Learn to Meditate

About Meditation

Throughout history, Sages have advocated meditation as a means of establishing peace within ourselves. Currently, it is estimated between 300 and 500 million people globally practice some form of meditation. Reasons for meditating vary widely, from stress management to God-Realization. The physiological, psychological, and sociological benefits of regular meditation are well-documented by science. However, Shiva Rudra Balayogi teaches the Supreme goal of meditation is Self-Realization and the lasting Peace that it brings.

What makes life perceivable is consciousness, and essentially you are that Consciousness. Normally, thinking and consciousness are indistinguishable. The practice of meditation reduces mental activity and can silence the mind. When thinking stops, you don’t disappear; you remain as the Consciousness of Existence.

Self-Realization is not a product of the mind or an imagined reality; it cannot be learned thru books, study, or any amount of imagination. However, it is achievable through deep meditation and direct experience. The Self, as the Consciousness of Existence, is the fundamental Truth underlying and present in all of manifest existence.

Baba encourages everyone to practice this meditation to find peace and contentment within themselves and bring fulfillment to the mind’s search for happiness.

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“When Consciousness becomes quiet, it becomes aware of itself. Until then, it is simply aware of what it is imagining. So that is why the imagination (thought) needs to be stopped. To stop the imagination, the meditation of watching is one of the greatest technologies. If you simply keep watching, you become a witness automatically. You won’t be doing anything else, then all thoughts and visions disappear. As long as you are recognizing and analyzing, you are holding thoughts. You keep thinking, trying to come up with formulas and solutions. If the Truth of Your Existence is what you are searching for, you are simply wasting your energy. The Truth is not visible.“
~ Baba

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Jangama Dhyana (Meditation)

‘Jangama’ means Eternal Existence; ‘meditation or Dhyana’ means focused unwavering attention. Jangama Dhyana has been practiced by Sages for millennia to obtain fulfillment thru Self-Realization.

It involves concentrating the mind and sight by gently focusing our attention between the eyebrows and simply watching without thinking, imagining, or engaging in thoughts and visions. Jangama Meditation is unique in that it does not give the mind an object, such as breath, sound, or vision, to focus upon in order to fix the attention. Focusing between the eyebrows without an object of focus is important for meditation to advance.

When the attention is deliberately fixed this way, thinking recedes, and our attention becomes absorbed in consciousness. If attention is not given to thoughts, they will disappear, and the mind becomes silent. Universal Consciousness alone remains, which is recognized as The Self.

Jangama Meditation Technique

To practice Jangama Dhyana, the meditation, Baba and his Guru, Shivabalayogi Maharaj, used for Self-Realization:

– Sit comfortably, keep your back and neck straight and close your eyes.
– Gently concentrate your mind and sight between the eyebrows, focus your attention there, and just keep watching.
– Do not think or imagine anything — JUST WATCH.
– Do not repeat any mantra or name.
– Keep the eyes closed until meditation is completed

In this meditation, you are asked to gently watch between the eyebrows and not give attention to what appears in your mind. When your attention drifts onto thoughts, gently bring it back to watching between the eyebrows.  

Practicing this method gives the mind a way to remain quiet and under control. If the mind becomes quiet and concentrated, it automatically goes inward toward its origin and becomes absorbed in its Self — Consciousness.

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How to Meditate

Part of the meditation instruction is to focus our attention between the eyebrows and not imagine anything. You say, just watch if thoughts come during meditation. Do you mean don't let your attention go to the thoughts?

Baba:

Yes, you are practicing to ignore those thoughts and visions. They might come, but you ignore them and they will have to disappear. Do not hold on to them with your imagination. Just watching means you are ignoring them and not getting involved. When you ignore thoughts, they will dissolve. This is the technique you have to understand.

Question:
So it is important not to engage thoughts while meditating. Sometimes they are interesting. There might be a project you are working on or some responsibility, and a thought comes up, and off you go, engaged in trying to solve the problem and not coming back to meditation.

Baba:
Like a mother scolding her child at the dinner table, first eat your food; you can gossip later. For now, just watch, don’t bother about those things. Projects can happen after you come out of meditation.

Baba:

Simply the terminologies are different. Ramana Maharshi said, close the eyes and observe from where the “I” feeling is coming. For that, you have to imagine as if you are going introverted. The eyes cannot go introverted like that; only your observation or attention goes introverted. It is the same thing here. Instead of asking you to observe the “I,” we ask you to just watch. When you are watching, you are actually trying to watch the Self only, from where the sense of I  is coming. That’s what you will eventually realize.

Question:
So there’s no need to ask who is the watcher because by asking the question, you get into a whole list of questions and become even further away.

Baba:

Yes, if you don’t ask, you will have more peace. If the question comes, only then you may have to explain a little so the mind cools down and can go back to watching. If you just watch, that’s enough; you don’t have to ask about the watcher.

Baba: 
Know that you are here to silence your mind first. It’s too preoccupied with its own sounds, visions, and imaginations. The mind needs to become quiet. That is your job. You may silence your mind with meditation. “Just Watch” between the eyebrows without thinking. When you are watching, don’t try to see something specific; just watch. You are not trying to see any secondary thing.

To know your Self you must silence your mind. For that, simply watch between the eyebrows without bothering what you are watching. If anything comes to mind, thoughts, visions, darkness, light, anything at all, don’t get excited, don’t get involved, just Watch.

The thin difference between trying to watch and effortlessly witnessing will eventually occur. With practice, you will come to know your True Self as that which is watching.

When I ask you to watch between the eyebrows, I am asking you to keep quiet mentally. Precisely, that’s what it means. If you’re watching, you have to be quietly watching, not talking in the mind, not bothering about anything, not analyzing, not even recognizing any sound or sight. Remember, this point is very precious.

The meditation instruction for Jangama Dhyana is as follows:
Sit in any comfortable posture. Keeping your back and neck straight, close your eyes. Keep your eyes closed, and gently concentrate your mind and sight between the eyebrows. Focus your attention between the eyebrows and just keep watching there, without thinking or analyzing. Do not repeat any mantra or name, and do not imagine anything. Do not open your eyes for the duration of meditation. May you all be blessed.

Baba:

Yes, remind yourself all things that have appeared and are going to disappear. This physical body, this universe, everything has its own time limit. A tree, a mountain, the earth, the Sun, and the physical body all have their own time limit; you think like that. So how can they give me permanent happiness and permanent awareness of myself? I need to look for my permanent awareness, my permanent happiness. Think like that and try to know the Self. When the mind itself vanishes, there is no more mind, only pure consciousness. Your existence consciousness will be there in the meditation; observe that one, then you will get into it.

 

Baba:

With one thought, you should be able to become composed and into the job of quieting the mind. Intensified thinking needs to be stopped. A firm conviction gives you detachment, and detachment gives you peace. Conviction is good enough; intensifying your thinking is not necessary.

 

Baba:

  1. Understand the essence of the practice and your need for it. It is peace that you require.
  2. Baba quotes the Bhagavad Gita. “Before death comes to the physical body, go to the Knowers of Truth; ask intelligent questions and adopt their methods to achieve the Truth for yourself”.
  3. To understand the need, imagine you suddenly realize there is a time bomb under your chair. Your first priority will be to get out of a dangerous situation. For survival, you will be dedicated and disciplined to free yourself before thinking of anything else.
    Understand life is impermanent, the body has come into existence, and it is going to die. The heart can stop anytime. It can be today, tomorrow, or in ten years; we never know. If someone understands these points, dedication, and discipline will come.
  4. With a small healthy fear, we should not let time go to waste. It is important to sit down and practice meditation. Practicing every day you will feel restless if meditation is missed.
  5. Understand death can come to the body at any moment. Once death occurs, you lose control over yourself. You don’t know what the next life will bring. Now there is a chance to liberate yourself while the body is healthy, so exercise some willpower and be disciplined.

Baba:

As long as thoughts are there, it is the mind. To begin with, the mind has to watch the thoughts. As the mind goes on watching, it becomes more and more quiet; eventually, it stops thinking altogether and regains its form as consciousness. By the time it becomes total consciousness, thought has disappeared.

The idea of watching is simply teaching you to become quiet because you are not going to imagine anything. When you stop imagining, all secondary things will disappear; relative existence will disappear.  Only the Self remains.

Baba:

First thing, it is very important, if you want to meditate you must stop bothering about the past and the future, only then can you remain in the present. If you practice meditation that is very important. If you keep bothering about the past, you go to the past in your imagination and you can go into a brooding, thus your meditation will get affected. Whatever has happened in the past, just bother that you meditate in the present. That is important.

 

Baba:

Not really, during meditation you must stop. You have to meditate single-pointedly. You can always plan and work in the world after meditation. During meditation, you must avoid engaging in thoughts. If thoughts come, continue watching so you don’t become further involved with them, then thoughts will disappear. Otherwise, thinking and planning will suck you into worldliness more than necessary. Here you are trying to meditate so the mind can become single-pointed and turn to itself. So you must try not to get involved with thoughts or go into planning during meditation. Assure yourself positively, “I can do this work afterward, just now, let me meditate only”.

 

Baba:

Avoid trying to think I have reached it; just keep going, otherwise, you will be wasting time, with that time you could have reached a greater quietude. Like that, keep going, don’t try to look back. While meditating don’t try to measure, don’t try to think, don’t give rise to any excitement, so the mind can reach the goal and become composed naturally and effortlessly.

 

Baba:

First thing, the inability to understand there is a need to know our Self, from where peace comes. Next, the inability to dedicate time or remain disciplined and have patience (for Self Realization). The body in constant motion, unable to be steady in one position, is another major obstacle. The eyes moving constantly, unable to remain fixed in one position, is a major obstacle. Irregular breathing is an obstacle. The mind itself is an obstacle. Having acquired the habit of constantly thinking, it is like a chatterbox, which means you have become an obstacle to knowing your Self. The mind having acquired the habit of always visualizing or thinking, is unable to know it Self (the one who is watching). You have not been able to pay attention to your Self, so you are the basic problem finally.

Question:
Baba, you emphasize watching in the meditation instructions, but there’s another part of the instructions you don’t talk about much. The part about not thinking or engaging in thoughts that arise during meditation.

Baba:
Watching means you don’t think. The mind has two aspects: one is thinking, and another is watching. If you just watch through the mind, you cannot think at all; that is what must happen. You have to listen to me first. If I ask you to watch, you have to watch, that is your job. Because you keep thinking, you are unable to watch. However, if you just watch, your thinking habit will stop automatically. So for that, you watch the thoughts and visions. We repeatedly say, during meditation, if thoughts and visions arise, just continue watching (between the eyebrows). When you are watching, it means you are not getting involved. Don’t get involved with the thoughts and visions; just watch without bothering what they are, that is necessary. If one understands either of the two (just watching or not getting involved with thoughts), the other will happen automatically.

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Insights & Meditation Tips

  • Imagination and thinking hide your true identity. To know who you are, you must silence the mind.
  • Thoughts are anything present in the mind. All imaginations, ideas, visions, sounds, feelings, sensations, and experiences are considered thoughts.
  • The Self that is watching is not a thought; it is the Consciousness of Existence. You are not what appears in the mind.
  • If focusing between the eyebrows is uncomfortable in the beginning, you may concentrate your attention at a point a few inches in front of your eyes. With continued practice, you will be able to watch comfortably between the eyebrows.
  • Regarding the amount of effort used for focusing, Baba has said, don’t strain, be gentle, but you can be firm in your resolve, like you would be with a friend.
  • The goal of meditation is to silence the mind.  “Just Watch” is a technique for the mind to silence itself. If you are 100% watching, you cannot be thinking. Conversely, if you are thinking, you cannot be 100% watching.  
  • Any amount of meditation is beneficial. However, Baba recommends meditating daily for one hour or more. Twenty or thirty minutes is also fine to begin.   
  • Set a time of day and the length of time you wish to meditate and stick with it. Be regular; dedication is important. It takes time for meditation to become an effortless part of your daily routine.   
  • Avoid meditating on a full stomach, it can make you drowsy—before meals or 3 hours after is recommended.  
  • The mind is like a chatterbox, always talking; it can take most of a meditation period for it to settle down. In time, more and more silence will be with you throughout the day.  
  • Be patient; the attention has been fixed on what is in your mind your entire life. It takes time and practice to bring awareness back itself—the Consciousness of Existence.
  • Meditation energizes and rejuvenates the body and mind, making a person more effective and life more fulfilling.
  • This form of meditation has been used for Self-Discovery for thousands of years. It is time-tested and very effective.
  • Meditation benefits anyone who practices regularly, regardless of their beliefs. People are busy with life; however, few things produce a greater sense of well-being than time invested in a regular meditation practice.

Dedication, Discipline, and Patience are Important Mantras

DEDICATION

If you are DEDICATED, you will make daily meditation a priority.

DISCIPLINE

If you are DISCIPLINED, you will practice every day without fail.

PATIENCE

If you have PATIENCE, you will definitely achieve the goal.