What is meditation? DAAJI explains why meditation is not really about thoughts. It takes us much deeper into the realm of feeling, and further beyond to the part of ourselves where we truly experience our inner being.
Meditation is often defined as thinking continuously about one object of thought. We often get stuck on this definition, however, and lose the real purpose of meditation. Meditation must reveal the true nature of that object upon which we are meditating. Such revelation comes not as a thought, but as a feeling. Therefore, meditation is a process in which we shift from thinking to feeling. It is a journey from the complexity of mind to the simplicity of heart. It is for this reason that most methods of meditation involve the heart.
Though we can easily remember an image or an idea, it is difficult to recollect a feeling.
Have you ever tried to recollect the taste of a meal you had many years back? You may vividly remember the place where you ate. You may even remember its ambience, but the actual taste of the food can never be retrieved. Why? It is because feeling is always in the present, in the now. Therefore, we cannot be happy with the feeling of a good meditation from eons back. Of course, the memory of a great revelation in meditation is good, but it is akin to someone who hits the jackpot once in his lifetime and is a beggar for evermore. The feeling we derive in meditation must become a permanent affair.
Yet, even feeling has its limitation. The heart is never truly satisfied with feeling. At some point, feeling becomes a burden, whether it is the feeling of pleasure, of joy, or even of bliss. Feelings are difficult to handle. In true meditation, we enter into absolute nothingness, a complete void of experience.
Photography by RASMUS MOGENSEN
![Daaji](https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/Daaji_6f8f38da86.jpg?&q=10)
Daaji
Kamlesh Patel is known to many as Daaji. He is the Heartfulness Guide in a tradition of Yoga meditation that is over 100 years old, overseeing 14,000 certified Heartfulness trainers and many volunteers in over 160 countries. He is an inn... Read More