Episode 151: So You Think You Can Meditate

Welcome to part 3 of the India Series: So You Think You Can Meditate. Meditation has become immensely popular within the past decade. There are countless apps, programs, videos, books on how you can incorporate meditation into your life. We really love the fact that it's also being introduced, in Western Culture, to younger audiences - even being integrated into some school curriculums... It's beneficial, no question about it; everyone from athletes, to CEOs and even presidents, are mediating. While we certainly honor that, this week's episode is about distinguishing the difference between the daily practices (stillness, quieting our breath and slowing our thoughts) and meditation from the highest teachings from the land. We clarify one of the biggest myths about meditation - that it's a practice. Meditation is not a practice, it's an arrival. The practice is the work we do to release our desires and quiet our minds to arrive at meditation. Meditation, in its truest sense, is when we're able to quiet our minds to a point of focusing on a mantra and silence; that requires developing a high degree of skill and intellect to hold our minds steady. Tune in to hear more about the practices that support us on that journey to mediation, the question that Kisma posed on meditation while at the Vedanta Academy and some examples about what this looks like our daily lives. Resources: Vedanta Treatise - The Eternities Meditation Pod I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud (Daffodils) - William Wordsworth Time Stamps: 3:27 Defining Meditation "It is not a practice everyone, it's an arrival. In the truest sense of meditation where we are quieting the mind, to a point where we're focused on a mantra - usually Om, and then we're focused on the silence, and then we're focused on the mantra. It takes a very special mind to be able to hold, what is referred to as the intellect, steady to focus on these two. We'll be doing and another thought floats in and then all of a sudden there's a whole strain of thoughts, related to that other thought." - KISMA 9:01 Space for Thought Our world, as we know it now, is the opposite of that. There's so much noise, there are so many thoughts just infiltrating our headspace, our mental real estate, our emotional real estate. If we could take this very lofty teaching and bring down to the practical, it would be to slow down. To really just slow down and allow some space in between every thought" - KISMA 13:45 Slowing down "For me, even if I can't see my true self, my true nature, I know that there's guidance in that space if I just slow down and take it" - NICK 20:09 Clarity of Mind "That's what will happen to your mind and your energy if it's not cleaned up. Our world, it's not like it's toxic but there's stuff. You're a human being in the world and it will gather in your energy and then your mind will adapt it over time. That's just what happens. If you are only ever trying to find a moment of clarity and pushing things aside so that you can have that, you're not actually solving the problem and you're not really solving the obstacle that's keeping you from that sustainable and maintainable clarity that you really want" - NICK