Meditation is a demanding discipline, but it pays rich dividends. Today, after years of practice, my attention is effortlessly one-pointed all the time. Whatever I am doing, it is like driving smoothly on a highway without ever having to change lanes.
I may not have a California driver’s license, but I am a fully licensed driver of my mind. I wish you could see me driving the car of my mind – just cruising along. Most of the time I can put my feet up and just roll along on cruise control. You won’t see any weaving; you won’t see any speeding. I just drive in one lane. And as long as the mind is traveling in the same lane, anger cannot come, fear cannot come, greed cannot come. For all of these negative states, the mind has to change lanes.
There is a marvelous skill in this that you will develop with practice. Once you have learned this skill, instead of getting agitated and afraid when old memories come, rattling their chains and wearing ghoulish makeup to frighten you, you can sit back and say, “Good show! Are you quite through?” The ghosts of the past will have no hold whatever on your attention, which means there is no emotional connection at all.
My observation, after many years of meditation, is that most problems are much smaller than we think. It is by dwelling on them, brooding on them, feeding them with our attention, that we make them bigger and bigger. When we learn to direct our attention to something positive, the problem often shrinks to its proper size, making it much easier to deal with –and much less intimidating, too.
The promise of meditation is simple: we discover who we are.
Even if your mind wanders thirty times in thirty minutes of meditation, if you keep bringing it back to the passage, you have done wonderfully. You may feel you have wasted your time, but that discipline will go on paying off throughout the day. Over the months, as the bank advertisements put it, it all adds up. Eventually, you may be bringing your mind back only ten times. Then it will be only once or twice. Finally, if you practice systematically and with sustained enthusiasm, the day has to come when you do not have to bring the mind back even once because your attention never wavers.
I cannot describe to you the splendor of this experience. All your attention is completely integrated, focused like a laser on the words of the passage. Your senses close down and you are blissfully unaware of your body. In this supreme experience you know that the body is not you, but only the house in which you live. You feel a presence stirring in the depths of your consciousness, so healing, so loving, that Saint Francis said that if the experience had lasted longer, his life would have melted away in joy.
Compared to this experience, all the pleasures of the world become insignificant. Even the most elevated artistic experiences cannot be compared with the boundless joy and love we feel in this supreme state. One taste of it, even for a moment, and you will want to make it last forever.
That is why I tell everyone to make meditation their first priority. No time could be better spent. I led a very busy life when I began to meditate many decades ago, and I still lead a busy life, but I have always found time to meditate. You can be sure that when you make meditation your first priority, you will enjoy the benefits from it every day.
Even after decades of meditation I still cannot get over the miracle of what precious treasures lie within our consciousness, ready to be discovered through the practice of this simple discipline. Every morning as I finish my meditation, I realize anew how immensely it can enrich our lives and the lives of those around us.
I think it is important for everybody to learn to meditate. Anybody who wants to be healthy – which means everybody – needs to meditate. Anybody who wants a calm mind and a loving heart – which again means everybody – needs to meditate. One of the greatest benefits of meditation is the loss of any feeling of inadequacy you may have. It is amazing to me, but I don’t ever feel inadequate today. I don’t know what the meaning of depression is. I have many important responsibilities, many challenges come up every day, but I know that I can dive deep into my consciousness in meditation and bring up with me the resources necessary for dealing with any dilemma the day may bring.
I was not born this way. It is something that I achieved through long years of discipline and the grace of my teacher, my grandmother. And when this state is achieved, a great teacher of meditation in ancient India makes this quiet statement: “Now you see yourself as you really are.”
Before I took to meditation, although I was leading a satisfactory and successful life, I didn’t have any idea of who I am. Of course, I thought I knew: I was a village boy from Kerala who had become professor of English on a campus in Central India and was sure he was enjoying life and perhaps even contributing to it a little. Only later did I realize that I had been asleep and dreaming – no more awake, as William James says, than a man who thinks his capacities are limited to what he can do with his little finger.
One inspired verse in the Indian scriptures defines clearly who we are:
When the wise realize the Self,
Formless in the midst of forms, changeless
In the midst of change, omnipresent
And supreme, they go beyond sorrow.
The beauty and wisdom of these words is unsurpassed. They express the summit of human wisdom, because they tell us who we are. They say, in the simplest possible language, that within this physical, changing, mortal body there is a nonphysical presence which is our true Self.
When I was enabled, after years of meditation, to discover who I am, the joy of that discovery knew no bounds. And my love knew – and knows – no bounds. Today I know I am not just a separate fragment of existence subject to old age and death. I live in everyone. I am related to everything around me – the seas, the skies, the mountains, the rivers, the forests, the beasts of the field and the birds of the air. I am an immortal being with a million interconnections with all of life. This is our greatness, to be connected with everything on earth. And when we discover this, the Buddha says, we go beyond all sorrow.
Ideas and Suggestions
Spiritual Reading All of us need daily inspiration to remind us of the higher meaning and purpose of our lives. I recommend half an hour or so each day for reading from the scriptures and the writings of the great mystics of all religions.
Mantram Repetition Choose a mantram that appeals to you deeply and try it for at least a month, following the instructions and guidelines in the Appendix.
Meditation Set aside half an hour every morning for meditation, as early as is convenient.
CHAPTER 8
The Still Center
When the mind grows still, it is full of healing power.
One of my delights as a professor of English literature was to introduce Shakespeare to a freshman class. In every final I gave, however, I found that my students almost never told me what they themselves thought about Shakespeare. They gave me only quotations from the experts. “Don’t tell me what the experts say about the play,” I would insist. “I’ve read the experts. I want to know what you have learned, what this play means to you.”
That is one of the reasons I refer to Mahatma Gandhi so often. When Gandhi wrote or said something, it was always based on direct, personal experience. This overriding practicality is one of the marks of genuine spiritual experience. Gandhi did not spend time theorizing and philosophizing. He would always say, “Why not learn by getting down to the actual practice?”
Sri Ramakrishna, a great nineteenth-century Bengali mystic, used to say similarly, “When you go to a mango tree, you don’t go to count the leaves. Get up into the tree, pluck a mango, and eat it; then you will know about mangoes.” When it comes to the benefits of stilling the mind, there is no substitute for giving it a try and tasting the fruits of it ourselves.
All of us have moments when we forget time completely. It is in those moments that we experience happiness.
Until we have this experience for ourselves, however, we need to fall back
on metaphors and illustrations. All of us have moments when we forget the passage of time completely – usually when we are intently absorbed in doing something we like.
In my early days in this country, a friend of mine took me to see American football, which is entirely different from what we called football in India (you call it soccer). There was a big crowd, and a lot of excitement when those figures dressed in primeval costumes and looking like supermen came onto the field. My friend was a good commentator, and he carefully explained to me the system of scoring and some of the rules of the game. But during the second half of the match he got so completely absorbed that he stopped talking to me. Then, suddenly, one side scored a touchdown. My friend – usually a rather reserved person – jumped up and fell upon the man seated in front, squashing his hat on his head. I told him later, “You not only forgot yourself, but you forgot the poor fellow seated in front of you, too!”
Whether we are aware of it or not, all of us are capable of these moments of utter self-forgetfulness, and it is in these moments that we experience happiness. You can see why I call it a tragedy that we are bombarded with propaganda that tells us to dwell on the body as the source of joy, for joy is to be found in just the opposite direction.
In the deepest stages of meditation, the mind gradually comes to a temporary stop. This is the state that Zen Buddhism calls “no mind.” It sounds negative, but this is a tremendous experience. Afterwards, you realize that if your body is like a car you drive, your mind is the engine. You are not your mind; you are the driver – which means, among other things, that you know how to slow down your car when you like and even how to park it, put the engine in neutral, turn it off, and put the key in your pocket. Most of the time, without realizing it, we leave the mind idling on the street with the key still in the ignition, where it wastes gas and pollutes the air until some vagrant thought drives off with it.
This mind of ours is constantly chugging away, even when it is doing nothing. To be able to turn it off and let it rest without thought is to be in heaven. To have a still mind means there is a healing silence everywhere. In this supreme state, you are absolutely fulfilled. You don’t need anything outside yourself. You don’t need to manipulate other people. You don’t need to accumulate material possessions. You don’t need to depend upon any of the unreliable props that modern civilization produces.
This experience may last just for a few moments, for the twinkling of an eye. But once you taste this experience, you realize how paltry all the satisfactions of the external world are.
People often ask me, “How would you compare your life today with your life before you took to meditation?” I don’t come from a poor family, so I don’t answer as someone who was ever deprived. In fact, I come from an affluent, cultured family that has produced leaders, scholars, and artists in my part of Kerala for centuries. I had a good education and was able to pursue the careers I wanted as a university professor and writer. And I enjoyed my work very much. By Indian standards, I was quite successful. I had no frustrations – in fact, I was a happy man. Yet today there is no comparison. Today my life is a million times better. Not just better, a million times better.
Until we experience this state ourselves, it is not possible to understand it. But once you get a taste of the love and the joy of it, you will want to live in this state permanently.
As the thinking process slows down, you can see your mind with detachment and learn to tune it just as a mechanic tunes a performance car.
In the spring, when the weather is beautiful and the hills of California are green with new grass, I sometimes go for a joyride in the afternoon with a few friends. I always say to the driver, “Don’t go fast. I like to look at all the cows and calves, the sheep and lambs, the deer, the wildflowers on the hills.”
This is very much like what happens in your mind as your thinking process slows down. Then you are able to see thoughts with some detachment. You can see them gamboling like lambs on the hillside, and if they are playful and beautiful like the lambs, you can enjoy them. You can see even the small, tender thoughts that grow like wildflowers in out-of-the-way places. Life becomes most enjoyable.
Of course, unpleasant situations still come. No one can avoid them. But when your mind is still, instead of getting agitated in an unpleasant situation, you can see the other person’s point of view, understand why he is agitated, and do something to calm him down – even if you have to oppose him tenderly but resolutely.
When you get this kind of detachment from your mind, you can look at its workings much as a watchmaker looks at the inside of a watch. When a watch is going too fast, the watchmaker doesn’t throw it away. He opens it, loosens a wire or screw, and gets the machinery to go a little slower.
I had a friend who was very good at this. I used to be amazed when she would put on her magnifying glass, open my watch, look at what was hidden behind the case, and then make a few little adjustments so that the watch kept perfect time.
Similarly, after years of training, I have learned to do this with my mind. I can look at it with detachment, open it up, and see what is going on. It’s a very interesting spectacle. If you know how to open your mind at the back like this, you will see to your amazement that your mind is not you; it is a process.
This is such a simple statement, but it may take a lifetime to understand and practice it. You can look inside your mind and see for yourself that in order to get angry, your mind has to speed up. To hold on to a resentment, thoughts have to keep racing around. You can actually observe the process by which the mind speeds up, and then you are able to slow it down and set it right. It means that you are not an angry person or a resentful person; you simply have a watch that goes too fast, which can be adjusted.
Once you have gained this marvelous skill, you will be able to set the speed of the mind at the rate you like. You will gain the capacity, when anger comes, to slow it down and turn it into compassion. This simple adjustment in the speed of thought is actually all that is required to transform the explosive energy of anger into the deep reserves of power that are compassion.
The healing stillness of a quiet mind nourishes every aspect of our lives.
If you have been practicing meditation sincerely and systematically, the day has to come when you enter the still center within. Then you don’t hear the cars on the road outside or the music next door. All your attention is focused within, and your mind slows down almost to a crawl.
This reminds me of a story I heard about Lyndon Johnson. In the course of campaigning, it is said, he was telling some small farmers that he understood their needs because he was a rancher himself.
One man asked, “How big is your spread?”
“It’s big,” Johnson replied in his best Texan manner. “I get in my car in the morning, and it’s sunset before I cross my own property line.”
Like most farmers, this man knew politicians. “Yeah,” he said, “I had that kind of car once too.”
That kind of car may not be the best for inspecting a Texas ranch, but that kind of mind is excellent. Only when the mind isn’t speeding can we see that there is actually an interval between one thought and another – an interval in which there is actually no thought going on at all.
This state of “no mind” is so beneficial to body and mind, so revealing of the nature of life, that once you discover it, you become unshakably secure. You know that even if something terribly upsetting happens – a bereavement, a dismissal from your job, an attack, a financial loss – you have only to enter that interval where there is no thought and rest there. You can sit down for meditation with no movement in the mind and come back refreshed, renewed, and whole.
That is why the Buddha says, “Not your parents, not your partner, not your best friends can bring you such peace as a well-trained mind.” The Bible calls this “the peace that passes all understanding.” You alone can find this peace for yourself, for it lies
in the depths of your own consciousness. All of us are human enough to want to be comforted, and we often feel we need consolation from others. But the Buddha reminds us that although others can wipe away our tears and comfort us, who can heal the wounds of the mind? How can anyone reach the pain inside? There we have to be our own healer; no one else can do this for us. We need the deep healing that comes from a mind at peace.
Between one thought and the next is a tiny gap when the mind is at peace. Extending that gap is the secret of an unhurried mind.
This gap of stillness between one thought and another is our safety. While driving, I am told, there should be one car length between cars for every ten miles per hour of speed. When you are going fifty miles per hour, for example, safe driving demands that you maintain the distance of five car lengths between your car and the car in front.
Similarly, I would say, we can learn not to let one thought tailgate another. Tailgating thoughts are a danger signal. People who are prone to anger – or to fear, or greed, or hostility – allow no distance between one thought and another, between one emotional reaction and the next. Their anger seems continuous – just one anger car after another, bumping into each other on a fast, crowded highway.
When a person is like this, we are likely to say, “Better not go near him! He’s an angry person.” Prudently, we keep our distance. But I don’t avoid angry people today. In fact, I am often able to help them because I don’t see anger as a continuous phenomenon. I see it as little bursts of anger: one burst, then another, then a third, a fourth, a fifth. When you are getting angry, if you could only slow your mind down a little, you would be able to see that between one angry thought and the next there is actually no connection at all.
Take Your Time Page 12
