An analogy to explain meditation...

So I was talking to a friend, Aadya Shah a while ago and thought of this analogy to digging into ones mind...

After further thought it made sense to apply the analogy to meditating. Thought it needs more work, I think this second draft is good enough to put up:

Think of the world as having two parts. A hall (like a banquet hall) and the rest of the world.

The Hall is the only building on the block. On all four sides of the hall are roads.

Say you're sitting on a bench outside the hall. On the opposite side of it.

The hall here, is your mind. And everything outside is the world you perceive with your external physical senses.

So you're outside the hall, sitting on that bench and one day you decide to enter it. Say, one day, you decide to meditate.

Now, the first thing you must do, is cross the road and enter. You must first shut down all exterior sensory inputs. Close your eyes, close your ears, etc. You must not allow the goings on of the world outside the hall to draw you out of it.

So you enter this hall and the first thing you notice is a sea of people. So many of them! Each distinct! Some happy, some sad, some incredibly attractive and yet others that are downright repulsive. And they all want to talk to you. They want your time. They want your attention! These are your thoughts. The thoughts that keep running through your mind all day. Remove them. Ask all the people to leave. You'll realise how much more pleasant albeit slightly lonely it can be without them. You're here to check out the hall. Not it's contents.

Ok! Now all the people are out. It's just you and the hall. But is that really so? What about all the furniture? It isn't a part of the basic structure of the hall, is it? It must all go! The chairs and the tables, the counters and the cupboards and even the carpets. It must all go out. These are your fleeting goals and ideas and beliefs. They change with time and so are easier to remove. They only get into the way while you're trying to understand the true nature of this hall. But you must study them first. Understand their nature and why they've been kept there. What purpose does that sofa serve? You'll realize that most of them were quite a waste in the first place. Now be warned! You might find a cockroach or a snake or even a line of ants when you move this furniture. They are fleeting fears. Be not afraid, you are greater than them. This hall is greater than them. You must remove them too, before you can move forward. Lest they come bite you when you're working on studying the true nature of this hall! If you're too afraid, leave that sofa in place. Wait a while. Rest. And then try again.

The furniture's out? Great! So you're left with a bare room. Devoid of furnishings and light fixtures. Just four walls and a ceiling. Next step! Tear it all down!

Tear down those POP walls and enter the next layer of this hall. You are now beginning to understand the Hall's true nature. The plumbing, the electricals etc. These are your base beliefs. The kinds that tell you you exist. That you are human and so on. They must go. You might (hell, you probably will) find termites or asbestos in behind that false wall. These are your innermost demons. And they are, more often than not, as strong as your base beliefs. Tread carefully. Getting hurt is fine. But you do not want to destroy yourself. But anyway, there's a brick wall behind these and you must see it and examine it as well. After all, that is the true nature of the hall, isn't it?
The hall now looks starkly different since when you began. It can be a scary place. But do not worry. The fact that you have been given the ability to come this far and even venture deeper means that you are greater than them!

So dig on! And before you know it, all that shall be left will be them columns and beams. Concrete or brick, it matters not. You are now at the edge of the shell that is the hall. What now? You have understood every component that made up the hall. You have only one thing left. Go through the shell, just to check if there's anything beyond. And when you do, I promise you, you'll be back outside. Just where you started. Except now, things seem different. Your experiences inside the hall have shaped your perception of the world outside. You smile to yourself whenever you think of it and when someone asks you what happened you say nothing... Nothing at all...

Meditation does not equal detachment. The sense of detachment is a natural and necessary step towards reaching and understanding one's inner self. Meditation does not mean giving everything up as well. Dig enough and you'll realise, you're back outside. The world you perceive through your senses and the one that lies inside your mind are more connected than you can ever imagine. At least that's what happened when I entered my hall. When will you enter yours?

A Different School of Thought

It's been a long time since I've posted anything here. It's not that I haven't been writing, It's just that most of what I've written has been written elsewhere.

I've written log entry after log entry full of thoughts and ideas and philosophy.
I've written answer sheets full of badly scribbled handwriting.
I've written songs that, in all probability, will never get recorded or heard by anyone else...
I've written little notes full of love and texts full of motivational thoughts.

Yeah... I've been writing. Just not here. So I guess it's time to type out a little something for this platform. This other platform that no one really reads either...

It's been a rough couple of months. I've questioned why I'm doing what I'm doing and whether it will eer yield results. I guess it's easier to have faith when you believe in something. When, on questioning, an activity that you devote so much of your time to yields answers that are not just unsatisfactory, but leave you with a really bad feeling in your gut, it's hard to have faith.

But that's the thing with faith, I'm told. It's believing when there is absolutely no reason to believe.

I disagree. And I do so strongly.

The fact is, I believe in another school of thought. One that believes in questioning. I believe in asking questions. I believe in asking question after question after question till there are no more questions left. Anything that is presented to me, is questioned to death. If it holds up to questioning, I agree with it and believe in it. If it does not, I reject it for another time. For questioning is also time-specific. There are things I've believed in for years. It doesn't mean I've stopped questioning them. It means that they've held up to my questioning every single time.

Sometimes thigns don't hold up to questioning. So they're rethought. Re-explored and reexamined, they often lead me to greater truths. And I guess that's the thing. I love the truth. More importantly, I love Knowing the Truth.

Knowing gives me a strong strong sense of relief. Whether what I know is pleasant or downright horrifying. The fact that I know it gives me a strong sense of... Fulfillment.

So that's what I do. I question. I follow my own personal school of thought. And every now and then, I question whether questioning itself is of any use. And as always, the idea holds up to questioning.

I guess writing these hopelessly abstract and random ideas are better than having nothing here at all....

Why is it better? I think I'll get to that soon.