People who have not experienced meditation are generally quite closed to exploring it. Some reject it as a time-pass activity wherein the meditator wastes time sitting cross-legged, thinking about the past and future. That's true many times. But that is not what meditation means. Probably, we need to go a little deeper to understand the real meaning of meditation.
Our existence, as human beings, comprises three dimensions. The body, mind, and Prana. Human beings are Manas putra, and therefore our awareness is generally confined to the world of mind. The mind has three parts: Chitta, Mana, and Buddhi. Whatever experiences we gather during the course of our lives are stored in Chitta. We have some experiences, and we make many more stories around those experiences. For example, a friend does not attend a function we organise. That's a fact, and we make many stories around that by linking the past and future events. Our Chitta contains many such experiences and many such stories. Mana interacts very closely with the Chitta and decides about the future course of action. Mana is the storehouse of desires. Buddhi is the seat of logic. It calculates and compares different things and tells us what is good for us. However, Buddhi has its own limitations. It is like the minister in the kingdom of mind, which is ruled by Mana. Thus, it plays to the tunes of Mana. If we have a desire to eat sweets, Buddhi, despite knowing that it is not good for health, will create many logics reasons for eating sweets. In effect, Mana is ruled by past experiences of Chitta. Since we have pleasant memories of sweet taste, we want to have the same again. Thus, Mana may be the king of mind, the kingmaker is Chitta, and it is Chitta that rules the kingdom effectively.
The kingdom of mind has very close ties with the body. The body is the storehouse of unconscious memories. For example, if we had a bad experience in a city in our childhood, our mind would have forgotten the same. However, our body will have the memories of the same. When we go back to the same city, the climate, scenes, sounds, and a mixture of many such things will trigger the past memories. When the body gets triggered, it will send signals to the mind, and the faded memories in Chitta will get triggered, and Mana will start reacting to that. It will give more signals to the body, and a chain reaction between the body and the mind will get started, making us uncomfortable and forcing us to move away.
In meditation, we break free of these fixed frames of the body and mind. We bring our attention to the breath. With that, we start witnessing our own body and mind. We look at different thoughts that come to the mind without either rejecting them or following them. We also witness sensations in different body parts without assigning any value of being god or bad to them. We don't cry with pain in some body part and do not jump out of happiness with some pleasant sensation. This creates little valuable space between us and the body and mind. That is like getting free of the fixation with the past and future, and we enter the present moment. In the present moment, we observe the breath, inhalation, exhalation, and the retention thereof. We experience the pranic energy in the breath. With awareness of that pranic energy, we get to experience the essence of life and get to realize how our mind and body are trapped in the memories of the past. There is no need for hard work to fight the darkness. Just a ray of light is sufficient. Similarly, as we get to experience the pranic energy, the fixation of our mind with past memories drops, and Chitta becomes clean. Similarly, the fixation of our body with the pleasant sensations drops, and it becomes free. That dropping creates space to explore new dimensions of life.
We can experience the effects of awareness in a simple argument. If we have a heated argument with a friend, the more we argue and ridicule the arguments of our friend, and the more we want to argue. Mana is on a fast track, and soon we realize that it gets out of control. The body gets heated, ready to provide the arms and ammunition to the mind to keep fighting. However, if we take a little break and become aware of our breath, the vicious cycle gets broken and little space is created. That little space allows us to see the validity of arguments of our friend, and that helps us grow beyond our limited frame. The same discussion that could have resulted in breaking off the relationship becomes a source of expansion and growth.
Meditation is not solely about sitting cross-legged in solitude. Instead, it involves being acutely aware of both the body and the mind. However, as we are often preoccupied with our thoughts and bodily sensations, we usually experience enjoyment or suffering rather than adopting a witness mode. We take time to detach from new inputs and focus on our breath to create that necessary space and meditate in solitude. Once we learn to observe, we can maintain a meditative state in all aspects of life, in every action, and in every conversation. We engage in discussions not to prove our points, but to learn and gain new perspectives. We do not celebrate winning arguments; instead, we grow and appreciate the awareness that comes with understanding different viewpoints. We undertake various activities not merely to chase after sensations we've previously experienced, but to seek out new experiences and sensations, and to observe them. We remain continuously aware of the Prana and the hidden possibilities within Prana energy. The body and mind transform into tools for exploring this world, rather than allowing Pranic energy to become trapped within the constraints of past memories.
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