What is Meditation? -
Vimala Thakar
"This
awareness of the so called outward and the inward movements of life, is
meditation. The simultaneous awareness of the total movement is meditation. If
I am aware of the nature of my reactions, and movement of my reactions,
naturally that awareness will result in freedom from the reaction. I cannot
stop the reaction, because the reactions have been rooted in the subconscious,
in the unconscious. I cannot prevent, I cannot renounce, I cannot check them.
But if I am aware, simultaneously of the objective challenge, the subjective
reactions and the causes of these reactions, then it results in freedom. Then
the momentum of reaction will not carry me over with it, but I will be ahead of
my reactions. I will not be a victim of my reactions, but I will see them as I
see the objective challenge. That for me is meditation. All inclusive attention
while moving in life. Meditation does not involve any mental activity at
all."
"Minimizing
in daily life the frequency, the duration and the field of mental activity and
living in silence, acting out of that silence is meditation. This meditation,
this silence, has got a tremendous momentum of its own…You do not have to do a
thing. You are not there: the ego, the mind, is not there. What happens in that
silence? How does that silence move? It is something to be experimented
with."
"Meditation
is watching the movement of mind in relationship. If you try to force the mind
into silence by withdrawing from activity, you will never understand what
silence is…There is a great beauty when one discovers what silence in action
is. Meditation is a new approach to total life, it does not demand of you any
isolation."
"Meditation
is a state of total freedom from movement, to be there, and then to move into
time and space, words and speech, feelings and emotions, to move into them out
of the totality, out of the wholeness."
"Freedom
or liberation is not something to be cultivated. It is not different. It is not
different from the bondage. One has to look at it, understand it and that very
understanding explodes into freedom. They are not two different events, and we
have to look at these not in isolation, not sitting somewhere in the corner of
a room, but from morning till night to be in the state of watchfulness, in the
state of observation, without condemning what is coming up or without accepting
what is coming up. Just observing it, seeing the speed, the momentum, the
electronic speed with which thoughts come, watching the intervals between the
two thoughts."
"Meditation
is something pertaining to the whole being and the whole life. Either you live
in it or you do not live in it. In other words, it is related to everything
physical and psychological… Thus, from the small area of mental activity, we
have brought meditation to a vast field of consciousness, where it gets related
to the way you sit or stand, the way you gesticulate or articulate throughout
the day. Whether you want it or not, the inner state of your being gets
expressed in your behaviour. This co-relation of meditation to the total way of
living is the first requirement on the path of total transformation."
About the Author:
Excerpted from "Mutation of Mind" by Vimala Thakar.
