Meditation: Inner Peace, Bliss and Silence

Imagine yourself standing on the beach, watching the waves rushing to the shore and then returning back to the ocean. Feel the cool, pleasant breeze, and breath in the intoxicating smell of the ocean.

Tune in to the feeling of calmness that you experience now.

Stay with this image and feeling for a while. It is pleasant, isn't it?

This scene is taking place in your imagination and is not real. However, you were able to create an experience that was felt real.

You were in engaged in some sort of meditation. Was it difficult?

During the second half of the twentieth century, meditation started to gain popularity, and more people have become aware of its benefits. Stll, many erroneously think that it is only a means to relax the body and mind, when actually, it is a lot more than this.

Life in the West is full of tension and rush, so meditation has become recognized as a technique for relaxing the body and the mind. Relaxation is very important, but it is only one of the results of meditation.

There are many meditation techniques. One technique may appeal to you, and another might appeal to someone else. It is not a matter of which methods is better.

• Meditation relaxes the body, calms the mind, and minimizes tension.
  
  
• After a period of practice, the racing and rushing of thoughts in the mind slow down, not only during meditation, but also in daily life.
  
  
• Gradually, you willl experience more happiness, tolerance, understanding, and a feeling of inner strength.
  
  
• Your ability to focus your mind will get stronger
  
  
• Your mind will become stronger and under your control.
  
  
• Your ability to enjoy the present moment would increase
  
  
• The tendency to criticize, lack of satisfaction, and blaming others would decrease.

All meditation techniques are means to the same final target, to empty the mind from thoughts, discover the real "I", and live in Pure Awareness.

Nowadays, there are many books about meditation. There are lectures and workshops too, so it is quite easy to find information about meditation, or someone to guide you.

The purpose of meditation is to "unlearn" all the wrong concepts we have acquired, and then, to help us discover who we really are. This realization may be mental at first, until we really KNOW.

We are not the physical body, the ego, our thoughts or our feelings, but something else. By delving inside ourselves, into our consciousness and sense of awareness, we come to know ourselves. We "discover" our real I. This knowledge is not new. It is something that has always been, always is, and will always be.

This Real "something", is like a bright bulb of light, which is hidden from sight by many covers. We have to strip away the covers. These covers are our thoughts, feelings, ideas, and mental habits. By stripping them away, we uncover the internal bright light of our true being.

Look inside yourself, and try to become aware of the feeling or sensation you have of yourself. I mean the feeling that you are alive and existing.

Focus your attention on what you sense to be your essence -your trie I.

.This feeling of "I-ness", is actually always with you, no matter where you are or what you are doing. It is an invariable and continuous factor, but it is usually hidden from you by the impressions coming through your five senses, and by thoughts.

It is not something theoretical, metaphorical, or mystical. It is a fact. It is the common experience of everyone, but it is ignored, because the five senses and the mind flow outside, not inside.

1. Sit down, relax your body, feelings and thoughts by whatever methods you know.
   
   
2. A few minutes of calm deep rhythmical breaths will make you more relaxed.
   
   
3. Now, try to look at your thoughts, as if from the outside, as if they are not yours. Watch your thoughts calmly, without using force, and without being carried away by them. Be careful not to become emotionally involved with your thoughts and feelings.
   
   
4. Whenever you find yourself deviating from the meditation and thinking about something else, gently bring your mind back to the task.
   
   
5. At the beginning, 10 minutes every day are enough. Later, you can gradually lengthen the time up to 20-30 minutes.

• Pay attention to your body, feelings and thoughts, while at the same time being aware that it is you, who are examining them. You, your awareness - consciousness is looking at them. This means that you are not them, but "something" outside looking at them.
  
  When looking at some object and thinking about it, you cannot be that object. You are separate from it.
  
  
• If you think about your body, it means that something separate from it is thinking about it. This also applies to your thoughts, feelings, beliefs and ego.
  
  
• Keep thinking in this way, and you will come to the conclusion that you are not all these components.

Thoughts, feelings and beliefs change, sometimes radically, but you retain the same awareness - consciousness of your being. The "I remains as it is.

The body's cells change, but you, the essential you, remain the same. Everything comes and go, but your "I", your feeling of being alive and existing, is always the same, never changing. This "I" is your real Self.

One minute you may be thinking or feeling something, and the next minute another thought or feeling pops up. Who is aware of the thoughts and the feelings? This is what you have to find out. Focus on this idea, delve into it, and you will find the answer.

The answer comes as understanding, intuition, realization, not in words.

Ask yourself, "who am I?" and wait for the answer. The answer is not verbal. It is a realization with no words or thoughts. It is an intuitive knowledge, with absolute certainty.

When you find the answer, which is a gradual process, you experience a feeling of bliss. This state is called by many names by different traditions, such as Cosmic Consciousness, Samadhi, Nirvana or Self-Realization.

The question, "Who am I", as a trigger for Self Realization, was a method taught by Sri Ramana Maharshi the great Sage of India.

Meditation has to be practiced with a spirit of detachment, and without tension. In time, you will become more aware of your Consciousness, your Real I, and act and do everything from its viewpoint, not the ego's point of view.

It is actually, inaccurate to say, "to be aware of your Consciousness", since you are it, you do not experience it as something separate from you.

If you say, "I am observing my consciousness", ask yourself, "who is this observer?".

You can observe your mind, but not yourself. The mind observes what is happening around, but when you observe your mind, it is actually you, the consciousness that is observing the mind. This isn't a game of words.

Stop actively thinking, and just Be. 'Be', means, feel your real being, with no identification with your thoughts or personality. This has to be practiced; otherwise whatever you read here will remain as useless and meaningless words.

I hope that this short, and rather general article, may be of some help to you.

As you progress, the moments of blissful inner peace and silence will grow, increasing in length, and the breaks between them would get shorter and shorter.

One day, you might find that you are always in a state of meditation, this state becoming your natural state of being, even while doing other things