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Meditation – a brilliant concept!

Friends, I wonder about the origin of meditation: isn’t it amazing that in the midst of thislife of sensory involvement, unavoidable needs and multifarious interactions, some

 people have managed to come up with the idea of meditation at all? I don’t refer to the

methods of tantra that involve using one’s will and concentration for power, material gainor fame. I’m speaking of meditation for one’s own sake that is purely private and personal.

It is interesting to speculate about whether the art and practice of meditation could be a

 part of evolution of our species. Somehow at an unknown time in the distant past, theconcept of meditation emerged as a way of using the mind to arrive at a deepened

consciousness; rather than for receiving, processing data and sending out signals to theenvironment, we turn mind in on itself and do a feedback loop of applying mind on mind

on mind. Now we (at least, you who are reading this) are so used to the idea ofmeditation that we aren’t astonished that it has come to be, but I suggest that it is a

remarkable stroke of genius to have come up with the idea. It is also interesting that therewasn’t only one person who thought of it; over the years various people all over the globe

have come up with different methods of meditation aimed at the same goal of peace anddevelopment of consciousness.

Today after morning meditation – out there in the universe and beyond -- I feel deeply

grateful to the extraordinary people who gave us the concept and art of meditation – away of being  out of the “box” for some time, as opposed to the active mode: thinking  out

of the box. You can only think (i.e. emit signals) from ‘out of the box’ if you first go andstand there. Spending some time out of the box on a regular basis results in a fresh

 perspective that leads to analytical and creative thinking.

When we meditate we transcend our usual dimension and look from above; our view

shifts to the widest possible angle. As we gaze on ourselves from that distance, what wehave taken as important and urgent becomes less so when seen from afar. We live in an

extremely small, insignificant region of the vast canvas of the solar system, that isembedded in the limitless universe and existing on a time scale of seeming eternity. We

reconcile to the ephemeral nature of life, to the reality that our human history itself is amomentary blip in the countless millennia. As Carl Sagan famously put it, we live on a

 pale blue dot, a lonely speck, in the vast universe. As he gazed at the photo of earth taken by the astronauts who went up in space, he wrote so beautifully:

"Look the pale blue dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love,everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, livedout their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions,

ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward,every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in

love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher ofmorals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint

and sinner in the history of our species lived there - on a mote of dust suspended in a

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MEDITATION -- A Brilliant Concept.doc

sunbeam.

"The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of bloodspilled by all those generals and emperors, so that, in glory and triumph, they could

 become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties

visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishableinhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager theyare to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-

importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, arechallenged by this point of pale light.

"Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all

this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us fromourselves.

"The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in

the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it ornot, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

"It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character building experience. There

is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant imageof our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one

another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known. 

The psychological shift in perspective is the great reward of meditation practice. When

our perspective shifts and we re-align the inner and outer reality we come to a fresh stateof balance. Tension evaporates and we are in a state of contentment by default. I realize

my insignificance and yet also realize my worth as a living being: as a human being andamongst humankind, being equal to every other, yet I am unique and different in my own

way.

A mental step back to this broad dimension helps us to disentangle from the past andremoves anxiety about our pending projects and prospects; we feel fresh, stable and

strong, ready to face our fears; big stuff seems smaller; small stuff is recognizable as thefabric of our own lives, and our burdens become bearable.

 May the whole world be blessed with good health, long life, prosperity, wisdom, and

 peace!

! Carl Sagan, 1994, quoted on

http://digg.com/educational/Pale_Blue_Dot_a_quote_Mr_Sagan_puts_us_in_perspective