We meditate for inner and outer peace, to improve focus, for joy and happiness and to answer our very deep existential questions about life.
When we ask why do we meditate, we need to understand that meditation has the quality of bringing all these things into reality for us, not as a main objective but as a byproduct. In one way of explaining out of thousands, meditation is simply connecting to awareness.
Let me put a handle on it. Are you aware right now that you are reading this article? You are reading the article but you “know” you are reading the article. You just connected to your awareness.
Here is another example, are you breathing right now? Notice how your awareness flows to the whole process of breathing, the rising and falling of your abdomen, the air flowing through nostrils.
So as soon as we start noticing, we are connecting to our awareness and we are practically meditating. We are planting the seed of connecting with awareness and this will grow and branch out.
There is more that needs to be said about it and you can read some of it here but let’s continue with our topic.
Inner & outer peace:
Inner peace is part of our true nature and is there by default. What takes it away then? The quality of our lives is determined by the focus of our attention. So what determines the focus of our attention? It’s the two main aspects of the mind, one is to push away what we don’t like (this includes people, situations and all kinds of experiences which we perceive as negative) and second is to pull the opposite to us. We want objects, people and situations which we think are good for us.
This drives the focus of our awareness and let me tell you, this process of push and pull drives our minds to insanity. It fluctuates at the speed of light and irritates the mind. The body creates emotions according to thoughts and the result is an emotional roller coaster. Eventually the whole body becomes tense and irritated. The peace has vanished.
Now let’s talk a little about outer peace. We live in a causal reality. Endless experiences causing others to emerge. Imagine someone peaceful from inside. The cause and effect changes. Peaceful mind will always cause peaceful external reality, impacting everyone that comes into contact. This slowly creates a more peaceful world around us and this is the greatest possible service to humanity possible.
How meditation helps with inner & outer peace:
Now let’s say that we are connected with our awareness of this push and pull over and over in any given day. This makes the process of push and pull very clear. We notice that we are trying to push away something, we don’t judge and just acknowledge. The more we are aware, the more we are free of the grip of push and pull. We are not not part of the process but rather an observer who is watching the process.
This immediately makes us free or not trapped in the process. In the beginning, at least for the time we are meditating, we slowly fall back into our true peaceful nature.
Slowly over the weeks, months and years, this seed of connection with awareness becomes a tree and seeing the process becomes effortless, just like when an expert driver is driving the car.
“This insight can produce a strong desire to be at peace very quickly, don’t fall into the trap. This is just another cycle of push and pull and it’s not helping you”
Here is a tip, if the observing process becomes too intense, you can bring your awareness to breathing and even better if you bring it to the rising and falling of the lower abdomen, away from the thinking mind. This not only gives you some relief but also helps gradually break the habit of push and pull.
Clarity of the mind:
Once you start to become more focused and more aware, you will notice how much thoughts the mind produces. You are trying to do your work but it goes on producing thoughts about yesterday or starts to plan about tomorrow. It does not like to stay in the present because there is not much to think about the present. This actually clouds the clarity and we are not able to solve simple problems or make any decisions. This is the overthinking habit of the mind.
Meditation breaks this habit slowly. With time and practice, focusing becomes a habit and as we understand, habits reflect in every part of our lives.
This enables us to be focused on the task in front of us and the mind is only producing a few helping thoughts about it. It’s like everything is working in harmony.
Happiness & joy:
People often are found looking for happiness. They don’t know the simple fact that we are born happy. Happiness is our default state. Difficult things come up and cover up this state.
We are conditioned to fight difficult states since early childhood by society & parents. This habit of fighting can be internal and external.
We get hot weather someday and we are very unhappy about it. We can’t fight it externally but we do fight on the inside. We think that this is outrageous, the weather should not be this hot. This thought absorbs our focus completely, making it the problem of the day.
While this internal thought process is going on, the body is suffering. It is creating emotions accordingly which are unpleasant as well. We are feeling hot but now the frustration and anger is also added.
This is just one example but focus on the mechanism. This mechanism becomes a habit early in childhood and we are usually unconscious of it. It keeps driving our behavior without our direct knowledge.
So meditation makes us more aware and we start to see the patterns which govern our lives. Once we start to be aware of them, we are no longer controlled by them because we are not in them anymore. We are sitting by the river, watching waves.
This sows seeds for another very important habit, the equanimity. We stop fighting the waves because they come up and then pass away.This is the nature of whole reality.
So just observe how it makes us resilient. We are still hot but we are not fighting it, we are not hating it. We are just hot and we deeply realize (not intellectually) that it will pass.
This gradually takes away all that is piled up on our true happy nature and we become free of suffering. Whether our conditions are met or not, we feel the calm and joy of just being alive.
This not only makes our life easy on a mental level but the physical effects are unimaginable. Body is not over-stimulated any more by thoughts to waste energy in producing unwanted emotions. It becomes more and more relaxed with time and so much energy is freed up. Heart rate decreases, breathing becomes slow and deep, eating becomes appropriate and more enjoyable and overall health improves to a great extent.
Insights & deep existential questions:
Our mind has all the answers to every question that we ask ourselves. These can be simple questions related to our current circumstances or deep existential questions.
I think everyone can relate to the example I am about to give here. It happens every now and then that we are trying to solve a problem but thinking. We are doing everything we can but to no success. We get too tired of this and decide to let it go. Then after a couple of minutes or so, the solution pops up.
Let’s see the process. We are asking our mind to answer the question but it just won’t. The more hard we think, the more difficult it becomes. So why does it give us the answer when we give up? Is it playing a sort of trick?
Not really. It’s just that the calm mind produces insights too. It mostly produces irrelevant thoughts about past, future or alternate reality but once it is truly relaxed, it just brings the right answer to any question that we have. This relaxed state of the mind is a byproduct of meditation.
Conclusion:
We have seen above that meditation brings deep insights along with uncountable healthy changes in mind and body system. It makes us aware of patterns rather than being a part of them. It shows us that everything comes up and goes away and this includes difficult situations.
It shows us that it’s mostly not the external situation but the internal system that makes life difficult for us and lastly, it provides us with deep insights about our lives.
Please keep in mind that everything you read above is just pointers and even if you understand them on an intellectual level, it will have little to no effect on actual life until they are your own direct deep realizations. This is only possible through meditation in most cases. Regular practice will remove all the dirt that has piled up on your true, magnificent nature. I wish you all the best on your journey and I wish you peace and I wish that you don’t suffer anymore.
