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Saturday, February 16, 2013

The Objective of Meditation

According to the Yoga Sutras by Patanjali, "meditation is the ability to direct the mind, the ability to develop faultlessly your interactions with what you seek to understand, and to gain complete integration with the object of your understanding" (sutra 3.7).

The objective of meditation is to follow a path that will transform and awaken us so that we understand what we are. The perceived and the perceiver are one and the same. In other words, the end result of meditation is for the seen and the seer to merge as one.

The biggest obstacle in life is our inability to see beyond ourselves.  We tend to focus entirely on the view through two eyes of a skull and perceive only what is directly in front of us.  This narrow view is a trap we cannot think our way out of.  What is needed is a clear and calm mind; one that is unencumbered by interactions with inner and outer distractions.

As you become more proficient in the practice of meditation all mental activities are observed by you the Perceiver.  "The Perceiver is no longer coloured by the mind" (sutra 4.34).  The objective is to awaken the higher forces within you and allow them to connect to the True Self.  This allows you to become independent of - and free from - the random and erratic psyche.  Once you have mastered the power of independence you can then take that freedom with you wherever you go.

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