00:00Verse 362 of Vivek Chudamani Just as gold by thorough heating and fire
00:11gives up its impurities and gains its own lustre, so too the mind through meditation
00:21sheds its impurities of sattva, rajas and tamas and attains the nature of Brahm.
00:32Dear Acharyaji, says Rohinkal, here is the question.
00:38Is meditation the understanding?
00:42That's what the talk is about. What is meant by purifying the mind through meditation?
00:56At many places is mentioned the practice of meditation.
01:02So Acharyaji, what is this practice about? Is there any methodless method to attain the
01:09unchanged understanding or meditative stage? Please guide.
01:15I'll repeat the verse.
01:17Just as gold by thorough heating and fire gives up its impurities and gains its own lustre,
01:23so too the mind through meditation sheds its impurities of sattva, rajas and tamas
01:29and attains the nature of Brahm. The question is about meditation.
01:35What is meditation? Is there any methodless method? Is meditation about understanding?
01:52Let's begin from what you already know of. You know of thought. Right? You know of thought.
02:04So, begin with thought.
02:08What is thought? There is you
02:14and there is the object you are thinking of
02:18and there is a relation between you and that object.
02:26You just don't think of anything. You define the object you are thinking of.
02:34The object that you think of depends on you and the relationship is always of either
02:47fear or greed. That which you are either wants or repels.
02:56That which you are is either greedy or afraid.
02:59He knows no other state. That's thought. You want something.
03:09What's meditation then? Meditation is when you want the highest alone.
03:23Meditation is when you are fed up of looking at the small.
03:27Meditation is when you look at the small and you say that if this is all that I can look at,
03:33then it cannot be small. It has to be very very large.
03:41Meditation is when nothing but the truth is therefore the object you aim at.
03:50I want the truth. You can say your sole focus then is the truth.
04:00But the truth as we know, Rohinton, is not something to be thought of
04:06because one is too small to think of the truth.
04:11The truth is not something to be thought of.
04:14Therefore, if one stubbornly insists that nothing but the truth is to be known,
04:25then either one fails or one bursts.
04:34Please understand.
04:36There is a balloon. It can only hold a limited quantity, a limited volume of air.
04:51You try to inflate it beyond its permissible limit. Either you will fail in inflating it.
05:00Either you will fail and the balloon won't grow beyond a particular size
05:05or the balloon would burst. Meditation is the bursting of the balloon.
05:15The balloon is saying I want to hold the
05:20infinite. I want to hold the sky.
05:24Just holding a little bit of air is no fun.
05:30I want to hold the sky. So the balloon bursts.
05:36Meditation is a special kind of thought in which the thinker bursts
05:42because the thinker is trying to achieve that which cannot be achieved.
05:51You are aiming at that which cannot be aimed at, which is alak.
06:00When you are aiming at the deep, deep truth,
06:07then your faculty keeps becoming subtler and subtler and finer and finer
06:16and ultimately it just disappears. This disappearance is meditation.
06:25You are looking at something and you are contented
06:28with the looks. You are contented with the form. You are contented with the label.
06:34Then meditation is not for you. Meditation is when you look and you are not contented.
06:44You say you want more. You say it is just not what it appears to be.
06:50You want to be sharper. You want to be finer. You are hungry and you do not want to
07:03suppress your hunger. You express the hunger. Boldly you move
07:13towards the danger area, the abyss and you know that
07:30it is dangerous, mortally dangerous.
07:34But still there is something that calls you, lures you. You keep moving.
07:42Then you are no more. That is meditation.
07:49Therefore, meditation is not for those who are easily satisfied
07:54and therefore meditation is not for those who just want to practice methods.
08:03Meditation is for those who have a taste for the mystical. Meditation is for those
08:13who have a knack for the unknowable. Unless you are a little crazy, unless you are a
08:28little off-center, a little
08:44mad by worldly standards, meditation is not for you.
08:58The world looks at something and says this is how
09:05it is. Its definition has already been supplied to me. A woman is a woman. A man is a man.
09:12A sunset is a sunset. A sunrise is a sunrise. A lake is a lake.
09:20A vehicle is a vehicle. A job is a job.
09:22A kid is a kid. A cub is a cub.
09:34Meditation is for the eccentric ones who say no, a kid is not just a kid.
09:43There is something within that tells me that the kid
09:53is a kid. And silence. And silence. That's meditation.
10:07And therefore, there can be no one method of meditation
10:14because the universe is always all around you, so say your senses.
10:23Meditation is the honest way of looking at the universe
10:35and that includes yourself. When you are honestly looking at anything, you are meditating.
10:44When you are committed to the truth, then you are meditating. And when you say that even
10:52half-truths and lies are acceptable, then it is beyond you to meditate.
11:05Meditation is for the daring ones who say that we are prepared to die. We are prepared to disappear.
11:24But we will not accept stories. We want to go into the deep dark cave
11:46and figure out for ourselves what lies within.
11:50Entering the cave is sure short death, but then there are some
12:07crazy ones who do meditation.
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