On Meditation: Beyond Thoughts in the Mind

Does peace of mind have 'depth'? I break down my experience of meditation - what happens during, immediately after, and much later. And I contend some big questions.

I had tried meditation a few times before, but I actually 'discovered' it only during the first CoVID lockdown in March 2020. I knew nothing about it, except that people do it to become "mindful", and I had no clue what that really meant. So one day I sat down and did something for around 10 minutes, and it was good but nothing remarkable.

The next day, I was walking in a forest near my house, and I saw a bench. I sat down, looked around, and I decided, "Let me try it here. And I'll do it longer this time, and see what happens".

I walked back home, and I told everybody I cared about, who might wanna hear this -

"I went out and tried meditation, and I have discovered something inexplicable and extraordinary... I just cannot stress that enough and you MUST try it."

I am going to attempt the impossible now - to describe the indescribable. And I give you three disclaimers:

1. You can trust the scientist in me to tell you what I know, and what I don't know, and to provide rational perspectives. And I will tell you whenever I take the liberty to make guesses.

2. Meditation as a practice has existed for a few thousand years now. There are so many schools of thought, and I have not bothered to figure out my place among these, because its dizzyingly diverse. If it helps to know: I am an atheist.

3. Having said that, I will describe subjective experiences that are going to sound mystical or simply put... crazy. But I will only speak from a human 'feeling' perspective. Hear me out, and always remember this :

"To be a human being is to know more than one can prove, to conceive of a reality that goes 'beyond the facts' in these familiar and natural ways." - Iris Murdoch

An inexplicable state: the first few minutes

The Treasures Within

The soft crunch of gravel under my feet.

The earthy scent of a dry summer forest.

In the shadows of the canopy and the spaces between,

I walk in awe of what's around me.

Brown cracks on the barks of trees,

Branches outspreading high above me,

Leaves on the branches and their shades of green,

All astonish me, like I am new to this scene.

I see a gentle breeze caress the leaves,

And almost at once, I feel it on my face.

I gaze through the trees into the clear, blue sky,

And I am a stranger to this limitless space.

I am insignificant, a spectator,

A speck of dust suspended in this theatre,

And yet I am one with the air that I breathe,

I feel myself rooted to the ground beneath.

I look back at my path, but my footprints are gone.

The swirling sands have swallowed my past.

I am a blip in time, a pebble in this Scheme,

And I drown in the expanse of this moment.

I harbour a spirit that screams within me,

I do not recognize, nor hope to contain it.

I feel alive like I never have, but I forget that I exist,

For I cannot think about me, nor all that I see.

I have just discovered the treasures that have been,

All around me, all along and all within,

I am utterly lost in the richness of this mundanity,

And I surrender myself right here, to this eternity.

This is the subjective experience of my life, in the first five minutes after meditation. Well, not exactly... Because this is how I remember it, and like I have mentioned, I was not thinking during this experience. But I've felt this so many times and I stand by this description.

I call this a state of 'bliss' for lack of a better word. Because it feels like happiness, with all those 'positive' tones, but it is truly not. Happiness feels surreal and dreamy (imagine being around best friends, or when you get what you've always wanted, or you are lying next to your lover). Time 'blurs' out like in a dream and you never notice it pass. The happy state feels 'short-lived' always, it feels like it ended too quickly.

Pain and suffering, on the other hand remind you that you are awake and alive, and you feel 'trapped' in that moment. You cannot escape it no matter how much you want to, and every moment feels like forever when you're in pain. You are incredibly in tune with what's happening to you.

This state of bliss is more like pain. I am immersed in the moment, and time feels stretched out. I feel so incredibly aware and alive, that there is no way it feels dreamy. It feels like pure... living.

Before I try to argue how or why I have felt these things, I will describe what I did and do everytime.

My Process: What is Meditation?

I sit in a comfortable posture, close my eyes and do exactly these things:

1. I clear my mind. (If its hard, I do this by focusing on my breathing and 'looking' at a center point between my eyes - this helps wash out the 'visual' element of thoughts. My mind is now a blank 'black screen'. Try it and see, it takes one second!)

2. A minute later, without knowing it, I start thinking about things naturally.

3. A few minutes in, I suddenly realize that I'm thinking and I don't know where or when it started.

4. But now that I'm aware, I naturally stop thinking about it.

5. And I repeat steps 1 - 4.

That's it, its that simple. (A beautiful analogy to understanding this process is in the Headspace: Guide to Meditation Ep1 video on Netflix.)

Meditation, for me, is the process of constantly trying and failing to clear my head of thoughts. It trains you to watch your thoughts, and let them come in and go out of your mind naturally. The fundamental idea is to dissociate yourself from the thoughts, and watch them as a third person.

"A quiet mind does not mean that there will be no thoughts or mental movements at all, but that these will be on the surface, and you will feel your true being within, separate from them, observing but not carried away." - Sri Aurobindo

Remember that there are no rules, nor any 'purpose'. A few important points to know -

• To achieve an empty mind is not a strong purpose. Consider it a mere consequence of realizing that you're thinking, so do not "beat yourself up" if you find yourself distracted. Just patiently and naturally bring your mind back to emptiness.

• Sometimes even after realizing that you are thinking, you feel compelled to continue the thought. Or you may feel the emotions associated with the thought. Go with it. There are no rules in the entire process. Stop thinking when you find it natural to do so. (Eventually the mind trains to avoid the emotion, and simply watch the thought.)

• I do not "resist" opening my eyes. Wondering whether you want to stop the process and open your eyes - is itself a thought. See if it comes and goes out naturally. If you feel like you want to, just open.

• If I have work to do right after, and that's on my mind while I meditate, I wrap it up when I feel like it and keep going.

• If you feel sleepy, do not resist it. Use the time to nap, your body probably needs it. Whether you meditate or sleep, its a win-win. But perhaps don't meditate in a posture conducive to sleep (like lying down).

Let me be honest, the method is extremely simple, but the process is much harder.

During meditation: my experience

I have only meditated for 1-2 hours maximum. I never calculate the time, because I don't sit with a plan. Here is my experience from one instance I remember:

The first ~15 minutes:

As I start meditating, my body and mind are both getting used to sitting idle. This is a noisy phase. I can feel the discomfort in some parts of the body in my posture, and my thoughts are slightly 'intense'. It is easier to realize I'm thinking, and control them, but I also start thinking again soon.

From ~15 min to ~1.5 hours:

This feels clearly different and I notice the difference only a little bit in. My body has relaxed, and its slowly getting numb. My breathing becomes very slow and barely noticeable. Soon I don't feel my hands or legs, and its this weird experience of 'existing only as thoughts'. As for my mind, it becomes a lot 'calmer'. My thoughts are flowing smoothly, slowly, in a far more coherent manner, making it much harder for me to realize I'm thinking, and then to naturally snap out of it. But my 'empty' intervals also get longer and longer. I realize often, that I feel deep internal peace and silence in me, from watching my thoughts die away.

Throughout:

The amazing side effect of shutting off vision is that the other senses become sharper, mainly the hearing. When my mind is empty of thoughts, I am sometimes aware of my surroundings and boy, it feels awesome. Meditating in a foresty public area is a sensory delight. I listen to trees swaying in the wind, branches cracking and falling, and the mating calls of birds and insects. I hear bees and flies buzzing around my body, and I am both in fear (that they will bite me) and in awe (of simply tracing the sounds move around in space). Then I hear people jogging around and the chuck-chuck-chuck of their footsteps. Some couples talk aloud, until they see me and start to whisper. Pet dogs come running over to me, and their panting gets louder until I start feeling their warm snout on my legs, as they smell and lick me. I am smiling inside my mind throughout, as their hoomans call them back. I am aware of all of this, and I build a rich world of my surroundings only through my sense of hearing. Its the same when I am meditating in the house and my friends walk around, going about their lives. I absolutely love this part of meditation, I think that this is a main part of feeling peaceful. Hearing these sounds is still merely observation, but when my mind starts visualizing this world and putting words to the experiences, these are thoughts. They come and go out naturally, until my mind draws a blank 'black screen'.

Sometimes I feel itches in my body, and these are the hardest parts! I like to resist itching to see if it goes away soon or not, because my body is already relaxed and I like it. But no rules - if its unbearable, I scratch, settle down and then I find another normal. This is a good metaphor for the process of meditation itself - a thought is like an itch. Can you train yourself to watch it come and go away without reacting to it?

So why do I think meditation is incredibly powerful?

Post meditation: The state of bliss

I already tried to describe the actual experience, so these are my comments on it.

One time experience?: I've been in this state almost every time after long and deep meditation. So I'm convinced that it is a result of the process. What's more? - doing it regularly has given me a key to this treasure. A way to unlock this state even when I don't meditate. The mind is incredible at patterns, it memorizes the way this happens and it lets me 'slip' into this state even without meditating. I usually meditate in natural surroundings, so I slip into it a lot when I'm in nature - when I'm out hiking, cycling, or walking alone in a park or an empty road, or just sitting still under a tree. I suddenly become overwhelmed with visual information and I cannot help but squeal in excitement at the beauty of what's around me. Just processing it all gives me no space to think about anything.

"The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence." - Jiddu Krishnamurti

Harmony with nature: I'm sure you've heard every monk or sage preach this. From my experience, they are right about this. I feel it because I am completely engaged with my surrounding and I forget my 'self' in this process. This "connectedness of things" is a quality well known in the scientific research on meditation also. A side effect is that my love for nature has skyrocketed.

Loss/death of the ego: Like I already mentioned, being overwhelmed by the natural order of things makes you feel 'small' and insignificant. Concepts like vanity and legacy lose meaning in this state. Since I forget my 'self', 'I' don't matter anyway.

"And so I go to the woods. As I go in under the trees, dependably, almost at once, and by nothing I do, things fall into place. I enter an order that does not exist outside, in the human spaces... I am less important than I thought. I rejoice in that. " - Wendell Berry

But that's barely everything! There is another equally important component to this state.

The inside: I feel an extremely powerful 'force' inside me. Something in me 'soars' and I feel like I cannot contain it within me. It spills over and it has brought me to tears in rare cases, but the emotion is simply of overwhelm. Strangely, I feel deep tranquility at the same time as I feel this 'life force'. There are also tones of 'gratitude' and 'love for the universe'. Its impossible to describe it, or find out what invokes it, but this is an extremely common human experience. Ask anybody who has cried at watching a sunrise in the mountains, or their deities in temples or festivals. If you've heard the song A river flows in you by Yiruma, and you have felt the river flow inside you along with the notes, you may understand this. Its like music moving people to tears, but here there is no music! Its absolutely crazy that all of this happens from doing... nothing. No special sights or triggers - the ordinary simply becomes extraordinary!

That. Is the reason I think this is so powerful. These treasures seem to be accessible to the average human, irrespective of age or background. Here are some commonly used phrases to describe this condition:

• "You can feel the vibrations of the environment / you are at the same frequency of this place"

• "This place has psychic energy and it flows into you"

• "You can feel God inside you"

I don't believe any of these descriptions, but I cannot refute them too. I think that everything is inside your mind and the space itself is only as significant as it is for you, whether its nature, a place of worship or the ambience of a full moon night. But I know for sure now that the experience is real, and I am happy to (fail to) describe it without trying to put a label on it.

But the million dollar question remains: How is it that I don't have thoughts in my head, but I'm processing this storm outside and inside me?

Some handwavy science

So what is this visual information overload? Why is it that when I'm seeing a regular "tree", I am processing far more features - the bark, leaves, variations in colour and size - etc? Why am I clearly more attentive to the richness of regular objects?

Full disclosure: the first time this happened, I was not aware of the science so I'm sure there was no placebo effect. But of course, I simply had to dig into the science after that, and you could say all future experiences were affected by what I 'expected'. But it doesn't matter how it happens, it only matters that it happens.

(There was an article in the e-magazine Psyche I read two years ago that, for the life of me, I could not find again. So here is a brief handwavy explanation based on what I remember.)

When you notice a tree through the visual sensory data you get, you don't use all of the data - every crack in the bark, position of every branch and leaf, etc - to identify it as a "tree". You actually use very familiar high-level patterns such as the color, shape etc, that your mind has stored from countless observations of a tree, in order to immediately recognize it. Your mind is ruthlessly efficient at avoiding this kind of processing, which is unnecessary for everyday life. I guess meditation tweaks these neuronal pathways of attention and perception, such that much more of the sensory data is processed from the raw-form and not ignored for efficiency. So you notice regular objects with all of their rich details.

Meditation and psychedelics are also being studied together for obvious reasons - heightened sense of awareness, self-loss / ego-death, expansive feeling of time, etc. But the striking difference is that meditation is a 'sober' state of mind and the person has far more agency and control of actions, unlike in a psychedelic high.

Post meditation: Long after

The inexplicable state of 'bliss' only lasts a very short time, because in that phase I'm only observing. It is actually not the purpose, or the biggest benefit. My mind soon starts filling up with thoughts, as I come back to civilization, but the fallout is gradual. This time there is a familiar pattern even while I'm walking about normally: thoughts come and also go out, so there are moments where my mind is clear. And this entire process is so peaceful because you are not engaged with the thoughts and, therefore, the emotions that are triggered by it.

Takeaways

I am convinced that this is the biggest takeaway for life in general: the more regularly you meditate, the more you train your mind to look at your thoughts from a dissociated perspective and figure out how you want to deal with them.

For example, sometimes your mind overthinks about situations you actually have no control over - you may 'know' this but you still feel associated emotions like anxiety and panic. Meditation trains you to 'watch' these thoughts and let them die away. I think this is why there is so much hype for meditation as a way to avoid stress, 'control' emotions, and find peace in a busy lifestyle. (There is too much hype in my opinion. Please be aware that it is not the cure for clinical conditions of mental illness, and it cannot replace therapy. Don't trust people who sell this idea.) However, sitting to meditate with such a 'purpose', is a hit-or-miss, in my opinion. I think of it more as a practice for prevention rather than cure for a particular situation. It is also pretty clear that you absolutely do not need religion to practice meditation, and avail its benefits. Religion only provides its own tools or methods to do the same.

"Meditation is not something that should be done in a particular position at a particular time. It is an awareness and an attitude that must persist throughout the day." - Annamalai Swami

Spirituality: from methods to a lifestyle

All of what I have said above, are particularly about meditation and its direct benefits for dealing with thoughts in the short-term. But I am benefitted far more by the indirect effects.

How does the combination of self-awareness and regular meditation, affect my lifestyle and my choices? How do they guarantee a sense of peace and security, amid a host of unpredictable circumstances? I will contend these and other huge questions on the art of living, in my next post on spirituality. Particularly, on the power of being 'spiritual' while existing in the modern world with a modern lifestyle.

Stay tuned, and definitely try meditation. Its a gamechanger :)