Wise Jester

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Meditation Needs No Technique

You will have to understand one of the most fundamental things about meditation: that no technique leads to meditation. The old so-called techniques and the new scientific biofeedback techniques are the same as far as meditation is concerned. Meditation is not a byproduct of any technique.

Meditation happens beyond mind. No technique can go beyond mind.

But there is going to be a great misunderstanding in scientific circles, and it has a certain basis. The basis of all misunderstanding is: when the being of a person is in a state of meditation, it creates certain waves in the mind. These waves can be created from the outside by technical means. But those waves will not create meditation – this is the misunderstanding.

Meditation creates those waves; it is the mind reflecting the inner world. You cannot see what is happening inside. But you can see what is happening in the mind. Now there are sensitive instruments… We can judge what kinds of waves are there when a person is asleep, what kinds of waves are there when a person is dreaming, what kinds of waves are there when a person is in meditation.

But by creating the waves, you cannot create the situation – because those waves are only symptoms, indicators. It is perfectly good; you can study them. But remember that there is no shortcut to meditation, and no mechanical device can be of any help. In fact, meditation needs no technique – scientific or otherwise.Meditation is simply an understanding.

It is not a question of sitting silently, it is not a question of chanting a mantra. It is a question of understanding the subtle workings of the mind. As you understand those workings of the mind a great awareness arises in you, which is not of the mind. That awareness arises in your being, in your soul, in your consciousness.

To Be With Yourself Is Meditation

Once you turn in, meditation has started. Meditation means the capacity to be joyously alone, the capacity to be happy with yourself, the capacity to keep company with yourself. To be with yourself is meditation. There is no need for the other in meditation; the joy of aloneness, not the misery of loneliness, is meditation…

Meditation in the East is not what is understood in the West. In the West, meditation means contemplation: meditating on God, meditating on truth, meditating on love…

Meditation in the East has a totally different meaning, just the opposite of the Western meaning. Meditation in the East means no object in the mind, no content in the mind; not meditating upon something but dropping everything; neti, neti, neither this nor that. Meditation is emptying yourself of all content. When there is no thought moving inside you there is stillness; that stillness is meditation. Not even a ripple arises in the lake of your consciousness; that silent lake, absolutely still, that is meditation. And in that meditation you will know what truth is, you will know what love is, you will know what godliness is..