Are you taking meditation too seriously?
Are you taking meditation too seriously?
Meditation is not this serious thing that you must force yourself to do.
In fact, we can’t.
In this video I share with you the correct ATTITUDE to practice with that will save you a lot of time, frustration & make life easy.
Peace & Love
Rishi
For more cool stuff — www.meditatewithrishi.com
Namaste. it’s Rishi here from meditatewithrishi.com. And in today’s video. We are going to speak about your attitude in meditation. Probably sounds funny, You know, what do you mean by attitude? Right? So attitude simply means what you’re feeling when you meditate. What is the lens through which you are approaching the practice? Because the problem is that too many of us, you know myself included many times take the practice too SERIOUSLY. We take meditation to too seriously and as a result of that we create more turbulence in the mind. It’s the opposite of what we are trying to achieve which is that peace and tranquility within. Put simply, what is the attitude we should approach meditation with or that we should meditate with? And it is an attitude of Love, relaxation and just being completely carefree, you know, not TRYING to do something. Not trying hard to focus or trying hard to you know, be in the moment. There’s no trying, it should be effortless and when when or how it can become effortless is when you let go of any attachment to the outcome. Of reaching your inner silence or quieting your mind — just let go of the outcome. It’s like sleep. You can’t you can’t try hard to fall asleep — it’s not going to happen. You just need the right conditions in place, be a bit tired, have a comfortable bed, have some peace and quiet, have some dark and you will fall asleep automatically. So it’s the same with meditation. You concentrate on your object of focus, whatever it is, the breath or a mantra. With total love and surrendering to it essentially — and the rest will just happen. Naturally, you know. There is there’s a story I want to tell you about Neem Karoli Baba who was a really famous Saint from India. He was a, he was known to be, a big, huge devotee of Lord Hanuman. If you listen to Krishna Das’s music, which you should by the way, if you haven’t — it’s amazing. So Krishna Das spent a lot of time with this Baba in India, and there was a time when they were all sitting with him and they asked him you know Babaji, HOW should we meditate? How should we meditate? And Neem Karoli Baba, instead of giving them a “technique” what he did was he simply sat, and became completely still. He closed his eyes and they (everyone) were just watching it and in a minute or two, in a couple of minutes Tear started rolling down his cheek. And then he opens his eyes and he says — meditate how Jesus meditate. He lost himself in love. He lost himself in LOVE. So that’s the point. The point is to just completely immerse yourself and fall in love with whatever object you’re focusing on whether it’s the breath or a mantra or a deity or whatever it may be. Your choice. But just don’t try too hard and instead just effortlessly, you know surrender to that object and let the rest happen naturally. So that’s the attitude. Okay. Now I want to give you what the opposite of this looks like. So you have an idea and so if you catch yourself doing this just stop and instead just let go. Okay. So one thing that often happens is anger. We, we sit down with this resolution that today I’m going to — I’m going to meditate you know (lol_, I’m gonna focus on my object and concentrate so well and the moment we notice that our mind has wandered — we get angry, We get angry like “why can’t I concentrate” but if you think about it — just the fact that you have realized that your mind is wandered. That means that you’re aware, you know, that is something to be HAPPY about not — something to be angry about. Okay, so when your mind wanders, you know, EXPECT it to wander don’t expect that you will concentrate without any break. Expect your mind to wander and when it does, with love, just bring it back to your object of focus. With love — bring it back to your object of focus. Okay, and another one I want to own a speak about is, you know, people that practice Mantra meditation. They often make this resolve that today. I’m going to sit down and complete, you know, 21 rounds of my mala (meditation beads). Or recite the Mantra these many times. By the way, (I’m not saying) it’s not a bad thing. Okay. This is a great technique to train the mind to focus on one thing and really develop your concentration. So I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. But what I am saying is when you do this when you give yourself a very high number, you know that today I’m going to repeat the mantra for these many times — that becomes your focus themn. (Completing the number becomes your focus.) When you sit down all you’re doing is trying to — you’re thinking about I want to get to the end. Oh, I wanna finish, I wanna finish, I wanna finish and you recite the mantra so quickly. Without the love that you should be feeling when you’re reciting the Mantra right? So it becomes a transaction with God instead of you. actually expressing and feeling the love! So in my experience It’s much better to just feel the love and not worry about the number of times. you’re chanting. But more, how much love do you feel when you’re doing the practice? How much love do you feel when you’re chanting right? Because ultimately what we are trying to get to through meditation… what we’re trying to get to when we clear through all the mental clutter and really go deep within…what we’re what we’re going to is ultimately this infinite store of love. That is what we’re trying to get to — so focus on THAT. And meditation will become much easier. It becomes much more fun. You know, you look forward to it. You’ll really enjoy it and the more you focus on this love — effortless, relaxed, carefree feeling — the more you will become like that. And isn’t that what you want? So that is it my two cents on the attitude in meditation. Thank you for listening, and I hope you found it useful. Namaste
