LIVING ENLIGHTENMENT

1. When is it a good time to meditate?

This is always a controversial question! All the youngsters think “I can do this in my old age after I have lived my life fully and don’t have anything else to do.’ All the elderly people think, “I should have done this in my young age when I was fresh and energetic.’

So the question is not just how long to meditate everyday, but also when to make the decision to include a meditation practice in your routine.

Meditation is just like reading an owner’s manual before you start driving the car. The person who does not read the owner’s manual before driving the care will naturally meet with accidents. In the same way, meditation is like the owner’s manual for you body and for your life. The person who has not started meditation before entering into life will end up with suffering and depression at one point or the other.

Please understand, meditation is the basic need for every life. It is not an option. It is a very basic need.

Aft the age of seven, you need meditation because until then, as a child you are by nature in a meditative state. It is only after seven that you start getting conditioned by society and drop out of your true nature.

To really understand and enter into meditation, one important thing needs to happen in you – psychological revolution.

What do I mean by psychological revolution? It means a clear understanding about the Self, world and god.

As of now, the understanding that you are carrying about life is not complete. That is why you are not able to experience a peaceful, relaxed feeling in your system. When I say the words ‘psychological revolution’, I mean having a clear understanding about the Self, world and god; that is having a clear understanding about the source of the Self, the source of the world and the source of god.

The understanding that is able to give you a completely restful feeling, through which you are able to solve all you problems, through which you are able to find your own life solutions, is call psychological revolution.

Only a person who has gone through this psychological revolution can meditate. Until then, any technique that you try will seem to fail at some point in time.

People come and tell me, “the moment I close my eyes, I get more thoughts than when I did not meditate. If I am in action, doing something I have fewer thoughts. The moment I close my eyes and try to meditate I have more thoughts.` This means the psychological revolution has not happened.

If you straightaway close your eyes and start meditating, you may have an increased number of thoughts. So in the initial level, I always give a technique which is not directly a meditation, but is more a contemplation. When you work with the technique, it won’t lead you directly to a thoughtless state. It will lead you towards more and more clarity. It will lead to the psychological revolution.

The psychological revolution will develop an intense inner space where you can analyze your understanding, consider your decision and rethink again and again your desires, fears, worries and all that you consider as the basis of your life.

So in the initial level, taking up a technique that can awaken you, that can help the psychological revolution in you, is the best way to start.

Start meditating here and now. Neither age nor time can be the reason to postpone meditation.

The next question people ask is whether they should meditate in the morning or in the evening. My answer is that the goal is not to make meditation a quantity of life, but rather a quality of life.