by Om Swami
Three hundred years after Rumi, came another saint in India. Immersed in the divine love of Krishna, he started the mass movement of Kirtana. Known as Caitanya Mahaprabhu, he was the orginal founder of the Bhakti movement. Romaing through the streets and villages, he would mesmerize thousands of people where he would go. Dancing in complete ecstasy to the holy names of Krishna, a rhythmic chant of the Hare Krishna mahamantra was done.
Taken from an Upanishad, Mahaprabhu reversed the mantra to make it one of the most famous mantras of kirtana in the world today. It was further made popular by Srila Prabhupada known for spreading the bhakti movement in the West under the aegis of International Society for Krishna Consciousness, or ISKCON as it’s more commonly known. Mahaprabhu mantra was:
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare,
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare.
Devotees and non-believers would feel helpless in front of his enigmatic voice, his graceful limbs, and the mind-numbing beats of mridanga, beautiful sound of harmonium, along with cymbals. Before anyone could gather their senses, they would find themselves jumping high up in the air in extreme ecstasy.
The whole environment would get spiritually charged. A wave of calmness and devotion would wash over all the participants as they would feel alive and in union with the divine.
The Russian philosopher and mystic, G. I. Gurdjieff, had also introduced a form of spirited meditation called the Gurdjieff Stop meditation. The participants were asked to stop whatever activity they were doing the moment Gurdjieff would announce “stop”. Stopping the moment after any rigorous activity brings about a great sense of awareness. Osho, a 20th century Indian mystic, introduced the Gurdjieff method in his active meditation and gave it the name of dynamic meditation.
My goal here is to strip all mumbo jumbo and present to you the most ancient, basic, and reliable form of spirited meditation.
The use of music is prevalent in almost all the religions of the world, whether that be in the form of kirtana, a qawwali, a gospel or any other. When you use any form of music to enter into a meditative state, it’s called bhava samadhi, a tranquility of the purest sentiment devoid of any negativity. I often slip into it during kirtana in the ashram, the ecstasy one experiences during this state is unworldly.
Spirited meditation is not about losing your consciousness and falling flat on the floor in a daze, in ecstasy. Instead, it is about rising above your body consciousness, it is about providing an outlet to your physical energies resulting in a complete and total harmony of your body and mind.
How to Do It Right
In order to do spirited meditation correctly, you will need a piece of music, any genre, that starts out slow, builds to a crescendo and then flows gently, slowly like a river murmuring in autumn. You can take three different pieces of music and combine them, make a playlist of your choice, or simply pick anything that fulfills the criteria above and play it. There are four primary stages roughly spanning 10-15 minutes each.
The build-up stage: In this stage, the music is playing slowly and you build up the energy by being aware of your breath and your movements. You can recall past incidents, negative emotions, or joyous moments, anything you like during the first stage.
The release stage: The second stage is about dancing hard and wild (without hurting yourself or others if you are in a group) so you may release the built-up of stored energy.
The let-go stage: Once you gently sway to the slow music and you completely let go off all that you’ve just released. You forgive, you surrender, you let go. With each gentle movement, with each sway, you experience the lightness of being, slowly aligning yourself with your energies. You remain in that state even after the meditation has ended. One of the important things in the third stage is to play a different music than the first stage even though both are slow-tempo pieces of music. In the first stage you are aware of your breathing, your thoughts and emotions. In this stage, however, you are just being present in the present moment. You are just enjoying ‘being’.
The rest stage: In the fourth stage, lie down on the floor in shava-asana, the corpse pose to internalize what all you have just done, experienced and assimilated. There’s no music in the fourth stage. You just listen to your own breathing – inhalation, exhalation, inhalation, exhalation.
Follow the steps below to begin the spirited meditation:
Loosen your body by gently shaking your limbs.
Breathe deep a few times to normalize your breath.
Turn on the music and start dancing to its rhythm.
Start by gently swinging and swaying to the music. This is the first stage. Pay attention to your breath. You may not be able to hear your breath since there’s music playing in the background, and that’s fine. Just be aware of your inhalation and exhalation as you dance to the slow rhythm.
In stage two, as the music builds up, follow your heart’s voice (or your body’s movements) and simply just dance. Dance away all that’s stored in you and causing you any grief at all. Release the energy inside you.
Slow down again to a different piece of music in the third stage. Just flow. Follow the six principles of meditation. You are just dancing and flowing with the melody, rhythm and notes of your music.
When the music stops, in the fourth stage, simply lie down on your back. Just rest and watch your breath and it’ll harmonize your energies.
Spirited meditation is a wonderful way of releasing the pent up energy and even excess calories in the most meditative way possible. It is a great way of introducing meditation to youngsters. Even as adults, some days when you feel restless or too full of energy, when you just can’t sit down and meditate, you could do this meditation instead. A wave of joy will wash over you making you feel light both physically and mentally.
No matter the nature of your meditation, walking the path of meditation requires certain virtues a meditator must acquire. Righteous living makes meditation a whole lot easier. For, when we lead a virtuous life, our mind slows down on its own. A noble conduct and a pure heart burns restlessness and negativity in no time, like fire would burn a cottonball.
The Mother of Meditation
A seeker approached a master to learn meditation from him. “There’s one condition,” the master said. “You are allowed to speak only four words every time you cross a milestone on the path.”
“I can do that.”
“Each milestone may take six years.”
The seeker swallowed and confirmed that the master indeed said six years and not six weeks or months.
“Yes, six years.”
He agreed to follow the instructions and began his meditation in the monastery.
At the first chance of speaking after six long years, the first four words he uttered in front of his master were, “Bed is too hard.”
The master said nothing. Another stretch of six years ensued, at the end of which the disciple unable to contain his annoyance said, “Food is always cold.” Once again the master did not reply. Another six years later, the disciple said, “I am leaving you!” “Yes, be gone,” the master said. “All I’ve seen you do in the last 18 years is complain, complain and complain.”
One would think that if the disciple had just one chance of speaking to his master after so long, the four words could or would have had some veneration, reverence or gratitude for his master. It may also seem a little too harsh on the part of his master to act in the manner he did. But the truth is that the master knew something which most of us remain unaware of: a talkative mind. In all probability, that’s all the disciple contemplated on for 18 years – he thought about what wasn’t right. Rather than understanding the essence of meditation, he complained in his mind for eighteen long years.
The goal of meditation is not to sit stiff and become a lifeless serious yogi who fails to smile in the happiness of others or cry in their pai
n. It is to become an embodiment of love and peace. Love and peace don’t germinate in a compassionless or loveless heart, they don’t cultivate in a mind that is not ready.
There’s a reason why Patanjali put yama (moral injunctions) and niyama (fixed observances) long before meditation. He states in the Yoga Sutras:
ahimsa satyaasteyabrahmacaryaaparigrahahyamah.35
Non-violence, truth, abstention from stealing, continence, and absence of greed for possessions beyond one’s need are the five pillars of yama.
Regarding fixed observances, he says:
Saucasantosatapahsvadhyayaisvarapranidhananiniyamah.
Cleanliness, contentment, religious zeal, self-study and surrender of the self to the supreme Self or God are the niyamas.36
The path of yoga, according to Patanjali, starts with practising restraint and discipline. There’s a good reason for that. To begin with, a virtuous life leads to a calm mind, and it’s much easier to meditate with a calm mind. That’s not all, though.
The sages of the yore realized tens of thousands of years ago that not everyone who sought bliss needed to meditate. Many realized the same state by serving the mankind, or by doing devotional service, or even by leading a simple and meaningful life. Meditation is the means to an end. It is designed to lead you towards a calmer and even state. Such quietude doesn’t mean you become cold and indifferent and only focus on your practice of meditation. On the contrary, it helps you to feel the pain of others so you may share their grief, their sorrows. For meditation to truly work, a serious mediator ought to imbibe certain qualities. For, a virtuous life is the mother of meditation.
Compassion
A young man was mugged, beaten and left for dead on a street. As he lay there bruised, wounded and unconscious, a man passing by, who happened to be a psychiatrist, rushed to the victim. “My goodness,” he exclaimed, “whoever did this really needs help!”
The victim needs assistance and the culprit compassion, either way, they both need help. If the victim is not offered help, he may die and if the culprit is not extended help, he may kill someone else. At any rate, it’s a loss to our world.
Of all the virtues any human being can ever possess, compassion by far is the most important one. It is the seed of goodness. For compassion is love, it is forgiveness, it is at once divine. A path, no matter how good is its system of meditation or how erudite are its scriptures, that does not encourage and inspire you to be compassionate is not worth treading.
When I use the word compassion, I mean it in absolute sense which means that you show it to everyone to the best of your abilities. When we are compassionate or forgiving only sometimes, it means that we are doing so at our convenience, it means we still think that there’s a choice more reasonable than compassion. True compassion is not based on the cause or the action, it is simply a virtue, a response, an emotion, a feeling that we choose over any other.
The lives of the greatest sages have been full of compassion but one thing that stands out throughout the New Testament is the innocence and compassion of Jesus Christ, the messiah who became God’s lamb as he paid the price of compassion with his own life.
Pilate, wanting to release Jesus, addressed them again, but they kept shouting, “Crucify! Crucify Him!”
A third time he said to them, “Why? What has this man done wrong? I have found in Him no grounds for the death penalty.
Therefore, I will have Him whipped and then release Him.”
But they kept up the pressure, demanding with loud voices that He be crucified. And their voices won out. So Pilate decided to grant their demand and released the one they were asking for, who had been thrown into prison for rebellion and murder. But he handed Jesus over to their will.
(Luke 23: 20–25)
Two other criminals were also led away to be executed with Him. When as they arrived at the place called The Skull, they crucified Him there, along with the criminals, one on the right and one on the left. Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, because they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided His clothes and cast lots.
The people stood watching, and even the leaders kept scoffing: “He saved others; let Him save Himself if this is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One!” The soldiers also mocked Him.
(Luke 23: 32–36)
“Father, forgive them, because they do not know what they are doing.” This was what Jesus of Nazareth said in response to the excruciating and fatal pain he was inflicted. This was his reply to the injustice done to him. And, what happened next? “And they divided His clothes and cast lots.”
There, in the same picture, you have the two extremes of our world. On the one hand is the compassion of Christ demonstrating there’s no limit to how high you can rise above what you are subjected to, and on the other hand is the greed, ignorance and cruelty of the soldiers showing there’s no end to how low one can stoop.
Compassion is unreasonable – it is beyond reason.
Throughout the history of our race, good people have been ridiculed and mocked – they have been jeered at and spat at, they have been unjustly punished, beaten and even killed. Someone once asked me what purpose did it solve, such sacrifice.
“Well,” I said, “because Christ sacrificed his life, more than a billion people lead a life of inspiration today, even 2,000 years later. Because Buddha sacrificed his kingdom, more than 500 million derive the benefit even today.”
Compassion and forgiveness are simply synonyms of sacrifice. When you forgive, somewhere you sacrifice a part of your own existence, your respect, your dignity, yourself. However, by forgiving you also go beyond the shackles of ego. Moreover, sacrificing is not a trade, you don’t expect anything for yourself in return, it is philanthropy, it’s an act of charity.
Ask me not what if the other person doesn’t deserve your compassion or what if they don’t acknowledge it. Because if you still have these questions, you’ve not let the Passion of Christ sink into your heart.
Upanishads have a term for our world – Vashudhaiva Kutumbakam, the whole world is one single family. It’s one planet, one world, one family.
Compassion does not require a reason or reward, only a desire, a discipline. Forgiveness doesn’t even need discipline but only a big heart, big enough to absorb their mistakes. When your heart is as big as the ocean, their shark-like mistakes and tuna- like presence in your life will coexist without so much as causing a ripple in your mind.
When you choose compassion over any other choice, you naturally elevate your consciousness. When you sit down to meditate, after a random act of kindness or a show of compassion, you will discover that your mind is naturally quieter than usual. It starts to gravitate towards its natural state. This peace is already present in your heart like fragrance in rose.
Truthfulness
The great saint Kabir was a weaver who lived in Varanasi some 550 years ago. He was known for his frugal, simple and truthful conduct. He was spinning yarn once when a stranger barged into his home and fell at his feet.
“Please help me, I didn’t mean to steal” he said in a rushed voice. “I needed food for my family. I deeply regret it. The king’s men are after me. They’ll be here any moment…help me.”
Kabir looked calmly at the stranger’s eyes full of fright and paranoia. He was sweating, fear and anxiety was written all over him.
“Hide in that heap of cotton, quickly now.” Kabir pointed at a mound of cotton no more than a few feet away from where he sat. The thief did as told and Kabir resumed murmuring his famous couplets while spinning the wheel.
Jako rake saanyiyan maar sake na koye Baal na baanka kar sake jo jag bairi hoye…
Who can harm the one who’s got the protection of God, Even if the whole world turns against him, they can’t even make dent a strand of his hair.
Saanch barabar tap nahin jhooth barabar paap Jaake hriday saanch hai, taak hriday prabh
u aap.
There’s no penance greater than truth and no sin worse than lying, God lives in the one who has truth in his heart.
“Have you seen him?” the king’s men shouted, holding naked swords, as they interrupted Kabir’s recital and work.
“Who?” Kabir said in a matter of fact tone without stopping his spinning.
“A thief just ran in this direction,” the sergeant said. “Do you know where he went?”
Kabir chuckled, continued weaving and said, “He’s hiding in that little hillock of cotton.” And he carried on singing the couplets.
The soldiers exchanged glances among themselves. Dismissing him as a madman, the men went away in search of the thief. After about five minutes, Kabir asked the thief to come out of hiding.
“Are you crazy,” the thief said. “You nearly had me killed!
Why did you tell the truth?”
“Because, my friend,” Kabir said stopping his wheel, “only truth could save you. Truth knows no fear whereas the king’s men would have seen through my lies.”
The thief went away transformed and legend has it that he became an ardent follower of Kabir.
In this day and age, it is not easy to be truthful. It has never been easy because truth is mostly punished. Most people don’t even want to hear the truth, they are happy living in a cocoon of lies. Sometimes, there’s no way of sugarcoating the truth. Especially in a situation where the other person doesn’t want to handle the truth, it doesn’t matter how gently you tell them, they will react unfavorably. This is the single most reason why most people tell lies countless times every day. It’s easier to get away with a lie than handle truth.
