Dandapani - Unlocking the secrets of Meditation

the good morning everyone and thank you come Bank for having me back at y for wonder again so the word insta see that you saw the represents the Sanskrit word Samadhi which is literally means standing within oneself it's the highest experience sought for in meditation so in today's session I hope to give you some practical step-by-step insights into the practice of meditation and and also lead you through a guided meditation so you can get a insight into it meditation is something that's becoming really popular in today's well but very few people have a good understanding of what it actually is and how to approach meditation and there's so many different traditions out there and some legitimate and a lot very unlit practices so I hope to share some insights with you about it the first thing to really understand about meditation is that your intention for beginning the meditation practice is really is what will either keep you on this path I'll get you off it you know a lot of people quite often approach me and say you know dhandapani I lead an extremely chaotic life do you think if I started meditating in the morning for you know for three or five minutes will that help my life and my answer to them is that meditation is not a sweet sauce you add to life to make it taste good and it really isn't you can't eat a carrot in the morning and then eat hamburgers and pizzas and drink beer throughout the day and expect to have a healthy diet it just does not work that way right and that's how most people turn to meditation as a solution to their chaotic life and meditation is not a solution to a chaotic life if you want to meditate and actually make progress in meditation the first thing you need to do is actually fix your lifestyle you need to get your lifestyle in order then your lifestyle supports your meditation practice your meditation practice becomes stronger than the process reverses then your meditation practice supports your life now lifestyle and makes your lifestyle really strong but it begins with your lifestyle furs not with meditation so what is meditation I think that's a really good place to define to start with right meditation is a practice of a prolonged state of concentration to bring forth new ideas creativity and deep spiritual experiences to put it in simple words meditation is really about working with the energy inside of you we have energy coming in through the back of our head through God Universal however you want to call it coming down our spine flowing through our nerves flowing through our torso our arms through our legs our feet and always flowing out of us energy is always flowing out of us into people and to things around us meditation is the process of getting to know that energy understanding that energy that's constantly flowing through us learning how to harness that energy so we are conscious of who and what we're investing our energy in throughout the day being able to harness that energy would draw that energy concentrate that energy on a single point of focus so meditation is not emptying your mind it's not clearing your mind if any of you've ever sat down trying to clear your mind let me tell you it's an impossible task you cannot clear your mind but what you can do is focus your mind and meditation is an extremely concentrated state of mind so in meditation it's crucial that there's a process and a goal so how do you know what meditation practice you should follow really simple if you come across a meditation teacher or practice first thing you need to ask is is that process is there a systematic process and is it is there a goal if there's no process and there's no goal quite likely that meditation practice is a little bit gee right it's really important because if you look at the everyday mundane things that we do in life most things have a process and most things have a goal take having a shower for example we all shower well hopefully we all shout everyday right we go into the bathroom we take our clothes off we turn on the water we get it to the right temperature we get wet we put soap on wash the soap off turn the water off dry ourselves put fresh clothes on and we leave the bathroom right what sets maybe about seven or eight nine steps do we ever mix those steps up we don't right we don't go stand in the shower with our clothes on then take our clothes off put our fresh clothes on put soap and then leave no we follow those steps right putting your shoes on we put our socks we put our suits on we tie our shoelaces right three-step process and we follow that putting our clothes on we put our underwear on we put our pants on well unless you're Superman then you put your pants on and then you're on the way but he's from a different planet so we won't get into that but that's a process that each of those process has a goal right a very clearly defined goal we take a shower you know to to be clean we we wear shoes to click a feet clean and not step on something shop we wear clothes so we don't get arrested and everything has a goal right in daily life so why should meditation not have a process and why should meditation not have a goal reason should not end where spirituality begins and this is quite often the case when people get into spirituality or getting to meditation all of a sudden they abandon reason and this should never be the case right so approach meditation in a step-by-step systematic process and a goal aren't it has to be goal orientated and in meditation you want to work on the same goal over and over and over again quite often people will say you know today I'm going to sit and meditate on love tomorrow I'm feeling a little stress I'm going to meditate on being calm the next day I'm going to meditate on patience the day after that on tolerance you'll never ever make progress do you go to the gym and work on your right bicep today on I mean your life left bicep tomorrow and the day after that on your right leg and the day after that on your left leg and a month later I come back to your right bicep how long do you think you're right before your right bicep builds up probably never right the same way with meditation if you're meditating on something different every day you will never make progress you meditate on the same thing every single day or at least five days a week which is what I recommend then you start to make progress and you meditate on it till you actually attain it it's extremely important to be unwavering in your focus concentration is a necessary ingredient in meditation if you I I hesitate to say this because so many people can't concentrate these days but if you cannot concentrate you cannot meditate so if you want to learn to meditate you need to learn to concentrate for it and you need to learn to concentrate throughout the entire day and this needs to be part of your routine most people can't concentrate in today's well for two reasons true some people might have some kind of chemical imbalance that prevents them from concentrating but most people can't concentrate for two reasons one nobody has been taught how to concentrate how many of you in this room had been formally trained how to concentrate in school when you are growing up can I see a show of hands like actual formal training and concentration nobody right I travel all around the will and I speak and I always ask this question nobody raises their hand and if you don't practice um thing and then secondly if you don't practice it how can you be good at it how many of you in this room have been told to concentrate growing up lots right just like me I was told to concentrate on eating my food I was told to concentrate on learning and doing my homework but nobody told me how to how many of you have children how many of you tell your children to concentrate well there you go right do you show them how to know right how do you expect them to concentrate if you don't teach them how to do it and then if they don't practice it there's no way they're going to be good at it right how do you become good at something you practice right it's unending repetition you practice and you practice and you practice in order to be successful in meditation you must develop unwavering focus you must develop concentration the best way to develop concentration is to integrate this practice into your everyday life make it a part of your life how do you practice concentration you practice concentration by doing one thing at a time the mind cannot multitask it searches so quickly from one thing to another gives you the sense that you're multitasking so bring the practice of doing one thing at a time into your life as an entrepreneur I found I find that this is one of my greatest assets the ability to concentrate and here's something interesting as well that you'll get one of the greatest benefits of concentration is the power of observation right so if I go to the gym and I lift weights what will I get muscle right if I lift weights I will get muscle that's a byproduct of lifting weights if I concentrate for prolonged periods of time the natural byproduct of that is the power of observation what is observation in monk language it's the mountaintop perspective the on top of the mountain you get the overview picture so how does that translate to real life have you ever watched a live soccer game for example and with your friends at home and you see the guy running down the soccer field with the soccer ball and everybody in the rooms going positive him pass it to him and then he passes it to somebody else how does everyone in the room react oh you idiot right how much is that idiot getting paid what about forty million dollars a year before endorsements probably right so why did he make the wrong decision and you make the right decision it's perspective right you're watching the game from the top of the stadium you see the bigger picture and therefore make a better decision that is what observation is observation is you taking your awareness to a higher state of mind that gives you a bigger broader perspective on things you see things in front of you you see opportunities you see problems that exist but you're normally not aware as an entrepreneur I find that to be one of my greatest assets I see opportunities and I see obstacles in front of me all the time therefore allowing me to make better decisions in my life on how to go forward so for me developing concentration practicing concentration is a must so you can integrate concentration into your everyday life the way I suggest you do it is you find opportunities in your everyday to practice concentration what are the things that you do every day if you live with a spouse what a great opportunity to practice concentration every time you speak with your spouse give your spouse your undivided attention keep your awareness on your spouse if it drifts away bring it back if it drips away bring it back on an average day probably you might spend maybe two three hours speaking with your spouse that's three hours of practice you can clock in a day practicing concentration every time you drive practice concentration you're traveling in a metal box going in 110 kilometers an hour and who's in charge most people don't even know how many times have you driven and got somewhere and then go wow I wonder how I got here have you ever had that experience isn't that scary going at 110 kilometres an hour in a metal box and you have no idea who's in charge right what a great opportunity to practice concentration you all drive here in Australia I live in New York so I don't have to drive I am my own driver drives the subway so right you drive what a great opportunity to practice concentration so integrate this practice into your everyday life is essential to make progress in meditation it takes tremendous amount of courage to meditate and that is why most people aren't able to sustain a meditation practice because what is a meditation practice meditation practice is about you closing your eyes and going within yourself and this is where the challenge begins as soon as you start to go inside of yourself you see so many beautiful things and you also see so many things that are not so beautiful and most people can handle the beautiful things but can't handle the not so beautiful things within themselves and therefore after a little while they start meditating the first thing you encounter in the process of meditation is your subconscious mind what is the subconscious mind the subconscious mind is a storehouse of every experience you've ever encountered throughout your life whether you're conscious of it or not conscious of it experiences that are stored in your subconscious with emotions attached to it and we carry throughout our life these unresolved emotional experiences that we need never deal with I always ask people you know we spent I always tell people we spend so much time cleaning our homes cleaning out from yards or offices how car we clean our hair if you have any your years your nose your mouth your clothes how much time do you actually spend cleaning your subconscious mind when was the last time you actually cleaned out your subconscious probably not in a while right and this is an accumulation of experiences and quite often unresolved emotional experiences over a long period of time and that's the first thing you encounter when you start to meditate and go within yourself people face the subconscious mind they face unwholesome experiences they've had in the past they stop meditating and then they tell you I used to meditate things have gotten a little bit busy I'm planning to get back into my practice and that's the standard response you get from someone who's been meditating so it takes tremendous amount of courage what else does it take it takes tremendous amount of self-acceptance you have to accept you for who you are accepting you for who you are doesn't mean condoning these negative experiences that you have in your mind or negative behavioral traits what it means is that you acknowledge they exist and you you look at yourself as a working progress I look at myself as a building under construction the still work being done right people never complain about a building under construction but everybody complains about a finished building right you go in to finish building you like oh I did it could escalate over here it should have been over then this light switch should have been over that but if it's a building under construction people understand it's still under working progress so I look at myself as being under progress acceptance is a tremendous and that you want to cultivate when you meditate willpower is a quality that you want to cultivate as well and you also want to cultivate unconditional love for yourself I remember traveling in Nepal a few years ago and I had an amazing experience of watching two young boys and one young boy express self acceptance love and compassion to its another boy and I took this photo and I wanted to share it with you and this young boy was sitting there looking after his friend feeding him offering image ring taking such good care of him and I thought to myself this is an amazing experience of self accept of acceptance compassion and unconditional life and unconditional love we not only need to express this to the people outside of us but we also need to express it to ourselves and most people struggle practicing this with themselves can you accept you for who you are one of the most important things need to realize on the path of meditation that who you are right now is the sum total of your entire life if you're 40 years old it took 40 years to create who you are right now it's going to take a few years to uncreate some of these behavioral patterns it's not going to happen instantaneously meditation is not an instantly gratifying exercise it's not like going to do yoga for an hour and you leave the yoga studio feeling great you could meditate for 10 minutes and walk away and not feel anything meditation is almost like having a healthy diet you eat a bowl of salad and it doesn't really make you feel so good but if you eat healthy every week for a few months you might start to feel different and meditation is the same way as well the rewards come much later on in the practice and not understand so it takes tremendous amount of self-acceptance accepting you for who you are practicing compassion with yourself as you go within and you start to see the unwholesome areas of who you are and it takes tremendous amount of love love of yourself and saying it's okay this is who I am it took so many years to create me it's going to take a few more years to uncreate this thing I'm a work in progress and I'm going to keep going at it and this is so crucial in sustaining a meditation practice I see so many people begin meditation and then end it because they don't know what they will encounter as they go in how do you approach meditation you approach meditation step by step there's an old monk saying that goes the temple made of bricks is built one brick at a time and that's how you approach meditation if you've never meditated before I recommend meditating one minute a day you know people come up to me right before New Year's and say Don Tapani a gonna start meditating 30 minutes every day now my first question to them is how often do you meditate now how long do you meditate now and they go oh I don't meditate at all I think they're like well that's great that practice is going to last you all all of three days right because it's just not sustainable if you're not sitting down quietly now to meditate start with one minute a day do it Monday to Friday and then go from that what's important in a meditation practice creating a daily ritual creating a daily ritual is extremely important in a meditation practice what's my ritual I wake up in the morning I answer the call of nature I take a shower I change my clothes and I go straight to my meditation room I don't update my facebook status I don't tweet I don't check my emails and then I sit down and I meditate once I've done with my meditation then I interact with my wife I I check my email I work on my business but I do my meditation first the best time to meditate is first thing in the morning what's another thing another way to look at meditation is meditation is having an appointment with yourself is having an appointment with your energy it's having a meeting with your energy we have meetings all the time right we have meetings in our workplace imagine if you ran a company without meetings how would the company go not very well right sports teams have meetings but when was the last time you had a meeting with your energy your energy is always flowing out of you to someone or something else when was the last time you gathered all your energy to one place and actually gave it a clear instruction it's the same way a company would run with not run meetings of sports team with not run meetings it would never be successful meditation is having a meeting with yourself what's required in having a meeting you need a location and you need a time so designate a space within your home for meditation it need only be as big as this to sit cross-legged on the floor and if you can't sit cross-legged on the floor you can sit on a chair with a firm surface with your spine straight right so that's your space that you go to meditate you don't general here you don't read books here you don't take any electron items over here this is a place purely for you to get to know yourself the same way that that's a space in your home a bathroom to use do bathroom things kitchen to do kitchen things the living room to relax and watch TV there needs to be a space within your home to meditate as well if this is a practice that you want to take seriously the best time to do it is the first thing in the morning as soon as you wake up if you take a shower if you need to have a cup of coffee you can do so have a glass of water don't interact with anything else come sit down and spend a little time meditating in the morning so since the subject is boss and time is shot I'm going to lead you through a meditation process okay and this is also outline in the little book which I believe you all have so you can always refer back to that so in order for you to join me in this process I will need all of you to you know if you're holding something in your hand I suggest you know putting it on the floor so you keep your hands-free one of the most important things in meditating is to keep your spine straight so ideally if you can sit down without leaning back but sit forward keeping your spine straight and your head gently balanced on top of your spine that's the best way what do you do with your hands you put your left hand down your right hand on top tips of your thumbs lightly touching one another so one of the first signs that you're no longer concentrating is the tips of your thumbs no longer touch each other and your spine that straight is starting a hunch so the guru in the monastery would walk around and look at his monks see who's thinking about food or you know other things instead of meditating and all you had to do is just look at their hands and if they no longer thumbs are no longer touching each other he knows they're no longer concentrating okay so that's a simple thing that you can do with your hands so we'll sit with our spine straight head nicely gently balance on top of our spine eyes are closed we take a slow deep breath in breathing in really slowly and then exhaling really slowly as well and do this at your own pace we all have different lung capacities so this not a competition take another slope deep breath when you're ready and slowly exhale again slow deep breath in slowly exhale the first step in meditation is to try and feel the energy within your body so I want you to visualize your physical body sitting here and I want you to visualize within your body that your body is completely filled with energy okay so you can visualize energy as a bright white light filling your entire physical body visualization is a big part of a meditation practice so visualize entire body filled with energy remember as we talked about earlier meditation is the process of harnessing and getting to know energy harnessing we're drawing it to central location and that's what we're going to do we're going to do this in a systematic process so try now that you're visualizing energy inside of your body try to feel energy and if you can't feel energy try to feel the warmth of your body remember in science heat is a form of energy so if you can feel the warmth within your body you can feel the energy within your body so it's that simple if you want to feel energy just feel the warmth within your body if you can feel the warmth of your body you can feel the energy within your body now I want you to visualize miles and miles and nerves flowing throughout your entire physical body nerves flowing down your spine throughout your torso throughout your arms into your hands and to your fingers down your leg into your feet into your very tips of your toes like roots of a tree imagine miles and miles from nerves flowing throughout your entire physical body now we want to systematically withdraw energy into it's a central location so we do this in step-by-step process let's start with the left foot and if you can't feel your left foot just wiggle your left toes a little bit so you know where your left foot is okay now once you division all the energy in your left toes being absorbed into the nervous system the same way the roots of a tree would suck up water and nutrients from the ground and draw it into the roots and send it to the trunk we want to draw all the energy from our left leg and send it into our spine our spine is the center and that's where we want to get all this energy so you imagine all the energy in your toes being gathered into the nervous system it's flowing inward and upward it's flowing through your foot flowing through your left foot flowing up your left ankle flowing up your left calf your leg flowing through your left knee your left thigh and into your spine if you find that your awareness is drifting away and you're thinking about something else gently and lovingly bring it back don't become frustrated with this process if you're not used to concentration it's going to take a little while to do so bring your awareness back to the practice draw all your energy from your left leg into your spine now become aware of your right leg become aware of the nervous system within your right toes energy being absorbed into the nervous system flowing inward and upward through your right foot your right ankle flowing up your right leg through your calf through your right knee up your right thigh and into your spine feel all the energy in your right leg being drawn into your spine okay we're gathering all the energy into our spine which is a center now become a way of your left hand become aware of your left fingers the energy within your left fingers being absorbed into the nervous system flowing inward and upward down your fingers towards the palm of your hand flowing through the palm of your hand through your entire left arm through your left shoulder through the entire left torso and into your spine okay and if you can feel this happening great if you can't feel this happening it's okay visualize this process taking place visualization is a big part of meditation become aware of your right hand now your right fingers the nervous system within your right fingers feel the energy being absorbed into the nervous system flowing inward and upward through your right palm your right wrist throughout your entire right arm all the way into your right shoulders through your right toe so and into your spine your spine is your Center you're gathering all your energy into a central location hold that energy in your spine and if you cannot feel your spine gently move your back from left to right so you can see where your spine is and hold that energy there keep your awareness on your spine where where nasarah energy flows so if you can keep your awareness in your spine that's where your energy will be flowing let's meditate on courage today a lot of people have fear in their lives so we don't want to meditate on fear we want to meditate on courage the way to meditate on courage is to remember the last time you felt the experience of being courageous and if you have not had that experience remember watching it on a TV show or a movie what did the experience of courage feel like hold that feeling in your mind allow that feeling in your mind now to permeate into the energy in your spine all that energy that's gathered in your spine now needs to be filled with that feeling of courage the same way when you have a meeting and you gather all employees into the meeting room doesn't very clearly line agenda meditation needs a goal as well and our goal this morning for meditation is courage so now that you've gathered all your energy in your spine you want to infuse that energy with the feeling of courage so whole courage in your mind become aware of it let it infuse the energy in your spine fill it with that feeling of courage and hold it there for a moment if you find your awareness drifting away gently and lovingly bring it back okay use your will use your will to hold your awareness on your spine drips away bring it back hold it steady be concentrated now we want to send this energy that's gathered in our spine that's infused with a feeling of courage back into our body again the same way that after you have a meeting with your employees or with your team you allow them to go back to their various departments right so now we need to send our energy back into our spine again we do that in a systematic process so sent now let's send energy out of our spine through our right toe so so visualize energy flowing out of your spine through your right toe so through your right shoulder flowing down your right arm all the way into your right wrist your right palm and your right fingers feel your entire upper right hand side of your body being permeate permeated with this renewed energy and the feeling of courage energy flowing out of your spine now through your left also through your left shoulder flowing down your left arm into your left wrist and into your left fingers feel the entire upper left-hand side of your body filled with this renewed energy and the feeling of courage energy flowing out of your spine now down your right leg we're going in a reverse process flowing down your right leg down your right thigh your right knee all the way down your right leg into your ankles into your right foot and all the way into your right toes feel your entire right leg filled with this renewed energy and the feeling of courage and you flowing out of our spine now down our life left leg through our left eye left knee down our left leg into our left foot and into our left toes again feel your entire left leg filled with this renewed energy and the feeling of courage your eyes are still closed your concentrated if you find your when is drifting away bring it back use your world power use your powers of concentration hold your awareness here keep it steady feel your entire physical body filled with this renewed energy and the feeling of courage the same way that when you attend the meeting there's a clear agenda everybody's on the same page and then you send them back out to do their work you just did the same thing with with your energy you drew it into your spine which is your meeting room you had a clear agenda you infused your energy with that feeling and now you sent it back out into your body again now slowly open your eyes and adjust yourselves to your surroundings and you can lean back into your chest so this is a really simple meditation practice that's extremely powerful I've been doing this practice for the last two-and-a-half decades and I haven't modified it one bit meditation is about doing the same thing over and over and over again and the deeper and deeper you were the more and more you repeat the practice the deeper and deeper you actually get into it if you watch professional athletes you watch a professional tennis player at Wimbledon right before the finals is warming up on the tennis court do you see him trying tricks herbs or does he practice the same serving the ball the same way he does every single day it's the same serve right even though it's the Wimbledon finals he practiced the same serve how many time has he done how many times has he done it a thousand ten thousand probably hundreds of thousands of time it's about mastering a practice it's not about beginning a new practice it's about mastering one practice through repetition okay meditation is a pilgrimage within yourself to your higher self meditation is a pilgrimage within just you for you to get to know the higher version of you to know yourself is the greatest gift that you can give yourself we all have a super conscious mind a higher state of mind that exists at any given point in time in our life we only need to access it and your ability to access your highest state of mind we will make a tremendous difference in your life I'll leave you with two quotes that my wonderful guru shared with me that will really help you with your practice of meditation in your pursuit of meditation and as you dive within yourself and see all the beautiful things inside of you and all the not so beautiful things at the inside of you keep one thing in mind proceed with confidence don't stop keep your willpower keep focus and keep going forward proceed with confidence and remember the main reason for meditation is for you to become in tune with your higher nature and the reason we want to do that is because life is meant to be lived joyously it truly is you have one life regardless of what your faith is what your background is whether you believe in reincarnation or one life or there's nothing that happens after life you have one life as you are and life is not shot but life is finite it definitely is finite I don't believe life is shot but I do believe life is finite and my goal is to live a joyous life in the way to live a joyous life is to become in tune with the highest version of you and meditation allows you to do that thank you very much everyone live Oh

Channel: Wired for Wonder

Views: 1,646,470

Keywords: Wired for Wonder, dandapani

Id: aMzBjtTsGd0

Length: 39min 16sec (2356 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 26 2015