Before coming to the ashram, I thought meditation meant sitting in silence and coming up with possible solutions to current problems in my life. I was far from it, meditation being “the art of going within and experiencing the power and presence of God”, as Guruji likes to simply define it. I learned from him the desired result of meditation is to go outside the mind and body and experience your divine Self that exists in each one of us.

The topic of meditation is very broad and so are the learnings and lessons related I have received so far in my experience at the ashram during our sacred conversation sessions, as well as by reading Vasudeva’s writings. In my blog today I would like to share one quote from his book Seek God Within (page 36): “The goal of meditation is to go beyond body and mind and experience your spiritual Self within. When you are in body consciousness, you feel the pain and pleasure of the senses. When you are at the level of the mind, thoughts elevate and depress you. But when you begin to experience the Soul within, when you go beyond body and mind in your prayer and meditation, you are going to experience a supreme happiness inside of you – a happiness that cannot be compared to anything in the world! If you think that money can bring you happiness or that the pleasure of the senses can bring you happiness, you are still to learn what true happiness really is”. This to me is what freedom really means. We are captivated by our body and mind and meditation is the process that can set us free.

How does this relate to me?

I WANT TO BE FREE! I want to experience this happiness. The desire is one fact that brings us closer to our goal. Knowing what we want to accomplish is key. I have to admit at first it seemed easier said than done. I had to rely very much on the help and guidance from Guruji in order to overcome challenges that came up in the process. For example, accepting my thoughts, becoming aware, being an observer, surrendering, following inner guidance and intuition are just a few concepts I learned from Guruji and I will address them in more details in some of my future blog entries.

I came to the ashram to find self-identity. Meditation is a key element in finding this. Sri Vasudeva says “mediation is a journey into consciousness” or “it’s a journey in self-awareness”. This definition implies this being a journey away from the “physical being” and into a different world. He explains to us often in our sacred conversation meetings that humans have the strong tendency to believe they are the body and the mind. This is an illusion that makes is very difficult to see that we are anything different than our physical body. The idea is to think of ourselves as “consciousness embodied”, but consciousness should come first and the body after. People in general are doing the contrary, by being very used to experience the body first then trying to figure out what the consciousness is. The essence of meditation is the opposite. What it does is opens up the truth; it gives you the opportunity to experience that “you are consciousness living in the body”.

Being at the ashram and meditating with the master himself is a wonderful experience because he is so very rooted into consciousness that the energy generated by him can be felt immediately in the entire meditation hall. It is very easy to be drawn into that wonderful space an incredible energy. There are days when I could be tired or hungry but once I get into the hall and I sit in quite mediation with our guru, I can pick up on his energy and able to let go of the physical body related thoughts and go into a space of love and “infinite possibilities”, the space of consciousness. This has been so far the best experience of my life… more to come