Although various forms of meditation have existed for a very long time, the true essence of it is often missed, sometimes even by long-time meditators. My effort here is to document particular methods that have worked well for me personally for over 10 years. They are based on well-known principles and practices of meditation, but presented in a way that I would have liked to learn about them.
The early stages of my own meditation journey were frustrating and futile. I was groping in the dark, trying different methods from Hindu and Buddhist traditions and other sources on the Internet, without any real progress. I proceeded to read and listen to various teachers and masters, through books and videos, trying to learn as much as I could in my free time. Gradually, through persistent experimentation and by trusting my own instinct for when something felt right or wrong, I learned the true essence and art of meditation. I found it to be beyond any single religion, tradition, philosophy, or discipline.
As a teenager, I struggled with purpose and questioned my belief in God which was given to me in childhood. I had an inexplicable sense that I was missing something essential, and that I needed to find out what it was. Something seemed lacking in the way that everyone around me was living their lives – mindlessly engaged in frivolous pursuits and following well-trodden paths, without questioning anything, whereas I seemed to want to question everything. This sense of questioning and inquiry persisted in me and grew over time, acting as a seed. Fortunately, I didn’t suppress it, but rather trusted it.
I graduated from college with a computer engineering degree, worked at a big company, and soon afterwards started my own business. I married the person who I loved. I even played and composed music at a professional level. I had love, family, my own business, my music – in short, nothing to really complain about. I was happy in the way that most people know happiness, as defined by pursuits, achievements, milestones, and possessions. Yet my happiness felt somehow shallow and weak, was easily punctured, and lacked the quality of fulfillment, despite all the so-called checkboxes being checked, despite my best efforts. Why wasn’t I content? Where was the fulfillment I had been promised?
Although I had learned to function properly in society, under the surface I was still lost and confused. I only pretended that I knew what I was doing and why – just like everyone else. I dealt haphazardly with bouts of depression and anxiety that came from this lack of sincerity. I was happy, but only “on paper”. And I observed and understood that everyone else who was “happy” was more or less in the same boat, whether they knew it or not. Happiness was dead; or at the very least it was defined incorrectly. It turned out that I was seeking and searching for something qualitatively different, but in the wrong places. What I had been searching for, what I had been missing, was a quality within myself – the quality of meditation.
My first real breakthrough happened on the morning of November 15th, 2014. By then I had been dabbling in meditation for several years, though never with any real success, to the point of frustration. On that day I had my first glimpse of a true meditative state. It was such a sudden shift, a quantum leap, that I wrote down the experience in hopes of replicating it:
November 15, 2014
I sat down for meditation with no expectations because I didn’t think it could be achieved. My primary goal was not to force my mind to achieve any particular state, but simply to do the exercise. I was going to say a mantra and accept whatever happened, but not use any force on my mind, because it was injured by mental stress. When I started, there were some disturbances and distractions (my left eye was twitching), but I chose to let them happen and acknowledged them. Most importantly, I did not treat the distractions as a failure, but just as something which was happening. Never did I try to suppress a distraction or thought – because I did not want to use any force; I let it take its course. That is when I entered a state of deep calm and stillness.
It wasn’t an ordinary kind of calm, but a qualitatively different feeling, something rapturous and extraordinary I had never felt before in 27 years of my life. It was as if a new, deeper level of my mind and body had become unlocked and opened. I had experienced for the first time what has been called samādhi, jhāna, kenshō, and many other names. I perceived that it wasn’t the mantra that had worked but rather my mindset of acceptance, effortlessness, and let-go – however accidental – that had transformed into a state of meditation. In that instance, the mindset was born out of a total failure of all other possible avenues, but the reason didn’t matter. Needless to say, the state was not permanent, and trying to replicate it was the wrong approach. Nevertheless, it was immensely valuable and instructive, and hard proof that meditation was real.
With persistent trial and error, I was able to enter the state of meditation more frequently. Each time, I experienced feelings of great serenity, blissful relief, and clearer insight into myself and why I behaved, felt, thought, and acted the way I did. It became a feedback loop of serenity and insight, a yin-yang phenomenon, where each brought about the next iteration of the other. At times the blissfulness was almost too intense, unbelievable, and the insights piercing, belief-shattering. I was surprised to learn later that the Buddha in his teachings describes serenity and insight as two complementary qualities developed through meditation, and they are considered to be concrete, reliable indicators of progress.
Some time in the year 2015, I stumbled upon a video of Osho, where a disciple asks him, “What did you do on the day you became enlightened?” His 20-minute response is simply luminous, divine – and followed with an unexpected crude joke! Finding the prolific teachings and video discourses of Osho became the most significant turning point in my understanding and practice of meditation. No other master in modern times, or perhaps ever, has lived and taught in such a way and in so many ways. Osho’s videos and books are a treasure trove of oceanic meditative consciousness, of endlessly innovative methods and devices, and of penetrating insights into almost every aspect and problem of human life. Any serious meditator would be remiss in ignoring or dismissing Osho.
Eventually, I started writing down methods that worked for me, mostly as notes for my own reference. I had gotten the knack of meditation, grasped the underlying methodology. I adjusted and reworked old methods to better align with myself in a modern context, and invented new ones whenever the need presented itself. The critical test for any method is that it should lead to the quintessential meditative space within you, one characterized by silence, peace, bliss, clarity, and insight.
Meditation revealed my own inner fulfillment and joyfulness as an initial condition – not something to strive for but something to realize as being already there. And this awareness has overflowed into and transformed my relationships with my loved ones and friends, my work, and every other aspect of my day-to-day life. Meditation doesn’t change what you do, but how you do it. I still work, I still have a family, and do every ordinary thing, but it is in my own unique and individual way. One doesn’t have to leave everything and go live in the mountains or forest to be a meditator. In fact, it is the opposite – meditation means being here and now, as you are, wherever you are, in a blissful and meditative way, without escaping to somewhere else. It is about allowing yourself to sink deeper into small, ordinary things in life, and finding great meaning, fulfillment, and divine beauty at their depths.
This path continues onward for me. It is a dynamic and ever-changing path, at times light or dark, sometimes winding, sometimes straight. But now I make an effort to allow and accept darkness when it comes, and to allow it to leave when it goes. I strive not to cling to the light and the positive and the happy, not to chase after it, but to let it come and go on its own too. I extend a gratitude towards both darkness and light, unconditionally, because each plays its part in the whole.
This website contains a collection of tried and tested methods which I found myself coming back to over and over again in many different iterations. I invite you to try them and experience for yourself the magic of meditation.