Sometimes meditation is quite simple and natural. I sit down, enter my body, become aware of my sensory apparatus and of how my consciousness and intellect engage with it, bring everything to rest, and higher consciousness shows itself, another kind of knowledge, space and time, another world of experience …
Sometimes, though, it is difficult, and then I learn how meditation really works. I sit down; a chaos of thoughts and feelings spreads out. It takes a long time before I even notice this, so caught am I in my head. When I notice it, I focus on my breath, try to become conscious of my body. There is an outside, a body, an inside. These are connected through the breath. I become aware that I am alive, that my body and mind are alive, and I ask myself what that means. To be alive, to be conscious, to think, to feel. This is a good moment to concentrate on the chakras. Different levels of being. Kundalini, the snake, is a good guide. She coils and stretches, crawls upward through the different levels of being, through matter, sexuality, the world of feelings, through the heart and language, the intellect and consciousness, then through the experience of Satchitananda, of higher consciousness. This path can move quickly, a few little minutes, or take its time, pause and look closely at what is happening on the levels. In doing so, I notice that my sitting position changes, outwardly probably imperceptibly, inwardly, however, radically. A small, tiny correction in the posture of the spine opens a new level, a new plateau, and releases energies. It is a little like building a tower with wooden blocks. If the base is right, I can build very high. If the first floors are completely crooked and chaotic, things become very shaky and unstable higher up.
This is a delicate walk along a ridge, for the still position is very important in meditation. I also tend to take a relatively strict position in half lotus, sometimes in full lotus. It helps with what I have described. The still position, almost rigid when viewed from outside, is highly agile from within. I really need at least 20–30 minutes to activate the basic elements and bring them into an energetic line. The body is so complex: it lives, feels, breathes, thinks, smells and hears, aches and experiences happiness. To think that it is only a matter of becoming calm is a very great misunderstanding. The body is the most complex instrument we have, and at the same time so little used. The different practices of yoga serve precisely this exploration. With practice one can become truly virtuosic, and then spaces open up that one did not know before and mocked when others spoke about them.
These inner worlds are worlds of the spiritual. Meditation opens the space in which almost everything seems possible. I like meditation because it allows these worlds to be explored slowly and gently. Of course, this is also possible through trance, substances, rituals, collective experiences. Countless cultures have gathered an enormous treasure of practices over the past millennia. But these are a little uncanny to me. It is a little like someone taking me to a party, and suddenly one is standing in a highly energetic space, immerses oneself and becomes part of it, loses oneself and connects, has new experiences, an intoxication of the senses. These experiences are wonderful, but they do not give me the foundation to explore my existence. To some extent I am at their mercy. In meditation, by contrast, all paths are open. It is not my Self navigating there, but rather a higher Self; yet I am in contact with my Self, can steer this if I wish, although such an intervention within a deep meditation is critical: it can easily throw it back onto lower levels.
These worlds, in which my higher Self connects with a higher consciousness, are states of bliss. It is what the Upanishads call deep sleep, for the body is entirely in deep sleep, consciousness is not stimulated by the body’s senses. For meditation as deep sleep, the body does not exist. The consciousness into which mine immerses itself is a spiritual experience. Yet it is quite real. It is my consciousness that connects. It is here and now, it is this world, not another. It is immanence. Simply a fuller reality. A sleep that is really the highest waking state, for it is not distracted by outer sensory impressions. Perhaps the snake that, with seven heads, shades the heads of some gods and protects them from rain has this symbolism: that much can be seen at once, that levels of our body can be present in conscious clarity. The seven rivers of the Rigveda, the seven levels of existence … These images here in India are always so infinitely complex.
At the same time, many plateaus through which Kundalini flows have long since entered everyday consciousness for me. Contemplation and reflection, sensuality and enjoyment, living through emotions and sorting thoughts, weighing things and deciding: all these are levels of my existence that I can accept as such. It is not a matter of doing the “right” things expected by society, but of taking them seriously as phenomena, letting them count as manifestations of the world, and making them conscious and navigating them as well as possible. In this way I become a witness to reality, which — in itself and for itself — can do little to me. It is a gift of life to be able to have these experiences. Part of the meaning of life seems to lie in this. This living through …
Sometimes meditation is simple and sometimes difficult. Sometimes it comes just like that, and some things have to be practiced. There are a few aids and countless paths toward it. There is no right way. Everything is okay, for everything is reality; there is nothing other than reality. Some paths are more difficult, and some have consequences, that’s it.
Further reading:
Aurobindo: Life Devine, Book II, Chapter VI, Reality and the Cosmic Illusion.
