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This active and restless mind can be made to rest. Let the mind be restful without any activity and interaction. This restfulness – willfully bringing your mind to it – is called meditation. This is the scope of meditation.

Hariḥ Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. At some time or the other, many of you might have wondered: What is this meditation? What is its purpose? And, how to do it? I do not know what all answers you seekers have found out. I was thinking about it. Let me explain it in a very simple manner.

Restfulness of the mind

Early in the morning you wake up and open your eyes. Since then, till you go to sleep, the eyes have no rest at all. They are constantly working. Along with the eyes, other organs of the body also become active. You have to get up, sit and move, making your legs walk. You will be acting or interacting.

Though the legs are constantly moving and though you are continuously acting and interacting, don’t you give some rest to the legs and to your body? You take a little time and let the body rest somewhere, sitting or lying down somewhere. What do you think of such restfulness? Is it not necessary? Is it pleasant? Is it practicable?

Exactly in the same manner, ever since you wake up, your mind is active and interactive. This active and restless mind can be made to rest. Let the mind be restful without any activity and interaction. This restfulness – willfully bringing your mind to it – is called meditation. This is the scope of meditation.

When the body needs rest, it generally sits on a chair or lies on a cot or even on the floor. Are you sensitive to hear and understand what I say? For the body to rest, you require a medium other than the body – either a chair or a cot or the ground.

Mind resting on itself

But when the mind needs to rest, it cannot rest on any physical object. The mind has been thinking and thinking, constantly. Let us make it rest. But where will it rest? The body could comfortably rest on the chair, or on the cot. Where will the mind rest? The mind has to rest on itself!

Now, this restfulness of the mind on its own essence, is called meditative absorption. Everybody will try to meditate, and then complain: my mind is restless; so many unwanted thoughts are coming; the mind goes here and there, all over the place.

But is it really true? The mind never goes away from the body. If it goes even once away from the body, it can never return. Your body will have to be taken to the cremation ground. So, be clear: the mind never goes out of the body. It is always associated with the body until the last moment.

Power & potential of Self-abidance

There is something called restfulness of the mind. This is what we try to get or attain by meditation. Meditation becomes meaningful and fulfilling provided you understand this principle and you are able to make the mind quiet and restful. This quietness has to take place in the level of the mind. That is the fruition of meditation. Now, think for yourself: Is not such restfulness good? Is it not necessary for the mind?

When the mind rests by the process of meditation, you will discover its enormous power and potential. First of all, it will get surcharged by the very source of creation. Have you thought about it? Within you is the source of your own personality. It is also the source of the whole creation. That source is where the mind will rest. From there the mind draws any amount of energy and enthusiasm. Let it be soaked with drive, insight, or any other quality it aspires for! So, make the mind rest, and try to draw on the great source within.

Ātmanā vindate vīryam – From the Self one attains potency. This is the purpose of meditation.

Hariḥ Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.

– Vicharasethu Nov 2024