The link below describes the experience of Swami Vivekananda during meditation.
This looks like an extraordinary blissful experience. If this is correct, then why should a spiritual seeker not look at meditation for such experiences? In the presentation on Chapter 6, it was mentioned that meditation is not for these experiences.
Thank you sir. I understand what you are saying. However I am also confused. I have a few further questions.
If meditation is an effect and something which 'happens', then what is term we must use for the Meditation described in Chapter 6? Is it Dhyana? Is there an English word for this?
Closing eyes and observing thoughts - since this is not meditation. What is the correct term for this?
Nicely explained. Thank you sir.
Yes. It was correctly said that meditation is not for those experiences. In fact that there are lot of misconceptions of meditation; sitting with closed eyes trying to restrain the mind, etc. are not at all meditations; meditation is not Act. It is just a 'happening'; it is an effect; it cannot be a cause; one cannot make it happen; it should be sahajam; involuntary; It happens by the quality of one's life lead 24x7x365x many many years; yad bhavam tad bhavathi; where you thoughts are always most of the waking hours? whether it is conscious, spontaneous, etc. That mediation is a state reached by following karma-yoga life style; and that too nishkama-karma-yoga for deades and decades. So therefore one cannot practice 'meditation'; though you may attend courses selling meditation for 1000 Dollars; highfi gurus flying with their own aircrafts with their witchcrafts, with wi-fi zoom classes, cannot teach meditation; (keep away from all of them, when anyone talks of teaching meditation, run as fast as you can from that source). Step-by-step following Nishkaama-karma-yoga; one glides into it; as in a conveyor-belt to the next stage. It cannot be a pole-vault, even without the vault; Be wary of mystics and mystic experiences; because they do not tick normally! One gets caught in its power and they are road-blocks to spirituality. The mystics can only guide you generally and not specifically; there is no short cut to meditation. Stick to traditional teachers and traditional teaching of vedanta, like these classes; and take a sincere effort to allot quality time daily for study under a teacher and also self-study and do regular introspection of our thoughts and actions; that is called mindful-living; alert-living viz-a-viz. a let-living, i.e. that is your senses decide what you should do each moment (in malayalam and Tamil there is a phrase for these characters who live every thought that arises in their waking hours, that is the mind-lead, our elders classify them 'Tan-thoni'; a rowdy-type-character who never listen to elders or their own mind for sense of values, means a follower of the mind without any restraint or even awareness. That is where the picture of ratha kalpana of the Gita borrowed from the Kathopanishad comes in; also the example of the tortoise from the 2nd chapter; kurmoangani sarvasaha. This is what is the significance of the kurma below the dvaja-stampa in some temples or the kurma-arathi-lamp in the puja room; i.e., before entering the spiritual-temple, one should be sense-controlled, with a sthira mathih, like the kurma who never lets out its anga where it senses danger! That is not the external-temple, in Balaji or Guruvayoor or Badrinath or Kasi; it is within. Therefore, do not even wish for these mystical experiences in dream itself! Swami Vivekananda and other great masters have all come in this life with tons of carry forward vasanas or gunas from many past lives; and so let us keep them for inspiration as the goal; and we also can, if our direction is right and the right-effort appropriate, reach it in this life itself. That's why Swami Paramarthananda always stresses: Consistent and systematic practice under the guidance of a competent acharya, for a length of time.