Of process of silence

 

 

 

WHAT an interpretation ! Ancient texts -- in any religion or culture or sect -- may not actually agree with such an interpretation. For, for reasons right and wrong, the word ‘meditation’ has assumed certain mystique over thousands of years of being around in public parlance. For most, meditation is something that is never ‘achieved’ or ‘fulfilled’ or ‘reached’ or ‘attained’! So, when they say they meditate, most people do not actually know what they do or propose to do. But sit still they truly do in physical mode, close their eyes, and chase something that they have never been able to define. So, emerging out of meditation, most people do say that they felt nice, but cannot actually define what had happened in their inner being. Their sense of quietness possibly comes from their sitting still without physical movement -- which they describe as meditation.

 

This is not unacceptable to the science of meditation, of course. For, when Maharshi Patanjali talks of Yog, In his iconic book ‘Yog Darshan’, he offers the fourth sutra: Sthir Sukhamasanam ! -- Stable (still) and comfortable position. (Position yourself in that manner -- still and absolutely at ease with one’s physical and emotional self. That is Sthir Sukhamasanam). When such a positioning of the body is attained, the individual practitioner does get a sense of quiet stability. Many term that as meditation -- to which there is nothing to object. Yet, in actual yogic definition, meditation is hardly that. In the Ashtang Yog (octagonal -- eight-faceted -- Yog), meditation comes at the second last stage. Here are the eight stages : Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyan (meditation), and Samadhi. Thus, meditation is a very highly refined stage of the coordination of the body, mind and soul -- which comes after a dedicated following of the first six that govern human conduct and help him or her lead to the superior stage of meditation where the parallax between the inner and outer beings of the person is altogether removed.

 

Jiddu Krishnamurti certainly knew of all these in fine detail as he was a practitioner of Yog by his own definition. Yet, for the benefit of common people desirous of practising meditation, he offered the definition -- following which comes silence. In other words, Krishnamurti has made meditation look easy or within the reach of common people with some commitment to the sublime. ‘Understand your own thoughts without judgment of right and wrong, and go along. When one becomes aware of how the complex mind operates in a back-and-forth manner, then one falls silent in a deeper contemplation. That is meditation, so to say. It is not important which definition one may follow. What is more important is the compelling idea of meditation. This idea is the starting point of the inner journey. By any standard, that journey is beautiful!