Is Meditation Really as Beneficial as People Claim? || Acharya Prashant, NIT-Trichy (2024)

Acharya Prashant

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Transcript

00:00Namaste Acharyaji, I am Meghna, a student here.

00:05My question is, is meditation worth the hype?

00:08So we usually associate meditation with spirituality and I was interested in understanding if it

00:14had any physiological effect, a mind-body connection of sorts.

00:21If you will listen carefully right now, this listening itself is meditation.

00:29You have to draw a distinction between meditation and methods of meditation.

00:38Probably what you are asking about is methods of meditation.

00:43Meditation is one thing, methods of meditation are another thing.

00:49It's a problem, an unfortunate problem that today the methods are being called as meditation.

01:02Meditation is attention itself.

01:07Right now I am meditating, you two are meditating.

01:09This is meditation and meditation is what makes us human.

01:17Meditation is understanding itself and if meditation is so valuable that it is at the

01:27center of our humanness, then meditation has to be continuous, uninterrupted, 24x7 and

01:40no method can be continuous or uninterrupted or 24x7.

01:44Methods by their definition must start and stop and methods by their definition are limited

01:56by conditions.

01:59Some method will require you to not to speak, some method will require you to squat on the

02:07floor, some method will require you to wait for a particular time.

02:13Let's say 4 am in the morning.

02:18But meditation is so fundamentally important that you cannot wait for a particular condition

02:28or bodily pose or time to enter it.

02:34Meditation is like the inner breath itself, just as this body cannot wait to breathe.

02:43Similarly your consciousness cannot wait to meditate.

02:50Consciousness needs meditation all the time just as the body needs the breath all the

02:54time and therefore meditation has to be silent and continuous like breath itself.

03:10You are meditating right now and this is the most beautiful kind of meditation because

03:15it is happening silently in the background without you even knowing it.

03:25If meditation has to be limited to a particular time or a particular condition, then it will

03:31be unfortunately broken all the time.

03:36If you have to close your eyes while meditating, then how will you meditate while driving?

03:45And don't you need to meditate while driving?

03:48What is all the road rage about?

03:52If people were meditative, would they drive the way they do?

03:59But you have been told, your favorite teacher is telling you that you need to meditate by

04:05doing this.

04:06Now if you do this, then there is a problem on the road.

04:11And if you don't meditate at all, then again there is a problem on the road.

04:16Problem both ways, which means there is something wrong in the fundamentals, in the definition.

04:24Meditation is a way of life.

04:28Meditation is the most beautiful love affair you can have.

04:38People talk of romance.

04:41Why not romance the truth?

04:47Romance is your unending date with the truth.

04:52You see, when you are on a date, it's not as if you are looking at the other person

04:57all the time, especially if you are meeting that person frequently.

05:04It could be a working date then.

05:05Fine, let's meet somewhere, let's sit across a table.

05:11You have your own laptop, I have mine and we work and that's a date.

05:18So even as you are doing something on your laptop, a certain nearness is there, a certain

05:26togetherness is there, right?

05:28Now that's meditation.

05:30I might be doing anything, still I am close to you.

05:34Closeness does not mean that continuously we are looking into each other's eyes.

05:38You are doing your own thing, I am doing my own thing, yet we are together.

05:42That's meditation.

05:43Throughout the day I am doing my own thing, yet I am with the truth.

05:47Ma'am, when do you do the truth?

05:50I never do the truth.

05:51I am always with the truth.

05:52I am doing something else.

05:56I am doing something on my laptop, but I am with the truth.

06:00Now that's meditation.

06:01Irrespective of what I am doing throughout the day, I am with the truth.

06:07That's meditation.

06:09And this meditation is not subject to the limits of the various methods.

06:18All methods are limitations.

06:21Some method will say that you must have a rosary, some method will say you must have

06:27something else.

06:28There are like hundreds of methods of meditation.

06:32They are for rank beginners.

06:35They are just to give you some little flavor of inner peace, so that you are encouraged

06:43to plunge neck deep, nose deep, head deep into the real thing.

06:53If the flavor is great, will you not buy into an entire basket of the product?

06:59Please tell me.

07:06You go to some decent shop selling toiletries, body oil, hair oil or perfumes.

07:17The first thing they will take you to is samples.

07:20And what will they do there?

07:22Ma'am, try this one.

07:23And a little bit sprayed on your...

07:27You are not supposed to be satisfied with this much.

07:31If you like this, then you pay the price and get the entire bottle.

07:37That's meditation.

07:40And all that we do in the name of meditation is this.

07:42Okay, I want to try that one now.

07:45And having tried all these, you get some little aroma and you get satisfied with this and

07:50you walk out and say, you know, I have fooled the shopkeeper.

07:54Next day you again walk in and say, you know, I want to try that one.

07:56No, no, don't spray it here.

07:57Spray it here.

07:58Spray it here.

08:00Surely you don't have much appetite for love.

08:06You get satisfied with too little.

08:08You must have a giant appetite for love.

08:12I'm not satisfied.

08:13I want more.

08:14Give me more.

08:19Madness of love.

08:20That's meditation.

08:21Not something dry, not something ritualistic, not something time bound.

08:26If I love you, how can I be away from you even for a split second?

08:31That's meditation.

08:41See in those shops in small towns, you go to those places and you say, you know, that

08:46particular mithai, I want to taste it.

08:49So that one.

08:53In that way you quench your appetite and walk away without paying anything.

08:58This reluctance to pay up is called methods of meditation.

09:03This stinginess and this dishonesty is methods of meditation.

09:09You're thinking you have cheated the shopkeeper.

09:11No, you have cheated yourself.

09:15If you really loved the burfi, why didn't you pay up?

09:22That little piece was meant to convince you that the entire kg is worth the price, no?

09:37But we meditate for 30 minutes every day and say this is it.

09:4030 minutes every day.

09:43What kind of loveless person would this be?

09:46If you loved those 30 minutes, why did you let the thing stop?

09:53You sat down with your eyes closed and you say you loved the piece you got, then why

09:58did you open your eyes and get up?

10:01If you really loved the piece you got while sitting in meditation, why did you then open

10:05your eyes and get up?

10:06No, because I have my worldly responsibilities to take care of.

10:10Then you love your worldly responsibilities more than you love meditation.

10:17Are you even a man then?

10:20You are a social slave.

10:24But you cannot meditate all the time.

10:28A fellow has a shop to run.

10:30Then you are not a meditator, you are a shopkeeper.

10:33And your entire meditation is devoted to your shop.

10:37You want to meditate just so that you can run your shop more smoothly.

10:44Meditation is just a servant to your shop.

10:50And your shop is such that running your shop gives you a lot of tension.

10:55So you meditate so that that tension can be somehow cleared away and you can again return

10:59to that shop just to earn more tension.

11:11If someone uses a method of meditation for 10 days, 20 days, 2 months, that's possible.

11:22But if someone says he has been into one particular method of meditation for 20 years, this fellow

11:26is crooked.

11:31Why did your meditation not turn into a subtle and silent love affair?

11:42Why did it not become your breath and your heartbeat?

11:45Why did it remain a mere method?

11:54And such is our crookedness that we call the methods as meditation.

12:00It is not meditation.

12:02It is a trick.

12:06How can be a trick with the truth?

12:08In fact, by calling a trick as the truth, you are trying to trick the truth.

12:14That's what a method of meditation is.

12:17You are trying to trick the truth.

12:19You are saying, you know, I can use a particular method and get you.

12:24You are so inflated in your ego that you think that you can even trick the truth.

12:31The truth demands unconditional and continuous surrender, not some trick.

12:3724x7 you have to be devoted to the truth itself.

12:41That's meditation.

12:47Not some exotic trick.

12:49On a full moon night, go get drenched in goat urine and sit under a banyan tree and open

13:03your mouth and gape at the moon.

13:06And that's the greatest meditation you can have.

13:08And obviously, all this while, just keep remembering your great guru.

13:14Remember the great guru, open your mouth and stare at the moon and you will be enlightened.

13:26Such a fool the ego is, it tries to fool the truth.

13:31It thinks by doing these kinds of cheap tactics, it will come to salvation.

13:42We want to preserve our everyday life as it is and relegate meditation to one corner

13:47of our existence.

13:50The everyday life should run as it runs.

13:53And because the everyday life generates a lot of fire and smoke and heat, so let me

13:59meditate to somehow keep things cool and calm.

14:06Meditation I said is crazy love.

14:09When it comes, it possesses you.

14:12It takes over your entire life.

14:16You can no more operate from the same center.

14:21You are somebody else now.

14:23You are no more.

14:25Meditation is.

14:27Meditation is the master.

14:28It commands you.

14:29You are the servant.

14:30And it commands you all the time.

14:33You don't speak.

14:35Meditation speaks through you.

14:36You don't even know what you are saying.

14:38Because you are not doing the talking.

14:39Somebody else is talking through you.

14:43That's meditation.

14:45You are the servant.

14:46But when you apply a method of meditation, then you are the master.

14:51The ego wants to be the master whereas it deserves to be a slave.

14:57Are you getting it?

15:07Unfortunately, commercial spirituality has turned meditation into a little product whereas

15:19it is the highest degree of devotion possible.

15:26Meditation is love, prem, bhakti, everything.

15:34And meditation is nothing special or unique.

15:41Reading a book, you are meditating.

15:42And if you are not meditating while reading a book, are you even reading?

15:49Speaking I am meditating.

15:51Listening you are meditating.

15:52And if either of us is not meditating, are we even speaking or listening?

15:59Playing tennis, I have to be meditative.

16:04Or else I will be double faulting all the time.

16:08And if I double fault, I know the problem is not with the serve but with the server.

16:14The server had something that disrupted his meditation.

16:29Baking bread, you have to be meditative.

16:32Washing clothes, not just the great tasks of the day but even simple things like doing laundry.

16:49Do you want to be with your sweetheart only when you are doing the great things or do

16:54you want to be with him or her all the time?

16:58That's meditation.

17:00Even when I am doing the laundry, I want you to be here.

17:05Where?

17:07Here.

17:09Not somebody next to you.

17:17Great jewels of wisdom appeared from Saint Kabir's meditation when he would be weaving

17:25clothes.

17:26What is he doing?

17:29Just weaving like an ordinary weaver.

17:33But he was with his beloved.

17:35And from that what we get is the highest pieces of wisdom humanity ever had.

17:45My hands are busy with the warp and the weft and the shuttle.

17:52But my mind is with the beloved.

17:59And from there you get the bhajans, the abhangs, the shlokas.

18:08Most of those pieces were not written in solitude.

18:16They were spontaneous pieces of exuberance while the speaker was actually involved ostensibly

18:27in something else.

18:32Doing something else he says something and it turns out to be the highest thing you can

18:36ever hear.

18:37That's meditation.

18:38Are you getting it?

18:49Methods of meditation can be taught and sold.

18:54Meditation can neither be taught nor be sold.

18:58And that's the reason why methods are popular and why methods are being sold as meditation.

19:08Because meditation itself is impossible to be sold.

19:13It is something that can be awakened but never taught.

19:18It is love.

19:19How can you teach love?

19:21You can awaken love.

19:22By pointing at stuff that is not love.

19:24You can say, you know, this that you think of as love is not love at all.

19:29Discard it.

19:30Going through the market, just pulling water from the well or just cooking some food, something

19:57reveals itself to you.

20:00That's meditation.

20:12You are here and still not here.

20:21You are looking at something very ordinary and you are seeing something supremely extraordinary.

20:26You are looking at the surface of things and the core is revealing itself to you.

20:39In the shadow, you are seeing the tree.

20:45In the part, you are seeing the whole.

20:54That's meditation.

21:10In death, you are seeing deathlessness.

21:18In words, you are listening to silence.

21:27That's meditation.

21:35I don't want to finish this answer.

21:37That's meditation.

21:38It's a love affair.

21:43Something says, look at the clock.

21:47Something says, take care of your throat.

21:50Something says, measure your temperature.

21:55And something says, just go on and on till you drop dead.

22:00That's meditation.

22:03The madness of stubborn love.

22:18Thank you, sir.

22:33Thank you.

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