Meaningful Meditation

The criterion for wholesome thinking is to determine whether thought is born of equanimity or not. Two kinds of feelings dominate your life: like and dislike; craving and aversion. Totally unconditioned thinking is rare. Someone dear to us says something and we appreciate it; but the same thing uttered by an adversary and we feel contempt or fear. All action is conditioned or motivated by passion or disgust, approbation or disapprobation, attachment or indifference, attraction or revulsion. A man shops for the best quality food; he does not want his family to consume adulterated foodstuff. Yet, the same person sells adulterated medicines to others, because he is indifferent to their fate. Due to lack of affection, he indulges in corruption. This feeling of attachment or unattachment powerfully affects one’s approach and all perversions in thought and action originate from there. True meditation helps you go beyond like and dislike, craving and aversion, to awaken in you a state of dispassion. Meditation is meaningless if it does not bring about a complete transformation. If a meditator keeps tranquil enough in the meditation hall, but on returning home continues fighting and quarrelling, his family would rightly look upon such a person and his meditation with misgiving. Meditation should awaken inner consciousness. The conscious mind becomes inert, but the inward consciousness becomes so active and expands so much that it transcends all conditioning. It remains steadfast and unchanging.

Source: Economic Times, 6/02/2020