The Journey of my Meditation

There are very few academic decisions that my parents have forced upon me. I can remember only one. As the school topper, I had the choice of junior college (we go to a junior college for grades 11 and 12). My mother insisted that I have to join Maharishi College. So, I did. 

One of the best decisions EVER. 

Maharishi is based on the principles of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Every day, 2 twenty minute sessions of Transcendental Meditation were mandatory. 15 year olds don't want to meditate. So, I used to think about random stuff during meditation. 

During the 12th Board Exams, however, i started doing meditation to relax between the study sessions. It started small - 5 minutes after every 25 minutes of studying. 

That is where the meditation journey started - at the age of 17.  

We had a pooja room in the house and every morning, we had to pray before leaving home. Those 5 minutes of meditation became a lifelong habit. I have now meditated pretty much every day for 30 years. 

The practice itself has evolved. 

Here are the changes I have observed: 

A. Calm. I used to be a very angry soul - easily angered. Over a period of time, that changed to being the kind of person that is rarely, if ever, hassled. 

B. Thoughts in head - For 90% of things, if someone asks me, what do you think? I do not think. Not everything begets an emotional or intellectual response. Not sure if this is good or bad. It just is. 

C. I was fortunate to be in a small organisation where everyone practised Reiki. That is how I got exposed to healing through meditation. A part of my meditation has been healing and aura reading. Sometimes, it has helped people with pain relief. Sometimes, it helps to communicate with a family member who is in coma. The greatest challenge of this practice is that one knows that one should not fight with God or destiny, but there are times when I have. I do not regret it. 

D. I am very, very sensitive to who I meet and where I spend time. There are places from which I will exit immediately. People whom I meet once and am ready to be lifelong friends with. 

E. I did three sessions of past life regression to understand some of the knots I was experiencing in this birth. Recollecting those births and the karmic balance one has to restore in this birth helped my comprehension of this birth a lot. 

F. There is no concept of achievement or failure. Everything is just what it is. If one appears in lots of press articles, that is fine. If one has to shut down a business, that hurts, but that is fine too. 

G. I approach most things and people from a place of love. My default emotion is love. 

H. And this is my greatest experience - after you have climbed the steps, done the siddhis, worked the miracles, after you have done everything of that, you will experience sam bhaav - a sense of equanimity. And after you have experienced equanimity, you will experience Anand - joy for its own sake. I experience it for a very brief period, but am waiting for the time when Ananda is the default state. Ananda cannot be described. It can only be experienced. As a younger person, I did not want Ananda, i wanted to experience the Navarasas in this physical existence. :) 

Very recently, I have been started on a new meditation practice that is different from my lifelong work of healing. I am enjoying this new place and learning a lot. 

I do have a meditation name that is different from my Earth name. It was given to me very early in meditation and has over the years, proved to be very very true.