I’ve recently taken up meditation and, much to my surprise, it’s not at all like how I imagined it. In this guest post written by Navin Pillay, an International Facilitator who shares new ideas on growth and transformation, we learn what meditation is (and what it is not), what to transform to and the application. Originally from Malaysia, Navin lives in Berlin, Germany and travels around the world offering workshops that are interactive, personal, and scientific in its nature in demystifying the abstract and often misunderstood knowledge of self-recognition, creation, meditation, and transformation. Who better to learn from than him?
Navin is in Toronto this month with four workshops to help us grow. The first being held on August 13th & 14th, is called Atma Rahasya which translates to the secret of the soul. It’s an interactive and scientific study into an existential formula created by enlightened Master Dhyan Vimal which reveals the secret of one’s self. Navin has facilitated this two day workshop in many cities all over the world and this is the second time here in Toronto. For more information on this workshop, click here.
The second workshop called 12 Archetypal Bodies is a powerful exploration into the evolutionary fate of our bodies. The outer body being the container and the inner body the content. It is the discovery of the synthesis between both bodies that allows the individual to live the highest possibility that exists as them. Over two evenings, August 15th & 16th, participants work to identify their inner and outer bodies and evolve to find the harmony that is needed for the inner to live itself out and rise with the outer body as one.
On Aug 17th and 18th, the Six Ego’s workshop is a powerful inquiry-based session into the understanding of what the ego is and how it forms the base identification of who we are. And the final workshop is an introduction into Simirthi (Art of Self-Remembrance), which is a free event happening in several locations throughout the city from August 15th-18th during the day including Toronto Island, weather permitting. Simirthi is a Sanskrit word that means “self-remembrance.” It is a process of sitting in rest and remembering one’s self.
For more information on any of the workshops, contact ajna.samadhi@gmail.com or 416-912-8383.
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Read on for Navin’s post on meditation.
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The Inquiry into the art and science of meditation has for long been one of the most misunderstood and dis-orientated wisdoms of the ancient masters. The spectrum of disorientation spans all the way from those seeking to relieve stress, suffering and pain of surviving the world and others, right up to those who seek the notion of spirituality as a value of ‘non-material’ achievement. As such, most often it is reduced to the image of a closed-eye person assuming a yogi-posture of sitting cross-legged and chanting the word ‘Om’. The intent of those who are governed to this dis-orientation, as pure and sincere as it may be, unfortunately is misaligned with what meditation is for real.
In today’s post, I would like to challenge the prevalent base orientation that govern the ‘practise’ of meditation, that is; an activity or action that brings about a value that is of use for something one is experiencing or desire to experience outside of oneself. And the base motive is to either relieve, improve or prove oneself in relation to the world or another, all of which reduces Meditation to the small limited value that is orientated and determined by the effects that is outside of oneself.
Therefore, in today’s post, I would like to propose that meditation has absolutely no relevance with regards to the orientation determined by the outside. Instead, the true orientation of meditation is based on it being a ‘happening’ – what happens with ‘what is’. When that which is alive as me happens, only then life really happens. The only ‘effort’ one undertakes is to find the quorum in which one holds oneself independent of the orientation determined by the outside. When that quorum clicks, meditation happens, when meditation happens, that which is alive as me starts happening, when that which is alive as me starts happening, life happens…the ‘more’ or the highest beauty and truth of me is embodied and lived.
Here are the simple ‘3As Breathing into Inquiry’ tips to seeking your personal quorum for meditation to start happening:
- ALERTNESS
1st Breath – bring your attention back to you by observing and allowing your breath to naturally follow its rhythm of exhaling and inhaling without force or intent. Do this for 7 cycles.
Inquiry: List down 3 value-systems of the world that you are most governed by? (e.g: Material/Spiritual success, Recognition/ respect/ love by another, Kindness/Caring)
- AWARENESS
2nd Breath – In simply allowing your breath to exhale and inhale without any force, pay attention to the pause between breath in and breath out. Do this for 5 to 7 minutes.
Inquiry: For each value-system listed above, detect how it has influenced your sight over you (e.g: In subscribing to the value system of material success, I have seen myself in proportion to my material achievements)
- ACTION
3rd Breath – Breath in through your left nostril while closing your right nostril and hold your breath for as long as you can followed by breathing out from your right nostril. Do this repeatedly for 5 to 7 minutes.
Inquiry: Take a piece of paper and draw a line vertically across the page. Write on one side, all the value-systems that are governed by the world that effects how you feel about you. On the opposite side, write down what you value as you simply for you without the recognition of another or to use in comparison over another.
Setting the base disorientation right is the first step to setting the quorum for meditation to start happening. The preliminary understanding here is to birth the clarity that I must first matter to me, independent of another before life truly becomes the canvas for the ‘more’ of me to realize its highest truth, beauty and embodiment.
-Navin Pillay
