To be full of things is to be empty
of God. To be empty of things is to
be full of God. –Meister Eckhart

Knowledge is bondage.
-Shiva Sutras

Silence is the language of god,
all else is poor translation.
-Rumi

Entering into the unitive state,
he attains the goal of evolution.
-Paramahamsa Upanishad

For one gains by losing
and loses by gaining.
-Tao Te Ching

Silent meditation is unique in that it’s the only activity which points us back toward our true nature. The only thing masking the infinite is that we are always looking at our minds and senses. Meditation is looking back toward consciousness itself.

The spiritual path has two parts: preparation and practice. The prep is mostly about purifying yourself, if need be, and the practice is meditation.

Purification happens by leading with love rather than fear, shedding bad habits, and the easing off of egoic attachments altogether. But there’s also the mental skills prep work of metacognition & immediacy, collectively known as mindfulness. Metacognition is paying attention to your thought processes; observing your mind in daily life. Immediacy is applying metacognition to stay keenly present in the moment for extended periods of time. This could be a practice of listening to the birds while checking any internal dialogue. Professional birders can go hours, acutely focused only on their senses. This is tremendous help in mediation, because it’s the same skill that enables a focus on just the breath, or just a mantra, or just nothing.

And it’s not that thoughts are bad. The point is, to spend some time identifying with yourself beyond your thoughts; to put a little distance between you and your egoic self.

The practice of meditation is like surfing. In surfing, you need to start with the right equipment (leading by love), but you also need to develop skills, like knowing how to swim, and reading ocean conditions (mindfulness). Then you need to pick a good spot (next to a guru), gear up, and paddle out to the line-up, then just sit there (meditate). But even then, there is no guarantee a wave (grace) will come to you. If it does, you need to be ready for it in that moment (present but without thoughts), to catch that wave (for grace to find you).

There’s so much more to us hiding just below the surface that they call it grace. Meditation makes you much more available to grace, and if you meditate with a true guru your chances are better, because they attract grace.

There are many techniques which are
supposed to lead us to God, but, of
all these, meditation is the one
recognized by all the saints and sages
because only in meditation can we see
the inner Self directly.
-Swami Muktananda | Meditate

Unity obtains when the activities
of mind have ceased. The witness then
abides in its true nature. Otherwise,
the witness is identified with the
activities of mind and is just another
thought-form itself.
-Yoga Sutras

The Self is realized in a higher state
of consciousness when you have broken
through the wrong identification that
you are the body…
-Kena Upanishad

In the depths of meditation, sages saw
within themselves the Lord of Love, who
dwells in the heart of every creature.
-Shvetashvatara Upanishad

If your goal in meditation truly is enlightenment, be advised, the greater the shift in perspective, the more destabilizing it can be for your psyche if the necessary prep work hasn’t been done. What you’re asking for is bigger than anything of this world, and it’s very personal. You might want to prep first by, among other things, loosening your grip on your worldview, because that’s going to shift in unexpected ways. If your goal is still enlightenment, note that being “enlightened” means dropping your body; you likely don’t want that. What you’re most likely looking for is more of a temporary enlightenment experience that sticks with you for the rest of your life. This is the real next step, and it’s called a spiritual awakening.

Here’s an ancient strategy from Kashmir Shaivism for finding the method that best suites you. Start with the quickest method and work from there. First, simply realize that you already are what you are seeking, and your “spiritual journey” is complete. That could work, but if doesn’t, try silent meditation (looking toward consciousness itself). That should work, but if your mind wanders too much for that, add a mantra meditation, or watch your breath to stay focused. If your thoughts still keep interrupting, try a yoga class with a short meditation at the end. If you still can’t quiet that internal narrative, maybe just get back to the business of living, and come back to this when you can quiet your mind. For a few people, realization is instantaneous, but for the rest of us, it requires a little patience.

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HOW TO MEDITATE

Tao is self-evident to one with no preferences. When like and dislike are absent, the Real is obvious and clear. Make the slightest distinction, however, and it appears disguised as heaven and earth. -Xinxin Ming

The goal of meditation isn’t to achieve something, but to reveal the ground-stuff of your being, by getting all the noise out of the way.

I have lived on the lip of insanity,
wanting to know reasons,
knocking on a door.
It opens.
I’ve been knocking from the inside.
-Rumi

When first trying to meditate, most people find it hard not to think. Parts of our brain are always trying to process some emotion, and our consciousness keeps getting distracted. Meditation is about learning how to extend the time between our worldly thoughts. Adyashanti would say something like, if you take your foot off the gas pedal, eventually the car will come to a stop.

The amount of practice it will take to go thoughtless for short periods depends on how much attention our thoughts are requiring. Practice makes perfect, and if one practices even a few minutes a day, it will get easier. Meditation is like taking the ultimate break from the day; to step out for a second. Relax, maybe starting at the base of the spine, and just practice being aware without thoughts.

The more you process those thoughts, the easier it gets, until eventually a thoughtless state becomes a familiar resource you can easily drop into. Spending time there each day will refresh you, but it will also make you much more available to grace.

Here is an excellent introduction to why people meditate, with a little at the end on how to meditate.
Why Meditate | Joel Morwood | Vimeo 10:31

It cannot be perceived by the mind, because it makes the mind think. Still, the Self can be known, and to know it we do not need the help of the mind or the senses. -Swami Muktananda | I Am That

And being asked by the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God cometh, [Jesus] answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation…the kingdom of God is within you. -Luke 17:20-21 | KJV

That which makes the mind think but cannot be thought by the mind, that is the Self indeed. This Self is not someone other than you.
-Kena Upanishad

The Self is one, though it appears to be many. Those who meditate upon the Self…see the Self in everyone… -Chandogya Upanishad

The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me. My eye and God’s eye is one eye… –Meister Eckhart

God sleeps in the rock, dreams in the plant, stirs in the animal, and awakens in man. -Ibn Arabi

Wake up from this dream of separateness.
-Shvetashvatara Upanishad

So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image. -2 Corinthians 3:18 | NLT

Consciousness can localize into matter. When it does, we call it life.

…I am the life in every creature…
-Bhagavad Gita | 7:9

What caused matter on this planet to organize into living organisms? Science still has no idea. Why? Because they religiously ignore consciousness. Without it, all they’ve been able to do is generate lists of attributes to describe life. But these are only descriptions, not explanations. If we could design a robot with these attributes, would it suddenly become alive? It’s intuitively obvious that the missing ingredient is consciousness.

Consciousness is what makes the mind-body problem really intractable. Perhaps that is why current discussions of the problem give it little attention or get it obviously wrong.
-Thomas Nagel | What is it like to be a bat?

There are plenty of physical theories for consciousness, but they all rely on mysterious tricks to transform mass-energy into conscious experience. And modern physics is no help. They say it’s the other way around. They say, conscious experience causes mass-energy to manifest out of nonphysical quantum fields.

Common to all life is the basic desire to move toward what feels good, and away from what feels bad. But isn’t consciousness the only thing that can ever feel? Isn’t that what we mean by sentient?

Because of my life as a wildlife biologist, I’ve handled thousands of wild animals (mammals, birds, fish, but mostly amphibians & reptiles) and I can personally assure you, they were all conscious and exhibited emotions—their behavior would always betray their feelings. In fact, they behaved as I would if I were them (that’s a nonduality joke). We know animals are conscious and can feel. Why else would we have an ethical oversight committee to approve and monitor all our wildlife interactions?

Creatures are loved not for their own sake, but because the Self lives within them.
-Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

Animals experience the same feelings we do. The main difference between humans and other animals is our intelligence; not our feelings.

Recent advances in Artificial intelligence highlight the difference between intelligence and feelings. AI is becoming exceedingly good at imitating human intelligence, even our emotional intelligence, but no coder has any idea how to make a computer conscious. In contrast, all organisms are conscious and can feel.

Furthermore, what do we mean when we say an organism is dead? Don’t we mean that its consciousness is gone? Isn’t that what we mourn? So, don’t we already equate life with consciousness? Being alive means there is consciousness perceiving the inputs from its sense receptors, wanting to feel good, and when consciousness can’t live in that matter anymore, we say the organism is dead.

Death in the Microcosmos | YouTube 7:20

Today’s scientific community assumes that consciousness emerges from the brain, despite discovering that single-celled organisms behave consciously, and even form memories. To this day, there is still no real evidence that brains create consciousness, or even store memories. We’ve only confirmed that it facilitates consciousness and provides links to memories.

It’s still scientifically reasonable to speculate that the brain is only a complex interface between consciousness and matter, and that all cells are conscious to some degree. The mystical idea that consciousness comes from a deeper source than matter is still consistent with our findings in physics and neuroscience.

Consciousness is like the electricity in a computer. A computer has a body and a brain that runs programs and has memories, but it needs electricity to come alive. We have a body and a brain that runs thoughts, feelings, and has memories, but it needs consciousness to come alive. And just as electricity is completely different than the programs and memories of a computer, consciousness is completely different from our thoughts, feelings, and memories. Also, note that it’s the same electricity running through all computers (in the area), just as it’s the same consciousness running through all of us (lifeforms). It’s only the thoughts, memories, and bodies that are unique to each individual; though some lifeforms are more like a lightbulb than a computer. This was discovered by researchers meditating on consciousness thousands of years ago. When we identify with our thoughts, memories, and bodies, we see ourselves as separate. But when we identify with consciousness, we humans can quickly see past that limited illusion of separateness.

Exercise: Watch these YouTubes’ while asking yourself if these organisms are conscious of their surroundings.

World’s Most Adorable Badger – The Dodo Comeback Kids | YouTube 5:39

Kung Fu Mantis Vs Jumping Spider – Life Story – BBC | YouTube 4:07

What Plants Talk About | NATURE | Vimeo 52:57

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Are we really just biological machines in a meaningless universe of physical processes? Why is the machine metaphor better than the organism metaphor when trying to understand life, the universe, and everything?

We quickly learn to take for granted this impossible world we are born into. Set aside your default blinders for a minute, and with fresh eyes, see how freaky the miracle of life really is. Then you will see there are mystic clues everywhere.