Spirituality/Eastern: Feature: Meditation - A Yes to Life by Swami Dhyan Giten

How can we develop our presence? This book presents a new dimension of working with people with a base in meditation. This book aims on developing our natural healing capacity through meeting our inner being, our authentic self, the meditative quality within, the inner source of love, truth and wholeness.

The underlying theme of the book is to learn how to be with our self and with another person in meditation, in a quality of watchful awareness, acceptance and relaxation. It is about developing a meditative presence and quality, to develop the inner yes-quality, the inner source of healing and wholeness.

Meditation is to study our inner world. Meditation is the way to develop the presence, which is the base for healing and therapeutic work. Meditation is the golden key, which can help us to rediscover the contact with our inner being, with our life source.

Meditation is a yes to life. Meditation is learning to know ourselves. Meditation is an inner yes-quality of witnessing and affirming all that we already are. Sometimes we are in contact with this yes and sometimes we act automatically according to ideas, desires and learned attitudes. But through awareness and understanding, we can find new solutions that arise out of our yes to life.

Learning to say yes means to appreciate all steps and levels of our psychological and spiritual development process towards spiritual maturity. Learning to say yes mean to realize all our inner possibilities of presence, love, joy, trust, humour, laughter, truth, silence, freedom, wisdom and belongingness to life.

What is the heart of meditation? Meditation is the way to develop the presence, which is the base for healing- and therapeutic work. The heart of meditation is an inner quality of silence and emptiness. This is the inner being, the indefinable and boundless within ourselves. It is to watch the pure consciousness without content. It is like watching the clear blue sky of consciousness without any clouds that hides the sky. It is to understand who we really are beyond words. It is a direct existential insight into who we are.

One of my student - who participated in a 1-year seminar on the topic Meditation and Creativity, which I conducted once a week in Stockholm described what she learnt during the seminar by saying that she discovered a deeper part of herself, which she did not know existed before. She says: First I came in contact with all the feelings and everything that I did not want to listen to and know about myself. Then I came in contact with a deeper part of myself. I began to come in contact with an inner silence and inner calm that I did not know existed before. The perspective of witnessing thoughts and feelings, instead of being identified with them, also created a deeper contact with my real self and gave my life a new meaning.

Meditation is the way to develop our natural healing capacity - but not meditation as a static technique - but as the capacity for awareness, to let go and to be available to the living reality of this little, thriving precious moment. The essence of meditation is a quality of witnessing. It means to observe with an attitude of acceptance without interfering and without trying to change that which is now. Meditation is to witness the reality of the moment without any wish that the moment should be different than it is and without any will to change the moment in any way. When we can watch without interfering, we can see all our life problems in a new and creative light.

When we meditate, we develop trust. We develop our inner being, which creates a larger space and freedom within ourselves. This allows us to rest in ourselves and to be relaxed with whatever happens. This trust makes us come in a deeper contact with our inner being, our inner life source.

We have lost our capacity to trust. We have closed our heart. We have learnt to doubt and to be sceptical. We have learnt that nothing happens unless we fight and struggle. We have lost our trust in the basic support of Existence. We have lost our trust that Existence love us, supports us and tries to give us exactly what we need.

Meditation is the way to rediscover our basic trust in life. This trust brings us in a deeper contact with our inner being, with the inner yes-quality, with the silence and emptiness within, with the capacity to surrender to life.

To rediscover our basic trust in life is like sitting on a magic carpet and being lifted by an invisible magic wind and without any effort from our side life lifts us in an unexpected dance. Meditation is to discover the magic of what is.

We have all experienced those magic moments in life when life suddenly is perfect exactly as it is and everything happens easy and simple. It is those moments when we have the feeling: Ah, this is life! We have had spontaneous experiences of meditation many times although we may not have categorized these experiences as meditation. We have all experienced those rare moments when the moment suddenly becomes magical, when we experience a spontaneous love for all and everything and we have a feeling of being one with the Whole. We may have experienced those spontaneous moments of meditation in love, in aloneness, in a crisis, out in nature, in creativity or for not apparent reason at all. Those spontaneous experiences of meditation really glimpses of the love, joy, freedom, silence and wholeness of our inner being.

When we learn to meditate, we develop our inner being and create a larger space within ourselves, which makes us relaxed with whatever happens. We can allow the music of life, the dance of life, to flow unhindered through us.

Meditation is not really something new; meditation is our true inner nature. Meditation is the inner quality of our inner being. Meditation is our essence.

One of my course participants in a 1-week course on the topic Meditation and Creativity, which aims on developing the inner being and create an understanding that real creativity is born out of meditation, described what se learnt from the course as an understanding that meditation is not a static technique, but a way of being, a way of living with love, presence, joy, awareness and creativity that meditation is to say yes to life.

The process in meditation is like planting a small seed and to water and care for this seed with love, care and patience until it grows up to a large tree.

Meditation is to learn to be with our self. Meditation is to learn to be alone. It is to learn that aloneness is a source of love, joy, acceptance, silence, freedom and belongingness with life, where we do not need anybody or anything to be happy and satisfied.

I notice that when I say yes and accept my feeling of loneliness, of being abandoned and not loved, it transforms into aloneness. It transforms it into an inner source of lobe, joy, relaxation, freedom and wholeness. It is when I say no to the feeling of loneliness, when I resist it, that it becomes a cause of fear and pain.

Learning to be alone is to appreciate and enjoy our own aloneness. It is to be happy and satisfied in our own aloneness. In our own aloneness, we find our own inner source of love.

Meditation is to love our own aloneness; meditation is to love our self in our own aloneness.

All situations can be used as an opportunity for meditation. Both positive and negative experiences, both joy and sorrow, both love and aloneness and both light and darkness, can be used to develop our meditation.

Life is an opportunity for meditation. Life is an opportunity to develop the two wings of life, the two aspects of existence: love and meditation. Meditation is a quality in the moment. Meditation is not just a technique, a formal method, or a goal. Meditation is the way to rediscover the contact with our authentic being, with our inner diamond. It is to rediscover the joy, freedom, silence and wholeness of our inner being. It is to rediscover the original life source, where we already are one with ourselves and with life. Meditation is to come home.

To become more aware about how your meditation is developing, take a conscious decision to write a meditation journal every evening during one month. When you wake up in the morning, remember that this is a new opportunity for meditation. Take a decision deep in your heart that today I will be aware and bring a meditative presence and quality to all activities during the day. Be continuously aware during the day about the difference between when you become identified with different thoughts, feelings and learnt concepts and when you are present and conscious.

Be thankful in the evening for everything that has happened during the day as both negative and positive experiences, both joy and sorrow, both light and darkness and both success and failure are teacher in meditation. Write the meditation journal in the evening during 10-15 minutes about when you did succeed and when you did not succeed in being conscious during the day. Do not judge or evaluate whether you succeeded or not with being conscious during the day, but let this meditation journal be a way to become more conscious and let your meditation grow both in relation to your self, in relation to other people, in relation to work and creativity and in relation to life itself.

The essence of meditation is a quality of watchful awareness of the thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations and outer stimuli. This is an exercise in four steps, which you begin with sitting comfortably. The turn your attention within and watch your breathing, which raises the stomach when you breathe in and lowers your stomach again when you breathe out.

The go with your inner attention to the thoughts and watch you thoughts like clouds that come and go on the sky. Then continue with your inner attention to the feelings and see what feelings there are in the body without trying to change the feelings. Finally go with your inner attention to the physical body and watch the sensations in the body without any will to change these sensations.

This meditation aims on painting a picture of your experience of meditation. This picture can either be naturalistic or abstract. If you do this meditation together with a partner, take some time to discuss your painting with your partner.

This is an exercise to become aware of the rhythm between meditation and love, between aloneness and relating. Be aware when it is authentic to be alone together with yourself and when it is authentic to relate with other people.

When it is authentic to be alone with yourself, then allow yourself to give yourself this time to yourself and allow your alones to be an inner source of love, joy, relaxation, silence, freedom and wholeness.