Your meditation will not take you to the Truth
Questioner (Q): Conventional theory around meditation is that it conditions the psychic apparatus so that we can move readily to see Atman. So, it’s not without value. You know, why are we here. Are we so deluded...
Acharya Prashant (AP): We are saying that falseness will be used to counter falseness. We are saying we have the sensibility and the intelligence to devise methods that will take us to the Immense. Every method is a kind of rebellion against Godliness. We are saying, "I’ll come to you using a method I devised." How is it possible to devise your own personal road to That?
Q: So we have to pull off the search?
AP: And, you have to let Him call you. Only He can call you to Himself. Your own roads will not take you There.
Q: That’s grace?
AP: That’s grace. Not a method but grace. And, grace cannot be methodical. Grace can’t be cultivated, organized, taught, or learned.
Q: But sometimes we suffer enough to let us control it, to let go, into Grace.
AP: You have to let everything happen. Doing nothing, one lets everything happen.
Q: It seems so easy and difficult at the same time.
AP: Yes. Difficult to our sense of control. I want to control the happening. Easy, if you just want to relax.
Q: So we just stop resisting life? Total acceptance?
AP: No, not acceptance. Just nonresistance.
Q: But what is the difference?
AP: Acceptance includes the right to reject. One surrenders to the right to reject and that is not acceptance.
What does one accept? One accepts only that which one feels like accepting. If you call it as acceptance, it can never be unconditional.
Q: It requires a judgment to make a decision to accept.
AP: And, you are saying, "I am accepting". The difference is that in surrender, you are saying the ‘I am’ is being surrendered. In acceptance the ‘I am’ accepts in surrender that ‘I am’ itself is surrendered.
Q: So we should just have fun?
AP: To many people, you know, it sounds so bad that life is not a burden and you can just have fun. This is the greatest nightmare for the majority of people. "Fun, the great sin!"
Q: Last night's session, I had a lot of fun. But, the session this afternoon, wasn’t a lot of fun. And may not be appropriate and you don’t have to do it, but I rather wanted to reflect on that session.
AP: Fun can never be as per one’s expectations. The fun that I am talking of is Joy. Pleasure is as per one’s expectations. Last night, you had a particular experience. Now, it is inevitable that the mind will want to repeat that experience. And, if the experience next day is not similar to the previous night's, then it will not call it as pleasurable.
Q: You mentioned in the session today that you do have expectations of how you like the session to go on...
AP: I don’t mind when my expectations are denied.
Q: What is your expectation? What do you expect?
AP: Lots of expectations like everybody else. For example; I do not expect you not to understand, I do not expect you to come late or leave early. Lots of expectations. But, when they are denied or broken, it’s alright.
Q: No attachments...
AP: It happens with everybody. We are not here to have our expectations fulfilled. Everybody will get that slap on the back. So, I too get that. Now, what’s so serious about it? Keep taking it.
Q: Coming back to just the closer story about living life, living in Joy. You know, people are kind of covered in issues, problems, or whatever we call it. Can't meditation help to go through that stuff soon, attain the intimate state and keep the inner state separate? And that's a lot of work to get to that point. So coming out of that state, once you have jumped into it, is beautiful, right?
AP: I just want to ask something, if that state is really what you wanted, then, why do you opt to come out of it? If you really love Rishikesh, why do you go back?
Q: Visa issues.
(Audience laughs)
AP: That’s the thing with all organized trips including the organized meditation trip every morning. You will have to go back. Spirituality is about loving it so much, that you can never leave it. You can give up your nationality, your property, your body, and everything and yet, not give up on it. That is Love. That’s how organized methods are just a consolation. You can have that consolation. If, you are alright with it. There are some who are not alright with it. They want the real thing.
Q: So, if we are not at that point, this means that we haven't suffered enough. We need to suffer? Or use regret?
Q: We can, it seems to me, there is a usefulness as far as it may not be the whole of it. We will be taking a break. We are talking about meditation. And, we are talking about not following a plan, following some kind of idea of letting go or non-attachment. To be able to find a space away from most of the madness, that is going into it. Finding that harness, that gets Satori that brings in yourself that spaciousness that doesn't have to be the whole of it. If you can get into that space and get glimpse of that, then, it can make you start to realize that’s there more to this happening then you usually see.
AP: I want to say that it is not even that. It is not even a glimpse. See, remaining an employee, a paid employee of that firm. Even, the holiday that you are taking, you’re taking as an employee. So, you can’t let go of that identity. When you very well know that your meditation time will stop and the clock is ticking. How can you ever deep go into Samādhi ?
Q: Because you can let it go.
AP: How can you let it go when you know that you have to come back?
Q: No, you can let go in meditation. So, you get that glimpse, you get into a depth...
AP: You won’t even get that glimpse. Do you know what is the difference between vacationing as a free man and vacationing as someone who is drawn to return on a particular date? Do you understand the difference?
Q: Yes
AP: You can never go deep into relaxation when you know that you have a return ticket waiting for you. That is why meditativeness must be twenty-four hours, seven days of the week. When you are eating, walking, sleeping, talking, sitting here, 'I am meditating'. This is meditation. Dancing, you are meditating. Simply walking down the street, you are meditating. You’re meditative.
Q: I agree. But, for a part of me, it is not so easy to throw away the usefulness. It's great but does not go well with what I have seen. I have seen a lot of people, they are very easy and very brave and simple ones. And things are quite easy for people in that state. And if meditation is saying that they should not pretend this as real, it’s the mind, it’s the business, it’s something with the potential to be destroyed and uses it as a tool to firstly calm the mind. Again, we are talking about just phases, but just because of that your mind can’t switch it over. They do meditation and then, drop the mediation once you find yourself. I’ve seen people really go into it. I've seen people really struggling to understand where you’re coming from. If they hadn’t been in some meditation first... it at least taught them, realize the unreality of their state.
AP: See, it is not without reason. That the sage is cautioning that Sushupti is a trap of Maya . Similarly, I am cautioning that these meditations, excursions are a trap of Maya . They are just parallels. When you get relief in this much, why would you want the Immense?
Q: I see. So because you relieved your suffering, that means you can make your own new suffering. Why would I end up suffering, for example, if I am going to...
AP: You have a tumor. And, it's turning cancerous. It hurts and some doctor provides you something which tranquilizes. Now, it appears to be good because you don’t feel the pain. But what is really happening? You’re continuing with the tumor now. That tranquilizer is enabling you to continue with your life. You may not perceive the suffering now. But, the suffering is now internalized. That is what these meditation methods do. Do you want tranquilizers or do you want health?
Q: Do I have to reinvent meditation? Because it leaves us with peace on consciousness, at times. So then you simply know and then you get rid of the process. Because you know that you can only get there on your own...
AP: And I am not denying or disputing that. All I am saying is please continue with it. Don’t let it be confined to thirty minutes. I am saying, if you really like it as much as you’re expressing, then, why leave it in thirty minutes? Why not extend it to twenty-four hours.? Now, you have a problem. You must confront that problem. The problem is -if twenty-four hours, you have that state then your world will come to an end. So, do you see that in experiencing that for thirty minutes, you’re preserving your world? When people tell me that they experience this peace or that relief in meditation. I say, "Great! Now, if you really did experience that peace. Why do you let it slip away? Hold onto it. Live your life as per that peace."
Q: So, is this what you say?
AP: Yeah.
(Audience laughs)
Q: I found that the longer I meditate, the more I get the carry-over effect. So something...
AP: And, won’t you want that carryover effect to be as strong as the meditation itself?
Q: Yes.
AP: So, that is what is meant by meditating twenty-four hours. Why only be satisfied with the remains, with the residues, the carryovers? Have the full blast continuously. The spiritual mind is really ambitious in that sense. It is not satisfied with the dregs, with remains.
Q: It conditions the way our reality functions...
AP: And, hence, our meditation is not deep enough. When you’re still conditioned, where is the question of deep meditation? I am not denying that at all that which we call as methods of meditation were intended just to open the doors. But, what to say if the doors are open, you enter, you touch the furniture and then you run back? You are intended to stay there. Not, go there, write your name and come back. And sign the visitors’ book and rush back to maintain your life, your car, your wife, your family, and society. Stay there.
Q: Can you stay there and maintain. Like because of life...
AP: If you stay there, you get a different wife.
(Audience laughs)
Q: What if you enjoy like, genuinely, you’re surrendered. You know, that’s not really like, you’re not overthinking anything. You were just doing and you also really like your life, your car, and whatever genuine, you know. This is also possible. Maybe you have to give it up so you can fully have.
AP: At this point, where we have now reached; one can only pray. This is the point, where we see the helplessness of being human. You know, you can’t proceed any further on your own. So, you just have to stand still. And, drop your head and that is prayer. Now, your methods or your arguments or this session will not help anymore. Now, only prayer can help.
Q: So that's how we generate prayers, you know, open ourselves.
AP: We open ourselves. It is already there. Not generated.
