I’ve Practiced Meditation for 49 Years

Here are the most important things I’ve learned.

I looked up at the stars on a clear night recently — the beauty of our universe was undeniable. It puts our life in perspective, too, seeing this vast cosmos of which we are just a tiny part. I felt peaceful, blessed to be alive and humble. I thought to myself, looking up is good for us.

So is meditation, or looking within.

The purpose of meditation is not to control your mind, hear your inner voice, improve your health, find your passion in life, or solve your problems. Some of those may happen in the process of meditating, but they’re not the purpose.

The purpose of meditation is to connect to your inner self and experience joy, peace, and happiness.

Imagine someone told you there was buried treasure in your backyard. You start digging day after day, enjoying the exercise and fresh air. You notice you are getting stronger and feeling better, but you still haven’t gotten to the buried treasure. While there are benefits to digging, the purpose of digging is to find the treasure. The same thing applies to going within. We need not forget there is buried treasure within us.

Let’s put the word meditation aside for a moment — it can mean many different things. Let’s use “going within.”

Go back a few thousand years before modern religion. Our ancient ancestors were connected to the earth, the elements, and the seasons’ changing. They celebrated the cycles of the moon and the sun and established rituals to mark their importance. If they wanted to go within, a shaman, teacher, wise man or woman, or guru taught them. In Sanskrit, guru means dispeller of darkness. Gurus were teachers that dispelled the darkness and revealed light — the inner light. I bet the ancients weren’t worried about finding their passion and controlling their overactive minds — they wanted to connect to their soul.

I’m sixty-nine years old, and I’ve been going within for forty-nine years. I can tell you there is plenty of joy and happiness inside. An Indian guru taught me to go within, whose father, a guru, taught him, who learned from another guru, who learned from another guru. That means we’re back in the 1800s somewhere, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The techniques are ancient, and they’re simple. They have to be simple because they’ve been taught for thousands of years, transferred from teacher to student.

These articles have more detail about my experience.

It is our birthright to go within — we’re built for it.

If you don’t have a practical inner experience, it’s impossible to describe it. You can talk or write about creating a regular practice, the health benefits of going within, or what someone else said about it. That’s fine; we need all the help we can get right now in this crazy world. Doing any inner work is better than nothing at all. But, ultimately, the purpose of going within is to experience a deeper connection to your soul.

If you were really hungry, went to a restaurant, read the menu, ordered, and ate a great meal, are you going to tell your friends about how great it was to read the menu and order the food? Heck no. You’re going to talk about how good the food was because eating the food was the purpose of going to the restaurant.

My point is this: There is an authentic experience of life energy within us — it is possible to feel and see it. You don’t imagine it; you don’t think about it. You tune in to something calm, peaceful, nurturing, and full of light — your inner self.

You need to be thirsty for inner fulfillment, very thirsty.

Imagine you’re outside on a hot day for hours without water. Your throat is dry; your body is crying out for water. You can’t wait for your thirst to be quenched. You know you need water — nothing else will satisfy you. The idea of anything else is unthinkable. Someone offers you a cold glass of water. You gulp it down, quenching your thirst.

The same principle applies to going within. Before you go within, you have to realize, the experience of true joy is not derived from people, places, and things. When you understand the source of fulfillment is within you, you become thirsty for it. And when you have that experience, you want more of it because it is so satisfying.

The goal of slowing your mind down will not get you the experience you want. The mind naturally slows down as the connection to your soul grows. If your primary intention is to deal with your mind, at some point, you’ll likely give up because it will simply get too annoying. Human beings seek pleasure and avoid pain. Going within is pleasurable.

It takes time and practice, but believe me; it’s well worth it. We are part of a universe that reflects what is within us. When you look up at the stars on a clear night and see that unbelievable mass of swirling galaxies, stars, and planets twinkling at you, that, in its unique way, is inside us too.

Dealing with the thinking mind is not easy. It’s always active, thinking about the past and future. Even in my deepest experiences of going within, the thinking mind is one click away. My job is not to control it. My job is to do nothing, be the observer, and gently bringing my attention to the breath.

Going within won’t solve psychological challenges, social awkwardness, or the inability to communicate effectively. Nor will it reveal your inner voice or passion in life. If you want to find your passion, live your life. Try things, experiment, keep asking questions, be curious. You’ll find what you are supposed to find at the time you are supposed to find it. Don’t overthink it.

The soul is naturally happy. When you connect to it, you’ll experience real happiness coming up from within you.

It’s that simple.

When the thinking mind dissolves, the inner experience of consciousness, light, and energy appears. The trick is, how do you get the thinking mind to dissolve? Put your attention on something that doesn’t come from your mind.

That’s where the breath comes in. It’s neither in the past or the future. The thinking mind, the ego, the lower self, live in the past or the future. It doesn’t inhabit the present because it is not pure consciousness. We place our attention on our breath because the breath is always in the present. It can hook the mind and soothe it. The experience we want when going within is just behind the breath. It’s there, quietly waiting for us not to overlook it.

The more you do this, the more you realize what you see when you look up is what you see when you look within. Looking up at the stars puts life in perspective.

Looking within does the same thing.

Enjoy your journey, my fellow traveler!

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