Some of you may already be practicing some form of meditation.
Usually, one is prescribed various techniques for doing meditation – like watching the breath, concentrating on an image of one’s chosen deity or just good ol’ candle flame or a dot on the wall, etc., Kundalini Meditation, or as in Transcendental Meditation meditating via reciting a mantra or sacred syllables, etc., or if you are a Buddhist then so-called Mindfulness Meditation or Metta (loving-kindness meditation).
Whatever be the technique you adopt, know that these are all Raja Yoga (ashtanga yoga) or Buddhist type of meditations. These are what I would call the Brute Force Methods of Meditation, wherein you are forcibly trying to arrest the flow of thoughts in the mind (by some trick you are adopting like the above) so that you can attain some temporary peace and relaxation.
But, the mind cannot be tricked. Moreover, remember the mind is your friend, not your enemy. The mind merely tries to fulfil all the demands/desires of the deeper layers of your mind, such as the subconscious and unconscious (the “id” of Freud). So, unless the basic fundamental drives/desires of the mind undergo a radical transformation, the mind will keep producing thoughts that will aid you in fulfilling those very desires through planning and action.
Think of it this way. Upgrading your PC to a higher RAM and more memory is only going to make it more efficient, but its output will depend solely on what is inside it, and that will not change, but it will give the output faster.
Similarly, the Raja Yogic (or Buddhist) meditation will make you more efficient because a so-called “calm” mind on the surface can function better. But its inner desires determine what the mind will be efficient at. So, you may become more productive at work, or better at wooing the woman you are interested in, and maybe there will be a slight improvement in your relationships because you are a little less irritable. But there will be no fundamental and radical change in your being. You will still keep pursuing the world as before, only more efficiently. (In this regard, look up the studies done by Harvard’s Herbert Benson and his team on Transcendental Meditation practitioners and how he ended up secularising meditation and calling it “The Relaxation Response”, which is how most of the people in the West practice meditation – as just another tool for stress management and a more relaxed mind, etc., without any interest in or regard for getting to the underlying truth of this world. They merely want to live a “better” life, not question what life is all about.) Of course, nothing wrong with that, if those are your goals. (That is why J. Krishnamurti used to ridicule these types of meditations, and would say that instead of repeating a mantra you are just as better off repeating the word “Coca Cola” because what any of these technqiues do is merely make the mind soporific and “dullen” the mind as per him.)
But, such meditation will not get you to the Truth or transcendence of the duality.
Instead of doing such meditation, one is better off living life and maybe reading to garner the knowledge and wisdom present in the social sciences and humanities, such as psychology, sociology, history, political philosophy, anthropology, literature, philosophy, and maybe even quantum physics, etc., not only to develop the intellect but also to gain an understanding of the illusoriness of oneself, one’s desires, one’s personality, one’s relationships, one’s identities, and this world.
What meditation will get you to the truth? ONLY the Vedantic Meditation or Nididhyasana, whose initial two steps are Sravana and Manana (this Sravana and Manana is accomplished not necessarily solely through spiritual/religious texts but also through the aid of the above social sciences and humanities that I have mentioned above).
Why so?
Because only by understanding the nature of this world, nature of oneself, where happiness lies, etc., can one’s mind clam down, that is Viveka (intellectual understanding) leading to Vairagya (renunciation – though renouncing desire is no renunciation once you understand that desire itself causes unhappiness/suffering and not as is generally mistaken that it is the lack of the desired object that causes unhappiness/suffering; one does not need to be told to renounce or run away from a snake).
Once the mind calms down, then meditation (Nididhyasana) happens almost spontaneously and always because you cannot unlearn what you have learnt. However, after the mind has calmed down, one can then resort to even the “I Am” meditation or any of the Raja Yoga meditation techniques because then the mind can meditate more easily without any effort since the mind as I told you is your friend, so it will not produce any thoughts to serve your desires because now you have no or minimal desires because of enlightened renunciation, and mind becomes more and more peaceful and pure, so will not resort back to its former activity because the inner drives/desires have been quelled through intellectual understanding and meditation, and this can form a virtuous cycle/loop. Such a pure mind will understand, reflect, embody and live the truth. (“He who knows Brahman becomes Brahman.”–Mundaka Upanishad)
Take a look at Spiritual Path Simplified: A Guided Journey Through Advaita and Self-Realization by clicking the link below:
Know Thyself 