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Knowing about God is good but when we start expecting that this will happen or that will happen then the whole concentration is lost. This has happened with me- I read few books on meditation and the experiences of yogis. I learnt about out of body experience and my mind was wanting that badly. I started meditating only to get those experiences. I was in that phase for a long time. But eventually I realized that is not meditation and I thought that if I hadn"t read those experiences I wouldn"t have expected anything.
Lalita (Name changed), USA |
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In my view there are three important phases to remember in this respect:
Phase 1: Meditation without Guru
The meditation done by an individual (without a Guru) is always a phase before the start of the ultimate journey to the God. It is highly likely that a person will NOT get any experiences in this phase of the journey during the meditation. The meditation done during this phase is no different than making 21 pradakshina (rounds) around the lord Ganesha…but it is always better than doing the pradakshina around the lord Ganesha for some material benefit. The real journey starts ONLY when a Guru comes in the seeker’s life.
Phase 2: Guru initiates an individual on the path towards God
The guru WILL come in the life of the seeker when the seeker is ready (The fact is - The God is ALWAYS more eager to meet the seeker than the seeker is to meet the God.) Whenever the Guru (Sadguru) comes in the life of the seeker, the second and final stage of the journey to the God starts (unless the person does not use the opportunity in this life – unfortunately the fact of the life is - many people do not use such an opportunity given by the God). This is the stage where the seeker of the God will start getting experiences (at the same time it is not necessary that all the seekers WILL get the experiences). Going beyond the experiences: the seeker in this stage is expected to ignore all the experiences during the journey – simply because the God is not the experiences, The God is ALWAYS beyond the experiences.
Phase 3: Self-realization or God is the goal, experiences are not
Seeker should be focused on the ultimate destination (the self-realization) and ignore all the experiences he may or may not get during the journey. We should look at the experiences with the indifference with which we look outside the window during a travel. There are many things moving outside and we are looking at them, and never get too excited about them, because we are very much aware that this is not the destination and we are always focused on the final destination in our mind. Travel to the God is very much similar.
God is beyond experiences, so ignore the experiences or stages of progress
So the bottom line is: The seeker should IGNORE all the experiences (or no experiences too), even the thoughts of experiences and continue to SEEK the God…He is beyond all the experiences. He is the BLISS (Chaitanya, Sat-chit-Anand). Experiences are just like the signs on the road (which are never the destination but just there to tell you that you are on some road.…the traveler does not even know if the road is right or not, only the driver knows it…and the guru is your driver) At the same time person should not get affected if they don’t see the signs… God is there with the seeker taking extreme care as long as we continue to seek God.
I am very much aware I am making many conflicting statements above. But that is how it is. Every statement mentioned above stands to be true in it own perspective.
Hope this helps.
Thank you.
Mahendra Joshi
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