Submitted by Penitent on
by Lalitha Sairam
Duality is the life we all lead. This duality creates a sense of restlessness in a person. This leads to a state of discontentment, which is the cause for all the emotional activities that our mind creates in every event of life. Small events become the source of outbursts of hatred, anger, sadness, depression, tears and lead to trauma. This creates a sense of fear and the person shuts himself in a cocoon. He fears everything and everyone. He starts building a conditioned lifestyle that is so unique to himself that he starts feeling there is no one in the
world who suffers more than him.
Imagine a world filled with such people and everyone crying for peace. They look for every event that transpires to prove that peace exists. They look at pictures of Saints and Sages, start worshipping their calmness in the feeling that they too shall get peace. They also go to various saints, sages and teachers to learn the art of peace. But they fail to realize that externally nothing can be found. Only the moment they are able to be still and are able to delve within that they find the peace and harmony.
People talk about meditation with a notion that it is about sitting idle. Yes. The difference being that meditation is actually an art that is simple yet most difficult to be able sit and do nothing. A simple way to start meditation process is to sit comfortably and silently in a room for one or two hours daily. There should be absolute silence in the room. It is possible that the first few days it will be uncomfortable when one is distracted with bodily itching, wavering of thoughts, stiffness of joints. But make sure that you do not move your body during the period. If the mind wanders, allow it to do so. Do not stop anything - if itching happens, scratch, stiffness should be borne. But in all the cases, be very slow in moving the body. Let the movements be like that of a snail. Bring the awareness to the event that has made the body make the movement. Once the event is over, become silent in thoughts until the occurrence of another event. For example if you want to scratch, move the hand very slowly to the spot. Let not the movement make any other body part to move. Scratch the spot and slowly bring the hand back to its original position.
This practice is the basis for allowing the person to become a Sadhaka (seeker). Unless you have perfection in this simple yet powerful technique, all the other techniques will become superfluous. Practicing any technique without basic preparation shall give you some pleasure and experience only for a short period of time because then the mind will get unattached with the technique itself. This makes you look for more avenues and techniques for getting the satisfaction. This technique if perfected makes you calm and quiet resolving all the problem areas in the body and mind.
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Aum Shanti Shanti Shanti Aum
Aum Shanti Shanti Shanti Aum
Aum Shanti Shanti Shanti Aum
-By His Holiness Maitreya Rudrabhayananda
This article is taken from a collection of Maitreya Rudrabhayananda's Atma Sanchaya dhwani which is a collection of articles put together. Gurudev throws light on the art of breathing and stresses on the importance of meditation in day-to-day life.
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