A Million Thoughts

by Om Swami

  Verbal Karma – Psychic Imprint

  An instruction, statement, question, or anything else you utter is verbal karma. All verbal karma leave behind psychic residue. Words uttered by you have a great impact on your mind and consciousness as well as on the mind of those at the receiving end. A conditioned mind is supported and driven by psychic imprints. It is relatively easy to clean up physical residue but psychic residue takes much greater effort.

  Let us go back to the example of the apple. Assume you are a person of fine taste and you are eating an apple. The apple is delicious, fresh and crunchy with perfect sweetness. You remark about its taste and how you have never had such an amazing apple. A few weeks later you may not recall the taste of the apple but you are likely to remember what you had said at the time of consumption. In fact, anytime anyone else is going to make a similar remark about other fruits, it may remind you of that apple. And here is the interesting point: had you not uttered anything while eating that apple, it would be much easier for you to forget about the apple. Why? Because you left no psychic imprint beyond the taste and sight of the fruit.

  Mental Karma – Emotional Imprint

  The subtlest and most powerful of the three karma is a mental karma. It leaves behind a longer trail, a form of psychic residue that I call an emotional imprint. It’s the hardest to erase. The origin of all karma of any type is a thought. Pursuit of a thought is mental karma. It has an immediate impact on your mental state, a lasting impact on your consciousness and an everlasting effect, however subtle, on your mind. Once again, let us go back to our example of apple. This time, you do not have the apples with you. The thought of an apple crosses your mind. You do not drop that thought. Instead, you start to pursue it.

  From the original thought of the apple, you are recalled of the time you last had an apple. That thought may link you to the thought of you buying apples from a shop. Just note that the initial thought about the apple has now been replaced with that about the shop. The shop owner’s picture and communication flashes in front of you. You recall giving money to the seller. You are reminded of another customer, who was shopping for bananas, standing next to you. You further recall how she was carefully picking the bananas and her physical attributes. You are now reminded of her statements, her voice and how she paid to the shop owner. You may experience love, lust, or some positive emotion arising in you.

  You are tossed back to the thought of the shopkeeper because he returns you the change with your bag of apples. You take the bag and start walking. You are now reminded of the market conditions. You may further recall some unpleasant incident that happened one time in the market. This shopping cart had scratched your car. You feel angry and frustrated that how could some people be so inconsiderate and on and on and on…

  Had you dropped the thought of the apple at the very moment it emerged, you would not have gone through the grind of mental karma. And all this depends on your memory. If only you had remembered that thoughts are empty in their own right and that you didn’t have to pursue them, you would have not felt any negativity at events of the past over which you have no control in the present moment.

  Memory plays a pivotal role in correct meditation. When you are able to retain only a part of your memory – that is, the object of meditation – you move towards achieving the tranquil state. However, memory is also your greatest hurdle in meditating correctly. Primarily because your memory is an accumulation, a storage tank, of your psychic imprints. Simply put, memory is the residue I’ve talked about.

  anubhūtaviṣayāsaṃpramoṣaḥsmṛtiḥ12

  A function of consciousness, memory is the unaltered collection of words and experiences.

  It is not possible to empty your memory store. However, it is possible to drop the thought as soon as it starts to emerge. That leads to a state of non-recollection. When you hold your mind in the tranquil absorptive state, afflictions from psychic imprints start to fade.

  Your mind operates on the famous computing principle of GIGO – garbage in, garbage out. If you do ill, speak ill and think ill, the residue is going to leave you sick. If you do well, speak well and think well, the outcome is going to be well. Excess of anything results in excess residue. The more you eat, the greater the inventory, the bigger the headache of managing it. Imagine having a warehouse stocked up with unnecessary widgets. Your mind is a warehouse. Do you really wish to stock it up with useless stuff? Watch what you do, say, and think, transformation will begin automatically.

  A mind that has gone empty fills with love naturally. An empty mind is not a devil’s workshop. A restless mind is. An empty mind is infact a meditator’s nirvana. A mind that holds no grudges against anyone, no desires, no expectations is a hotbed of noble intentions. Good meditation naturally leads to that exalted state.

  What Meditation is Not

  “What have you gained from meditation?” someone asked Mahavira, founder of Jainism, a contemporary of Buddha and equally enlightened.

  “I have gained nothing actually,” the sage said smilingly. “But, I’ve lost much including my anger, pride, lust and misconceptions.” Start with the premise that meditation is not about gaining anything. The notion of gaining or losing is a rather material (and not spiritual) way of thinking. Spirituality is not bothered with losing or acquiring. The right action for the greater good of

  our universe is its only concern.

  I don’t wish to portray meditation as a solution to all your problems, that won’t be fair. Even the closest disciples of Buddha, who meditated diligently, fought amongst themselves, remaining clueless and oblivious all their lives to the teachings of the great Buddha. Meditation never was or will be a substitute for virtuous conduct. Before I share with you what is meditation, it is absolutely critical that I tell you what meditation is not.

  A few thousand years ago, there was a tribe in India. No one in the tribe had ever ventured outside their small community.

  The other unique thing about that tribe was that no one had ever tasted salt. They didn’t know what salt was or that it had anything to do with food.

  Once a traveller, a rich merchant, lost his way in the woods and ended up in their community. The members of the tribe were shocked to see someone dressed so differently, wearing gems and jewels. This was markedly different from the banana leaves covering their privates. The traveler smelled nicely of exotic scents. They didn’t know such things existed. The chief hosted the merchant, who was in turn taken aback when he ate their meals. He kept asking for salt and they said there was no such thing. Not knowing the customs, the merchant thought it was best not to press them for salt. At least, there were bananas that tasted as they should. He enjoyed their hospitality for a few days and while departing, extended an invitation to the chieftain. He promised that he would send someone to personally travel with the chief.

  Surely enough, three months later, the merchant’s people came to take the chief to their village. They crossed the woods, travelled through many villages, got on a boat and journeyed through a long river before finally reaching the merchant. The chief was welcomed with open arms and the merchant gave him the best room to stay. Musicians, dancers and courtesans entertained him. He was served the best wine, the finest fruits.

  The real surprise, however, came when he tasted the meal. It tasted a million times better than anything he’d ever had.

  “There’s something special about this food,” he exclaimed. “It’s so fulfilling. I don’t know how to put it but even though our food looks the same, that has no taste compared to your food.

  This must be the food that the gods eat.”

  The merchant was very pleased with the praise and asked that the chief be served another helping of the dishes. Each bite the guest took, he couldn’t help but be amazed. All kinds of surreal tastes tickled his taste buds as he relished every single bite of the sumptuous meal. After the meal was over, he requested that he be given
a tour of the kitchen where this heavenly food had been prepared. The merchant gladly led the chief into the kitchen.

  There he examined each ingredient, every spice and when he got to salt, he was intrigued for he had only seen white sugar but never white salt. He tasted it and jumped in joy.

  “Eureka!” he shouted, “this is it! This was the taste in my meal. What is it, my friend? Tell me, I must carry this back home to my people.”

  “Oh this? It’s just salt.”

  Instantly the merchant understood the tasteless meals he had to force down his throat back in his guest’s village. The village folk had never tasted salt. The chief still excited about his discovery asked him how much salt they put in the food.

  “Generally, a teaspoon full. It depends on the quantity of the food.”

  “Wow!” The chief exclaimed. “You know what, don’t worry about the meal. I’ll just eat salt now. If a pinch of it made the meal so tasty, I wonder what a bowl full would taste like.”

  “Sir, it’ll be repulsive!”

  Ignoring the host’s warning he put his mouth to the bowl of salt and took a mouthful, only to spit a moment later, cursing and crying for water.

  “Salt is used to enhance the taste of the meal, my friend,” the merchant said giving him a class of water. “It’s not the meal in itself.”

  Similarly, meditation is not the meal. It is the salt in your meal.

  The salt of meditation is designed to accentuate the taste of the meal called life. It can’t replace life, it can’t be your life. On the other hand, it needs to be taken in the correct quantity so you may enjoy your life. It does not go in desserts, but only in your entrees and main course.

  What I mean to say is that the bliss promised from meditation cannot come from just meditation alone. It is not a substitute for love, compassion, humility, empathy and other virtues. Meditation is simply one of the methods to mould yourself into the person you wish to be, a process that can help you discover your primal state of peace and bliss.

  Meditation is a way of life.

  It is not a panacea, meditation is not the answer to everything. It cannot help you regain lost love or limbs. It won’t set everything right in your life. Even when you are in supreme bliss, it doesn’t mean that your stock or real estate investments won’t go south, or that you will never meet with an accident or that your partner will never cheat on you. All of those things can and will still happen. What meditation will do to you is give you the grace and mindfulness to ease through life.

  If you have a difficult boss or an abusive partner, your meditation will not change their nature, not directly anyway. It won’t bring discipline or compassion in them. If your divinity could change others directly then Jesus of Nazreth, the messiah, would not have been crucified. If meditation was transformational then a hatemonger would not have poured melting glass in the ears of Mahavira.

  Meditation is your personal journey, an intimate one. It is only about you. It does not change anything directly in others. Meditation remodels you so that you become a catalyst of positive change, not in your own life but in the lives of most of those who are connected with you. This is the only way meditation affects the lives of those around you. Gradually, the light in you starts to transform you. The way you think, act or react changes and that change, often (not always) brings a change in those around you.

  These worthy rewards from meditation come from doing correct meditation and correct meditation alone. Not all that looks white is salt and if it is not salt, it will not add taste to your meal no matter how salt-like it may appear. Similarly, not all those who meditate are actually meditating – just sitting still is not meditation. Even chameleons and crocodiles can sit still for hours but they are not in meditation. Feeling relaxed after your meditation does not mean you meditated well and sleeping through your meditation is definitely not meditation. If you wish to benefit from meditation, it has to be done correctly, accurately, just like Arjuna’s arrow pierced right through the eye of the fish.

  What is Meditation

  Many years ago there was a widely reported incident in the news that a guard at the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba allegedly flushed a detainee’s holy book down the toilet. This had become a raging news item and numerous talk shows with pseudo-experts were hosted by various TV channels worldwide.

  Amidst all that, a reporter in Australia phoned Ajahn Brahm, who was the abbot of Bodhinyana Monastery in Serpentine, Western Australia. The reporter was doing a feature taking statements from various religious heads.

  “What will you do, Ajahn Brahm,” the reporter asked, “if someone took a Buddhist book and flushed it down your toilet?”

  The abbot answered, “Sir, if someone took a Buddhist holy book and flushed it down my toilet, the first thing I would do is call a plumber!”

  They shared a brief laugh before the venerable Ajahn Brahm went on to say most beautifully, “Someone may blow up many statues of the Buddha, burn down Buddhist temples, or kill Buddhist monks and nuns. They may destroy all this, but I’ll never allow them to destroy Buddhism. You may flush a holy book down the toilet, but I’ll never let you flush forgiveness, peace and compassion down the toilet.”15

  This is meditation if you ask me. It is your ability to retain your virtues in the face of all adversities. This grace and presence of mind comes with correct practice of meditation. The journey of meditation has three important milestones. In the first stage, meditation is an act. You sit down and you train your mind to behave and be a certain way. It requires discipline and determination. Once you champion the art of meditation, you get to the second stage where it becomes your second nature. A sort of effortlessness arises in your meditation and the virtues, which you had to work hard to imbibe earlier, increasingly become a part of you. In the third stage, meditation becomes a state of your mind. You no longer do meditation, you are in meditation. A state of bliss that remains unperturbed under most circumstances. An altruistic sense arises naturally for the welfare of others, severing your attachments and bonds with all things meaningless.

  The final stage of meditation is liberation. Liberation from false beliefs, negativity, undesirable thoughts. It is freedom from guilt, resentment, jealousy, hatred and pride. Meditation is the music of soul that plays on effortlessly once you tread this path. In this book, I’ll show you how to arrive at the final stage. However, if you wish to use meditation as a system to be calmer and more relaxed in your daily lives, it’ll serve you just as well. My job is to give you the highest ideal and you are free to set your own goal and pick what interests you. There is the ordinary path and the extraordinary path to reach various stages in meditation. I’ll walk you through both.

  Ultimately, meditation is silence and presence of the mind. When your mind is at once silent and present, you are deep in meditation.

  Two ladies met after a long time. They exchanged pleasantries and the following conversation ensued:

  “How’s your son?” one asked. “He’s good.”

  “Has he found a job yet?”

  “Nah, he’s still unemployed but he does meditation these days.”

  “Meditation? What’s that?”

  “I don’t know but I guess it’s better than sitting around and doing nothing.”

  Doing Nothing – meditation is the art of doing nothing. You don’t have to do anything per se, you don’t have to get anywhere. You simply have to be in the present moment. It takes a great deal of practice to teach your mind to be alert and yet do nothing. In that moment, that moment when your mind is doing nothing and you are perfectly aware of it, gushes forth the fountain of bliss.

  Away from the burdens of the world, meditation is not about reaching somewhere, it is not about improving according to societal definitions and beliefs. Meditation is about knowing and feeling that you are complete, perfect, whole.

  The struggle to be somebody, the race
to be something or be like somebody ends right in that quiet moment. To reach that quiet moment, to have that mental stillness like that of a calm, placid lake, you will go through four inevitable stages on the path of meditation.

  Four Stages of Mental Stillness

  There was once a great master who also had the reputation of being as elusive as cryptic. Some thought he was a madman while many thought he was truly enlightened. He lived deep in the mountains in a cave accessible only to a few. A long treacherous trek through the slippery terrain discouraged most people from undertaking the arduous journey. And even those who did reach him wouldn’t be accepted that easily as his disciple. Further, if he did initiate someone, that person would usually run away in the first week or two.

  A seeker traveled for several days and nights to reach him.

  “I want to learn meditation,” he said bowing deeply before the master.

  “Sure, I’ll teach you.”

  The student couldn’t believe his ears. He never thought it would be that easy to be accepted by his master.

  “Put your bag away, wash your face and come sit next to me,” the master said.

  He followed the instructions and was quick to sit next to the master.

  “Now what do I do?”

  “You see that grass,” the guru said pointing at the green field ahead.

  “Yes, master.”

  “Just watch it grow.”

  The pupil looked at his master askance expecting that he would say more but nothing more came from his lips.