Thursday, November 20, 2008

Enlightenment!

It is a well known story that Prince Siddartha left all his duties and sat under the "bodhi tree" and attained enlightenment. So how did he get this enligthenment? The books will say by meditation. What did he meditate on? Hard to say, because the great Buddha himself did not reveal it.

Yoga teaches us one form of meditation. In this form of meditation, you train your mind to concentrate nsomething, like your breathing. But is this kind of meditation enough for enlightenment? I guess not. As human beings our minds constantly work overtime. So many thoughts in such little space! Concentration is difficult and besides once it is gone, we are back to our normal thoughts.

So how should I meditate? Here's my two cents of knowledge on how to meditate:
First find a time when you have absolutely nothing to do.....say a couple of hours. Then find a quite place, the best place may be the restroom. (No offense to the great souls, I am just keeping up with the times!) Take a deep breath and exhale, clear your respiratory system. Close your eyes and try not to sleep. Now summon the first thought. Think about it analyze it, express you opinion to your thought. Once you have dwelled on it enough, dismiss it. Then call on the next thought and do the same thing. A few thoughts a day clears your mind to an extent.

We have so many thoughts. To clear each one of them will take years. So now you know why the great souls spent many years meditating before they became enlightened!

2 comments:

Dr. L. Ramakrishnan said...

My dear Indhu,

I see that you agree with me that the "rest room" is the most peaceful place on earth. Great revelation !!!! I have told you many times that great discoveries happened in "rest rooms", where the mind/brain probably works better!!!

Love

Appa

Anonymous said...

//

Close your eyes and try not to sleep. Now summon the first thought. Think about it analyze it, express you opinion to your thought. Once you have dwelled on it enough, dismiss it. Then call on the next thought and do the same thing. A few thoughts a day clears your mind to an extent.//

Hope you took it for granted that, in between the person should do the needful, to avoid a painful cleaning process later?

O'wise meditation poi irriation than..lol