Mindfulness / meditation is not what you THINK but WHAT IT IS – here and now?

Practiced for 10 years and now I want to relearn

‘I have practiced meditation 10 years ago that managed my stress and I felt inner peace. I know what meditation is. I have come to you learn again.’

I asked her, ‘But when you know, what meditation is and have practiced for 10 years and left it. Why are you here to learn it again?’

‘I know it is effortless, natural, and state of doing nothing………………………………….’

I interrupted and asked again, ‘when it is effortless and state of doing nothing, where the learning as any learning comes demands effort and where comes doing when it is a state of doing nothing.’

 She stared at me and reacted, ‘Oh! You mean you are not going to teach me.’

You learn driving and never forget it. You know your name and never forget it. How can you forget the art of meditation that is so close to life and living from moment to moment?

Thinking of meditation and being in meditation are two different things

Many people write very good articles on ‘thinking about meditation/mindfulness’ but not what mindfulness/ meditation is. First of all when meditation is effortless, why people drop the practice and give least importance to it in life. Second if is a state of doing nothing, then why people practice it for some days and then leave it.

 I would not  like to say ‘teaching meditation/ mindfulness’ for 35 years but no word or phrase to convey in thought, I have realized that people think a lot about meditation/mindfulness and do not live in the state of meditation.  

 Thinking about meditation is the way we think about anything in the world. The thinker is the same in thinking about meditation or sex or pleasure or pain. This thinker will always receive its information from the past, memory, experiences etc.

Can we become aware of ‘thinker’ within us, not by thinking but simple awareness? It is like watching traffic on a road, standing across. It is like watching the storm, sitting in a room. It is like watching the thinker and thinking inside you.

Self-awareness is the beginning and end

Self-awareness is the key to any meditation. Thinking and thinker has always its past, memory and experiences. It colors the world outside and inside. Self-awareness is neither an effort nor doing something. It is the consciousness which is above the thinker and thinking. Let us take one example, when I say, ‘I am meditating’, what it means to consciousness.

This consciousness is aware of ‘I ‘, ‘meditating’, and aware of ‘I am meditating’. Without this consciousness, this world is worthless and useless because it gives flavors to life and living at every moment. Meditation is the way of picking up the threads of this subjective consciousness. Because it is subjective, thinker and thought cannot reach it.

 When you never forget – you succeed in mindfulness/meditation

Great masters chose words in describing the state carefully. Buddha chose the word ‘Samyak Smriti’ meaning right memory. There is a memory of consciousness and memory of mind. You always forget what memory of mind is and never forget what memory of consciousness is. The memory of consciousness says (if I use this word-say) – ‘you are in peace, you are the peace and peace and you are one’.

How can you forget it, because it is memory of the consciousness? When you awaken to this state, then you succeed in mindfulness. You know now, what is ‘thinking about meditation’ and ‘living in meditation’ effortless, natural and state of doing nothing.

Girish Jha, MS, BS, well-being expert has been teaching, mentoring, guiding and offering his services in the field mind-body complementary well-being and illness management for the last 35 years. He has the credit of training, mentoring for 40000 hrs. to Technocrats, Bureaucrats, Engineers, Doctors, Teachers, Students, Ambassadors, Diplomats. He inspires to move from PAIN to PEACE to PROSERITY by evolving one self and helping others to evolve. The word PAIN, he uses for all personal, professional, social and spiritual problems that includes, anxiety, anger, panic, grief, chronic pain, physical pain, asthma, obesity, under achievement, family conflict, lack of self-esteem, transsexual issues, etc.

He offers self-designed programs ONLINE/OFFLINE.