This is a #blastfromthepast inspired piece.
The Story
When my best friend was about to get married, we were wondering the best way to celebrate her bachelorette party. We didn’t drink and we weren’t about to head to Pondicherry to stare at an ocean we already had access to in our own city. An ordinary party with music and dancing would have been fun, but a little passé. We were trying to come up with something that would leave a lasting impression.
Our solution was to bug Daaji and ask if we could have lunch with him. Thankfully that’s when he just became the guide of Heartfulness and had some time to spare for some silly kids requesting his time for the fun of it. Anyway, he was nice enough to oblige.
My other friend (he and I both devised this ridiculous plan), was about to become a meditation trainer around that time. Throughout our time with him that afternoon, Daaji kept asking me questions related to being a trainer. He asked me why I hadn’t finished reading the recommended books. In all honesty, I wasn’t even thinking of being a trainer then. He went on to ask me questions from what I had already read, and I just about managed to answer correctly (barely).
What stuck was what happened after though. When we finally left his office to go to his home for the proposed bachelorette party-lunch, the test continued. The food was simple and nothing to write home about. I would never have remembered what it was, had he not connected food and spirituality in the most unexpected way.
He told me that the kadhi that was served was made with a particular ingredient which was distinct for people of the Patel community. He asked me what that ingredient was. Then and till date, I remain completely disinterested in cooking, but the question had been asked. My face turned tomato red as I fixed my eyes on the yellow liquid. After a few tastes and some desperate glances at my friends, I made some pretty lame guesses. It was moong dal, while kadhi is usually made with besan (gram or chickpea flour).
Here’s the important part. He then said, “if you can’t tell what’s in the kadhi, how will you read a person’s condition?” What I said in response really doesn’t matter but it was a serious predicament at the time. How do you read a condition? I couldn’t even read my own at the time.
Shit gets real
Reading your own condition is important when you meditate to keep it from being just a mundane daily task. It makes meditation interesting because it ceases being a blind activity. It’s no longer something we feel nice after, but an activity where something is happening. The difficult thing is identifying that something. Until you’re able to tell what your own condition is after meditating, the most difficult question you can be asked is how you’re feeling after a sitting or individual meditation session with your trainer. For the longest time, I felt my answer in response to the dreaded question was a mundane “I feel calm” or “the sitting was good.” Moreover, what else was it supposed to be?
After speaking to some friends and fellow meditators, I came to understand that when you start out, you may or may not have experiences in meditation and you may or may not be able to recognize them. But, things definitely change once your meditation changes from thinking to feeling. That’s when you become cognizant of something happening inside of you. And what triggers this change? I got a mixed bag of answers. For some, it was regular practice and individual meditation sessions with a trainer, for others it was youth seminars or other training programs, visiting meditation centres or meeting the guide of Heartfulness. But whatever the means is, that’s when things begin to be a little (more like a lot) different. And it’s most likely not a singular event that changes the game, but something that happens gradually.
At the same time, this isn’t necessarily the requisite to understanding your condition or the effect meditation has on you. Some of the meditators I spoke to had vivid experiences right from day one. At the same time, some people (like myself) found it difficult to make sense of it all. So let’s solve for this right now.
Finally coming to it, a condition is your inner state. When it comes to describing an object like the one below, it’s fairly simple. It is a pink coffee mug which tapers towards the bottom. The outside is pink while the inside is white and so on. But how do you develop an eye for what’s going on inside of yourself? How do you read your own condition?
To do this, you need three simple things. You have to meditate to acquire a condition, you should want to know it and be confident in your experience, i.e., what you feel or perceive.
I’m assuming you must have the first two down, else, why read this far? The confidence part is seemingly the most important at this stage. After that lunch with Daaji, I was perplexed for the longest time. What helped me figure it out was guidance from my trusted Delhi Gang and a few speeches by the guides of Heartfulness.
My friends asked me to observe anyone, we started with people physically around us. They asked me to tell them what they saw when I looked at them. Not their external countenance, but what their insides looked like. Some asked what colour I saw. That didn’t work with me at all. But other times, the question remained open ended. I saw a bit of cloudiness, like a fog. The smoke was greys of different shades. My friend never confirmed whether I was right or not, but that was the start. It was somehow easier to observe others rather than myself at first.
In a speech, Chariji, the previous guide of Heartfulness told meditation trainers to keep observing people. While sitting in a bus (which we can only do while gazing outside a window now. Thank you corona virus) look at the people around and observe their condition. Is there heaviness or lightness?
It can go further than that. It’s somehow easier to tell what’s going on when taking sittings from your trainer. You can feel where in your chest area something is happening. But that’s not it either.
Finally, you have to sit after meditating and try to put words to what you’re feeling inside. It may be joy, peace, craving, love of different degrees. And maybe you just don’t have the words for it. And that’s perfectly okay. It can take some time to find the words, but keeping at it, you’ll learn to recognize those feelings.
For example, I’ll describe my condition right now. It’s been a few hours since I’ve meditated, so I feel a bit of activity at the outset. Going deeper, I feel quite calm and peaceful. There’s no emotional turbulence today. Deeper still, I feel deep quiet. It’s like I’m in deep meditation with my eyes open. Just yesterday, I was feeling craving in place of this, so my condition has changed since then. In this deep state, I feel lost in this feeling which is so absorbing. Well, that’s all I can tell for now, and I suppose the ability to tell will only continue improving.
But if you want to know more about what actually happens spiritually as you keep progressing, you can check out Daaji’s articles titled March to Freedom which comes in parts 1, 2, 3 and 4. Alternatively, Babuji has written a book on the subject titled Towards Infinity. They are all great resources to verify your experiences against.
I hope you’ve found this helpful. In case you need some more help, feel free to write to me by replying to the email this piece comes in.
Till next time.
Fun Finds Plus Update
I thought I’d share some interesting articles and videos I came across while doing research on this piece, the links and details are below. I also got the opportunity to speak to a lot of people and feel really privileged to have gotten to hear their stories (thanks guys). I need to think of a format to share more content and learning from these, which I plan to do in the coming pieces so stay tuned.
You absolutely HAVE TO check out Heartfulness Magazine’s Collector’s Edition from 2017. Some of you may have read it already, but just in case. It’s one to save on your phone or PC FOREVER. I’m serious.
Meghana Anand’s article on reflective writing. It was an enjoyable, fun and light read.
Sanjay Sehgal’s article on staying true to your authentic self. This one is pretty relevant to most of us, because we wear different masks to suit different spaces in our lives.
The heart is intuitive and this is coming from a man of science.
If you're new here and interested in Heartfulness meditation, do check it out here.
Hope you enjoyed the read. If you liked it, click the “heart” at the top of this article so I know it agreed with you. You can also consider sharing it on social media or forward it to your friends. It helps to get the word out. If you have any thoughts or questions, feel free to reply to the email you receive this piece in.