So what's the difference between meditation and concentration?
A lot of guided meditations people will say,
Okay,
I'd like you to focus on your breath,
Feel it as it goes in and out,
And put your concentration on the tip of your nostril.
And this is really useful for concentrating the mind.
After all,
We've got so many thoughts that go in and out of our heads all day long.
And as we sit down to meditate,
You'll have this swirling cacophony of thoughts invade your conscious space.
Or they say concentrate on the face of your teacher.
Concentrate on the peak of a far off mountain range and watch that.
So since the mind is prone to shiny object syndrome,
Concentrating it in that way can help develop single pointed awareness.
And this is really useful.
But this is not meditation.
This is concentration.
Meditation is when there is a subject with no object.
I am the subject.
There is no object out there for me to concentrate on.
Meditation is residing in myself and the self,
Which is the self and the heart of all beings.
So even if a thought comes into my head of a cloud or of a taxi cab driving down the street or of something I need to do that day,
These things are all seen to be aspects of myself.
They're not a function of an exterior world.
They're not out there.
They're in here just as much as my thoughts are.
In fact,
The things I just mentioned are precisely in here.
They came from my imagination,
Didn't they?
So we can conjure up this picture show in our imagination just like the world can when we look outside.
Meditation helps me understand that I am all beings and all things.
Everything I've ever known,
Everything I've ever learned,
Seen,
Watched on television,
Read about.
Every archaeological dig into the past and every futurist's vision of what's to come,
These are all myself.
There's nothing outside of that.
It's a completely self-contained universe.
The universe is all inside of me.
It is a drop in my own consciousness.
I'm not a drop in the ocean of the universe.
It's the reverse.
So that's meditation.
I think it's okay to bring the awareness into the heart.
This is not the muscular organ that pumps blood on the left side of your chest.
This is the heart chakra,
More or less.
It's the center of our being in our chest.
It's where this voice is coming from.
It's originating in the lungs and the diaphragm and coming out of my vocal cords.
But the microphone I have happens to be,
I just noticed,
Right on my chest.
That's the place I'm talking about when I refer to the heart.
It's okay to bring the attention right there and realize this is not external to me.
It's closer to me than close.
It is myself.
It is the subject.
It is the witness.
Papaji had a great satsang where a woman came in and asked,
How do I find myself?
And he said,
How far do you have to travel to find yourself?
She said,
I don't have to travel very far.
I'm right here.
He said,
Okay,
If you're right there,
Then don't go anywhere.
If you want to find yourself,
Don't go anywhere.
Don't move.
I'm asking you now to do the same exercise.
If you want to find yourself,
Don't move physically.
Don't move.
Be still.
In the moment now.
Be still.
Don't move.
Don't move your body.
Don't twiddle your thumbs.
Don't move your appendages.
Don't rock around.
Be still.
Don't move.
Don't move.
Don't think.
Seeing is movement.
Don't think.
Bring all those tendrils of thought that are moving out into the world like little pea shoots growing in time lapse.
Bring those back into the mind.
Let them contract back into the mind.
Like in the beginning of Wizard of Oz and Dorothy drops the house on the wicked witch and her feet are sticking out and all of a sudden they shrivel up and contract back into the place under the house.
Do the same thing with all those thoughts that are going out into the world.
Let them contract back into your mind.
And then from there keep going down into your throat all the way down into your heart and let those thoughts die there in your heart.
No images,
No thoughts,
No planning,
No thinking.
No thoughts,
No thinking.
Don't move.
Yes.
That's not what you might have felt in your heart just now.
That's the movement of Shakti,
That's spiritual energy.
It could have felt like a downward turned bud of a flower that in an instant turned upward and bloomed and opened.
Yes.
Yes.
So that is a taste of Samadhi.
That's what enlightenment feels like.
It's not a collection of great ideas that you have to memorize and practice.
That's a state of being.
That state is unencumbered and free and fresh and delighted in its own beingness.
Remember that state,
Take it with you.
Imagine bringing that to your family and friends,
To your co-workers,
To the people on the street,
To the clerks in the store.
That state is contagious.
It will make everyone and everything around you blossom,
Just like that flower in your heart.
