Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

What is Meditation? A mind that is in the present moment is meditation. A mind that is without agitation, hesitation and anticipation is meditation. A mind that has become no mind and has come back to its source is meditation.

When is rest possible? When you have stopped all voluntary activities like walking, working, talking, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting etc. and when only involuntary activities like breathing, beating of the heart and digestion of food continue, rest happens. However, this is not total rest, but sleep. When the mind settles down, the meditation happens which is total rest. Sometimes you can go to bed with some restlessness, agitation or desire. The mind is busy planning for the future, these plans stay in the mind. On the surface level, they seem to have disappeared, but they go a little deeper. That is how sleep is not very deep when you have a lot of ambitions or desires. Very ambitious people cannot have deep sleep because the mind does not become hollow and empty. This is not freedom. Real freedom is freedom from the past.

When you are not happy in the present moment, you desire for a brighter future. Holding the desire in the mind disturbs the present moment and this causes tension. This tension does not allow meditation to happen though you are sitting with your eyes closed. You are only daydreaming.

What is it being focused? Being fulfilled, centred in the moment looking up to the highest and remaining in that space of peace is being focussed. When you are at peace, you are focussed. If you are not focussed, that means your mind is hovering around, and there is no peace.

Every desire or ambition is like a sand particle in the eye, it irritates. You can neither shut nor open your eyes. Being dispassionate is like removing the particle of dust or sand from your eyes so that you can open it freely. When you are dispassionate, you can enjoy the world freely. Total freedom comes. That is liberation. You are not bothered whether something is there or not. It is unhappiness for those who have companions as well as for those who do not have companions. Same is the case with those who have money as well as those who do not have money. People who have money are always thinking about what to do with the money. Should they invest it or not? If they invest, will it result in profit or loss? What is the status of the stock market and so on. Those who do not have money are worried for the lack of the same.

Meditation is accepting the present moment as it is, living every moment totally, in depth. What can you do when desires come up? Just accept them and let go. That is meditation. Do not hold on to them and day dream. You have no control over your desires. When you say, “Oh, I should not have desire”, that will become a desire. Asking, “When will I be free of the desires,” is again another desire. As they come up, recognise them and let go. This process is called sanyas. Offer all as they come, as they arise in you, and be centred. When you can do that, nothing can shake you, nothing can take you away from ‘That’, otherwise small things can shake you, and then you are sad and upset. A few words from here and there or some insult can make you sad.

This is a test for you, how easily you could let go of all that. That is the art of letting go.Life teaches you the art of letting go in every event. The more you learn to let go, the happier you will be. When you learn to let go, you will be joyful. As you start being joyful, more will be given to you. Those who have more, more and more will be given to them. That is meditation.

As long as some desires linger in your mind, you cannot be at total rest. Now, take a good look at the desires. What are these desires? Perceiving how small they really are, perceiving that they are nothing to be bothered about, is maturity. This is called discrimination.Discrimination is perceiving all of them as nothing. Another way to alleviate the grip of desire is to extend your desire, make it so big that it can no longer bother you. It takes a tiny particle of sand to irritate your eyes. A big stone can never get into your eye and irritate you. So much unhappiness comes from the smallest of things. Bhagwad Gita says you cannot get into yoga unless you drop the desire in you. As long as you hold on to the desire to do something the mind does not settle. Do you see these mechanics? The more you are anxious about something, the more difficult it becomes to sleep; what do you do? You simply let go of everything. Only then are you able to rest.

Why not do the same thing in activity, moment by moment? Or at least during meditation. When you want to sit for meditation, let go of everything. The best way is to think, “Oh the world is disappearing, dissolved, dead and I am dead.” Unless you are dead, you cannot meditate. Many times, the mind does not even settle after death! Wise are those whose minds can settle when they are alive.

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What is there in life that you can hold on to? You cannot even hold on to this body forever. Whatever care you take, one day it is going to say goodbye to you. You will be evicted out of this place, out of this body, forcibly, perhaps with no prior notice. No time even to pack your bags! Before the body leaves you, you can learn to leave everything. That is freedom.

What is that you are looking for or holding on to? Some great joy? What great joy can come to you? You are joy. Often a dog goes on biting a dry bone. Do you know why it does this? When it keeps on biting the bone, it creates a wound in its mouth and the mouth starts to bleed. The dog thinks that the bone is very tasty. After a while, the dog’s whole mouth is sore. The poor dog spends all the time chewing the piece of bone and gets nothing out of it.

Any joy that you experience in life is from the depth of yourself. When you are able to let go all that you hold on to, settle down, and be centred in that space, this act is called meditation. Meditation is the art of not doing anything.

This rest is deeper than the deepest sleep you can ever have, several times deeper, because, in sleep, still somewhere the desires are lingering on. In meditation you transcend them all. This brings calmness to your brain. It is like overhauling your whole body, servicing your mind, your whole mind-body complex.

Meditation is letting go of the anger and the event of the past and letting go of all your planning for the future. Whatever you may plan, whatever you may do, your final destination is the grave. Whether you are a sinner or a saint, a rich or a poor man, an intelligent or a dull turnip-headed man, you still will go to the grave.

Whether you are loved or hated, you will be in the grave. Whether you love somebody or hate somebody, you will end up in the grave. People fought wars. The winners and the losers have gone to the grave. What does it matter? The difference is only a matter of time. The patient and the doctor both die. God laughs on two occasions; once is when the doctor tells the patients, “I am here to save you.” Another time is when two persons fight for a piece of land saying, “This is my land.” Both go to the grave fighting for the land.

What are all these little things popping up in the mind disallowing you to settle down in peace and be in joy and love?

Dispassion can bring so much joy in your life. Don’t think dispassion is a state of apathy. There is a difference between dispassion and apathy. A state of apathy is incompleteness.Dispassion is full of joy and enthusiasm. Dispassion brings all joy to your life. It allows you to rest so well. When you rest well and go deep into your meditation, you become very dynamic and act better.

Deep rest and dynamic activity are opposite values, but very complimentary.
The deeper you are able to rest, the more dynamic you become in your activity.

Do not think that if you become dispassionate, you will renounce everything and you will run to a nunnery or a monastery. People there are also day-dreaming of heaven.