It is so nice to be back in Berlin.
So today we are talking about meditation, right!
What is meditation? Why do we want meditation? In order to go deep within ourselves, to understand ourselves or to learn anything about ourselves we need to be in a cordial and homely atmosphere. A formal atmosphere is not congenial.
Do you all feel at home? Why don’t you take just a moment to greet the person on either side of you and behind you.
Now tell me, how many of you think that meditation is concentration? No! You will be disappointed, meditation is not concentration. It is de-concentration.
To do any work, you need concentration but to relax and expand you don’t need concentration. Relaxation is the mother of concentration and so if you relax well, you are able to concentrate better. Isn’t that so?
Now how do we relax? That is what we will see this evening. As I am speaking, do you notice what is happening in your mind? Just notice, your mind says, ‘yes’, or ‘no’. Do you see a dialogue happening within you? It is very important to notice this dialogue.
So there are simple principles that we need to understand about meditation. Before we go into that, let’s see what the benefits of meditation are.
How many of you would like to know the benefits of meditation?
The first benefit of mediation is it improves the bio-energy in our body; in our system. Have you noticed, sometimes you meet someone and for no reason you don’t want to talk to them. Whereas with some other people whom you have not met so often, still you feel some sort of closeness with them and you feel comfortable. This is because of the positive energy. Meditation creates positive and harmonious energy around us.
The second benefit is it improves health. There are number of researches on how meditation helps in hypertension, diabetes, heart problems, skin problems, nervous system problems and a number of other problems.
Third, meditation can help one to keep a pleasant mood. It is a big help in preventing many of the mental illness and physical illness.
Apart from the health benefits, meditation improves concentration. It helps one to be in the present moment. The mind vacillates between the past and the future. We are either angry about the past or anxious about the future, all the time. So meditation helps keep the mind from swinging between the past and the future to be more in the present.
Meditation is a journey from sound to silence, from movement to stillness. I would say that meditation is food for the soul.
Music is food for emotions; knowledge is food for the intellect, entertainment is food for the mind and meditation is the food for our soul or spirit.
So let us do a short meditation. Let’s nurture our emotions with music first and then we will learn a little more.
(A short meditation followed)
There are a number of meditations in CDs that I have made. In the beginning you can put on a CD and meditate. Later on you can do it by yourself. And some breathing techniques, pranayama and Sudarshan Kriya will all help you go deep in meditation.
Do you have any questions? I will take some questions.
Also Sudarshan Kriya will help you, so do the basic course and the Kriya.
This very question is useful. The question itself uplifts your spirit and creates a journey for you. So keep the question, it is very precious. One day you will discover it.
Spend a few minutes in meditation and do some good work in society. Help those who are in need. Then everything will open up.
How much can you hold on? Sooner or later you have to let go and the faster you do it, the better it is. And what can help you to do it faster is wisdom. Wake up and see everything is changing. Meditation will definitely help. I usually say that we repair the broken hearts here. It gets back to the very same position it was in the beginning. No scars and no pain.
Professor D’Hoore from Germany is one of the greatest scientists of our time and he said something interesting. He said, ‘I studied matter for forty years only to know it doesn’t exist.’
I said, ‘this is what we say in the Vedantic philosophy, the same thing.’
It is possible.
But worry should not take away your smile, your enthusiasm and your energy to do things now.
How do you know if you have eaten enough? How do you know you slept enough? In the same way when you are doing the right thing your heart will tell you, ‘yes, I am doing the right thing.’
In India, people who are in the spiritual field, either they shave everything or keep everything. This is the uniform, so I prefer to keep everything.
But it is not a big deal, tomorrow I can take everything off, but I won’t change. I will be the same.
Don’t go by one’s external appearance and dress, this is secondary. What is primary is what is inside. How pure the heart is and how clear the head is; clarity and purity. And remember we are all born with such pure hearts. I have maintained it that is all the difference. Many have not maintained what they were born with, but I maintained it somehow. I refuse to grow up!
Karma is the impression in the mind. Karma is the action that is happening now and Karma is a future impression that the action might create.
When human values go up, when people start relating to each other as human beings and when we consider the whole world as one family having a sense of belongingness to everybody then the whole atmosphere can change. Isn’t it so?
I have been all over the world but I have never felt not at home anywhere. I have always felt at home with everybody and I feel that everyone can feel that way too. Care for the planet and care for the people. What do you all say?
You watch the news and you see so many people are being killed every day. See what is happening in Sudan. Just now, before coming on to the stage I saw the news; five thousand eight hundred people have been killed in Syria in the last seven to eight months. It is so inhuman to do such things.
I feel that they don’t know how to live, they don’t know the art of living; they only know the art of killing. We need to teach people how to live in harmony; how to love, rather than fight and destroy each other and destroy the planet. It is very painful, isn’t it?
Anyone with a little bit of heart, looking at all this violence will say, ’oh, my God, there is not enough time to express one’s love, where is the time to kill and fight with each other for nothing. Everybody is any way going to die.’
For what? For just a few more dollars kill each other. Unfortunate!
Talk to the teachers and they will do something.
If there are some basic reforms in the share market, the economy in the world would become so much better and stable, and prosperity for everyone will come.
It relates to a poem of yours. There are a few lines which say, ‘The clouds become so beautiful; noise becomes a beautiful melody, and rain becomes a fluid sun shine.’
How to change the perceptions so that we can live like that?
