By Swami Samvidaananda Saraswati
You have a built-in ability to meditate. Most people that I know who don’t currently meditate believe it’s a good idea. But they aren’t sure where to begin. Some think it might be hard or weird. However, you actually already know how. When you drive a car, play a musical instrument or engage in a sport, you concentrate. Even to wash dishes or have a conversation with a friend, you focus. It’s something you do many times every day. It’s how you achieve anything in the world. My Guru’s Guru taught that whatever you accomplish in the world, comes through your power of concentration. This is nothing but meditation, though on external things.
You are used to meditating on external, everyday things. But your mind is like the camera on your phone. Your camera focuses on what’s in front of you. Or you tap a button to flip the camera to focus on yourself. You can do that with your mind: flip the lens of your mind to shift your focus from looking outside to looking inside. And what will you find when you look within?
Well, first you’ll encounter the contents of your mind: hopes, fears, memories, lions, tigers and bears, oh my! But all that mental activity, while real and important, is only the surface layer of what you’ll find. There’s much more to you. Yoga calls the more that you are, your capital-S Self.
A classic yogic comparison is that your Self is like the ocean. Like the waves that keep on coming, your thoughts rise and fall, rise and fall. But the waves are only the surface of the ocean. In the same way, your thoughts are simply the surface level of who you are. You have far greater depths.
When you dive beneath the waves, the water is calmer. It’s quieter, and deeply peaceful. When you meditate, you dive deeper than your thoughts, even deeper than your mind, into quiet, boundless, holy depths. You discover you are not just a swimmer in the ocean. You are the whole ocean. From the shallows to the depths, you are all of it. It’s called the “Ocean of Consciousness.” There’s only One Reality. It’s Divine. It’s your own Self.
Meditation immerses you in the depths of your Divinity. When you emerge, you’re refreshed, renewed and uplifted. You don’t become someone different or something you are not. You feel like you; you’re at your best. At first, that wonderful feeling of well-being fades as you get farther from your meditation. But over time your ability to live from your Divine Depths increases. Even though you have the inherent ability to meditate, you have to practice. You spend too much of your time paddling around in the waves. You won’t become an accomplished deep-sea diver overnight. And the technique you choose matters; you need one that works for you. Something tried and true. Something that makes it easy. I found that in Svaroopa® Vidya Meditation. This meditation works by the means of a chaitanya mantra. That means it’s enlivened. It is imbued with the energy of revelation and upliftment by the yoga masters of this lineage. These Gurus have preceded you on the path. When you apply your innate ability to concentrate to this enlivened mantra, you are powerfully propelled into the delicious depths of your Self. Then your meditation is more than easy — it’s enlightening.