A very warm welcome to all of you in this Monday evening meditation session with me,
The answer.
Juliet,
She was on her wedding planning.
She hired a wedding planner.
She was so involved in every little detail.
She went to the venue where the wedding was supposed to take place.
She went into the kitchen,
Into every department,
Checked everything if everything is alright by herself.
And she was telling the wedding planner who was there to assist where everyone should be.
She said,
You know,
My mother should be here,
Should be standing here on the podium.
My best friend would be here.
My other best friends,
Other friends would be there.
And this man would be standing next to me.
What's his name?
Romeo?
What's his name?
She forgot the name of her future husband.
That much,
She was involved in the entire planning,
In the entire process.
In life,
We are also so much involved in the useless drama that we forget why we are here.
Why were we born?
Why are we here?
We forget and get involved in things,
Mundane things of life.
They say that when you are born and you take the first breath,
Just before that first breath,
You know why you were born and then you are in a certain forgetfulness.
The illusion of this life,
Of this world is so amazing that you forget.
And then when you are taking your last breath is that moment again where you're reminded where the remembrance of why you were born,
Why you are here,
Flashes again.
In between,
There is this forgetfulness,
There is this absence of awareness,
Not even a question,
Why am I here,
Ever occurs to us throughout our life.
Through meditation,
In this meditation session,
I would like to urge you to remember why you were born,
Why you are here,
To go into this contemplation,
To go into this fact,
In this question why you are here,
There's a lot of significance to entering into this question and understanding and letting the wisdom that comes out of it execute in our life in all possible ways.
Some hints how you can approach this question,
For that we have to look into the evolution of human consciousness.
We are in the human consciousness somewhere in the middle.
If you look at the spectrum of human consciousness or consciousness itself,
Human consciousness is somewhere in the middle.
Before that,
To be more precise,
Below that is the animal world,
Plant world,
The animal consciousness,
Which is fixed,
Which is definite,
Which is static.
A monkey is a monkey is a monkey.
His consciousness cannot evolve beyond being a monkey.
Human consciousness,
Whereas it's a transition,
It's a possibility which can go back to the animal consciousness and behave instinctively,
Only on survival,
To growing further,
Evolving further as a consciousness,
To experience more than just the instinctive actions that come out of our daily lives,
To living more out of love,
Compassion,
Higher possibility of experiences,
To something even higher,
To the highest consciousness,
Which can be called as divine consciousness.
So the human consciousness is a realm of possibilities where we are sometimes behaving like animals,
Sometimes behaving a little higher than that and demonstrating our love or compassion or sharing a connection with others to sometimes even behaving like the divine where we are in the truth,
In the consciousness,
In the pure consciousness,
In the pure awareness and in bliss.
So we are oscillating in between the spectrum of animals,
Somewhat like a human and somewhat like divine.
On one end of the spectrum,
As an animal consciousness,
There is bondage.
There is only bondage.
The experience of life is only in pain,
In pleasure,
In instincts,
In bondage.
On the human spectrum,
There is freedom,
There is a possibility of freedom where you can move from the instincts to the intelligence and you can move from being an animal to living and experiencing somewhat of higher quality,
That is the possibility of freedom.
When you execute that possibility of freedom and move further in that freedom and allow yourself to expand more,
Your consciousness to expand more and go beyond the body,
Beyond the mind,
You come to a state which is called as nirvana,
In some philosophies,
In some cultures.
What this word means is a state which is beyond miseries,
Which is perfect freedom,
Which is absolute freedom.
In this state,
You only experience sat,
Chit,
Ananda.
Sat,
The truth,
Chit,
Pure consciousness,
Ananda,
Pure bliss.
So,
In scriptures,
In wisdom traditions,
They say we are born to move from being just the animal consciousness,
Transitioning through different realms of human consciousness,
Moving towards the divine consciousness,
Towards nirvana.
What is the bondage that we have in our life?
What is the bondage that we face on daily basis?
The bondage is of the body,
Is of the mind.
What is really putting us down,
What is really capturing us and not letting us experience life in its fullest potential,
Is our own mind,
Is our own body,
It's our own limitation of the body and the mind.
What is the access to freedom?
Is awareness,
Is the awareness of the fact that we can be aware,
That we are aware.
Animals,
They exist,
But they don't know that they exist.
They're aware,
But they are not aware of the fact that they are aware.
Humans,
We are aware and we are also aware of the fact that we are aware.
And this awareness is so significant.
This is what develops all the possibilities,
Opens up all the possibilities of growth,
Of consciousness and moving somewhere towards higher experience of life,
Higher states of consciousness.
And in this realm of awareness is where meditation comes into relevance in our daily life,
Where through the process of meditation we move from bondage to freedom to nirvana.
It depends on you,
What you want to experience in life,
Only the pain and the pleasure and the instincts,
Or the freedom of awareness,
Of self-awareness,
Which opens up the possibilities of love,
Compassion and moving further to even higher possibilities of sat chit ananda,
Of realizing the truth,
Of realizing pure awareness,
Of realizing and having experiencing bliss in our life.
How do we approach this as a meditation?
Three simple steps.
The first step in today's meditation is to acknowledge our bondage,
Is to acknowledge our what keeps us,
What holds us on the ground,
What doesn't let us move to the sky and why are we in the sky.
And as we are in the sky,
What keeps us on the ground?
What keeps us on the ground?
And why is it that we are in the sky?
And why are we in the sky?
Why is it that we are in the sky?
What doesn't let us move to the sky and why are we held to the ground which is our body and our mind so while we are sitting in meditation while we are sitting in awareness we will first of all acknowledge our body acknowledge our mind and just remain aware of what's going on in the body what's going on in the mind and feel the limitation that is there of being in the body and all these mental patterns that keep on repeating and keeping us in the loop of all this wedding planning and all other kinds of planning constant repetition and constant pulling us in a bondage we will remain aware of that will become aware of that as step number one step number two acknowledging and becoming aware of our path to freedom which is our awareness in step number two we will move away from the body away from the mind not worry about what the body is doing not worry about what the mind is doing if your body has pain it wants to move it's okay if your mind is still going on and go on and on and on and going crazy it's still okay all you will do is remain aware of the awareness remain aware of the awareness itself it's very important that you understand what this means you remain aware of the awareness itself that when you are having your eyes closed your awareness and attention and focus and concentration everything is on just this one fact ability quality that you have in your consciousness which is to be aware just remain with it not with the body not with the mind just with awareness and then the third step which is moving towards Nirvana in the meditation session in this meditation practice what this means is you will move into silence you will drop all the processes you will drop all your focus all your attention you'll move even further away from the body even further away from the mind and just go deep into silence let yourself go as deep into silence as possible without trying to hold yourself back because of your body because of your mind leave the body behind leave the mind behind go deep in silence in inner silence you all have it in you all you need to do is to leave the body behind leave the mind behind and go disappear in the silence for few minutes if you when you enter into the silence if you come back from the same door that means you did not really go deep going deep in silence means you've forgotten everything you have dismissed eliminated your entire past all your mental patterns all your everything the contents of your mind your body you've left behind everything and you have your consciousness is in deep silence stay in that silence come out somewhere else not out of the same door that you entered come out of a fresh possibility come out of a fresh door when you come out of the silence of today's meditation leave your mental patterns behind leave your past behind and come back with some freshness in your consciousness come back with some freedom in your consciousness come back with more awareness more self-awareness more love more compassion more joy more bliss in your consciousness it's easy it's not just words it's also an experience if you allow it to happen as simple as that any questions before we go into the session if not then I invite you to take a sitting posture which is comfortable to all of you you don't have to sit cross-legged you don't have to sit in a particular posture just sit as it is comfortable for you so that you can leave the body behind you can leave the mind behind just rest and go deep into silence as we proceed further in meditation all you need to take care if there is something that has to be taken care about the posture is that your back is straight and your head is not resting against the wall so if you like you can sit next to the wall for resting but don't let your head touch the wall otherwise you will fall asleep you'll miss the session you'll miss the meditation you will come back with from a different gate but you will be asleep at all times when you go in silence when you are in step number one two three this meditation or any other meditation remain aware always remember to remain aware sleep happens if if you start feeling drowsy if there is some sort of sleep that comes it's okay that just means that you were stressing yourself so much and now finally you've got a chance to rest so the sleep also wants to come and and be with you if that happens it's also okay try to remain aware try to remain awake and as you practice more and more you will see that in meditations you will not fall asleep but rather remain more and more aware even in the depths of silence where you don't even know where your body is you don't know where your mind is you are in silence but you're still aware and that's what is what we are trying to do here in all these meditation sessions to give you that taste of silent awareness through different ways of entering meditation for this wonderful meditation today I invite you to close your eyes take a relaxed posture keep your hands either on your thighs or in your lap close your eyes and take a nice deep breath inhale from the nose and exhale from the nose now your body to settle in a sitting posture where you can let the body at rest your back straight shoulders down head straight face relaxed and a gentle smile on your face as you breathe in and out bring your awareness to your body and just feel the sensations in your body how your body is settling in this moment becoming more and more still you just observe your body if there are any movements subtle sensations and with every breath allow your body to rest you you you you you wherever your awareness goes in the body go along acknowledge your entire body become aware of your entire body you and with every breath let your body rest become more and more silent you all your awareness on the body and allow it to become still silent at rest you as your body is at rest your mind becomes more visible shift your awareness to your mind and just observe what is going on in your mind without trying to change anything without trying to stop anything just give yourself some minutes to observe your thoughts you very silently observe your mind you you bring your awareness back to the mind if it gets distracted simply observe your mind give yourself time to simply observe the mind you you.
All your awareness in observing the mind,
Without trying to do anything,
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All your awareness,
Own awareness,
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All your awareness,
Own awareness,
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