“If you were to ask me what was the most important experience of my life, I would say it was learning to meditate.” – Deepak Chopra
One day two spiritual students were having a discussion regarding the best path to enlighten-ment. The first argued that to be enlightened we have to give up all our possessions and desires to live a very simple life. The second student believed that the path to enlightenment meant ful-filling all our desires and having abundance in our lives. After some discussion back and forth and getting nowhere, they decided to seek the advice of their guru. Presenting themselves before him, the first stated his view on enlightenment through renunciation. The guru looked at him and said, “You’re right”. “But” said the other, “I thought fullness of all things was the path of evolu-tion”. Looking at him the guru again said, “You’re right”. A third student, who had been sitting at the back of the room listening, now came forward and said to the guru, “Surely they can’t both be right”. To which the guru smiled, “And you’re right too”.
There are many different paths to climb the mountain and many different meditation techniques, all of which have their value. The best meditation, like the best diet or exercise pro-gram is, ultimately the one that works best for us. Many people will tell us that we have to medi-tate this way or that, we have to sit in a certain position or do it at a particular time. While all of these instructions may have a value, it’s important to do the best you can and know that whatever you do is all right. Meditation is our path to freedom, which comes from light-heartedness not seriousness, from flexibility not rigid attachment to rules. But we do have to do it. If we’re just sitting at the bottom of the mountain unaware, we’ll miss the beautiful views from the top.
What is meditation? Meditation is anything we do with awareness of the present mo-ment. If we live our life with awareness, our whole life can be a meditation. For example, if when we are walking, we are aware that we are walking, that becomes a ‘walking’ meditation. Of course, usually we are thinking about where we’re walking to and what we are going to do when we get there, very little awareness is on the walking. Or when we’re eating, if we are to-tally involved with the process of eating (seeing, tasting, smelling, feeling the texture of the food) it becomes an ‘eating’ meditation. However, when we eat, we’re often watching televi-sion, reading the newspaper, involved in a conversation or driving our car, doing everything pos-sible to keep us out of the present moment. Our thoughts are always taking us into the future or the past, away from the present. But it’s in the Present Moment that we find Spirit, our essential Being and the force that animates all life. If we miss this moment we are, in essence, missing our whole life. In one of his songs, John Lennon sang, “Life is what happens while we’re mak-ing other plans”.
How do we stop thinking and stay Present? Have you ever tried to stop thinking? It’s impossible and the harder we try, the more the thoughts and noises keep crowding in. In fact the only way to go beyond thought is by not trying, by letting go. Meditation is a time for ‘being’ not a time for ‘doing’ and, if you’ve ever wondered why we’re called ‘human beings’ and not ‘human doings’, it’s because ‘being’ is our true nature. When we sit down, close our eyes and formalize our meditation practice, we use anchors. These anchors can be our breath or a mantra, something that brings us effortlessly back to the Present, whenever we realize we’ve drifted away.
Most of us spend our lives looking outside ourselves for answers. We buy books and tapes, go to workshops looking for someone to tell us how to be happy, healthy, more successful. By connecting with the Present we turn our attention inward, away from all the chaos and activ-ity, and contact the expert inside. This is our Soul our Spirit, the perfect being in each one of us, waiting to be invited back into our lives, waiting to restore us to perfection. We can think of meditation as like going to the bank before we go shopping. If we want to have a fun day at the mall, we need to have some money. If not, then we can only window-shop, which soon becomes frustrating and boring. But this is exactly how most of us live our lives – window-shopping, wishing we were happier, healthier, more successful, wishing we had what he or she has. Medi-tation is the vehicle that connects us to the bank we all have inside and allows us to bring the wealth back into our lives. The advantage of this bank is that it’s always with us, always open and always full. We just need to take the time to go there. When we learn to meditate, we don’t have to wear any special clothes, change our diet or give all our money to some cult but we do need to find the time to do it.
Although, meditation is really a spiritual journey reconnecting us with our true essential nature, in the West it has come to be thought of as a technique for stress-management. We are constantly being bombarded with stress from work or family pressures, environmental condi-tions, poor diet and lifestyle choices and a variety of other directions, therefore releasing stress is essential for a healthy life. Meditation takes us from activity into silence, giving our body a very deep level of rest. Rest is how the body heals itself, which it does by throwing off the stress, fa-tigue and the toxins accumulated during our life. Thus meditation serves a two-fold purpose, it gives us direct experience of our Spirit and in the process dissolves the impurities which are pre-venting Spirit from shining forth in our lives. Think of a cloudy day. Where did the sun go? Well it didn’t go anywhere, we just can’t see it because of the clouds. If every day was cloudy, we’d soon forget what the sun looked and felt like and, after time we’d even forget that the sun had ever existed. This is what has happened to our Spirit. Because of clouds of stress and fa-tigue we’ve forgotten it exists. Meditation is similar to taking a plane and flying through the clouds to re-experience the sun. When we return to earth we bring the memory of the warmth and light back with us and in the process begin to thin the clouds. Just the same, meditation al-lows us to remember our true Self and removes the obstacles, which prevent it bringing joy and fulfillment to every aspect of our life.
At the Chopra Center, meditation is the foundation of all their programs. Connection to Spirit provides the basis for any area of self-improvement. Primordial Sound Meditation, is a mantra based technique, which has its roots in the ancient Vedic tradition of India. As a gentle, natural technique it can be easily learnt and practiced by anyone. The word mantra means ‘vehi-cle of the mind’ so it is the anchor we use to bring us back into the Present Moment and take us on our inward journey. Deepak Chopra revived this technique from the ancient texts and called it Primordial Sound Meditation as the mantras are sounds, which help us to reconnect with our most primordial level, where consciousness becomes matter. Each mantra is selected individually for the student based on the vibration in the universe at the time of his or her birth, the moment of transition from non-local to local consciousness. The Center has trained hundreds of teachers worldwide to share knowledge by bringing it to local communities. Courses are offered regularly at the Chopra Center, by these certified instructors and through its online program. We invite you to contact the Chopra Center or one of our teachers and take the first step on your path to freedom.