Meditation is awareness. Some people say that meditation is the road to enlightenment, thus pure bliss or happiness. Is this real? Why? Why would you believe something like that just from the get go because it is said by who is “supposed”to have authority. Remove that title, and let’s put it to the test!
You’ve got to put it to the test in a VERY serious manner.
With this purpose in mind, I will give you some questions that could lead you to this answer, but at the same time I will contradict myself. This is to make you think because there are many currents of thought to answer this question, including yours and mine. Yet, I am going to approach to it through a different lens, a practical and experimental one.
First of all, what is the objective of meditation? Some might believe it is to reach enlightenment, so I ask… What is enlightenment? Is it a supernatural thing? Although, this could be deeply phenomenological I still want to be cautious. We cannot simply accept something that is out of our experience (although this experience might be false, will not go here right now, but it is about how our senses and brain tricks us); we need to ask questions because blind belief has a done a lot of damage to our societies.
So, let’s put an idea forward as a possibility of enlightenment:
Love, the feeling of loving when it is overwhelming and completely embracing to the point your “self” is not longer that “self”.
You could have felt this when you were hugging your child, even a dog, or simply by being totally out of time and space when doing something for you or others in a brief moment of space and time, a deep fulfilling moment. My point in comparing it to this: I want to bring enlightenment to something experimental, something that can be actual in yourself, but is not dependent of your desires of wanting to be “enlightened” but in giving “yourself”.
Now, to be very clear I am not saying this is enlightenment, but I am not saying it isn’t either: I am just setting a “common” ground that will put forward the possibility of love being enlightenment.
Now, if love is enlightenment? Then, ask yourself: What could be the most incredible moment of love I have lived? Why haven’t I lived it constantly? What is stopping me from living a constant wave of love within myself?
These questions are very interesting because they could lead you to ask: Who am I? Who is that “myself”? Who is this being “I” who thinks I am which is constantly talking to me? Is there a moment in our minds where there is complete silence of chatter? Does chatter stop when I love? Can I be aware of something without the need of words and chatter? Can I be aware of the words and chatter without judging them, but loving them?
Loving my CHATTER?! Could that mean love myself? Could loving “myself” mean enlightenment? Is this egoism? How does egoism differ from “enlightened” love? Could egoism mean my chatter, and “enlightened” love the awareness of the chatter? Could it mean to love the chatter, but at the same time improving it by being aware of what is going on inside of it without judging harshly (with love)? Am I that chatter? If I can be aware of my chatter, can I be aware of the things that surround me without that chatter? If I am able to see everything around me without chatter or judgments, can I feel that love that makes it all bloom?
Don’t make your need for answers or “quest” be the opium of your mind, let it rest, so when it does speak to you, you will be ready to hear.
Now, awareness… How does it relate to meditation and the idea of enlightenment? Well, meditation is said to take you to this state of silence, but is this silence necessary? Isn’t awareness more fulfilling than meditation? Could awareness be the silence when observing deeply our chatter or nature? Could meditation be at tool that we believe is the “method” without seeing that the tool as a tool is meaningless if there is no understanding of what it does and how it does it?
With awareness, you can have chatter, but you are aware of it. With awareness, you can have silence, and be aware of it. In awareness, there is love… Why? You have to love to see the awareness or you have to be aware to see the love. It is in actual experience that this can be realized, not as a myth of enlightenment, but as an actual thing that can be achieved when you decide to put your effort into it.
In meditation there is the belief that there is a “method”, and methods don’t work for everybody. So, we must doubt the method, and find our own ways to see our minds “through” our own forms of meditation or reflection. You can try the method, but don’t be blinded by the method… You are the ultimate source of meditation… You are the experience that is observing everything that happens around you.
You Choose!
Meditation, awareness, love, enlightenment, or another… Whatever you choose, do it, but try to ask why? Find your own answers, and if they lead you to fulfillment (a deep sense of love)… There is something good there to be explored, if they lead you to depression and suffering: STOP. Analyze yourself.
Ask: What am I afraid of? Nothing…? Then, let it be for a while, stop the questions, live and experience of being in the tree of life. Perhaps, in the moment you least imagine… An answer will pop! You will know it is time to ask the questions, again. However, don’t ignore it totally… Listen.
It is all about deep observations, awareness, love, YOUR method of meditation, and perhaps enlightenment, and again be cautious… Self-delusion is always a possibility, yet… I ask: Is the love you feel an illusion? How is it real? Could it be even more real? Could you live it to its full potential? What is that potential?