A very warm welcome to all of you in this Monday evening meditation session with me,
Dhyan Se.
Before I guide you into today's session,
A short story to introduce you to what we are going to do.
Once there was a man who inherited a big villa,
A big house in a very remote village.
This village was known to be the village of thieves,
Of robbers.
But this guy,
He did not know about this fact.
So he moved into the villa.
This villa had lots of inheritance from his ancestors,
From his grandfathers,
Great grandfathers,
Lots of artwork,
Very precious ones.
For a few days nothing happened,
Life went normal.
Then one day this man,
He woke up in the morning,
He noticed one of the corners were empty.
He had a feeling that there was a precious sculpture over there.
By now he was not fully aware of the house,
What's in the house.
So he had this feeling that there was a sculpture that was there in the corner and today it's not there.
But he wasn't sure.
So he invited all his servants to ask.
All the servants said,
No there was nothing like it,
Everything is normal.
He asked the neighbors,
Did you see something happening?
The neighbors said also,
No everything is normal.
Nothing has been happening here.
The man said okay,
In order to fill this empty corner,
He went to the market.
He bought a cheap sculpture and placed it in this empty space and went back on his life,
Went to sleep that night.
Next morning he woke up,
He looked at another corner,
Another corner was empty.
Again the same feeling,
Maybe there was something here which was very precious from one of his ancestors and now is not there.
He again called all his servants,
Asked his neighbors,
Everyone said nothing happened,
Everything is normal.
And by and by,
Every day same story happened where one by one the precious sculptures,
The artwork that he had was getting stolen.
He did not know what to do with that empty space.
He went to the market,
Brought back cheap artwork and placed in that empty space,
In that precious villa which was given to him,
Inherited from his ancestors.
Until one day he completely got frustrated with what was happening,
His conviction that something must be going on,
Nobody is telling him because when he is asking others,
Everyone says everything is normal,
But something must be happening,
So he decided to remain awake.
That night he decided to remain awake.
In the morning he saw there was no theft,
Nobody had dropped anything.
He was very happy and then he remained awake throughout his time in that villa.
Why am I telling you this story?
You are also being robbed every single day,
Every single day.
There is a theft that is going on in your world,
In your inner wealth every single day.
If you don't believe me,
Take a look into your heart,
How much love is left.
Take a look into your spirit,
How much aliveness is left.
Take a look at your mind,
How much peace is left.
Your inner wealth is being stolen every single day and you look right,
You look left,
You ask others,
It's happening with everyone else,
So everything seems normal.
You don't question that.
And if you question that,
If you feel that there is an empty space,
You fill it with substitutes,
Whatever you know,
Whatever you get in the marketplace.
Your heart,
The love is filled with desires of buying this,
Of buying that,
Of acquiring more comfort,
More luxury,
Nothing wrong with that,
But substituting the love in your heart with that.
The aliveness,
The natural aliveness of your spirit is substituted by the spirit,
By the alcohol,
By wine and intoxication.
Again,
Nothing wrong with that,
But your own inner wealth,
Your own inheritance that you are born with,
That you already have,
That you don't need to acquire is getting depleted,
Is getting robbed,
Stolen every single day.
Who is the thief?
We are not going to talk about that.
What we are going to do is find a way to stop this robbery,
To stop this theft.
How do we do that?
Is to remain awake,
Is to remain awake of our inner wealth,
Of our inner wealth of our mind,
Inner wealth of our heart,
Inner wealth of our spirit.
When I say remain awake,
What does it mean to remain awake?
Does it mean to not sleep?
What does it mean to remain awake?
What does it mean to remain aware?
Does it mean to think about something,
To think about your mind,
To think about your heart,
To think about your spirit,
Your energies,
Your soul,
Whatever it is.
What does it mean to remain awake?
In simple words,
To remain awake is when you are aware,
Without words and without any reactions.
So two,
Remember these two components.
You are aware without any words,
Without any reactions.
For example,
You are aware of what I am speaking,
But some of you might be thinking what is he saying?
You are already in the reaction or some of you might be positively reacting to that without any reaction,
Without any words,
Without giving it your own idea,
Without giving it your own version.
When you become aware of your inner world,
What is in you without any words,
Without any reaction,
That awareness changes everything.
That awareness not only stops this theft,
This robbery that is happening on every single day,
But also it restores everything back.
It restores your mind,
It restores the love in your heart,
It restores the aliveness in your spirit.
And you don't have to do anything.
All you need to do is to remain awake of your inner world,
Of your inner mind,
Heart,
Spirit or energies,
Whatever you want to call it.
What I am talking about is not only relevant for the few minutes that we sit here for meditation,
But you have to practice this throughout your life.
When you are out in the world,
When you are in your daily tasks,
When you are working,
Meeting people,
Going out,
Doing whatever you are doing,
If you remain awake,
Being aware without words,
Without reacting,
If you remain aware of yourself in those situations,
You will see that the theft,
That robbery has stopped.
Your love will remain your love,
Will not become desires by this object or that object.
Your spirit will remain alive.
You would not need anything else to uplift,
To uprise your spirit.
Your mind will remain calm,
Will remain sharp,
Will remain intelligent without having to practice anything.
And what I am talking about is not thinking.
It's not thinking about the mind,
It's not thinking about the heart,
It's not thinking about your spirit.
It's just remaining aware.
This is a simple technique that we are going to practice today for few minutes.
And then if you feel that there is something valuable for you,
Practice this in your daily life,
In whichever situation you are in.
You don't have to sit for meditation,
For practicing this being awake.
This being awake is all what is known as spiritual awakening,
Leading to spiritual awakening,
Leading to opening of the heart,
Leading to all kinds of things that are known in the spiritual world as enlightenment and so on.
We don't go that far.
Just in the very simple practicalities of our daily life,
If we remain awake,
A lot is there to gain and a lot is there to not lose in that transactional world that we live in.
For the next minutes,
For today's session,
There is less of guidance,
More of you to practice this awareness.
You will start with being aware of your mind.
When I say being aware of your mind,
You just sit and observe what's happening in your mind and not try to label it with words.
I am thinking this is what is happening.
Try to put the words away.
Just observe without words.
And when you come across something which is good,
Bad,
Which is calling for your attention,
Which is trying to involve you,
Don't react.
Just remain aware.
Nothing else you have to do.
All you have to do is remain aware of your mind,
What's happening,
And let this awareness settle.
Let this awareness grow.
Your body can be in a comfortable posture.
It does not matter cross-legged or sitting on the chair if somebody of you finds it difficult or sitting next to the wall.
All you need to be in a comfortable posture so that you can be aware of what's happening in your mind.
That would be the step number one to be aware of what's happening in your mind and let everything settle on its own.
Don't interfere with anything.
Don't react and don't put words.
Then we go down from the head to the heart.
When we are at the head,
One more thing.
You can start by bringing your awareness to the physical head and then to your mind.
And when we go down to the heart,
You bring your awareness to the physical heart area,
To your chest,
And then to the feeling of your heart,
To the feeling of what you are feeling inside your heart.
Is it alive?
Is it dead?
How are you feeling inside your heart?
Is it silent?
Is it restless?
Just observe without words,
Without reactions.
Observe,
Let it be.
And then we go down to the navel area.
This is the area where your life energies are originating and are situated.
Physically,
You can bring your awareness down two inches below your navel,
That area,
And in your deepest sense,
Bring your awareness to your spirit,
Meaning to your core.
Keep your awareness in this region and just feel how you are feeling in this area without words,
Without reacting.
All you have to do is observe your mind,
Your heart,
Your navel center,
And then we'll go back up to the heart,
Up to the mind,
And then we'll leave any object of awareness and sit in silence for rest of the minutes.
We'll do this for roughly 30 minutes.
So if you need a comfortable posture,
Feel free to sit next to the wall if it is easy for you,
And try to not make noises or any other disturbance because that also creates a disturbance for others.
Let's together build silence in this room to that level of energy that all of us can move into awareness,
Into our inner world with more awareness,
With more silence altogether but individually.
Before we start,
Any questions how we are going to do this?
If not,
Then I would invite you to close your eyes.
Sit with your back straight,
Shoulders down,
Hands in your lap or on your thighs.
Take a nice deep breath,
Inhale from the nose,
Exhale from the nose.
Another deep breath in from the nose,
And exhale from the nose.
Allow your breath to naturally settle in your body,
Finding its comfort in whichever position you're sitting.
Your head straight.
No tension on your face.
Your eyes relaxed.
Start by bringing your awareness to your mind,
And simply remain aware what's going on in your mind without words,
Without reactions.
Exact words that may seem odd as shown on the screen are your own.
Remain aware of your mind.
No words,
No reactions.
No words,
No reactions.
No words,
No reactions.
No words,
No reactions.
No words,
No reactions.
Simply remain aware of your mind.
No words,
No reactions.
No words,
No reactions.
Now slowly move your awareness down to your heart region.
And become more and more aware of your heart.
Without words,
Without reactions.
No words,
No reactions.
No words,
No reactions.
With every breath,
Become more and more aware of your heart.
Notice the silence in your heart.
Notice the love in your heart.
And remain aware without words,
Without reactions.
All your awareness on your heart region is gone.
No words,
No reactions.
No words,
No reactions.
Now move your awareness down to your navel center.
To the region two inches below your navel.
The sensations,
The pulsations,
The energy that you feel at your navel center.
Awareness at the area two inches below your navel.
No words,
No reactions.
No words,
No reactions.
No words,
No reactions.
All your awareness down at the navel center.
Now move your awareness down to your navel center.
To the region two inches below your navel.
And raise your awareness back.
And raise your awareness back to your heart.
No words,
No reactions.
No words,
No reactions.
No words,
No reactions.
Raise your awareness further up to your mind.
Raise your awareness back to your heart.
No words,
No reactions.
Only awareness of your mind.
No words,
No reactions.
Now let go of your mind.
And simply remain silent and aware of nothing in particular.
Remain silent.
Remain silent and aware for the next few minutes.
Now let go of your mind.
With every breath,
Allow your silence to become deeper and your awareness brighter.
Now let go of your mind.
Maintain your inner silence and awareness.
No words,
No reactions.
No words,
No reactions.
No words,
No reactions.
And very gently and slowly,
You may open your eyes or keep them closed and remain silent.
Take the next minutes to absorb this experience.
To let this settle in your being.
Now let go of your mind.
Feel like you can stretch your body.
Now let go of your mind.
Last few minutes of the session are for you to ask any questions about the session,
About the topic.
Anything that comes to your mind that you wanted to discuss,
Share within the group when you went through the experience of meditation in the last minutes.
Anything that is worth sharing is up to you.
Any questions?
Then I will ask questions.
How was it for you guys?
Is there a way to keep your awareness without bringing in words,
Without bringing in reactions?
Works,
Right?
Yes?
Sometimes I felt my body shaking.
Like this,
Like I woke up and then I asked myself,
Did I fall asleep for a few seconds?
It's a very common question to fall asleep.
When you fall asleep,
When you sit in meditation,
There are only two reasons for that.
Either the meditation is very very boring,
That could be one reason.
Second is you're tired and you don't give yourself enough chance to rest.
And the moment that the meditation is very boring,
The session is super boring,
That could be the reason,
Very valid reason or that you are tired.
Simply the moment you give yourself some rest,
Your body goes into sleep.
You need rest.
So this is very normal,
This happens to everyone.
And even if you're practicing meditation for a very long time,
It can still happen that you're sitting in with the right intentions to remain aware and awake and everything,
But you start falling asleep.
If that happens,
It's just an indication that you need to give yourself more rest,
More sleep,
And then come to meditation and then take time for meditation.
Or you do a longer session.
When you do a longer session,
When I say long,
It means 40 minutes,
45 to one hour.
Then after a few minutes of dozing off and getting up again and again,
Then your mind is stabilizing,
Your awareness is stabilizing.
And then the last 20 minutes would be worth sitting for the entire session where you are awake and fully aware without dozing off again and again.
So nothing wrong with that unless there is anything else strange happening in those moments when you're dozing off.
Anything else?
Yes?
For me it's difficult to maintain whatever is the concentration when there are these sounds that you try and it's difficult to stay focused.
I really get distracted a lot.
Yes,
I wish I could stop these trends as well for you guys.
It's normal as well.
And today was really a challenge I think.
Today they were trying to make sure that we here cannot concentrate on our inner world.
But when you're sitting at home,
Try to practice this in quite a place.
Usually here it's not that loud.
But even if it is wet,
Then it's louder.
Even if that happens,
Even if it's very loud,
If you don't react to it,
You will see that slowly it stops bothering you.
It only bothers you when you are getting involved with it.
Yes,
All of a sudden you are somewhere and it calls your attention.
It's also normal.
But you can learn to not react to it,
To remain where your awareness is.
And slowly you will see no matter there is trance or any other horns or sirens outside,
You will not be disturbed.
Your meditation will not be disturbed.
It doesn't mean that you will not hear them.
There is a slight difference.
You will still hear the sounds,
But you will not be disturbed by it.
That's also possible.
Yes?
Not very long.
You will be surprised how quickly you can adapt to sitting still like that for a very long time.
But if you build the habit of laying down while meditating,
Chances are you will also fall asleep.
I can do it for a long time.
I don't want to fall asleep.
But it's first thing in the morning so I'm in bed.
And if I'm in bed and meditating is the music,
Then I get the back to sleep.
That's great if you can lay down and still not fall asleep.
That's absolutely fine.
Nothing wrong with that.
Just that if you want to build this practice for long and go deeper into it,
Then you will have to sit straight.
I felt like the creases of my hips were really crunching up for a while.
I just tried to focus on that focus on just nothing.
But it's not as hard as it looks really.
I know growing up in India we are used to sitting on the floor with our crossed legs.
I understand that here the culture is not there to sit with your legs crossed.
That's why it's difficult.
But it's not that difficult.
I've seen so many people within a month of practice,
They find it absolutely normal to sit crossed legged.
And then they never go back to laying down.
Because it's a totally different experience when you are sitting straight.
There are many reasons to it.
The geometry that your body is in,
Its meditation,
It takes you into another level when your geometry is made like this.
That's why these postures where you see full lotus or half lotus,
These are the postures where you can really sit for a very very long period of time.
For 30 minutes it doesn't matter if you are laying down or if you are sitting.
But if you are going for 45 minutes,
1 hour or in some cases more,
Then it becomes mandatory,
It becomes a must that you sit with your body like this,
With your spine erect.
Mainly your spine erect is the key and rest,
Everything is work around it.
Anybody else?
Yes?
When you see a sunrise,
How do you observe it?
With words?
Just the way you would see a sunrise,
A sunset,
Mountains,
Sky,
Stars,
Exactly that observation,
That awareness,
Which is without words.
Also you don't really react to when you see the stars or the sky,
You just observe,
Right?
You just see.
And the same observation is needed in the inner world as well,
Of your mind,
Of your heart,
Of your inner energies.
And yes,
There is a bit of a trick there,
When you observe your mind without words,
It slowly loses all words and all this inner chatter of its own and it calms down.
So actually there is nothing left to observe.
So it's only awareness and that is a good thing.
If you feel that,
Well,
Now suddenly where is my mind and let it start again,
That's not the point of it.
So the point of it is that when you observe without a conversation,
The conversation,
That conversation loses its energy and it starts to fade away.
And you are just remaining with awareness and that awareness can be in your head,
That awareness can be in your heart and elsewhere as well.
So it's not difficult,
It's actually good that you are in that state when you are observing your mind.
Last 30 seconds,
Anyone?
If not,
Then I would like to thank all of you to join me in this meditation session.
It's been a pleasure for me.
I hope you took something back for yourself as well.
See you next Monday.
Namaste.
