Reflections on meditation
Meditation
Alan Spence ©
Inspired by spiritual his teacher Sri Chinmoy, award-winning writer Alan Spence considers the meaning of meditation and its practice from a Hindu perspective.
Meditation is silence, energising and fulfilling
The nice thing about being up early in the morning is the stillness, the silence. The hustle of the day hasn't really started, and it's a good time to just sit, quiet and meditate.
My spiritual teacher Sri Chinmoy – a man I've known for over 30 years – expresses it beautifully:
Meditation is silence, energising and fulfilling. Silence is the eloquent expression of the inexpressible.
The key word here is energising. That quiet place inside us is a source of tremendous strength.
Sri Chinmoy ©
When we meditate what we actually do is enter into the deeper part of our being. Meditation is like going to the bottom of the sea, where everything is calm and tranquil. On the surface, there may be a multitude of waves, but the sea is not affected below. In its deepest depths it is all silence.
To enter into that place, now, first thing, is to tap that strength inside us, let it sustain us through the day.
When the waves come from the outside world, we are not affected. Fear, doubt, worry and all the earthly turmoils will just wash away.
Just take a moment, to breathe. Breathe slowly and evenly. Use your imagination, feel you're breathing out all the rubbish you want to let go of. Feel you're breathing in pure energy.
Meditation is silence, energising and fulfilling.
Silence liberates!
Sri Chinmoy tells a story about a pious man who studies the scriptures devotedly, and likes to discuss philosophy with a scholar who comes to visit him. They earnestly discuss the path to spiritual liberation, but deep in his heart, the man knows this endless talk is not bringing him any closer to attaining his goal. Now, it happens that the man has a little caged bird in his room, and he likes to hear it sing. But one morning he notices the bird is not singing at all, it has fallen completely silent. He speaks to the bird, tries to coax it, but it makes not a sound. Eventually the man opens the cage door and the bird, in an instant, escapes, flies out of the cage, through the open window of the room, and soars into the infinite freedom of the sky.
The bird taught his master an important spiritual lesson. Silence liberates!
We can talk endlessly, argue, discuss, debate. But the real truth of things, we discover in silence. Eventually we have to hush the mind and its chatter, discover that vastness in our hearts and soar into it.
That image of the bird in flight, going beyond the mundane, is at the heart of one of Sri Chinmoy's devotional songs:
Bird of my heart,
Fly on, fly on.
Look not behind.
What the world offers
Is meaningless, useless
And utterly false.
Bird of my heart,
Fly on.
And it recurs in one of his simple, beautiful, mantric poems:
My Lord, a tiny bird
Claims the vast sky.
Similarly the finite in me
Longs to claim
Your Infinite Absolute.Silence liberates.
Meditation speaks
Some years ago I edited a little collection of writings on meditation by my teacher, Sri Chinmoy. I called it The Silent Teaching. I wrote in the introduction that the title might seem strange, even paradoxical. To the mind accustomed to regard teaching as instruction, or practical demonstration, the notion that such a process can be silent, wordless, might be difficult.
But in discussing meditation, we are moving in a realm where, traditionally, truth is communicated directly, in silence, by a look, a gesture, a touch.
One of the best-known examples is Buddha's Flower Sermon. The Buddha came to address a large gathering and his lecture consisted of holding up a flower! One of his followers, Maha Kashapa, responded by smiling, and Buddha said in that moment the disciple had received everything. The teaching is not conveyed in words, he said, but in silence.
Sri Chinmoy's background is Hindu, but he expressed the same truth: All real spiritual teachers teach in silence.
But beyond that again, he realises our own 'real teacher' is deep within.
Your mind has a flood of questions. There is but one teacher who can answer them. Who is the teacher? Your silence-loving heart.
This 'silence-loving heart' is receptivity itself. It is our capacity to be still, be open, and simply listen. The mind has all the questions. The heart has, and is, the answer.
Meditation speaks. It speaks in silence. It reveals that our life is Eternity itself.