaking,
not as a criticism. In this country also, with all its spiritual associations, it is
the lure of the non-sensual experiences that has attracted many people to the
occult; so one has to be extremely sensitive, humble and pliable to sustain a
state of observation. One has to pass through this tunnel. The encounter with
the sub-conscious and the unconscious is a tunnel through which every
enquirer has to pass. One does not have to suppress these experiences, but
let them happen.

When the tenderness of the heart begins to run through the eyes, then
it is the rainy season of the enquiry. When everything begins to cool down
and one feels detached within, then it is the autumn, and thus emotionally
one has to pass through the whole cycle of seasons within oneself. If one
gets stuck up in the expressions of the actual process of passing through this
tunnel, or gets attached to the powers of the psyche then the enquiry will get
arrested. You will not be in a position to conduct the enquiry any further. So
one needs all the humility and all the tenderness; and if one so preserves and
sustains the state of observation, then there is nothing more to be observed.
All the experiences get the momentum of the sub-conscious, and the
unconscious gets exhausted. It comes out, manifests and gets exhausted by
itself. The experiences of Jesus, Gautam Buddha of India and others bear out
this truth.

These experiences may come up to the uppermost layer the

consciousness. One has just to watch, to look, as you look at the clouds of an
evening sky. Then when they exhaust themselves through momentum,
nothing more is to be seen, nothing more is to be observed. The observer has
no role to play and gets into abeyance. You don’t have to do a thing against
the observer. When the momentum of the associations gets exhausted there
is no role left for the observer to play. The last expression of the I–
consciousness has gone into abeyance, and one is in the realm of silence. Till
then there is no silence. In the state of observation there is no activity, and
yet there is not the silence as a dimension of Consciousness because one is
observing, one is in the process of observing; but now there is a dimension
of silence in thought, in experience, in visions. The transcendental has been
crossed, one has gone beyond the occult. This is easier said than done, but I
am drawing a map of the whole thing for you. That is all you can do in
words. Words are only a means of transportation, if one rides the meaning
one gets transported. If one gets charmed by the words, one will not be
transported.

So one is now in the realm of silence, there is no I-consciousness in

the centre. It is a Frontierless consciousness. It is a Centreless
Consciousness. Man cannot do a thing now. There is just a silence. So the
energy at the roots of our being–the roots of our being are in the navel point,
the energy which was divided and scattered and fragmented in conflicting
thoughts and emotions, into the duality of subject and object, the observer
and the observed, experiencer and experienced, is now in the realm of non-
duality, no more fragmented, it is there at the navel point in its wholeness, in
its totality, gathering itself at its source. Energy is not static. It is infinite
motion. So for the first time in man’s life the totality of energy gets an
opportunity to move. It does not have to ride the momentum of your
impulses, your thoughts, emotions and so on. Now it is free to express itself
into its wholeness.

So silence begins to move, silence begins to operate, to function. As

there is no movement of duality of the brain, of thought, emotion, there is no
chemical disturbance in the body, no division in the nerves. The nervous
system is totally relaxed, and chemically there is a poise. This is absolutely
necessary. If the silence does not result in this, it is no silence. It is a wishful
thinking and the ego is lurking somewhere behind, it is still operating.

So chemically poised and nervously relaxed is the person and the

wholeness of the energy moves. You will see how the wholeness is. It is only
the wholeness of our being that heals many a wound. As the wholeness of
energy moves in profound sleep, undisturbed by dreams, in the same way
the wholeness of energy moves now in the state of meditation. And energy is
sensitivity, energy is intelligence. So the sensitivity of the whole being, not
the sensitivity of the brain, the physical organ, but of the whole being, the
intelligence, as a force becomes operative. Today we do not know what
sensitivity is, what intelligence is. We know intellect, we know the cerebral
functions. Intelligence is a qualitative way, a different element of life. The
movement of the whole energy cannot be described. It is a movement in the
non-duality, a movement of the whole being.

So the wholeness responds, perceives and eliminates the division

between the individual and the universe. The illusory division, the deceptive
division created by the I-consciousness between the individual and the
universal drops away in the dimension of the silence.

You are neither the individual, nor the Universal, you just are life. The
wholeness of life, then looks through the eyes of such a person. The silence
of eyes responds through the wholeness of such a person. The frame of flesh
and bone will be there as long as it has the inherited momentum, but these
movements of such a person are not individual because they are not
motivated. Call it the merging of the individual into the Universal. You
cannot describe it. The fact of it is that the division between the one and the
many, the inner and the outer, the individual and the universal drops away.
The person is then an effortless, choiceless awareness of the infinite
movement of life, momentum of life. Life is living concurrently through
birth and death, through pain and pleasure; life operates through day and
night, life breathes at all times – birth is life inhaling and death is life
exhaling.

Life moves then beyond the duality. This is the state of meditation.
Call it Samadhi if you like, or Nirvana if you like. Such a person then
becomes a manifestation in flesh and bone of the unity, the wholeness of life,
and to me this is the consumption of human growth. Man is not yet ripe for
it. He has refined his body, brain, but he has yet to grow into the maturity of
consciousness which meditation opens for him. We are today human beings
in form only, and not in content. Divinity for me is refined and purified
humanity. Man has to grow into the condition in which a society based on
love, friendship and co-operation, social, economic and political order, free
from exploitation, corruption and violence, will come into existence.

That is why meditation is a way of psychic revolution. The crisis is in

the psyche and, therefore, it has got to be resolved in the psyche.

Meditation is not a state of the mind. It is a state of the whole being.

People think that meditation is related only to the mind and not to the body.
They think that it is related to the brain and its activities. They believe that
by stopping the cerebral activities they can force themselves into a state of
meditation. This is a great illusion. This illusion will have to be exploded.

It is no use concentrating your attention upon the activities of the

mind, to the exclusion of the rest of your way of living. Meditation is
something pertaining to the whole being and the whole life. Either you live
in it or you do not live in it. In other words it is related to everything
physical and psychological. So one has to de-hypnotize the mind. Then only
it is possible for a transformation to take place in you.

You may imagine any kind of mental activity and the state of
meditation is different from that. It is not contemplation, reflection,
concentration or experiences sensual, non-sensual, occult or transcendental.
So you will see that the state of meditation cannot be the result of any
mental activity. That state of being cannot be brought about by any
intellectual gymnastics, emotional stimulations, drugs or any chemical
tricks. No one can bring it about forcibly because it is not the result of any
psycho-physical activity in space and time.

One can contemplate about certain things. One can collect

information, select or reject some and arrive at certain conclusions. One can
deduce certain theories from the conclusions. It may clarify certain issues
and result in lucidity of thought and expressions. Concentration may
sharpen the brain. It may stimulate hidden powers of the mind. But all this
cannot bring about the state of meditation. When one understands this point
very clearly the obsession for mental activity fades away. There is no desire
to force the mind, to suppress or repress it or even to drug it. Thus the
psychological toxins are washed out. As you have to remove the toxins from
your blood-stream before you can recover from an illness, you have to
remove the psychological toxins due to the fermentation of thought and
emotion, before you can recover from the distortions in your perception and
responses.

Thus from a small area of mental activity, we have brought meditation

to a vast field of Consciousness, where it gets related to every movements in
personal and collective life. It gets related to the way you sit down or stand,
the way you wear your clothes or shoes, the way you gesticulate or articulate
throughout the day, whether you want it or not, the inner state of your being
gets expressed in your behaviour.
 So meditation gets related to total life. This co-relation of meditation
to the total way of living is the first requirement on the path of total
transformation. Clarity in the perception is the foundation of spontaneity in
response.

When one has understood these points as facts of life, order in the
priorities of life awakens in the heart. The perspective of all the objects and
individuals surrounding us, becomes very clear and vivid. There is no
confusion and no disorder. One becomes very clear regarding the
responsibilities, the liabilities that one has to discharge. As long as there is
no inner order, wishes, desires, ambitions and jealousies pull me in one
direction one day, and push me in the other, the next day.

Generally we are acquainted with the states of being that get

manifested in our physical or mental activity. We know how the body is
moved by an impulse and the mind is moved by a motive. The impulse or
the motive may be conscious or sub-conscious; but they give direction to
one’s activity. This is one state of being. The other state of being is that of
inactivity, inertia, lethargy or laziness. Inactivity can be due to physical
fatigue or mental depression. It can be due to physical or mental sickness. It
can be intentional or unintentional, voluntary or involuntary.

In waking hours, we are busy with the activity or inactivity of the

mind and in sleeping hours we are still busy with the mind. Dream-
consciousness is the result of mental movement. In profound sleep, however,
the mind does not move. We may have such profound sleep only for an hour
or two in the night, but that profound sleep introduces a new dimension of
consciousness in our life. The mind is neither active nor inactive in that
dimension. The ego, the self, the me does not function. It is a motiveless,
egoless state of consciousness.

We are not acquainted with that state of egolessness and

motivelessness in waking hours. That innocent state of consciousness
functions only in deep sleep. We have no conscious reltionship with it. It is
not of our makings. It is not of our intention. You can have a relationship
with that state of consciousness only when you learn the art of looking. You
can have relationship with that state of consciousness only when you learn to
be awake, alert and attentive in profound sleep.
 The biochemical and biophysical results of activity and inactivity
have been measured. The effects of profound sleep have also been measured.
But the affects of awareness and attention in profound sleep, have not been
measured. Meditation is being egolessly and motivelessly aware in waking
hours as well as in sleep. In other words, in the state of meditation, you have
the relaxation of profound sleep and awareness of waking hours. And there
is a creative relationship with a new dimension of life.

If man had not experienced profound, dreamless, innocent and

creative sleep one wonders if he would ever have thought of meditation. In
profound sleep the body is sustained of its own, on its own and yet the ego
does not function. There is no male or female consciousness in profound
sleep. The relationship of time and space in waking hours is qualitatively
different from the relationship of time and space in dream-consciousness.

You may have a dream that lasts only five minutes, but in those five
minutes you could go through fights, wars, rebirths and what not. In other
words the space – time consciousness of waking is not relevant to the
dream-world and dream-consciousness. In the same way man - made
framework of time and space cannot enter the sleep world. The
consciousness transcends time and space while the body is lying in bed. If
you were not free of the shackles of time and space in profound sleep, your
body and mind would not be refreshed after sleep. If you were not
completely free of the bondage of I-consciousness in profound sleep, you
would not be rejuvenated after sleep. It is the freedom from sex-
consciousness, I-consciousness and time-consciousness that regenerates
energy, while you are asleep.

Unless a person goes through the event of profound sleep, it would be

very difficult for him to understand what the dimension of meditation is. The
total relaxation of profound sleep and the dynamic awareness of meditation
are very closely related to each other. Thus when I say there is total
relaxation and absolute freedom from I-consciousness and sex-
consciousness in meditation, please do not make a theory out of it. Please
watch with great sensitivity the happenings in your own sleep and you will
discover that what I say is a simple fact of life.

We have seen, so far, that meditation is a state of the whole being. The
body is totally relaxed. In that total relaxation a new energy is released. A
metabolical change takes place through the creativity of that energy. If you
do not get sound sleep for a few days, the body cannot digest food. The
blood–circulation is disturbed. You cannot think clearly. In other words sleep
is a miracle of our daily life.

A person who lives in that total relaxation all the time, has this infinite
creative energy, which keeps him eternally fresh and spontaneous. Freshness
is the content of innocency. Total relaxation and total recreation always go
together. A person who lives in a state of meditation lives in constant
creativity. He lives in innocency. He lives in the beauty of innocency and
pliability. That is why you find profound peace and joy around such a
person.

We must understand how relaxation and creativity go together. It

seems to me that in the state of meditation, intelligence uses the body and
the mind without any tension, conflict and contradiction. Ordinarily thoughts
and emotions are born of some motive and results in some neurological
tension or chemical pressure. Thought is attached to the I-consciousness. It
is chained to the known, to the past and all the conditionings which
constitute our consciousness.

Whether you have a motive for yourself or for others, whether you
work for your family or your country, the cerebral movement springing from
the ego, results in nervous tensions. As long as the cerebral movements is
rooted in motives, intentions, ambitions or any such feelings, there cannot be
relaxation. Without relaxation there cannot be spontaneity. In the state of
meditation the cerebral organism is extremely sensitive, sharp and ever
attentive. The compass of attention is very deep because there is no centre
which directs the movement, and no circumference that limits the
movement.

The movement without tensions does not exhaust you as the mental
movements do. This may help us to understand the qualitative difference
between the life of a Consciousness living in meditation and other people
functioning constantly through the conditioned part of the brain.

When a person grows into this new dimension of life, it becomes

possible to move through a variety of relationships without leaving scars of
memory behind. One grows into an entirely new way of living. One uses the
body in a different way, and the mind is used in a qualitatively different way.
Even the use of speech goes through a radical change. These changes are not
brought about by a conscious effort. They take place naturally, easily and
gracefully. Transformation is an event that takes place spontaneously. It can
never be brought about intentionally.

As soon as you determine to bring about a transformation, you

become a victim of cerebral tensions. It is difficult to be aware of self-
imposed tensions and self-created conflicts. Unless the person has the
austerity and humility of an enquiry, he will not discover the violence that he
commits against himself by imposing disciplines or intellectual tensions. It
is vitally necessary to have a scientific approach to whole life.

A scientific approach implies an inner order and purity. Purity cannot

be grafted artificially. It has to grow within me. To purify one’s relationship
with the body is to understand it’s needs and provide them in a sane, healthy
way. It is to provide right kind of diet and sleep to the body. It is to use the
sense organs without any dogmas, hypocrisies or indulgences. This is
comparitively easy to do, if one really wants to do it. Those who do not want
to learn and grow, will find out many excuses and justifications for their
laziness and passivity. It is only a smokeless flame of enquiry that keeps you
alert and fresh. It enables you to settle the physical matters once and for all,
with clarity, lucidity and humility.

A basic clarity about physical life gives a new perspective to all the
things around us. Then nothing is trivial in life; nothing is insignificant in
life; every moment is significant and sacred. Every person is significant and
sacred. One grows into a new reverence and a new affection for life.

Now we can proceed to the problem of verbalization. Most of us are

victims of verbal restlessness. We are slaves of unwarranted, inaccurate and
unscientific verbalization. Very few of us realize that there is an intimate
relationship between freedom from speech and meditation. Very few of us
realize that constant verbalization is one of the greatest obstacles in the path
of meditation.

I do not understand why people indulge in talking when it is not

necessary, whether they talk with others or with themselves, whether they
talk audibly or inaudibly. Verbalization damages the state of relaxation. It is
like leprosy. Once it takes root in the soil of your consciousness, it spreads
through all parts of your being. You talk either about things that have
happened in the past, or you talk about things that might happen in the
future. When you repeat, you strengthen the I-consciousness. So one has to
learn how to verbalize, when to verbalize and when not to do so.

The moment a word is born in your mind it stimulates an emotion or

an association. You have to live that emotion and you have to live that
thought. The moment a thought is born in your heart, it penetrates through
your skin and enters the ether. It brings into existence etherwaves which
contaminate the surroundings. You cannot go on casually verbalizing or
ideating, if you are serious about life. The casual movements, physical or
psychological may distort the lives of other people as well as your own. Life
is a homogeneous whole and you can never fragment it.

If verbalization goes on throughout the whole day, it is impossible to

stop its movement suddenly, by sitting in a corner and closing your eyes.
One must realize that every unnecessary verbalization strengthens either the
past or conditions the future. When there is a scientific approach to the
movement of speech, it will not be necessary to control or restrict it. It will
not be necessary to force quietness upon the mind. Every restriction is a kind
of violence. Every regulation is a kind of subtle violence against oneself. A
person who loves himself can never use violence against himself.

How does one educate the mind so that there is no need to force it into
doing or not doing a thing? How do I educate the mind to move only when
the movement is warranted and keep quiet spontaneously when movement is
not necessary? This is the most difficult part in self-education.

It seems necessary to learn how to observe. To observe is to watch a

thing non-subjectively; to watch it without evaluating and judging it.

When you look at a thing, the brain is bound to register, name and
identify the object of perception. As you cannot help the eyes seeing a tree,
you cannot help the brain naming it. There is however, a voluntary
evaluationary activity besides the involuntary cerebral activity built-in in the
cerebral structure. The liking or disliking, the comparing and judging
process complicates the perception.

Is it possible to educate the mind to look at a thing, innocently, simply

and non-subjectively unless a choice is inevitable? Is it possible to educate
the mind to look at things without comparing and judging them; without
wanting or not wanting them, unless the object of perception is directly
related to one’s physical necessity?

How does one educate the mind to observe? One way is to look at the
movements of the mind; to look at them in sustained quietness. In other
words one looks at the mental movements in actual relationship without
losing the attitude of an observer. In the beginning the state of observation
lasts for a second or two and one suddenly lapses back into the habit of
becoming a doer, an experiencer, interpreter and so on. If a person is
sensitive and attentive the gap may be small and if he is insensitive, lethargic
and slow the gap between two moments of observation may widen and
deepen. The encrustation of physical and psychological conditionings may
be so thick that the state of observation is hardly sustained.

We are not in a pliable and tender state of being. We are corrupted by

knowledge. We are polluted by very many experiences. So it seems to be
very difficult to educate the mind in a new way of perception. One needs
patience with oneself. One has to be aware of the lapse from the state of
observation into that of an experiencer. One has to be aware of the state of
inattention. To be aware of the lapse or the gap is itself a kind of
observation.

There is another way of educating the mind. If one finds it too

difficult to observe the movements of the mind, let one observe and watch
the inhaling and exhaling of the breath. One travels with the breath, as it
were, inwards and outwards. This very act of watching the breath makes one
sensitive. One does not have to make an effort of the will to become alert
and sensitive.

This is how the mind learns to be quiet in the midst of physical and
mental movement. The I-consciousness loses its sting of an eternal
experiencer. It lives and moves in the humility of an observer.

When this state of observation is sustained throughout the day, the

quality of sleep gets changed. In other words there is no difference then in
the quality of awareness in waking hours and in the hours of sleep. Like
inhaling and exhaling of breath, waking and sleeping become integral parts
of the same consciousness. To be awake and to go to sleep are then ingoing
and outgoing movements of one and the same Consciousness in one and the
same dimension of life.
 Meditation is to live beyond time and space and to use them when
such use is inevitable. Meditation is to live in the dimension of intelligence
that has no centre and no circumference and to use the brain with its
mechanism of I-consciousness and thought when such use is warranted.
Meditation thus is to live in the unconditional freedom and relaxation of
innocency and get related to everything out of the indescribable beauty of
that innocency.

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