What is Meditation By Kiran Bhai

Question: What is Meditation?

Kiranji: See, the meditation is the most misunderstood concept. When we ask this question, “What is meditation?” the question itself, when somebody asks, is coming from some answers that they already have. Because they have heard about many kinds of meditations, like so many masters are asking people to do different kinds of meditations, different kinds of meditation’s techniques, like Maharashi Mahesh Yogi, teaches Transcendental Meditation  ( T M ), Osho taught Dynamic Meditation, Kundalini Meditation, Nadabrahma Meditation and there are lots of meditations, in our ancient practices of meditation, they have 108 techniques of meditation.

So, people are asking from that understanding or, misunderstanding, the word meditation as a technique, as something to do. And also the masters are also telling people to do something as a meditation. So, that is why I am saying that this is the most misunderstood word or concept. Doing meditation as a technique, is one thing and, meditation as a real sense, is another thing. They have a different understanding. When we use this word meditation, meditation in a real meaning is a meditative state, which is our nature state.

That, which is our natural state cannot be brought through any technique or any effort, or anything that you do. It is there already, but it has been hidden, or it has been suppressed because of something, and that something is the mind. When there is a mind, we loose this meditative state, that natural state that we have. What is this natural state inside? It is the harmony of the life force, which is flowing through us.

When it is in harmony with the life force, which is also flowing around us, when there is a harmony between the inside and the outside of the same life force, when it becomes one, when the tuning happens, that oneness state, when it happens, not through any doing, when it happens, when you are not doing to bring it about, but when you are relaxed, it happens. When it happens, you are already into the meditative state, the state of oneness, within and without. So, that state of oneness is a meditative state, which is our natural state.

What we understand as a meditation, or what we misunderstand as a meditation, is something that we can bring this oneness or this natural state, through some technique or through some effort. And all the masters in the past and in the present, have tried to find out some technique or some method, where they think that, by doing these techniques, we will come to that state, which is our natural state, which is our meditative state. Now, the problem is when we are doing something, the doer is the mind, and the oneness state happens when there is no mind, when there is no doer, when there is no effort, when there is no doing.

So, the state of non-doing – and I am not referring to any lazy state – the state of non-doing means the state without a doer, a state without a mind. When it happens, then this natural state awakens by itself, it happens by itself. That is why in Zen there is a saying that, sit silently, doing nothing, the spring comes and the grass grows by itself. By itself means, without any effort and without doing anything, what means that there is no doer. So, they say sit silently and do nothing.

Now this also is misunderstood as if you are trying to do nothing. So, even when you are trying to do nothing, you are doing something. How does we become free from doing? You have to really understand what creates the doing, what creates the mind. If you understand this what creates the doing, or what creates the doer, which is the mind, then you will understand how you can make this state, this meditative state, this state of oneness, this state of non-mind, happen. Why do you do something? You tell me. If you really look into this question, why do we do something? Somewhere you are doing it with a purpose. You create a purpose.

Question: But if I don’t do anything, it becomes some…
Kiranji: That is what we call laziness. Our language, when we say that we don’t do anything, means that we are lazy. So, our language says that, when we are not into doing, we are lazy.  But even when we are lazy we are doing something.

Question: So, in a way, all that we know is one thing: doing?
Kiranji: Doing.

Question: So, without doing, we cannot find anything.
Kiranji: That mind cannot understand the language of non-doing, or doing without a doer, without a purpose. So, when you are in a state where you have no purpose behind any action, that is called happening. It is not called doing. Happening also, outwardly it looks like a doing. Like, you are breathing and breathing is not a doing. It is just happening. But still it is an action.

So, you are looking, you are listening, smelling, touching, all these sensations that is happening, if we create a purpose, like, when you are looking at me, and there is no purpose. You are just looking. Just looking, Zazen. Just looking means, without a purpose. So, while you are looking without a purpose, it is a state of oneness, which we call a state of meditation. There is no mind there. But, if you create the purpose that you want to look, if you create this desire, this purpose, then your looking becomes an action from the mind, from the doer, then you are doing an acting of looking.

Can you look with a desire to look? Then you create a future point. When you create a desire that, “you want to look”, then you create a future point, a purpose. Purpose is always into the future. Is something that you want to, from here to there. When you create a future point, what is happening is that, you miss the present. You miss this moment, which is here and now.

If you create a purpose you create a future. So, your whole focus is into the future. Your focus is not into the here and now, but into the future point. So, you miss the here and now. And when you are here and now, you are into that state of oneness. When you create a desire, when you create a purpose, when you create a future point, to reach, to achieve, to become, to understand, whatever reason you create a future point, a desire, something that you want, then, at that point, at creating the future point, the mind is born, the doer is born.

And when the doer is born, what happens is that you miss the connection with the now. So then, your action will be a concentration, and not a meditation. The mind can concentrate at one focus point in the future. This concentration is a mental action. But meditation is not any mental action. Meditation is when there is no mental action, when there is no concentration focused to any future point, when you are totally relaxed, which I call into the state of total acceptance. That state is the state of meditation.

Now, why people like to do meditations? The question is this, because there are so many people going to so many communes, so many ashrams, and so many meditation camps, where they follow certain techniques of meditation. And people like it. Why do people like the meditation techniques? As I said before, doing meditation has also its own effect. What is that effect? That effect is a temporary freedom from the problem, the mental problem, which you are suffering from.

People are going go meditation camps, with a purpose to be free from the stress, from the tension, from the unhappiness state, or from the suffering state. That is the mental state. People are trying to find out an answer, a solution, to get free from these problems. And, the other masters, or the masters who are conducting meditation camps, are promising the liberation, the freedom from your mental problems. That is why people go with the hope, because, as it is with the mind they are having so much of stress, so much of tension, so much of suffering and pain. And it is so much, that they want some solution that can make them free.

People like to go to these camps because doing meditation definitely gives them a temporary relief, for a short time relief. And relief means the freedom. So, anything that gives a temporary relief, we call it a painkiller, or a tranquilizer. When you have a body pain, when you have a headache, when you have some fever or some body problem, when you go to a doctor, he gives you a painkiller or a tranquilizer, for immediate relief for your immediate problem.  What is your immediate problem? Is the headache, is the fever, your immediate problem is your body ache.

So, he has to give you some medicine, to relieve you from the immediate problem. So, that is why he gives you some painkiller, or some tranquilizer. But at the same time, he wants to know what is the cause of the headache, what is the cause of your fever, what is the cause of your body ache, your stomachache. He wants to know and he prescribes you to go through some kinds of tests, like blood test, urine test, everything. He prescribes you.
When you go through these tests, the doctor comes to know what is the cause of this problem.

So, the further step should be to understand the cause of this problem. So, the further meditation, or the further medicine, which the doctor prescribes, is to make you free from the cause of these immediate problems. So, the first treatment is to relief you from the immediate pain, immediate problem, which is a painkiller or a tranquilizer, or some purgative for cleansing your stomach. But the next step, by understanding the cause, he gives you the medicine, or makes you free from the cause of the problem.

Then he may suggest some surgery; he may suggest some further tests, or anything that goes on. If we are dealing with these psychological problems, mental problems, the doing meditations, or the meditations techniques, works as a painkiller, as a tranquilizer or a purgative, to relieve you from the immediate pain. That is OK and up to this point, I am not against it. But, who understand the cause of this? Why I am in stress? Why I have tension? Why I am suffering? One has to understand this. If I go on doing meditation techniques everyday, I am suppressing my cause.

If you are not treating the cause, the cause of your suffering, the cause of your stress, the cause of your pain, psychological pain, if you are not treating the cause, then, what happens is that, everyday you have to take this painkiller. So, you do it in the morning, in the evening, and during the daytime you accumulate stress again, so you have to do next morning again. So, if you are doing dynamic, you are doing a purgative meditation, which is a catharsis.

So, you accumulate throughout the day, and you vomit out in the morning, or you flush out in the morning. So, again you accumulate during the day, and you have to do again dynamic in the morning to vomit it out or to flush it out. So, this becomes like an addiction. But you do not understand the cause of the accumulation of this stress. Why do I accumulate this stress?  Why do I accumulate these reactions, which are coming out as suffering and pain? Why? If you try to understand this, then this understanding will lead you to a state where you don’t need to repeat this kind of meditation everyday. And for the psychological disease, for the mental disease, there is nothing that you can do, because the cause is itself the doer.

So, if I am free from the doer, that is the mind, and then I am free from this whole mind, which is suffering, which is with pain, with tension and which is with the stress. It is not the mind that is with the stress, it is not that the mind has tension; it is not that the mind has suffering and pain. The stress itself is the mind. The fear itself is the mind. The anger itself is the mind. The mind is not separated. Your state of fear is the state of mind. The state of tension is the state of the mind. That state of tension is the mind. That state of stress is the mind.

Now, that mind that is itself the stress, wants to treat, and wants to be free from the stress. Now, look at the mind game. The same mind, which is stress, tension, suffering and pain itself, the same mind, which is fear, anger and the other things that we want to be free from, wants to be free from itself. Now, do you have another instrument to fight with the mind?

You don’t have, because the moment you try to do something the mind is born. You create a future, you create a purpose and the mind is born. When the mind is born, the stress is born and the fear is born. They are already there. We don’t have any other instrument, an instrument that is not with the fear that is not with the stress that is not with the tension.

Even if you are successful in suppressing them through any technique, this mind that you are using as an instrument, survives. So, you are not becoming free from it, but you are temporarily becoming free from it, through some technique, some doing, for a temporary short time. That means that, all meditation techniques, which you are doing to be free from stress, to be free from the suffering, to be free from tension, or to be free from the mind, only works temporarily.

And that I call the spiritual painkillers, spiritual tranquilizers, which gives you a temporary relief, for a short time. And that is our experience. People who are doing meditations, they go for ten days meditation camps, with a purpose to be free from the problems, they do these ten days meditation camps, they feel good for few days, because the effect of taking the spiritual painkillers is there, they feel good for few days, or maybe few weeks, they feel somehow they are free from the problems.

But then, again it comes back. Ask any person who are doing groups or meditations. I have been doing so many years with meditations and it’s my experience and it’s the experience of them all, of all my friends who have shared with me. So, then we have to do it for the whole life, as if as I have headache, body ache, if I take painkillers, I can work all day, and in the night again the headache, the body ache come, and again.

I have to take a painkiller, and then I suppress it. So, if I want to remain in the healthy state, which is the artificial healthy state created by the painkillers, at the body level, I will have to take everyday a painkiller, or, at the sleeping time, one sleeping tablet. So, then I become addicted to that medicine. The same thing happens with the spiritual people. They are getting addicted to these meditations.  It gives them a relief to maintain their day-to-day relaxation, that’s all. Like when you take a painkiller, you can work for the whole day, but then, it comes back again.

Question: So, if this doer that is the mind makes some problem, and when there is no doer is the real understanding, how can I get this…
Kiranji: That is where I am coming to that, with the physical problem, if you have, the body problem you have, the doctor have to ask you to go through all the tests to find out the cause. In the psychological problem, as it is not a real problem, it is a reactionary problem. It is not a real problem, it is an illusory problem. Then, what makes you free from this illusion, what makes you free from this unreal problem, is to understand something. The understanding of the truth, of the reality, when you understand something. And that understanding when it happens we call it awakening, we call it enlightenment.

Question: Do you means that this understanding happen? Not….
Kiranji: For this understanding you can use your faculty, your brain, your reasoning for understanding. The same brain, that faculty to reasoning, to understand, you can use it.

Question: Actually this use of the brain is a kind of doing something.
Kiranji: OK, does not matter, but that doing takes you to that point where that doer dissolves. The understanding, when you understand something, even if you are using the understanding through your faculty of reasoning, understanding means clarity. Now, when you are blind, you have to use the sticks to walk. But then when you are treating your eyes, that treatment of your eyes is also a kind of doing.

But when you are treating your eyes and you start seeing through your own eyes, that doing of treating your eyes, is no more required. Then it is a freedom from the darkness, freedom from the blindness, freedom from that whole dependency of doing or of treating the eyes. So, that something that you are doing, if it makes you free from the doing, that is called the understanding. So, the exercise of reasoning or, trying to understand, takes you to that point where it makes you free from the whole exercise.

Question:You mean some kind of intelligent…?
Kiranji: Intellectual, intellectual exercise, which leads you and, at the same time, it gives you a direction of coming back to your natural state of tuning. Now, as I was saying before, that, do we ask this question, “why I have tension?” We have to use this brain. Why I am suffering? Why I am miserable? Why I have this stress? I have to understand. So, this cause of your problem, you have to exercise your brain to understand the cause of it. What is this understanding?

The understanding is to understand the cause of it. It is not to find out the solution. We are using our faculty of reasoning to find out how I can be free from it. That is why you are trying to do meditations. So, your are following through your reasoning for the solution, for the answer. I am saying that, use the same faculty to understand the problem. And not to find out the answer.

The four ways of Buddha. Buddha says that life is suffering. Your Buddhist religion says that, life is suffering. And further, the next step is that, there is a cause of suffering. The next step. So, it takes you towards to find out the cause. When you understand the cause, in understanding the cause you understand the remedy also. So, he says that, there is a remedy for suffering. This is the third step. And the fourth step is that, there is a freedom from suffering.

So, if you follow Buddha’s four steps, four ways, life is suffering, there is a cause of suffering, there is a remedy for the suffering, and there is freedom from the suffering. Now, where it leads you? He leads you towards to find out the cause of suffering. Are we trying to find out the cause of suffering? Or, are we trying to find out the freedom from suffering through some techniques, meditations or some doing?

Which way we are going? When you are doing meditation, is it that you are trying to find out the cause of suffering? Or, are you applying the solution to be free from suffering? Without understanding the cause you are straight jumping into the remedy. And that remedy, without understanding the cause is not the remedy.

Question: I understand and I know that. Actually I have tried so many of meditation techniques, and I know it is useless. Really I am fed up, but, when I try to understand the cause of suffering, it is just darkness.
Kiranji: No. And this is why you have to see the real master who knows it, who knows the cause. That is why you have to approach the right doctor, the right test, then, you will find the cause. The right master knows how to give you the understanding of the cause.

The real master, who has become free from it, who has reached to that state of freedom. If you approach the right master, then he will share his understanding and, tell you how are you going to understand, he will tell you the direction, because he is the one who understand the cause of the suffering. Now, when you approach a master he will suggest you the remedy for the cause of your suffering. How you can be free from it. If you do these meditations, if you do these groups, if you do these therapies, if you do this, you will be free.

Question: No, I don’t believe this anymore.
Kiranji:   I am not saying you, but all who are going. Then we are going in a wrong way. Like, when I had a back pain, there were a lot of people who came here, and they advised me some remedies. You take this medicine and you will be free from it. You take this and you will be free from it. Somebody advised me some Ayurvedic medicine, somebody advised me some Homeopathic medicine, somebody advised me Acupressure, Acupuncture, all these remedies that they advised me, they advised me the remedies without understanding the cause of my back pain. One doctor whom I approached made me understand the cause of my back pain.

When I understood the cause of my pain, through all these tests, this MRI, X-rays and all this whatever it is, than I came to know what exactly has gone wrong. Then, after understanding what exactly was wrong, if the doctor prescribes me the treatment, then I am totally free from my pain. But without knowing that I was taking Ayurvedic medicine and I was not cured. I was taking Homeopathic medicine and I was not cured. I was taking Acupressure, Acupuncture, everything I tried, and the pain still remained.

It was just giving me a little temporary relief, but the pain was coming back. Now, because of the understanding of the cause of my pain, back pain, and the right treatment, which the doctor knows and I followed him, his advice, and I did all that was suggested by this doctor, I am free from my pain.

In the same way, if you want to understand the cause of your suffering, the cause of your tension, the cause of your stress,  and if you are following the right direction, after understanding the cause, then, there is a possibility of freedom. That is the state of freedom, where the meditation happens. A state of oneness, a state of total relaxation happens. But you have to go through this. That is why Buddha says that there is freedom from suffering. So, the freedom happens.

Now, the question is to understand the cause of your stress. So, you have to drop everything that is offered as a solution, as a treatment, and concentrate your whole faculty of understanding, in understanding the cause. Now you have to understand why you are in stress, what is the cause of it. If you ask yourself, then you have to understand the stress. What is stress, what is tension, what is this pain, what is this suffering? You have to understand.

Question: So, whenever I try to understand this cause, always I find some not spiritual things, it is just real things. I mean, if somebody is interested in Tantra Meditation, he needs some girlfriend.
Kiranji: But that is the solution. You are still following the solution. When you are following a Tantra technique, it is the solution. But without understanding the cause of your problem, how can you follow any technique? Because somebody is telling you that, if you do Tantra meditation you will be free from it.
By doing Tantra meditation, what do you want? My question is, by doing Dynamic, what do you want? By doing all the meditation techniques, TM or anything, Vipassana or anything, what are you searching? What do you want? You want freedom from your miserable state inside; your tensed state inside, isn’t it? So, you are using something without understanding the cause, which will mislead you.

Question: Actually I cannot feel exactly my suffering, my misery, I cannot have any strong feeling. But I always feel, as you say, there is something that is missing.
Kiran: That missing is the understanding of the cause. You don’t know what is the cause.

Question: So, for me there is not suffering, misery, just some strange feeling.
Kiranji: So, that is why we go deep inside this question of the cause, how we will find the cause, how do I understand the cause. So, if again question that, what is stress, stress means a pressure, a tension.  So, you have to look where you are tensed and where you have stress, at what point you are in tension, in which point you are in tension.
If you ask yourself, the answer will be, you are in tension where something does not happen the way you want. That means, when life is not supporting you, the way you want, then you have tension. You don’t want anger, and suddenly the anger happens.

You don’t want fear, because you are thinking that if you reach to that state of no fear, the fearless state, no anger, angerless state, and freedom from all these mental diseases. That is what you are trying to reach. So, you want to reach to that state through the techniques.  You are trying, but again the fear comes, again the anger comes, again the stress comes, again this tension comes. So, which is the point where you are in tension? You are in tension wherever something that is happening against your wish, or the way it should happen. Then, should not be anger and the anger happens and you have tension.

You don’t want fear and the fear happens, and you have tension. You don’t want something and it happens, and you have tension. Now, why it happens like this? This is again the question. Why it happens against my wish, or why it happens against what I want, why? If you question, then you will understand that, that happening, which is happening, where I have no control, where I have no freedom to control it, to possess it, to change it, to alter it, or to hold it, if there is a pain that is happening now, if the situation is creating pain, the situation is creating the anger, creating the guilt, creating any kind of mental reaction, that situation is a happening, and that happening is where you have no control over the happening.

You have no control over the happening. It happens. So, you have no control over the happening, and at the same time you have no control of these reactions that are happening towards you. If the situation has happened, and that situation has created a natural reaction, that natural reaction is also a part of the happening. Now, at these two points, do you have the freedom to change it or to control it? Like, if I give you an example that, if the mirror wants a reflection the way it wants it, and the person who comes in front of the mirror, if the person is smiling, the mirror likes it. But if other person comes in front of the mirror, and he expresses anger in his face, in front of the mirror, the reflection is his angry face, and the mirror does not like it.

The mirror wants every time the smiling face. The mirror does not want to reflect the angry face. So, if the mirror has a choice, about the reflection, does the mirror have a choice? Does the mirror have a choice to choose who comes in front of the mirror? Does the mirror have a choice to choose the reflection the way it likes it? No.
Then the reaction, which is a psychological reaction, which comes to the mirror, is the tension. The mirror will be in tension, in stress because, if the angry face is reflected, the mirror does not want it.

It wants to reject it, because it is painful to reflect an angry face. Now, suppose that the mirror has the faculty to do something, can the mirror thrown away that person?  No. Can the mirror wipe out the reflection? No, because the nature of the mirror itself is to reflect. The nature of our consciousness is to react, is to have the reaction. The reaction is a reflection on the consciousness. It has no freedom to wipe out the reaction, or the reflection. It is naturally happening. The consciousness is like a mirror inside. And on this mirror the reflections are happening, which is called the reactions are happening.

And the reactions are happening according to the events happening outside. Now, if you understand. Now, I am coming back to the understanding. What we are trying to understand is the cause. If you understand, the cause of your tension and stress is your misunderstanding that you have the freedom to change. What is the cause?
It is your misunderstanding, your ignorance that you have freedom to control the events that are happening outside, and your misunderstand, your ignorance, that you can control or change the natural events, which are naturally happening because of the happening outside.

If I abuse you, what will be the reaction there? Anger. So, my abuse to you is something that is happening from the outside, my anger on you is happening on the outside, where you have no way to control me here. I am an independent expression of life. You are also an independent expression of life. So, we both are the mirrors. We reflect each other. I reflect you and you reflect me. If I am expressing an angry face or anger towards you, abusing you, the reflection will be anger there. It will be an angry face there. Now, if you have no understanding, if you have ignorance, what are you going to do? You will try to fight with me. That means that you will try to control me.

Question: I know this emotion. I know it automatically coming. You cannot do anything.
Kiranji: Yes, that is what I am saying that, understand that this happens automatically. Now what you are misunderstanding is that, it should be controlled. You have been told that you have to control your emotions, that you have to control your reactions.

Question: So, I will be some pretender.
Kiranji: So, you are using some technique to suppress it. That technique will give you a temporary relief to suppress it. If you start feeling the anger, the technique that somebody will say for it is, to start chanting some mantra, or try to think that you are not angry, you are not angry. Or some technique with what you will try to suppress or to forget your anger, your reaction. But how long?

It is for a temporary time. But that anger that is created there, creates some reaction there, that is going to settle by itself. It has its own momentum. Anything that is happening outside as an event, is an expression or vibration, and that vibration is affecting you, which we call sensation, it has its own frequency. So, that frequency will settle by itself. If you are trying to suppress it, if you try to forget it, it will not create any effect there. It is that somewhere you are putting yourself in a state of hypnoses, where you think that you are free, but actually you are not. You are keeping that vibration or sensation, at the back, and you are just trying to pretend that you are normal.

By putting yourself into some kind of hypnotic state, where you try to show off. So, you carry somewhere some false face, through suppression, by creating an artificial hypnotic state. But inside you know that you are still boiling with anger. It will subside by itself, by its own momentum. Because of your ignorance, and because of your misunderstanding, if you try to do something to suppress or to forget, are you successful in doing it?

Are you free from anger, or becoming temporarily free from anger? You are temporarily becoming free from anger. So, our understanding, our Sufi understanding says that, understand this, understand that you have no freedom, to change, or to control, or to possess, or to hold it, through any means. Understand that you have to accept it the way it is happening. That moment when you feel that the person who is angry, it is his problem, and the anger, which is reflected there, it is naturally happening, you accept and stay into that state of acceptance.

Question: I tried many times, so when I was in anger, I thought…
Kiranji: So, now people misunderstand and as you said, you try to do something, and your effort to do is in the direction of…

Question: My try is a suppression.
Kiranji: That is what I am saying. So, wake up and tell yourself that this is fine. Just wake up from inside and tell yourself, or your understanding will tell you, that this is fine. If there is anger, there is anger. Any kind of reaction, which is naturally happening, at that moment wake up, just wake up and tell yourself that is fine, it is OK.

Question: What is the meaning of this wake up?
Kiranji: Wake up means to remind yourself again. Don’t put yourself again to any kind of technique, to suppress or to forget, but stay into that state of acceptance. That reminder is a kind of practice.

Question: Actually I don’t have any my “whole understanding”. All the understanding is yours. So, you say that the anger is coming and it will be gone. It has a natural way. So, when I was in anger, I though like this and then I just realize that this is a kind of suppression.
Kiranji: No, it is not a kind of suppression. You are not doing anything to be free from it. You are just staying with it. To be with the anger, and try to be free from the anger, is different. When you wake up and tell yourself, “OK, fine”, if there is an anger, which is just coming inside, then there is a difference between the witnessing and the doing. You are witnessing anger at that point. It is not suppression. You are aware that there is anger. There is no suppression. There is awareness; there is a total consciousness that there is anger.

Question: But I always feel that there is suppression. When I was in anger, I was angry, I said, I thought “OK, fine”. Of course this had some effect.
Kiranji: It looks like that you are trying to suppress, but you are not doing any effort to suppress it. Were you doing anything at that moment? Or you were aware of the anger? You just said, “OK, fine”. Isn’t’ it? Now, when this noise is coming, the crackers, the traffic noise, or any noise is coming, the moment it is creating a disturbance, it is a reaction.

Disturbance is a reaction. The moment you wake up and tell yourself that this is fine, it is fine. So, you are not trying to close the window, you are not putting some cotton in your ears, or trying to close your door and just try to be free from these noises, you are just aware that there is noise, and you are aware through your understanding, that you have no way to control this noise because it is just happening.

This understanding will take you to that point of acceptance, where you will be witnessing that disturbance that is happening. So, in that witnessing of the disturbance, the disturbance will be there, but you will be not disturbed. So, the anger will be there, but you will not be disturbed by the anger. When you are disturbed by the anger, anything that you do to be free from it will be suppression or forgetting.

It is not suppression, but in the moment, in the first moment you are strongly aware of the anger. But you are just witnessing it. You are just there. It is very difficult but it is not impossible. This is what I call the practicing of acceptance. But this you have to practice through the understanding. Your understanding will tell you.

Question: So, this understanding you mean. You always say that this understanding, this acceptance just happen, how can I practice it acceptance?
Kiranji: Practice means, you might forget. Again you might go to your old habit of suppressing or forgetting, or fighting with it, or escaping from it. These are old habits of the mind. So, you create a purpose, to be free from it. You don’t create a purpose, but you just accept the way it is happening. Now, with the acceptance through the understanding, slowly, slowly it will settle by itself. But, while it is settling, it will not be a disturbing point to your state inside. So, this practice that, maybe you forget in a day, maybe in eight events, but you remind yourself to wake up in two events, you will understand that it is a miracle.

That, even with all the disturbances, with all the pains, anger and all these reactions, which is a cause of disturbance, which is a cause of stress, which is a cause of tension, you don’t create a tension, you don’t create a stress. Before you were creating a stress, because you were fighting with it. Now, if you are not able to control these noises that are coming, you try to close the windows, you try to close the doors, or at least you put some earplug inside, even with this the noises are coming, you will have a tension, you will have a stress, which is the reaction. There is a reaction that is natural, that is a disturbance, but there is a reaction of the reaction, which comes out of the rejection of that natural reaction.

The non-acceptance of the natural reaction out of your misunderstanding or ignorance creates a chain of reactions. So, them you will be sitting in meditation, you are sitting in meditation, and then you just close your eyes and all these traffic noises, crackers noises, children noises, is creating a disturbance. Your wife is cooking in the kitchen and she is making noise with the utensils,  and all these noises, the TV is on and all these noises, and you want to meditate.

Now, your definition of meditation is to reach to that state of silence. And you want to meditate, that means you want to reach to that state of silence. Then, if you want to be in silence, your mind understanding says that, you have to be free from all the disturbances. First you will try to close everything, you will try to shout to your wife, “please stop all this cooking, keep quiet, and stop this TV, this video, it is making noise”.

So, all these outer things, which are making the disturbances, you will try to control it. But then, when you sit for meditation, what will you do with those reactions, with those disturbances that have created some waves inside, some ripples inside? What will you do with that?  Because you created the anger and you created the reaction of the reaction. You have become angry on the noises, you have become angry on your wife, you have become angry on the TV, and you have become angry on the other noises, which you tried to control.

You tried to control it, but what will happen to that reaction, which is coming as anger, as a disturbance? When you sit again, even without any noise, you will be in stress and you will be in tension. Then you will say that, “look, my mind is the problem. This is the problem, so, I have to control my mind”. So, what is happening is that, before you were angry at the outside things, you try to control it, you could control it, but now there is the inside things that are happening, and now you are becoming angry on that anger, because you want to control the anger. So, you are creating more reactions, a chain of reactions, where you are caught.  So, in that day, you will not be able to sit in meditation.

Even if you sit for half an hour or one hour, close your eyes and try to become quiet, become silent, you will get up with more disturbances. Lets just be honest. This is everybody’s experience. Nobody is expressing it, because everybody is keeping a face and telling that, “Oh, I was meditating for one hour!” But what was happening inside? Even during the daytime you have accumulated a lot of reactions. And when you sit, it comes out. Somebody have told you somewhere, and when you sit quietly it starting bubbling up. So, all that is accumulated is coming out, then, you are more disturbed. Now, where did it start? You have tried to control the outside things.

Now, suppose you again try to meditate, but now you accept the noises. Now if you sit for meditation and just accept the noises coming from the outside, the noises coming from the kitchen, from the TV,  and sit there, slowly, slowly that disturbances, which before was a disturbance that turned into anger and stress, will slowly, slowly make you free from that. With all the disturbances you will not be disturbed. So, then you will be sitting quietly, without fighting, without rejecting, without non-accepting, the way it is happening.

Even during the daytime, suppose something reacted and that comes back, you will be just sitting in silence, looking at it, watching it and accepting it the way it is happening. You will say, “OK, if I am disturbed, I am disturbed”. And, in that, you will see that, within no time, you will reach to that centre, which takes you to the silent point and even with all the disturbances, you will not be disturbed.

Question: You mean that this acceptance can be a technique also?
Kiranji: It is not a technique. It is an awakening to some understanding, which takes you to some state of clarity.

Question: Anyway, it needs some effort.
Kiranji: No, there is no effort. It is just to wake up. Like, when you are looking, you are not making any effort to look. When you are listening you are not making any effort to listen, it is all happening. So, this whole process will happen by itself. What is required is some kind of understanding, a focus of understanding where you see very clearly that this is the way it is happening. So, you are sitting silently doing nothing. And in that, the spring comes, the state of silence comes, and the grass of joy, the grass of bliss, grows by itself. But what the mind is not happy is that, there is no experience of that state. The problem is this. The problem with the spiritual people is that, they want, even with this blissful state, even with this joyful state, even with this silently state, as an experience.

The problem is that there is no experience and the experiencer separated, because it is your natural state. The bliss that is happening inside is not separated from you.  The silence that is happening inside is not something that you experience as something separated from you. You are in silence. Afterwards when you come out of that state you will say that, “I was in silence”. But while you were in that state, there was no separated self, which was experiencing that state of silence. You were silent; you were blissful.  You and bliss was one. And that is what I was calling, the state of oneness. And that state is meditation. That state is the real meditation. It is not a technique. Outwardly it looks like a technique, but it is not a technique.

Like I give this example to so many people that, when you look at me, immediately, the knowledge about me comes to you, that you are looking at Kiran. And you know Kiran and you might have fight with him in the past, you might have loved him in the past, whatever it is there in your memory about that person, will be coming.
So, you will have a good feeling about the person you are looking at, or you will have a bad feeling about the person you are looking at, and it is naturally coming as a reaction.

Now, still you are not jumping to any kind of judgement or conclusion, or choice that you want to talk to this person or you don’t want to talk. You just look. When you just look, automatically the first reaction comes, of any kind of memory that you have about that person. Maybe a good feeling, maybe a bad feeling, maybe hatred ness, maybe love, whatever is naturally coming. But if you are not jumping to any kind of judgment, then you stay there. This is what I call the acceptance state. Then what happens when you stay there, slowly, slowly this whole reaction will settle.

Then you will be in tune with that person, and in that tuning with that person, your looking will be a state of meditation. So, this state of meditation is the result, is the happening of some understanding, and that understanding the looking maybe can look like a mental exercise, but it is not. It is slowly, slowly waking up to the clarity of the truth, the reality the way it is. You are conscious of that person, you are conscious of the reaction, which is happening inside. But you are not jumping into any kind of judgement or action, but you are staying with it. That is what we call the acceptance state. And that state results into a state of meditation.

That meditative state is an oneness state. One, where you are gone, he is gone, and this is what my definition of meditation is. This is meditation. If you slowly, slowly understand the cause of what creates the disturbance, what creates the stress, what creates the pain, and go on understanding the cause, then, this understanding will slowly, slowly make you free from this. So, that is a natural freedom. So, in that natural freedom, the only problem with the spiritual people is that, they want to experience it. There is no experience of the enlightenment.

There is no experience of that state, because you are not separated from that state. There is no separated experiencer, because any experience when it is defined by the area of knowledge, it becomes the mind. So, that is the state, but, afterwards you try to define, that what exactly was the state, you will say that it was a meditative state, or a blissful state, or a joyful state, or a peaceful state, or a silent state. These are all your definitions afterwards through the references what you have. That means what references? You have references of the disturbances. So, you will say that there were no disturbances.

That means that there was silence.  You have a reference of unhappiness. You will say that there was no unhappiness, that it was the state of happiness. You will say that there was no pain, so that was a state of joy. So, you have a reference point of something, which you have experienced, as a sensation, as a result of that. So, those references create the recognition of that state, which is not actually the definition of the state. The state of silence inside is not the absence of the disturbances. We have a wrong definition.

When we say that we are in the state of silence, immediately we define it as we are free from all the disturbances. When we say that we are in the state of happiness, or blissfulness, we are free from all the unhappiness, from all tension, from all stress. This is a wrong definition. The inner state of bliss, of silence, includes all the disturbances. The inner state of happiness includes al the unhappiness. With all the unhappiness you are not unhappy. With all the disturbances, you are not disturbed. That when you are not disturbed with the disturbances, is the state of silence. When you are not unhappy with the unhappiness, that is the state of happiness.

When you are not in pain with all the pains, then it is the state of joy. It is not what we define as the freedom from all. This is a misunderstanding. You cannot be free from the stress, from the tension, from the suffering, because it is natural. But when you are accepting the stress, in its own way of understanding that the stress is naturally happening, the tension is naturally happening, then the acceptance of that naturally happening will make you free from the identification, from the attachment that you have created to be free from the stress.

Note: "This article is published with the permission from www.kiranji.com. Audios, videos of Kiran Bhai are available in the website for the seekers. (Highly recommended for sincere seekers)"

Kiran Bhai

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