When you stop all voluntary activities like moving around, working, thinking, talking, seeing, hearing, smelling and tasting etc., then only you get rest or sleep. In sleep, only involuntary activities remain with you, such as breathing, heart beating, digestion and blood circulation etc. But this is also not complete relaxation. Complete relaxation occurs only in meditation. And meditation happens only when the mind becomes still.
How to stabilize this mind? By understanding the purpose of life and being clearly focused. To be centered means to be content in every moment, to be neutral. Even if you get what you want, you remain anxious and even if you do not get it, you remain anxious! Every desire generates fever in the mind. In this situation there may be no attention.
True liberation is to be free from the past and the future. If you go to sleep with some desire, mental agitation or disturbance, you cannot sleep deeply. The more you are restless, the more difficult it becomes for you to sleep. If you drop everything before sleeping, then only you will be able to rest. Similarly, when you want to sit for meditation, drop everything. Whatever joy you experience in life comes from the depths of your innermost self. It comes only when you let go of all your hold and become stable. That is meditation. Actually meditation is not an action; It is the art of doing nothing.
The relaxation of meditation is deeper than the deepest sleep, because in meditation you become free from all desires. When you come out of deep meditation, then you are very moving and can do better. The deeper your relaxation, the more dynamic your actions will be.
Meditation is to get rid of all the anger or tension of past and past events and to give up all future plans and desires. Planning prevents you from taking a deep dive inside yourself. Meditation is to fully accept the moment and live each moment to the fullest. Only an understanding of this and a few days of continuous meditation practice can change the quality of your life.
Prakritiis the best example of the three states of life consciousness – waking, sleeping and dreaming. Nature sleeps, wakes up and dreams! In existence it is happening on a fantastic level and in the human body on a different level. Awakening and sleeping are like sunrise and darkness. The dream state is like a dusk between them and meditation is like a flight into space, where there is no sunrise, no sunset, nothing. Meditation is the means to be free from all desires, and thus the way to approach God.
Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji
