Meditation and the Spiritual Consciousness Beyond It

A constant practice of meditation has a profound effect on the mind. The mind is always restless and in constant movement and change. Meditation calms down the restlessness of the mind, making it a better and more useful tool.

Meditation develops concentration, awakens inner peace, and brings the mind under your control. Constant practice brings peace of mind, joy, and a sense of inner strength that no outer circumstances can take away or change.

Some people regard meditation as an unpractical, useless, and meaningless pursuit. They regard those who seek inner peace and inner knowledge as dreamers, visionaries, and unpractical people, who are out of touch with reality. This is an erroneous assumption.

There have always been very practical, pragmatic and active persons, who also engaged intensively in inner, spiritual quest, some of whom you may find difficult to associate with meditation and spirituality. This shows that being practical, and interest in spirituality, do not contradict each other.

Aspiring for spirituality, and at the same time living an ordinary life is not unusual. Read about the life of Papaji, the Indian spiritual teacher, and you will find out that he worked hard for many years, while at the same time, he followed an intense spiritual life. He is not the only one.

There is no such rule that one has to abandon everything, and live in an ashram or a monastery, in order to meditate and lead a spiritual life.

Spiritual Consciousness

One of the gains of practicing meditation regularly is inner peace. When the mind is at peace, there arises a kind of calm, joyous and powerful consciousness, which is different from the ordinary, everyday consciousness. It is vast and endless, full of calmness, happiness, joy, power and invincibility. It is a sort of an altered state of consciousness. It is not a state of trance, or of lack of awareness of the world around you. It is an awareness that encompasses both the earthly and spiritual planes.

After beginning to relish this consciousness of inner peace and bliss, you will find that sometimes, you experience it during your daily activities, in your everyday life, not only while meditating. It may suddenly, or gradually, fill your awareness for a few moments, and then it goes away. At this stage, you will need to make it a constant state. This requires that you learn to quiet your mind. The main requirement for this spiritual consciousness to manifest is a silent mind, when the restlessness of the mind disappears. This is the way to making this experience permanent.

In order to hasten this processs, it is recommended that you:

1. Become more aware of your thoughts, and how they enter and pass through your mind.
2. Do not let your thoughts and emotions sweep you away. Just remain focused, uninvolved with them, as much as you can.
3. Try to be aware of the state of your consciousness, of your awareness. If this seems difficult and unclear at the moment, it will become simple and easy to understand, if you practice meditation regularly.

All techniques of meditation, eventually, lead to this state to the awareness of your spiritual consciousness. It is a state of light, happiness and joy, but also of inner power, focus, practicality and common sense. It is called by many names, Nirvana, Samadhi, Self Realization, Cosmic consciousness, Higher Self. The name is only an outer label. The content is more important, and it is the same under all these labels.