Meditation and Shakthi

Om Sathguru Sri Seshadri Swamigal Thiruvadikkae

Disciple:

Does it matter if you repeat a mantra or can you just look at something? There are many ways to meditate. Is one better than the others?

Master:

There are many so – called techniques of meditations that are mere mental exercises.

Meditation should happen automatically. However, a Guru in whose presence you get automatic meditation is rare.

We believe that the Shakthi, before becoming active in a person, selects him very carefully. This Shakthi is the same energy that creates the entire cosmos, and therefore it is very intelligent, very conscious, and all knowing. She knows past, present, and future, and She knows which people to enter.

Prayer and Meditation

Om Sathguru Sri Seshadri Swamigal Thiruvadikkae

 

Disciple:

What is the difference between prayer and meditation?

 

Master:

Meditation is the very last stage of prayer. Where prayer ends, meditation begins. When your mind becomes fixed in the art of praying to God, when your mind becomes totally still, that is the state of meditation. Meditation is an essential part of every religious tradition.

Sounds and Visions in Meditation

Om Sathguru Sri Seshadri Swamigal Thiruvadikkae

Disciple:

What do the lights, sounds and other phenomena that arise in meditation, indicate to a seeker? Can these be products of imagination, of an immature seeker?

Master:

The lights and sounds and other phenomena arise to dissolve a seeker’s delusion. They are real. Nada (Dwani) (Nada Para Brahma), or inner sounds, releases the flow of various nectars that import new strength and agility to the body and cause love to spring up from within. As for the vision of light – the very nature of the self is light. These lights lead a seeker to his final destination; so how can they not be real? A true mediator sees real lights and hears real sounds, day after day, until he goes beyond them to the final truth. These phenomena seem unreal or imaginary only to one who has not meditated and who has not had a direct experience of them. Immature seekers may imagine they perceive such things, but when one experiences them directly, there is never any doubt about the validity of these experiences.

Mantra and Meditation

Om Sathguru Sri Seshadri Swamigal Thiruvadikkae

Disciple:

Does it matter if you repeat a mantra or can you just look at something? There are many ways to meditate. Is one better than the others?

Master:

There are many so-called techniques of meditation that are mere mental exercise. There are people who try to get into meditation by gazing at a tree, or a spot, or by looking in a particular direction. Real meditation however, happens spontaneously, as a result of grace; you do not have to learn it.

Mediation should happen automatically. However, a Guru in whose presence you get automatic meditation is rare.

There are two kind of meditation – one is with Japa, and the other is without Japa. Japa is mantra repetition. Mantra has great power and is very necessary. If you meditate with a mantra, (Om SathGuru Sri Seshadri Swamigal Thiruvadikkae) you would be absorbed very quickly. However, in pure meditation there is absolutely no thought or object in mind, not even the mantra. But you reach that only through the mantra. As you repeat a mantra more and more, the mantra begins to disappear, and you get into a state in which you are aware of neither yourself nor God.

Guru and Meditation

Om Sathguru Sri Seshadri Swamigal Thiruvadikkae

Disciple:

Do you need a teacher to awaken this spontaneous meditation?

Master:

Yes that is very important. A Guru who can activate spontaneous meditation in you is a very high being; you can’t be cheated by such a Guru. Such beings are very rare, and if you can find one, it is a great blessing. Spontaneous meditation does not cause any harm. In fact, this form of meditation leads you to the state of perfection. It is the best kind of meditation. The kind of meditation that you do through techniques, through your own efforts, is very ordinary. Besides, spontaneous meditation includes all different forms of meditation and yoga, and one does not have to run around thinking that he needs to try every new course and technique.

Meditation is the very last stage of prayer. Where prayer ends, meditation begins. When the mind becomes fixed in the art of praying to God, when your mind becomes totally still, that is the state of meditation. Meditation is an essential part of every religious tradition.

Techniques of meditation

Om Sathguru Sri Seshadri Swamigal Thiruvadikkae

Disciple:

Does each individual have his own meditation, or is there one meditation that is appropriate for all people?

Master:

The essence of meditation is to make the mind totally still, and many different techniques have been recommended for that; but it is the stillness, which is important. Regardless of what techniques one follows, one’s mind should become purer and steadier. There are many people who would prescribe different meditation techniques, but the true meditation is that which arises from within spontaneously.

Meditation – a Universal Truth!

Om Sathguru Sri Seshadri Swamigal Thiruvadikkae

Disciple:

But what about the fear of going crazy or losing control of the things in the world that we try to hold on to?

Master:

You do not have to come down from your position as a professor to learn humbly at the feet of great SathGurus, nor do you have to go crazy.

Should we make meditation pills and sell them in the market? There is a certain way to learn a certain thing. Whether you are an Indian or an American or a European, you have to learn it the way it is taught. Boys from India come to America to learn engineering, and they have to learn it the way it is taught in America. They can’t dictate their own terms by saying, “We want to learn it the Indian style.”

Language, race, religion, or nationality does not limit meditation, like any other science. It is a Universal Truth; but you must learn it the way it is taught. You can meditate while you are doing your work. In India, most people who meditate do not leave their work for meditation. Meditation will never go against your daily life in the world. Some of them are professors and some are teachers; others are military officials, businessmen and judges. They are all very good in meditation, and none of them have given up their work.

The process of Meditation

Om Sathguru Sri Seshadri Swamigal Thiruvadikkae

Disciple:

How do I deal with the fear, in myself and in people around me, of having to let go of more and more as the process of meditation and awakening unfolds?

Master:

One should keep meditating because the blocks one has, will disappear through meditation – they will dissolve! Meditation will unlock them.

To learn meditation

Om Sathguru Sri Seshadri Swamigal Thiruvadikkae

Disciple:

The question is how to perfect this within the frame work of a college institution. We do not have the facility of an ashram, yet we want to do something.

Master:

All of you will have to learn to meditate somewhere else. Just as you go to an institution to receive your degree, so you must go to an ashram to learn meditation. In other words, you have to go where meditation is taught, or you can make a temple of meditation in your own home.

Meditation

Om Sathguru Sri Seshadri Swamigal Thiruvadikkae

Disciple:

I would like to talk to you about the heart. In terms of my own work as a teacher and my own growth, I want to know what can be done to open the heart. I feel that so many of the schools teach from the head, not from the heart, and I want to work through the heart.

Master:

Meditate. The inner Shakti (Sheathe) should be awakened through meditation. When the inner Shakti becomes awake and opens the heart, you become aware of the exactly what the heart is. There is no point in teaching theoretical knowledge or concepts about it to people. There are many kinds of powers; inside man and when they become active through meditation, you will be able to experience all of them. One of the powers enables you to hear distant sounds, and another reveals the past and the future. You should experience all these through meditation. Meditation is the main thing.

Disciple:

I feel that the heart is the place where all other centers become integrated. I do not want to teach theoretically; I want to teach from the heart because I feel that is the only way to teach.

Master:

For that you should meditate. Through meditation you should be able to get to the place from which the ego arises and into which it subsides. Find the place from which all the different thoughts of the mind originate – that is the Heart.

Disciple: Is there a special meditation that is best for the heart?

Master:

The meditation that you get through initiation is the best because it is the meditation, which arises spontaneously after Kundalini awakening and inner unfolding.

Disciple:

We try to teach trans personal psychology, yet none of us are really to teach. Any guidance that you could give us would be appreciated.

Master:

There is no point in giving one, mere verbal advice. You should meditate; that is the best advice I can give. Many professors come to meet me, and I tell them the same thing. More and more people accept the idea that there is something beyond the mind, and I ask them all to meditate, in order to experience that.