Many of us struggle on the periphery of the realm that gives us a deep, soothing experience when we meditate. We merely touch the surface. For some of us, that’s the way it has been for months or even years. For others, a tepid, imperceptible sensation that seems to make us mildly calmer is all we have thus far – we await the moment where the meditation experience can penetrate into us.
In fact, all this may be true of the 80% of us meditators. But some of us are fortunate to have the nectar of deep meditation at some points in time, however infrequent it may be. The question is – how is this state achieved and why don’t we get this every day and each time we meditate?
The Reasons You May be Missing the Deep Experience
Surrender and Allow it to Work
Sahaja meditation works on the basis of a powerful inner energy inside us. It lifts us into a higher state of consciousness – this is the true meditative state when the experience is the deepest. In many ways, “doing meditation” is almost an oxymoron for us, you can only fall into or reach the state of true meditation. See our earlier post on this below.
A number of people, especially if you’ve been exposed to meditation before, try hard to perform a technique or do something trying to achieve the state. In reality, when you surrender to the power inside you, it works nearly automatically.
Here’s one of our most experienced practitioners, David Dunphy explaining this very aspect as part of his initial years in Sahaja.
Humility
We’ve spoken at length about this trait and how valuable it is for deepening your meditation experience. Here’s our in-depth post on this.
https://sahajaonline.com/one-magical-quality-boosts-meditation/
In short, the spiritual meditative practice that we deal with involves a key gateway that we need to get through and this is at the level of the 6th energy center or chakra. This gateway is also blocked or obstructed by the sense of our ego and our rigid conditioning or fixed ideas within us. When we become truly humble, these two deflate and dissolve to an extent, causing the gateway to allow the inner Kundalini energy to pass through and lift us into the deep meditative state.
Become One with The Power
This is a very subtle concept. Often we operate in our lives through various associations and identities of ourselves – as a person, our physical existence, our intellect, our roles in our family, work and so on. The “I” we know and understand it, circles through these identities. But the only true identity, the true self is our Spirit or Inner Self. And guess what, the Spirit is truly detached, joyous and witnessing everything around us. When we identify ourselves with the Inner self or being the Spirit, we experience these very feelings deeply. Not being muddled up with the worldly identities and roles but being on a higher plane of existence helps us get the deep experience.
How does this correlate with meditation? Well, we can tangibly feel and experience our Inner Self or discover that true identity only when in the higher state of meditation. Conversely, the more we try to associate ourselves with the spiritual identity of ours, the easier it is to catapult or lift us into the state of meditation.
Associating ourselves with our spiritual identity is also not just a temporary thing such as during bouts of our meditation experience during the day. Leading a spiritual life means exactly that – exhibiting the qualities of our Spirit and living a lifestyle that is joyous, detached but caring and compassionate, innately peaceful and blissful. We cease to have worries and the confidence of being integrated with the invisible, divine power makes us lead a very purposeful life.
Patience and Perseverance
No, Sahaja is not your 3 minute, 5 minute or any form of easy meditation to destress yourself and then go back to doing the nonsense that hurts you. You’ll need to be patient for weeks and months and keep at it. Slowly, but surely, your subtle energy system establishes itself firmly and starts giving you the benefits. Correspondingly, your experience gets deeper progressively.
So, you’ll have to wade through days of poor or lackluster meditation experiences and through the ups and downs. At a practical level, this means continuing to do your meditation regularly.
Or if you’re struggling, try something drastic, like the Early morning meditation we spoke about recently.
https://sahajaonline.com/the-magical-meditation-technique-that-can-transform-you/
Prioritize Your Spiritual Growth Over Everything Else
Nearly all of us fit meditation and spirituality into our schedule. Come to think of it, that’s quite presumptuous. We “allot” 15 minutes for our meditation. We prioritize our work and then see if something spiritual can be fit in.
Unfortunately, for meditation, we need to give it what it needs, not what we think we should do with it. This does not mean spending disproportionate or irrational amounts of time on meditation – it only means that we need to be dynamic, and both outcome and experience driven. Give it more time and the right amount of attention when you don’t get a strong experience, at other times remain in the cruise mode, so to speak. We will have to keep assessing our state every moment of our waking time. When the balance of our subtle system goes down, we need to take steps to remedy it. Equally well, when we get a blissful experience, just enjoy it – don’t fix anything that’s not broken. We need to get out of stereotyped timing and techniques.
Dig Deeper and Keep an Open Mind
Many of us come with preconceived notions, fixed ideas and expectations. We pursue meditation based on what we know about it or as we understand it. We have our comfort zone within which we’ll stay, unwilling to make a leap into something new that’s required to reach a new level. Many of us get complacent and hit a plateau.
Human beings by nature, resist change, especially the kind that can take them into a higher orbit of existence. That’s because it’s more work and difficult. And soon enough, we find that we’re closed to new ideas. We’re scared of resets and reboots in our lives, a makeover that can be beneficial. It’s true that the divine tests us at every stage. We think we choose our meditation, but reality may quite be the opposite. Nature gives us opportunities once in a while by exposing us to things like spirituality and meditation and sees if we are up for it and ready to take a leap, not necessarily one of faith, but of experimentation with an open mind.
Those who make the jump driven by a powerful inner urge to find higher and better things and those who give it the highest priority are often granted the nectar of the deepest and most surreal experience in their lives.
Here’s wishing you the deepest of experiences in the New Year ahead.
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