A Million Thoughts

by Om Swami

You are also free to choose an internal visualization without any external physical form. To meditate like this, just think of anything that pleases you. It should not be something that excites or arouses you physically or emotionally. Just something you find pleasing, joyous. It could be an image of your chosen deity, the sight of the ocean, a peacock with its covert spread into a fan, anything at all. Close your eyes and start visualizing the object. The image will keep disappearing from your vision, gently keep bringing it back. It requires great concentration to hold the mental image in front of you.

  After about 3,000 hours of practice, you’ll be able to hold the mental image without the slightest of fading for roughly four minutes. After 10,000 hours of practice (if you fancy being a siddha), you will be able to hold the image in your mind for as long as you wish. It’s a remarkable state, beyond any description, to have such supreme one pointed concentration.

  Meditation on Breath

  Meditating on your breath is the easiest form of concentrative meditation. While strengthening your mindfulness and alertness, it also has great calming effect on the mind. It is particularly useful in tackling restlessness that one experiences during meditation. While meditating on the breath, do not practice pranayama (alternate breathing) or any other yogic forms of breathing. Just breathe normally and watch your breath, pay attention to inhalation and exhalation. Concentrate on your breath. You can keep your eyes open or closed as you like. Here’s how to do it right:

  Sit comfortably in the yogic posture.

  Breathe deeply and normally for a few minutes with both nostrils.

  Close your eyes, or lower your eyelids a bit if you don’t wish to completely close your eyes.

  Simply listen to your inhalation.

  Pay attention to the small pause that occurs when inhaling ends and exhaling starts.

  Listen to your exhalation.

  It’s the best meditation to do when you feel restless or anxious. It empties your mind and calms you down. Please note that you must not hold your breath after inhalation (as done in some breathing exercises). Instead, simply just listen to your breath going in and breath going out. Over time, the duration of your breath (both while inhaling and exhaling) extends automatically helping you retain more prana, vital life force, from your breathing.

  On a side note, sometimes when you can’t fall asleep at night. Just lie down in your most comfortable posture. Be absolutely still and meditate on your breath. A great calmness will come over you and you will fall asleep. Some sleep on their left or right side, some like to sleep on their tummy and some on their back. Before meditating on your breath to fall asleep, it is important to lie in the posture you normally go to sleep in. Whether trying to meditate while sleeping or meditating while awake, physical movements disrupt meditation.

  Meditation on Sound

  This is one of the most ancient forms of meditations and I’ve personally invested many thousand hours in this form. Meditation on sound requires you to meditate on a repetitive sound. It can be a mantra or any pleasant sound you like – vocal or instrumental. The only condition is that it must be repetitive because you are training your mind to stay on one thing for very long periods of time.

  Once again like meditating on a form, meditation on sound is not simply listening to a certain music or mantra. It’s not about chanting that mantra. Parrots do relentless chanting, they don’t gain enlightenment. Chanting a mantra, even mentally, is not the same as meditating on a mantra. There is a subtle but significant difference in chanting or meditating. Even if you are chanting out loud, whispering or mentally chanting, it is still an act of speaking. It will not allow you to merge in the sound.

  The auditory consciousness will be a hindrance. Meditating on a mantra means recalling that mantra gently, one after another. Recollection is quite different from speaking. Recollection requires certain visualization. Before you recall, your brain visualizes it. It happens fast but nevertheless it happens.

  Here is how to do it right:

  Sit comfortably in the yogic posture.

  Listen to the sound for a few minutes if you are meditating on an external sound and then turn off the source, or simply chant the mantra a few times if you are meditating on a mantra.

  Breathe deeply for about five minutes with both nostrils.

  Close your eyes or half-close them if you like.

  Start recalling the sound you just heard. Or start recalling the mantra you just chanted if you are meditating on a mantra.

  It is best to meditate on a mantra you have been initiated into.

  The power of initiation cannot be overstated, however this is not the right place to go in detail regarding initiation. If you haven’t been initiated in any mantra yet and you really wish to meditate on a mantra, feel free to do so. When it comes to meditating on a mantra, there are no hard and fast rules. All those rules apply when you want to invoke a mantra according to the science of mantras (which is a different subject matter altogether). Thus, initiation is the least of our worries when meditating on a mantra. The sacred syllables of the mantra silently work on your inner transformation.

  When chanting on a mantra, if you simply maintain the same pace during a session, you may experience periods of restlessness and torpor more quickly and frequently. Feel free to vary your pace to retain freshness and clarity. For example, let’s say you are meditating on the simple mantra of Shiva, Om Namah Shivaya.

  Once you’ve chanted a few times, mentally start recalling the mantra:

  Om – Namah – Shivaya.

  Om – Namah – Shivaya.

  Om – Namah – Shivaya.

  Here, the en-dash ‘–’ indicates a small pause.

  If you experience restlessness while meditating, just slow down the recall. It could be:

  O–m – Nam–ah – Shiv–aya.

  O–m – Nam–ah – Shiv–aya.

  O–m – Nam–ah – Shiv–aya.

  You could slow it down even further by adding more pauses or longer pauses. For example:

  O–m – Na—m–ah – Sh—iv–a—ya.

  Or even longer:

  O–——m–——Na———m–——ah – Sh———iv——–aya, and so on.

  If you experience laziness or dullness, you could reduce the number of pauses and increase the pace of recall. This is the best way to maintain your concentration with mindfulness and alertness. It keeps the mind alive and focused.

  Meditation on Formless

  Some people have a natural disliking for forms and sounds. They find meditating on their breath pointless. Fortunately, there’s another practice in concentrative meditation where you can mediate on void, or on the formless as it’s called.

  If you wish to meditate on the formless, there are two ways to do so. Here’s how to do it correctly:

  Assume your yogic posture.

  Deep breathe a few times to normalize your energies.

  Simply close your eyes and remain thought free. That’s it.

  Please note that being thought free is not the same as observing your thoughts. You must not observe or watch your thoughts while meditating on the formless. Instead, it is a practice where mind is directly looking at itself. Meditation on the formless is the hardest to do without guidance because there are a few subtle points which can only be demonstrated and not documented. A master is a must if you wish to champion this form.

  On my own journey, it took me more than one thousand hours to just be able to recognize correctly the difference between loss of clarity (a subtle form of dullness where you feel thoughts have subsided) versus actual thoughtlessness. I remember the first time I started experiencing thoughtlessness with perfect awareness; it was such an unusual state of mind that I felt nauseated. Due to intense practice, my mind could remain thoughtless but my body thought something was going wrong within. This went on for more
than 300 hours spread over 6 months. But once past that stage, being thoughtless was one the most beautiful states of mind. It was like the calm lake on a sunny day. You feel complete, rested, at once at peace. Thoughtlessness of the mind with awareness is a feeling like no other. You feel life bubbling inside you, you get in touch with your soul. It’s the audience falling pin-drop silence after a thunderous applause just before the beginning of a great opera performance.

  The other form of meditation on the formless is called expansive meditation. In this you experience yourself merging in the supreme consciousness. Here’s how to do it right:

  As always, sit comfortably in the yogic posture.

  Deep breathe a few times.

  Visualize a bright, effulgent light or a dark infinite universe. This is the expansive aspect in this meditation.

  Gradually visualize that your body is disintegrating and merging in the vast, expansive, infinite universe.

  When I experimented with this meditation and after about two thousand hours, I could not even walk or look at any object for any more than three minutes. It would feel that everything was merging in me or that I was merging in everything around me (there’s no difference whether the universe merges in you or you merge in the universe). It was a deep dive of bliss but the one that would not allow me to do anything else. It took me more than six months to learn how to assimilate this bliss and still carry on with the normal activities of my life. Like the other meditation on the formless, this too requires precise guidance from a champion meditator because success in this form depends on correctly detecting and removing many subtle flaws.

  While doing concentrative meditation, you could do the visualization between your brows, on the tip of your nose or on your heart chakra. Meditating between the brows leads to greater sensations. Visualizing on your heart chakra brings greater calmness. You don’t have to literally turn your gaze on to those points, you just have to visualize there. Sometimes, I see people staring at their nose or between their brows. I find it hilarious. The degree of misconceptions in our world and how sometimes we accept things without verifying them. Such meditation is unnatural and it’s impossible to rise above your body consciousness if you are going to force your gaze by literally looking at the tip of your nose or between your brows.

  Your posture should remain the standard yogic posture of meditation.

  Now that we have gone past the most arduous meditation, let me walk you through the easier types.

  Contemplative Meditation

  There was a herdsman in a village who used to take his cattle out to the river every day. He would spend his day letting the cattle roam around, while he rested under the trees, ate his lunch, and then take them back in the evening. This was his life until he met a monk who had recently built his hut on the riverside. Every day, the cowherd saw this monk sitting still and doing nothing.

  “What do you do sitting here all day?” he gathered his courage and questioned the monk one day.

  “I meditate.”

  “What’s meditation?”

  “It’s a way to realize God.”

  “Can I also meditate?” the herdsman asked innocently.

  Out of compassion, the monk explained to him the various aspects of meditation and told him to meditate on light between his brows with mindfulness and alertness. He pointed him to a nearby cave where he could sit during the day and meditate without any interruptions. The herdsman listened with rapt attention. Two days later, he met the monk again.

  “How did it go?” the monk asked.

  “It was very difficult,” he said. “I couldn’t focus at all. I kept worrying about my home, cattle and I couldn’t see any light between my brows.”

  The monk gave him a different method and told him to meditate on his breath and asked him to report back in three days’ time.

  “Could you meditate this time?”

  “I don’t know, sir, how to tell you this,” the cowherd said lowering his head, “but I just kept falling asleep. Listening to your breath is a wonderful way to fall asleep.”

  The monk tried many methods but nothing worked. The mind of the cowherd kept wandering off. Finally, one day, the monk said to him, “Tell me what or who do you love the most?”

  “The most?” he reconfirmed. “Yes, who do you love the most?”

  “I have a beautiful bull. I call him Hira. He’s my heart. He’s got silky smooth down, wide chest, strong body and huge horns. He’s the king of my herd, I’m merely the caretaker.”

  “Meditate on Hira then,” the monk replied and told him to just visualize his bull and report back in three days’ time again.

  Three days later, however, the herdsman didn’t turn up. Two more days passed and then another two but the cowherd didn’t return. Worried, the monk went towards his cave and saw that all his cattle were sitting outside. He knocked on the door of the cave but no response came. He knocked again and a couple of times more.

  “Who’s this?” a voice asked from the inside.

  “Are you okay? How’s your meditation?” the monk asked him.

  “I’m great. I can’t stop meditating. I feel like I’m Hira.” “Come outside and tell me all about it!”

  “I can’t,” the cowherd shouted, “my horns keep getting stuck at the narrow door!”

  It was much easier for the cowherd to meditate on his bull as it is relatively easier for us to think about things we love. There’s no effort there. We are automatically drawn towards people and things we are attached to. Meditation is about discovering your natural playfield. In fact, the Tibetan word for meditation means to become familiar with oneself. When you contemplate on something for long enough, you start to acquire the properties of your object of meditation.

  The basis of contemplative meditation is that eventually you become what you meditate on.

  The seers realized this thousands of years ago and figured out that, by the same logic, if someone meditated on compassion, he would become an embodiment of compassion and that those who contemplated only on the negative aspects of their life keep attracting and manifesting more negativity. Mind does not understand good-bad, right-wrong, moral-immoral. These are the definitions we have fed into our conscious mind. At its root, mind only creates, understands and reacts to a thought.

  Unlike concentrative meditation, contemplative does not require you to go through the rigours of perfecting your posture. Having said that, a perfect posture is a great aid any day. With superior concentration and stillness, you are able to do contemplative meditation lot more effectively.

  Contemplative meditation leads to remarkable insight into the true nature of things, the realities of different planes of existence and into many things beyond words.

  The term acala vipāśayanā is used in meditation texts. It means the insight devoid of mental activity. Yasyaka, a Vedic scholar who lived before the eminent Sanskrit grammarian Panini in 700 BCE, defines vipāśaya as unfettering, or without a trace. And this is the key: when no trace of conditioned mind is left, you gain an insight rising above your intellect and calculations of the conditioned mind. This transcendental knowledge, true insight, comes from within. It is not the product of some conditioning, cogitation or deliberation. It is not some information you’ve gained from any book. Instead, this is the output of contemplative meditation. It springs forth from the primal source within you.

  In truth, meditation is doing away with all labels and conditioning so the real you may rise to the surface.

  Imagine your name is Hamish and someone in the market calls out your name. “Hamish!” you hear. Naturally, you will stop and look to see who called you. If they had shouted some other name, say Monica, you won’t even look in that direction because you are not Monica, because you don’t think of yourself as Monica. Similarly, when people direct their wrath or emotions, they are doing so at a label you have been assigned and not a
t you. For example, if someone says that all men are jerks. At that moment, if you identify yourself as a man, you may feel the urge to react. If, however, you see yourself as the divine soul, or as a compassionate person, if you do not consider yourself as one of the men in the “all men are jerks”, you won’t experience any surge of emotion at the statement.

  Contemplative meditation helps you identify yourself with your truest nature, above all labels and conditioning, so that you no longer think of yourself just as a man or a woman with a body, or as a spouse, a citizen, a brother, a sister, a Hindu, a Christian and so on. Rising above these labels, you first learn and then realize that you are way beyond these constricting labels. You are independent of the labels society and even you have imposed on yourself.

  The primary method of contemplative meditation is done by way of self-enquiry which is further divided into two types.

  Self-Enquiry: Who Am I?

  It begins with the fundamental question, “Who Am I?”

  The goal is to understand that the true you, the real you, the indestructible you is beyond the labels and temporary nature of this world. Are you a son, a daughter, a mother, a father, a brother, a husband, a wife, a friend, a manager, a CEO, a young person, an old person? Who are you? Perhaps you are some of these things, but these are mere labels, they are temporary.

  These are the roles you play in the world but they only reflect your transient aspects. You were not a manager when you were born and you will cease to be one after you retire. Besides, these labels are dependent. Not only someone else has given them to you, they don’t apply without the existence of some other entity. For example, you can’t be a husband unless you have a wife, you can’t be a CEO unless there’s a company, you can’t be a father unless you have a child and so on. Most people identify themselves with these temporary dockets and when these tags are removed, they feel they have lost their identity.

  You may ask what is beyond these worldly labels anyway. A child thinks he or she is a child, a youth thinks he’s a youth but that is temporary again. A child graduated out of infancy to become a toddler, a youth graduated out of childhood to be a youth, an old person is no longer the youth he once was. Are you a man, a woman? Are you the body? When someone causes you grief, who feels hurt in you – your body or your mind? Where is the mind? Once you negate everything perishable, all transient elements, all temporary labels, you are left with the purest element that defines you – the highest consciousness, the soul, the spirit – you may call it whatever name you wish to give.