MEDITATION METHODS
TETHOS - ORIGIN: from Middle French methode, from Latin methodus, “way of teaching or going,” from Greek methodus, “scientific inquiry, method of inquiry,” originally “pursuit, following after,” from meta- “after,” “a traveling, way.”
Meditation requires a method to go into a spaceless whole. Love doesn’t require any method because it involves total surrender to the whole and in a sense is a methodless approach. The method of meditation isn’t the meditation. However, a meditation method can be tremendously helpful in achieving a meditative state.
In order to grow through meditation, understanding must come to you as a feeling from the heart, not as a mental process from the mind. When understanding is derived from the mind, it’s superficial and only scratches the surface. Real understanding, which is love, lies hidden in the interval between thoughts. It’s beyond the thinking process, a higher knowing in the heart.
The differences between the different methods of meditation lie in non-essential components. The methods given by masters from different ages, different philosophies, might be different, but essentially all methods are about awareness. Only awareness leads to What Is.
Meditation methods are good only if they are in tune with you as an individual—if they are enjoyable, so that there is harmony between you and the method. Enjoy the method with your full heart, and go into it as deeply as you can. Drop the method when the joy disappears. If you practice a certain method and don’t find joy in it anymore, then the method isn’t giving you anything. It becomes your attachment and addiction. Be aware of this habit and drop the method.
If you decide to follow the path of meditation, choose a method that brings excitement and joy. Certain meditation methods can help you reach a certain state. When you reach that state, move on to another method. Be in tune with One-Self. You have to be aware that a method can’t lead you to the end; it’s only a passage on your journey toward eternity.
Meditation methods consist of “doing,” whereas meditation is about “non-doing.” Effort carries tension and determination, and these are obstacles to change. At the beginning, a meditation method will require a certain amount of effort. However, over time, this “doing” sensation needs to disappear. Meditation then becomes an effortless and spontaneous state of “non-doing.” Inner transformation can only occur through unconditional acceptance. This transformation will happen on its own.
Love isn’t a technique. Love is a methodless approach to life. It isn’t about traveling through the mind in order to attain the state of no-mind. It’s an intimate love relation with eternity in this moment, now.
Meditative love is one feeling of two hearts: your heart and the divine heart beating with the same rhythm.
The point of the middle point is to be in meditative love—methodless, nontechnical, non-doing. Through effort, you attain effortless being. Lao Tzu says, “Open now,” meaning give up the search, give up the method. Use the method with awareness and drop it immediately. If for some reason you aren’t able to do that, you can try again, and again. In trying, be aware that you can become imprisoned in the method. It can become your addiction. In trying to love, you are trying to fulfill your ego. Love and meditation just happen. There’s no destination. You are the end point of your beginning.
Don’t journey, don’t seek, don’t search, don’t ask, and don’t demand. Just be where you are at this moment, relaxed and doing nothing. Wherever you are, you are in the moment, so just relax. If you relax in the moment, you are as you are. If you relax, you start vibrating with What Is.
This is a methodless method, the middle point.