Other Transcripts:

Hints on Meditation

Some have asked the question over the years, "I'm in meditation and I feel this peace, and then as soon as I get up and walk around I don't feel it anymore, and I want to hold on to it. I want to keep it. How do I bring this joy and peace that I feel in meditation into my everyday life?"

Well, lets talk about meditation a bit first. In our way there is not a point in the distance that one must reach, and so meditation is not a progressive means to get somewhere else other than where we are. As Nome has pointed out, you can't start from something dual and get to something nondual. If there seems to be duality and a sense of separateness then we only need to clear up that mistaken notion. There's actually no distance traveled.

  Yet wise seekers who find themselves yearning for the truth because they have confused themselves with the physical form, or they are suffering, have turned to meditation as recommended by their teachers and by the great traditions. And the amount of people who awakened without any meditation are small in comparison to those who have used meditation as a tool to find the truth.

We sit, we are still, we look inside ourselves, taking all attention from outer things like worries, cares, and our own physical form. Sometimes we say we "park" the body, because we put no attention on the body when we meditate. We go IN. And it may take you awhile to understand what IN is, but IN is profound. Some people think it's a rejection of "out" but actually we just use it to understand what's real. We finally come to a realization that there is absolutely no division between in and out, no one to have such a thought and no division between anything. We come to the utter and complete joy and peace of pure existence, pure being. And it's not like we come to it - it's more like uncovering it. Uncovering what's real and just taking away the false assumptions.  

So the way we do this is (as recommended by Ramana Maharshi and taught to me by my own teacher Nome -- the wonderful Nome who's taught for 25 years with the greatest humility and brightness. They recommended, and I assure you this is the most direct way), look into your own existence. We use the simple words, "who am I?" The words don't matter. It's the fierce intention of looking to see who you REALLY are.

Don't you think this is a good endeavor in this lifetime? To know who you are before you start living it and running off with all kinds of assumptions of who you are? Trying to fulfill expectations of a world who's telling you who you are? Trying to squeeze out some joy and peace through making an identity out of a human form? !!!!! This is a pursuit that affords no joy and always ends in death of the assumed entity. So, as good as it can be, it's not fulfilling. And it's certainly not eternally fulfilling.

So find a way to park this physical form for a while. Its wise to do this every day as many times a day as you can. I'll tell you after a while this meditation thing will get to be the most enjoyable thing you do! Because finding yourself is utterly, utterly blissful. So the more you do this, even though it seems like intention and effort at first, the more pleasure you will enjoy. It will turn out to be far superior to any other pleasure you have known in your lifetime. So park the form and delve into your own existence. I can't tell you what this means. You have got to find it out for yourself. I can point, I can urge, but you must do it yourself. I can't give you yourself. Only you can find yourself.  


If you want this eternal bliss, if you want this enlightenment that sages have spoken of for eons, give it your intention repeatedly: "Who am I?" Look directly at what you find. "Who am I?" Is it a body? Go deeper. Sometimes people will find themselves locked into some part of the body. They ask "who am I?" and they keep feeling it is something somewhere in their head or their heart or asjna chakra or some other part. Go deeper. This consideration goes subtler and subtler. There will be many forms of who you think you are. That is what we want to get rid of. So sometimes I hear people get locked in their body for years. "Who am I"? always ends up being the same answer -- but who sees that? Who is aware of that "I"? There cannot be two "I"s here. There's only one existence. You yourself are only one -- there are not many of you. So if something sees an "I", who is that something or someone?
 

  That which is aware of the "I" is more yourself and vaster than the "I" that is seen. So delve in this manner and you will find that your experience of yourself becomes freer and vaster and more joyful and blissful the more you distinguish between the Real and the unreal. Anything objective is not the Reality.
Everything objective is fleeting and illusory. So if you're thorough with this consideration, you'll come to perfect peace -- everlasting peace, and will never ever mistake yourself for a form again. And even on day-one, the smallest concept you give up about yourself will afford you great freedom.

So perhaps you come to that place of peace -- maybe not to its fullest extent, but it seems like great peace compared to your ordinary agitated life and you want to hold onto it. Who wants to hold onto it? If that "you" dissolves, that wanting to hold onto it dissolves. Who is going to hold onto your Existence? Why would you need to hold onto what you are? How could you lose that?

There is an illusory assumption that the body that gets up out of meditation is more real than the meditation was! This is absurd! Your body is an object of awareness. In meditation we fall into deeper and deeper into pure Awareness. The Awareness is Real. The objects are what is unreal. So what gets up and walks around after meditation is not a problem, yet it's not the full Reality. Let's say in meditation you come to a vast empty space. It's free, it's blissful and it
doesn't seem objective -- it seems like yourself. Your eyes are closed and you're feeling full and the bell rings! (laughter) You open your eyes. Now has that opening of your eyes changed anything? Has the opening of eyes and the seeing of objects changed anything in that vast blissful experience?

For some people -- that's it! That's the end of the peace. The experience is gone. Now they are in the world, the world is real and they get up and go about their suffering life. But actually, can these eyelids have that much power to totally destroy your peaceful meditation? This thin little piece of skin? It's absurd! Open-close-open-close, there's no change in the consciousness. The body-mind moves and gets up, has it changed anything? Does that movement of a form in pure consciences actually have the power to destroy or limit that peace? NO!
The problem is that all of a sudden people come back to assuming they are a limited form in the perfect space of pure consciousness. You don't need to have that assumption.


The body will do what it does. There's actually no one inside the body controlling the body. There's no separate entity doing anything. The body gets up, the body moves, YOU still remain at peace, as free as you are without any identification with any form. So it's not a matter of holding on to that peace. It's more a matter of not taking on assumptions. Don't put on those clothes of identity.
 

So my recommendation is, don't get up out of meditation ever! (laughter) Enjoy this natural innate freedom that is your Self. It has no boundaries or limitations what so ever. Do you feel it? Do you know it? (bell rings)