🎶 🎶 So,
On the spiritual path,
If you.
.
.
Mota Mota kind of,
If you divide,
It is beginners,
Intermediate and advanced levels of meditators.
At the beginning level of a meditator's journey,
He,
If you just tell anybody,
Pull anybody from the street who has never meditated,
Tell him,
Close your eyes and meditate,
He'll be like,
Okay,
It's too dark inside,
What am I supposed to do?
Go to sleep?
Yeah,
He doesn't know.
Yeah,
He's like all over the place.
So,
For a beginner,
You give him a tool,
You have to give him an inner tool.
So,
An inner tool is an inner sound or breath,
Whatever is there on his body,
Whatever he can feel strongly,
He can only feel strongly something which is either sound or through his own lips,
If he's uttering the sound or his own breath.
Even if you give him his own heartbeat,
Many people are not so aware that they can hear their own heartbeat.
Even that is too much.
So,
You get it?
So,
For a beginner level,
Meditation is a physical object.
Sound is a physical object.
Is this very clear?
Yeah?
Yeah.
Breath is a physical object.
Is it clear?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So,
There are many meditations around breath,
Many meditation around mantras,
Even yogic postures that you do.
Yeah.
Yugasanas,
Pranayama,
Everything is at the physical level.
This is all at the beginner level,
How to pull an ignorant person out of that confusion of what do I do in the dark to a more settled level where he becomes comfortable with the inner quietness and darkness.
Now,
He graduates automatically to an intermediate level where he wants more.
He feels this is not sufficient.
For example,
As a young kid,
Vishnu would play with toys and cars but at a certain age automatically you stopped.
It is not hatred.
It's just you grow out of it.
Like that only you grow out of a beginner level meditation techniques and practices and meditation objects.
Automatic.
Yeah.
When you grow to the intermediate level,
Now you want silence.
Yeah.
And you don't want somebody else talking to you from outside with the guided instructions.
Still not inner silence because my mind is still out because I'm making an effort to listen to the instruction then going in and I'm managing to go in a little bit and again there's an instruction and coming out and again I'm going in.
So,
The continuous instruction is also at say the beginner level,
The mature beginner but it's all at the beginner level.
Yeah.
The intermediate level I noticed is that Buddha's techniques.
Buddha's techniques are all how to go in your own mind in silence,
Absolute silence.
The teacher is not even in the room.
You're just given the instructions before you start and then you can sit and meditate for seven hours,
Eight hours,
Ten hours without any instruction.
Yeah.
So,
Those are called the real silent meditations where you figure out the stages of dealing with your own mind and how to go from one level to the next level to the next level of the mind.
Our mind is also in layers and it opens up also in layers.
So,
How to be friends with the mind and not get up and run away.
So,
That's what I have learnt,
Practiced and now even I help teach others at the intermediate level.
Yes.
Intermediate meditation levels are all Buddha's level with finally there is a very highest kind of samadhi level which takes you to the same knowingness.
Yes.
So,
This person also from the intermediate level automatically comes to the advanced level which are the advanced samadhi and he reaches the knowingness.
Yeah.
That is the buddha's path.
But there are some people who have who are very ripe,
Who've done this,
Done that,
Done that,
Done that,
Done that,
Done that,
Heard the scripture that or gone to this teacher,
That teacher and they've done a lot and somehow they're all ripe but they haven't found the correct key that opens the door and they suddenly stumble upon Advaita and they realize,
Yes,
This makes sense.
I used to sit and meditate on an object but the mind that was observing the breath go in and out or the mind that was observing the mind itself at the quiet level,
There was a knower knowing that the mind is meditating.
Oh,
This is it.
This is what I was waiting for and then people know this is for me.
Obviously,
We are a group of 150 people.
You saw that.
Not everybody is here.
Some are at a lower level and some are right at the beginner level.
No problem.
Wherever you are,
It's okay.
You know now what is my destination.
This gives you a kind of encouragement,
A kind of you know,
Even if you got just one glimpse,
It gives you like,
Oh yes,
I know where I have to go.
Till now,
I was just walking in the dark believing this scripture,
Believing that teacher but now I got a glimpse of it in Advaita.
So,
I know my destination.
Yes,
I only knew the from address and I did not know the to address before.
Now,
I have found the to.
Yes,
Now I will get there.
So,
It doesn't matter like you will get there.
Yes.
So,
At this level because I don't know you,
I cannot really give you personal.
Yeah,
That you will have to figure out but as I get to know you,
We have more one-on-ones and you send me emails with your progress,
It becomes very clear to me where you are and what works for you and then I can help you move forward and that's why I encourage people,
You taste Advaita just to get your to address,
Your final address,
Where I have to go,
Where is home.
Yes,
And you do Buddha just to see whether it is too high for you or do you need to dominate to another level.
Yeah.
So,
Yeah.
So,
Just taste everything,
Taste everything and figure it out.
Nobody else can figure it out for you.
Yeah,
Unless you're like in constant contact and we are living together in an ashram and you know there is a constant everyday interaction that is the only way that I would know,
Okay Vishnu is here and this will help Vishnu but that's not the case with us.
We are all you know simple homemakers,
We are lay people,
We are not yogis living in an ashram.
So,
It's different and nowadays even modern ashrams today don't have the one-on-one that in ancient people did,
Right.
So,
Then we make the best of this together.
Thank you.
