A Beginner’s Guide To The Miracle Of Meditation

Jeff Carreira offers a profound and comprehensive introduction to his teachings on meditation.

You will discover that Jeff’s simple practice of The Art of Conscious Contentment has direct roots in the practice of Self-Inquiry that was developed and taught by the great Indian sage Ramana Maharshi.

Transcript

Okay, Hello everyone. So thank you very much for joining me for this session of A Beginner's Guide to Meditation. And the reason I called it that, Which most people would probably consider misleading because the kind of meditation I teach is generally seen as an advanced method, But I happen to think it's perfect for beginners, And I also happen to think that in relationship to meditation, We're all always beginners. So it could just as easily been called everybody's guide to meditation, But I wanted to emphasize that no previous knowledge or experience in meditation is necessary to engage in the art of conscious contentment, What I call the art of conscious contentment. And I'm very excited about this because, Well mainly because I've been feeling this deep current of meditation all morning, Just thinking about being with all of you, And because I haven't done a straightforward session on meditation in some time. Now what I feel like we'll be able to accomplish in our 90 minutes today is we're gonna all have, I think, A very powerful experience of the kind of meditation that I teach, And I think also a solid understanding of what it is, What it's designed to do, How to do it, How it works. But the first thing I want to say about meditation, And then I just want us to sit, Just to start by sitting a little bit, But the first thing I want to say about meditation is I don't want to treat meditation as a technique, As an activity that you do. I mean obviously there's truth to that, So I don't want to say it's not that because that would be incorrect. I don't think it's the most powerful way to look at it, And you'll get a good sense of why over the next 90 minutes. I think it's, I think it does a disservice to the potential of meditation if we think about it in terms of an activity that we perform or a practice that we do. Instead, I want us to think about it as a journey that we take, That meditation is a journey beyond identity. When you sit in meditation, You're not sitting to do a practice, You're sitting to journey beyond your normal sense of self. And as long as you're willing, There's nothing that can stop you from making that journey. In fact, As far as I can see, There's one essential prerequisite to meditation, And anyone can master it, Although many of us have not, And it sounds a lot simpler, Sounds a lot more simple than it is, But the one essential prerequisite to the journey of meditation is the ability to relax. Relaxation and the ability to relax is the key, As far as I can tell spiritually, It's the key to everything ultimately. And again, I think you'll have a much better sense of why I feel that way over the course of this session. But with that introduction, I want us to sit together, And what I want us to do when we're sitting together now is simply to relax, To relax, And to be open. One of the reasons people find meditation difficult and they find spiritual pursuits difficult is because they find it difficult to relax, And they find it difficult to be open. We are habitually guarded and defended, And because we're habitually guarded and defended, We don't allow ourselves to be moved. And deep meditation always means relaxing and being open and receptive so that you can be moved. Meditation isn't something you do, Meditation is something that moves you. That's why thinking about it as a practice or an activity can inadvertently make it more difficult, Because staying busy with the activity of meditation is one way to avoid being vulnerable to being moved. So please just sit with me for just a few minutes while we relax ourselves and open to the possibility of being moved together. And as you sit and relax, You may find pockets of tension. That could be muscular tension, Maybe in your arms or your legs or your neck. It could be mental tension in the form of confusion, Frustration, Wanting to figure something out. It can be emotional tension in the form of boredom, Frustration again, Anger, Sadness. Whatever experience you might have, All you're doing is relaxing around it. Just allow it. It's fine. There's nothing wrong with anything that you're experiencing. That in a nutshell is the art of conscious contentment. You are content no matter what your experience is. And no matter how difficult it may seem, I guarantee you that it's possible to be perfectly relaxed and perfectly content no matter what is arising in your experience. As you relax, You may find that there are some habitual place where you stop relaxing, Where you rest in a low level of tension. If you find that, Relax around that too. Allow yourself to relax all the tension and your mind, Body, And heart and allow yourself to relax around any tension that exists. You you you you you you you you you you you you you Okay, Thank you very much. If you want to unleash the full power of meditation, One of the things that it is important to do is to not only learn how to relax and open, But also learn to love it. Learn to love the feeling of being relaxed and open and vulnerable. In that state of being relaxed and open and vulnerable, We are so close to the sacred, To the divine, Because we are available to be moved by her, By subtle energies, Subtle stirrings. So we want to learn to love the experience of relaxing and being open without turning it into a means to an end. The goal is to be open and relaxed. That's it. You're available to be moved. Whether you're moved or not is irrelevant. Again, If you want to unleash the awesome potential of the practice of meditation, I would suggest the first thing you might want to consider is giving up any idea of any goal that you're trying to achieve. You can really fast forward the whole system if you let go of any idea of there being a goal to this endeavor. That's why I've in the past liked to say that meditation is a form of falling in love. Falling in love is an end in itself. Falling in love is enough. When you're falling in love with someone, All you're consumed by is the experience of the unfolding of the intimacy in the loop. It's not a means to an end. You're not falling in love so that later you can make money, Or now you're not falling in love so that later something else will happen. You're just falling in love. Stuff happens, But that's not why you're falling in love. You're not using it as a means to get somewhere. And the same thing with meditation. You're just falling in love with relaxation, With the experience of being open, Not to get somewhere else, But because it's so pleasurable. What makes it difficult is that our culture has not conditioned us in that direction. And I don't know if this is true, But it seems to me that over the short, The relatively short span of my lifetime, You know, Five decades, A little over five decades now, I feel like the value of relaxation, You know, It's cultural cachet is continually going down. And the cultural cachet of success in being busy is continually going up. And so I think anywhere we live, To some extent or another, There's a strong, A strongly conditioned cultural preference for busyness and achievement. And of course those of us who are Americans live in a, You know, Maybe the epicenter of busy achievement. And so we all live wrapped emotionally, Psychologically, Cognitively, Wrapped in an identity, And that identity is largely centered on the idea that we are an individual achiever. We are a person that achieves things. We create goals, We strategize to get there, We enact plans, And we achieve. And the more we achieve, The better. Now I'm sure everyone on this call who's here because they love, You know, They wanted to experience the depths of meditation has seen that already, Has probably seen through that to some extent already. You know, We all are aware of either times in our own life or in the lives of other people who are, You know, More completely caught up in the energy of achievement. But even for those of us who have spent a long time meditating, Pursuing, Awakening, The underlying current of achievement is ever-present. It's in us, But it's also in the cultural field that we live in. It's kind of like, You know, We all float around in a current of culture, Like floating around an ocean, And the ocean has a current, And the current is toward achievement and success and busyness. And we're in that current. So it's, Even if we're swimming in the other direction, There is still part of the current that's pulling us. So in the three-part course that I'm teaching next month is called Inner Peace in a Busy World, Because I felt like this is something that I want to articulate. What does it mean to not only find, But embrace and ultimately live in a state of inner peace, Even though we live in this busy world? I thought, Well, That would be a good service. The articulation of that possibility felt worth doing. So if you think about yourself, If I think about myself, I'm very busy. Now the reality is, I think because of the practice that I've done, Because of the shifts I've experienced in my identity, I don't feel as busy as I look. I often feel like I'm not doing much. In fact, I feel that cultural drift toward busyness because I often catch myself feeling guilty because I'm not working hard enough. Now of course, Other people look at the number of books I'm producing and the courses that I'm teaching and the things that I'm doing and they go, Oh my god, Do you ever sleep? But my experience is I'm not working hard enough and I feel a certain amount of guilt around it. And then I remember, Oh, That's crazy, I'm doing fine, Relax. But I still have that cultural, That intercultural drift. But there's two reasons why I don't feel busy. One is because everything that I do is something that I love. So I would do it, I mean, You know, You have to do something while you're here. And I feel, Because I love it, I feel very relaxed doing it. The other reason, And I think the more profound reason why I don't feel busy, No matter how much I'm doing, Is because I don't experience myself as the one who's doing it. I experience it as happening through me. But I'm not completely identified with being the achiever or the doer of the activity. I'm the space through which it happens, Which means I can stay very chill, Very relaxed, And just I feel more like I'm allowing things to happen than I'm actually doing them. This is the shift that I want to offer to all of you. It's the shift that I think meditation can really support in us. It's a shift in identity, Ultimately. It's a journey beyond our current identity as being the individual achiever into an identity as simply being the space that allows things to happen. And the space isn't busy doing things. And so you can feel completely relaxed and yet a lot can happen. In fact, A lot more can happen because you don't get tired in the same way. It's not exhausting. The ultimate trick to this, You see, Because as soon as I start talking, And this is the challenge, This is always the challenge, As soon as I start talking in this way about a shift in identity from being the achiever to not being the achiever, You know, To being the space, And if I talk about feeling busy versus feeling relaxed, I'm automatically starting to imply a goal and as soon as I start to imply a goal, The achiever part of our identity gets on board with the program. The achiever part goes, Yes, I'm up for that. I want to overcome this achiever too, And I want to be relaxed like that, And I want to be the space for things to happen. Let's do this, Right? It's like that's the little coaching voice we all have, Right? The voice of the achiever takes on negative and positive forms. The negative forms are the one where, You know, I have this a lot, You know, It tells you what a loser you are, How you'll never do it, You've never done it, You can't do it. It's very, Very good at pointing out every possible deficiency you have. We all hate that voice. You know, That one's clearly not a friend. But then it's got this other coaching voice, Which is the, Yes, We could do this, You could do this, We want this, Let's do it, Let's learn to meditate, Pay attention. That's also not your friend. Because in both cases, What's being embraced is the possibility of an achievement, Is an activity. And as soon as there's the idea of an achievement that we're going to work toward, Or that we're going to realize, As soon as that enters the picture, What gets smuggled in along with it is the unspoken ground that it hasn't happened yet. There's no way to want something in the future without also reinforcing the reality that it's not here now. See, This is why this gets very, Very, It's very sneaky and subtle, Because it can feel really positive to want to relax. But as soon as you identify with being someone who wants to relax, You are also identifying with being someone who is not relaxed now. And then the striving to relax becomes a new source of being busy. Now you have to get busy with being relaxed, Becoming relaxed. So the most profound realization, Spiritual realization, Is the realization that relaxed is what you already are. That even if you experience yourself as busy, The part of you that experiences yourself as busy is perfectly relaxed. So this isn't so much about becoming relaxed, It's about falling into the place that's already relaxed about everything, The place that could not be other than relaxed ever. And that part of this is what's generally considered to be a very advanced sort of meditation perspective. But I know that the people I speak to, Even if they're relative beginners to meditation, Are attracted to being here because they are, That this is what they're ready for, This is what they want. So the logic here, The logic of the art of conscious contentment is very, Very, Very simple. The source of who you are already, Who you really are right now, Is already perfectly relaxed and perfectly content. When I say perfectly relaxed and perfectly content, I mean to oppose that to relatively relaxed and relatively content. Relatively relaxed or relatively content means that I'm relaxed because circumstances make me relaxed. I'm content because circumstances make me content. That kind of relative relaxation and relative contentment we all experience. Maybe you love to go to the beach and maybe you get a chance to go to the beach on a beautiful sunny afternoon and nobody was there and it was quiet and it was beautiful and you just heard the waves rolling in, Oh and you felt so content. Now that's real contentment for sure. That's not fake contentment but it's relative. It's relative to circumstance. And our relative level of contentment changes so the next day when you go to work and you speak to your unfair boss who's blaming you for things that weren't your fault, You're not going to feel the same way that you did on the beach the day before which is why we want to go to the beach every weekend or you know why we need a vacation after a while from our boss that's always blaming us for everything that goes wrong even when it's not our fault or whatever else is going on in your life that drives you crazy. So in the realm of relative contentment the game becomes how do I control my circumstances so that they are always making me content? You know, How do I get a better job? How do I get a better relationship? How do I get this? How do I get that? How do I change the circumstances of my life so that I'm constantly in a state of contentment? That I'm constantly being brought into a state of contentment? Some people can do it. I mean I've met some people who are pretty good at controlling, You know, You need to have a lot of privilege usually to be able to to be able to do it well and you need to know yourself because often people don't really know themselves so they accumulate a lot of things in life that they think will make them content but then it doesn't. But some people really have the means to do it and they really have the self-knowledge to know what will make them content and they really do create a life which never perfectly because stuff happens but that largely leaves them content and there can be a lot of contentment in a life like that. A lot of relative contentment. But there's no freedom in a life like that because you have to constantly maintain the circumstances. There's something else that we're talking about which is the part of you that is content always. It's not relatively content because of circumstance. It's perfectly content not for any reason but just because that's what it is. It is contentment itself. At our most fundamental level we are contentment. You will hear this in every spiritual tradition there is. Sometimes they talk about it as the love of God and and they, You know, Make it they talk about it as a as an external being. Sometimes they talk about it as the truth, Love and bliss. Sometimes they talk about it as inner peace. But you will find it everywhere. And when you discover that place in yourself, And I'm sure many of you already have, Maybe many times, But when you discover that place in yourself, This place of inherent contentment, It's like nothing else. Suddenly you realize that everything is okay. It's not you have to pretend it's okay or you have to make it okay. It's actually already okay. That does not mean that you want it to be that way, Right? So this is this what people will sometimes say. They'll say, Well, If everything is okay, Well, What about, You know, Human starvation? Is that okay? That's not really the right way to look at it. That stops too soon because I would want to say, Yes, That's okay. Human starvation is okay in that deepest sense. And what's also okay is that you may not want there to be human starvation. And what's also okay is that you may want to dedicate your life completely to ending human starvation. Like, It's all okay. And we just allow life to unfold, And you see what you're drawn towards. There's a million things in this world that, From a relative point of view, Are absolutely not okay. No human being can address them all. There is no way. Now, I've met some human beings who are trying to address a lot of them, But there is just too much. This world is way too problematic for any one individual to address all the problems. And if we're addressing the problems from a fundamental place of busy discontentedness with the way things are, We will burn out. If you find this place which is content with it all, Which means, It doesn't mean it's content. It doesn't mean it's content with the problems of the world. It means it's content with having been born in a world with problems. It's like, You know, I would rather have been born in a perfect world that had no problems so that I could just, So the circumstances would just naturally make me happy all the time. But I wasn't born in that world. I was born in this world, Which is riddled with problems. And so, I'm constantly feeling a need to address things. I'm constantly feeling a need to try to make a positive difference, But I'm okay with that. That's the way it is. That's the way the world is. And it means I have to get busy doing a lot of things, But I'm okay with that. And because I'm okay with it, I don't feel busy. I feel like I'm just having a natural response. I'm just the space of response. So, What I want to do now is sit with you and ask you to practice the art of conscious contentment, Which means be content no matter what your experience is. Do not do anything to change or control or manipulate anything. Simply be content with exactly the way things are. So, Please sit. Relax your body as deeply and fully as you can. Open in the image of opening like a lotus flower. It's the classic they use in the east. You want to open. Unfold your petals, Exposing the soft interior of your sensitivity. And no matter what happens, No matter what you think, No matter what you feel, You simply allow yourself to be completely content. You you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you Okay, Thank you very much. So, There's three steps to this river. This experiential river of meditation occurs in three steps. Discovery, Which means the authentic, The very real discovery of the part of yourself that's always content, No matter what. And that's different than learning how to be content. That's discovering the part of you that's always content. That's what this is about. More than it's about behavior modifying yourself to be to feel content or be content. It's about the discovery of the part of yourself that's always content. The second part has to do with this deep restful abidance in that part of yourself. You want to develop a habit of resting in the part of yourself that's always content. So that eventually when your wife gets into a car accident or something terrible happens in life, You find that that's the place you habitually fall into. Because that's the place you trust the most now. Because most of us habitually fall into nervous energy, Nervous fix-it energy. Because that's what we're conditioned to trust. Trust our ability to achieve, To fix. So that's what we fall into and then we get all wound up about it. You can actually shift that habit so the place you fall into naturally becomes this place of deep abidance. And that's the second step. And the third step is the stage of realization. It's the place where you realize that actually you always were in that place of deep contentment. You are there now and you always will be there because that is the only place there is. That is who you really are. And everything else comes second. And at that point the idea of meditating becomes irrelevant. You may still do it because you may love it. Who wouldn't love a break from the world? But the idea that you would need to meditate for anything to happen goes away because now you know who you are and you are that anyway. And that's the big Nisargadatta, The insane, The big realization, I am that. So at first that is something you discover. Then that is something you develop a habit of resting in. And then that is something you realize is who you are. And at that point the whole idea of meditating or spiritual practice becomes essentially irrelevant in terms of any kind of goal because you're already home. That's why I wrote a book called No Place But Home because that's the big realization in the end. We spend a lot of time trying to get home and then we realize we were always home and that there is no place other than home that you could ever be. And that it's the ultimate relaxation. So I really want to thank you all for being here. It's just literally been a joy to be here. Like I said, I don't take the time to speak purely about just meditation in this way or I haven't for a few years. So it's kind of a joy for me too to see where that part of my teaching has gotten to while I've been busy doing other things. And it's been really fun to be here with you all today.

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