Meaning of Meditation in Life
9 Apr 2024 HYN Himalayan Yoga Academy
By Swami Padmasattva
What is the meaning of Meditation in Life? We make it difficult by struggling against something which we think is preventing us from being free, or, by searching for something which we presume will give us Freedom. It is found to imply relaxing into who we are, living life from moment to moment.
All over the world people are struggling to be free from something. This struggle does not make us free; it is simply a reaction against something that we were thinking. The freedom of meditation is not a search to find freedom for something, either. Meditation is not something new; you have come with it into the world. Mind is something new, meditation is your nature. It is your nature; it is your very being.
How can it be difficult?
How many of us have dreams of being in some situation or utopia that would allow us just to relax and be ourselves, free from the competition and tension of everyday life? The freedom we are searching for does not depend upon something outside ourselves. So what is the freedom we are longing for? “Just freedom”: living in the here and now, moment to moment, living neither in the memory and oppression of the past nor the dreams of the future.
Eating- simply eat, be with it. Walking- simply walk, be there. Don’t go ahead, don’t jump here and there. The mind always goes ahead or lags. Remain with the moment.
Witnessing simply means a detached observation, unprejudiced; that’s the whole secret of meditation. Nothing needs to be done; just be a witness, an observer a watcher, looking at the traffic of the mind – thoughts passing by, desires, memories, dreams, fantasies. Simply stand aloof, cool, watching it, seeing it, with no judgment” with no condemnation, neither saying ‘This is good,’ nor saying’ This is bad’.
All we learned is the preparation of meditation. Meditation (Dhyana) means actual uninterrupted meditation. The goal of meditation is to achieve heightened awareness and realize oneness with the universe.