Meditation as a Way of Life
One of the most interesting questions I’ve received after publishing my book “This Now Is Eternity” was “Why do we need to meditate?”. The question came from all over the world and from people with different backgrounds, not just people who meditate or practice a spiritual technique. Why are so many renowned spiritual teachers (Drunvalo Melchizedek, Gregg Braden, Neale Donald Walsch, etc) and some highly recognized masters of past century (Krishnamurti, Osho, Ramakrishna, etc) recommending and teaching people to meditate?
It is almost a fashion now. If you meditate people consider you different. Why is meditation so important? Because it keeps you in one of your centres. It can be the navel centre, it can be the heart centre or it can be the head centre. There is no difference, qualitatively speaking, regarding these three centres. The Zen and Tai Chi Masters are centred in the navel centre. The Martial Arts Masters are centred in the navel centre. Buddha was centred in the navel centre.
Well-known Masters – Jesus, Ramakrishna, Teresa de Avila and many others – were centred in their heart centre. Not too many Masters used their head centre. Probably the most acclaimed was Krishnamurti.
As long as you are centred in any of these three centres you are going to be in silence: you are in the centre of the hurricane, utterly silent. You become the watcher; you are not a doer anymore. Now, the main question is if we can be in this state – in a meditative state – while we are acting. Of course we can. As long as we remain in the centre, as long as we are a watcher we are in a meditative state. I mean, we can work in our gardens, we can speak with our friends, we can make dinner and we can still be centred.
How is it possible to be in the middle of the crowd and be centred? How is it possible to be in the middle of the noise and be quiet inside? Well, we need to learn to witness. We need to learn to observe; to be neutral, just to watch it. This is not an easy task as the ego is always interested in something where it can interfere. Witnessing is not its strong suit. Your ego wants you to do difficult things – the more difficult are your tasks, the better your ego will feel. Witnessing is something very easy and because it is so easy it will never have any appeal to your ego.
How should we meditate? At the beginning we should get accustomed to doing our meditations in a specific place; the same place if it is possible. The Tibetan Masters told me that meditating day by day in the same place “charges” the spot with positive energy, you bring prana, life-force energy, there in that place. Basically, the place is going to “recognize” you when you start to meditate. It is like you are going to meet an good old friend.
Secondly, we should be comfortable. Many of my students are trying to keep the lotus posture (Padmasana) but it doesn’t work properly. Forcing our joint-bones (especially the knees) is not the best thing we want to do. I would say that using a chair is enough; or laying down is good too. The most important thing is to keep our spine straight.
The last, but not the least, we should smile and have patience. If life is not fun for us and we are in a hurry, then it is not going to work. If we do all these three things, sooner or later we will become observers. We will be able to see all things from the centre, not from the periphery. We will be able to stop the struggle and achieve total surrender. Some external devices might help but they don’t get us there. If we use earphones and we listen to a specific song, it doesn’t necessarily mean we are meditating. Of course our minds are changing wavelengths and a specific sound can help to create calmness and peace inside of us. But, if we believe that this is meditation, we are wrong. It helps but it is not enough.
Meditation works in a very interesting way: we are in the deepest silence but we are also alert. We are aware, alert and vigilant. The most pleasant but also the most difficult moment of meditation is when we have the beautiful experiences of our inner world. There is a big trap here; we can get stuck in these experiences and not be able to move further.
The final moment of meditation is the moment when all these beautiful experiences disappear. We are left with nothing, no images, absolutely alone. The journey is beautiful, but we don’t need to stop anywhere. When we pass all the stars, the flowers and mountains, when we pass all the galaxies and rivers of light then, and just then, we are able to be a witness. In that moment we, ourselves, become the subject of observation. We are witnessing ourselves. That means that our own consciousness can see itself.
In 1979, at Brockwood Park in UK, in a spiritual conference, Krishnamurti said that consciousness can be aware of its whole content. In other words, he said that the observer becomes the observed. In that moment we are in silence, but we are absolutely alive, filled with energy and life. We are in peace, and still we are filled with strength and vitality.
This seems to me a very good reason to meditate.
Daniel Mitel
www.danielmitel.com;
www.heartimagery.org
Daniel is a world traveler helping people understand their intimate connection to God. He started to teach Zen Meditation in 1981 and between 1981 and 1992 he was practicing “the spinal breathing” meditation; later he found out that, in fact, he did practice the Kriya Pranayama of Kriya Yoga Great Master Babaji. Since 1996, he is teaching worldwide Meditation Day Workshop and Heart Imagery Workshops. After couple of years spent in meditation in North of Tibet, in 1999, Daniel created “The School of the Heart”. Ten years later, in Toronto, he created “The School of Meditation”. Daniel is an Ambassador of Peace and Diplomat of Love in the Embassy of Peace. International lecturer and Martial Arts Master (Tai Chi Master and Karate Traditional Black Belt 5 DAN in WJKA – World Japan Karate Association), Daniel is dedicated to inspiring the world to move from violence to peace and from anger to love. Throughout his work, workshops and spiritual conferences, Daniel changed the life of thousands of people. After Tibetan Great Lama Masters, Daniel worked with a group of well known Masters from different schools of meditation (Osho, Dalai Lama, Paramahansa Prajnananda, Ana, Di Yu Ming, Sadhguru, Drunvalo Melchizedek, Jasmuheen, Anastasia) who train their students to be in the Heart. Now, together with his own workshops (Meditation Day and Heart Imagery), Daniel Mitel is bringing Awakening The Illuminated Heart and Luscious Lifestyle Program workshops out to the world. By teaching all these spiritual seminars, Daniel is sharing a message of hope and possibility to anyone who wants to experience a new understanding of life; an understanding which comes from the heart. Drunvalo Melchizedek appointed Daniel in the first Council of School of Remembering: Awakening The Illuminated Heart (ATIH) Teacher’s Council. As a Mentor of Drunvalo Melchizedek’ School of Remembering, Daniel was helping and teaching ATIH teachers from all over the world. Daniel is blessed to work with children, teaching them Tai Chi and Meditation.In the last years, since he is visiting teacher in Montessori Schools, Daniel changed the life of hundreds of children through his work. Interviewed all over the world and constantly invited to write articles in magazines and on-line publications (Spirit of Ma’at, Collective Evolution, Vision, etc.) Daniel is one of the most prominent Master of Meditations known worldwide showing the inner power what you can achieve using your Heart’s unconditional love. Daniel’s book “This Now Is Eternity” is highly regarded as one of the best meditation and spiritual guide tool now available in iBook store and KOBO!