The Odd Thing about Meditation

Agenda or abstract?

Even amateurs in yoga or in some meditative practices come by a little Sanskrit. Words like āsana (meaning a position that is steady and comfortable), drishti (focused gaze), or vinyasa (linking movement with breath) are commonly heard even in the most Westernized yoga studios. Yet amidst all this Sanskrit, an interesting word slips by unnoticeably – meditation.

Meditation can directly be linked to the Latin meditationem (nominative meditatio), “thinking over.” The word is widely used in relation to thought, research, contemplation, devout preoccupation, and prayer. Surely, the ancient yogis had their own Sanskrit word for their meditative practice, and yes, they did, but let us save it for later.

Firstly, we should consider what meditation is and must immediately confess that we face many difficulties in answering this question. I have pondered this for a long time and know that the best place to start from is to state what meditation is not.

1. Meditation is not affirmation or manifestation

Many meditation programs offer finely tuned suggestions to be parceled in the mind and dispatched to the subconscious for future realization. You may find such techniques in Think and Grow Rich, the celebrated book by Napoleon Hill, also in Three Magic Words by U. S. Anderson (dedicated book review here), or the Moses Code Meditation promoted by Dr. Wayne Dyer. And there are a great many more which we shall not mention. Now, here, techniques vary greatly, but common conditions include:

• A relaxed state: Such practices require the practitioner to be in a calm, relaxed state, even feeling a little drowsy, to quiet the conscious mind.
• Solitude: we should be alone in our practice for optimum results.
• Planned or predictable: this is not stated explicitly, but when you affirm something, you pretty much have an idea of what it is before you start manifesting it. You want health, wealth, love, and peace of mind, or maybe you state this in the present: I have health, wealth, love, and peace of mind. Take it one step further, and you might affirm that you are health, wealth, love, and peace of mind. In all cases, such thoughts are prepared in advance.

There are many things to cover here, yet there is too little time. The point is that affirmation and manifestation are not meditations in the pure yoga sense of the word. This does not mean they are bad or do not work. They are excellent practices and may yield fantastic results (I can testify from my experience). Still, more importantly, they may lead to subsequential understandings and an even purer, grander practice.

Nevertheless, case and point, they are not meditation. Their giveaway is the pre-planned object of manifestation. How do you know what you want? How do you know what is good for you? Especially if you focus on a specific wish, this goes against the notion of non-attachment and that of not forcing things, which is a cornerstone of yoga and Buddhist teachings.

2. Meditation is not visualization

An image is worth more than a thousand words. Why push a specific phrase in your subconscious when you can pitch an image to it? The image could vividly portray one’s success and serenity; it could be materialistic or spiritual, self-centered or lofty. Here, you still use a predefined theme but leave the scenery to your imagination. Again, we must confess right away that true meditation does not have an agenda nor a specific goal to reach.

Visualization is great and powerful, and it taps into the imagination, which is an astounding force indeed, but it still falls short of actual meditation.

3. Meditation is not not-thinking

We might believe that in meditation, we must divorce ourselves from all deliberate thinking and purge our minds. Hence, we might believe that meditation is not to think at all. Rest your attention on the blackness and blankness of your mind. You may have heard of the concept “to focus on the gap between two thoughts,” but this does not trace back to any ancient text or teaching.

The issue here is simple to see when you experiment. Try not to think, what happens? You quickly discover it is very difficult; it takes serious effort and discipline. And more so, you might temporarily slow your thoughts down or even stop them, but you soon realize this is a very ephemeral result indeed. No, your thoughts quickly start up again in their perpetual flow, and you cannot do anything about it. Thought control is attachment, and the Buddha said to get rid of attachment to end suffering. No meditative practice could possibly promote attachment; hence, meditation is not thinking.

Here, I see the chance to relate a very interesting observation made by U. S. Anderson that, actually, we do not create thoughts. We are somehow tricked into thinking our thoughts are our own creations, but careful examination would prove otherwise. In fact, our thoughts are in a perpetual flow, and we only observe them; we cannot stop them or gauge where one thought ends and another starts. Our control is very limited; we may slow down or speed up the flow, give it a common theme or a question that needs answering, and the flow will yield for some time until it inevitably drifts. We might get valuable insights and answers from our thoughts but quickly lose the answer if not armed with pen and paper.

However, forcing ourselves not to think is a common trap among meditators because we might feel that our mind drifts not because of its innate nature but because of our own faults. So, one may try long and hard, maybe never understanding that the mind cannot be controlled in the literal sense. However, our attachment to a thought can be controlled.

4. Meditation is not only observation

We are getting close to the answer, and our patience is being rewarded. All subsequential steps are not denied or stigmatized; they are pure and great of themselves. Now we come to the flow of thoughts, and we are their appointed observers – just sit and watch them, and they go along and go along and go along. Watch your breath, do not control it, try to stay fixed on it, and if you lose track, simply notice that you did and start over without the slightest notion of guilt. Just scan your body, what you feel, where you feel it. Did your mind drift? No worries, that is its nature; bring it back, if only for a little while.

Meditation is observation. Most techniques gravitate to some sort of contemplative observation that is devoid of strain, attachment, or effort. Examples include watching the breath, scanning the body, focusing on a focal point, or cultivating the feeling of love and compassion. More importantly, meditation is done as a play, like a child would do it, without the slightest attachment or guilt. But this is not the whole story.

Samyama

One of my yoga teachers related that the word for meditation in Sanskrit is Samyama (which means to be like the Hindu God Yama, to be like Death). It turns out that the etymology is far more complex than my teacher let on. Samyama includes three indivisible points:

1. Dharana (concentration) – Focusing the mind on a single point, event, or object.
2. Dhyana (meditation) – Maintaining a continuous, unbroken flow of focus on said point, event, or object.
3. Samadhi (absorption) – A state of deep, complete union or oneness with the object of meditation, where the sense of individual self dissolves.        

So, there is the place where the mind is pointed to: the breath, the body, maybe walking meditation, or something else. There is the gentle effort to keep the mind there, but in a spirit of non-attachment, if it drifts, then that’s fine; bring it back as if nothing happened. And yes, as you do this, you find out that you feel you have disappeared, totally absorbed in oneness.

The name of the God of Death Yama means “to control,” “to restrain,” or “pause”. Samyama is made up of two parts: sam, meaning “complete” or “together,” and yama, meaning “control,” “restraint,“ or “discipline.” So, these two share the same root. Here, we must point out that Sanskrit is an ancient language, and many of its meanings are lost in translation. Even more importantly, we confess that the examined techniques emphasize exclusively practice and not philosophy or explanation.

Yoga teachers often say that meditation or Samyama is not done; rather, it happens. Well, what is the feeling when such a thing happens? It is as if you are dead. Yikes, well, no one would go to yoga after hearing that. Maybe the change of the word Samyama with meditation was a wise marketing decision. Death is ghoulish, dark, and scary, connected with judgment and punishment in most religions.

I so vividly remember as a child how the understanding of Death came creeping into my consciousness. It pushed me to bitter tears that Death is total blackness and void. Then, in my sorrow and fear, I, by pure chance, came across the important realization that if I was dead, I could not be afraid; I could not even perceive something as black or white, dark or illumined. I, the existent, could not even imagine it. I could not perceive it or anything, for I, the perceiver, would not exist after Death. That started me thinking in a different direction.

Death in Samyama, or, more accurately, restraint and pause, refers to something much more sophisticated and devoid of fear and confusion. It is the dying of the self, and in the words of Sir Edwin Arnold, “Forgoing self, the Universe grows I.” That is when your ego dissolves; when the illusory notion of separation dissolves, there is finally enough space for the Universe to come in. Words do not give it justice. The punchline in Samyama is that words cannot convey their substance. You have to go and practice in order to understand. With practice and devotion, you have to pause your ego.

It is appropriate to end with an example meditation, which I came upon from the lectures of Ram Dass. Say to yourself the following words: “I am not my limbs and body,” feel your arms, legs, head, and trunk as if you are not connected with them; you are not them; rather, their sensation is far off. You may feel like you are outside of your body or that the sensation of your body is coming from outside of you. Now, say, “I am not my organs.” Try to feel your stomach (it is easiest) and your bones, tissue, mouth, tongue, lungs, everything; feel your heart. Again, you are not these things; you are outside them, or they are outside you. Now say, “I am not my five senses.” see what you see as totally unrelated to you, both the image and the sensation, and hear what you hear as unrelated to you, same with taste, smell, and touch. All the transmissions of the senses and the senses themselves are not you; they are outside of you, or you are outside of them. Lastly, affirm, “You are not this thought,” which really slips you and immediately calls the question, “What then am I?“ there and then, Samyama is reached.

Note that this is just a method, and many are out there. Many of the negations of meditation I listed earlier are, in a sense, excellent pathways to meditation if you are open in your practice. It can happen to you alone or in a crowd of people while observing your thoughts or breath. Most importantly, it does not happen with a goal in mind; it happens for its own sake, and you practice it because of the practice itself.