ANYTHING CAN BE A MEDITATION

If we can de-automatize our activities, then the whole life becomes a meditation. Then any small thing, taking a shower, eating your food, talking to your friend, becomes meditation.

Meditation is a quality; it can be brought to anything. It is not a specific act. People think that way, they think meditation is a specific act - when you sit facing to the east, you repeat certain mantras, you burn some incense, you do this and that at a particular time in a particular way with a particular gesture. Meditation has nothing to do with all those things. They are all ways to automatize it and meditation is against automatization. So if you can keep alert, any activity is meditation; any movement will help you immensely.

Running, jogging and swimming

It is natural and easy to keep alert while you are in movement. When you are just sitting silently, the natural thing is to just fall asleep. When you are lying on your bed it is very difficult to keep alert because the whole situation helps you to fall asleep. But in movement naturally you cannot fall asleep, you function in a more alert way. The only problem is that the movement can become mechanical.

Laughing Meditation 

Laughter brings some energy from your inner source to your surface. Energy starts flowing. It follows laughter like a shadow. Have you watched it? When you really laugh, for those few moments you are in a deep meditative state. Thinking stops. It is impossible to laugh and think together. They are diametrically opposite: either you can laugh or you can think. If you really laugh, thinking stops. If you are still thinking, laughter will be just so-so, lagging behind. It will be a crippled laughter.

Smoking Meditation

A man came to me. He had been suffering from chainsmoking for thirty years; he was ill and the doctors said, "You will never be healthy if you don't stop smoking." But he was a chronic smoker; he could not help it. He had tried - not that he had not tried - he had tried hard, and he had suffered much in trying, but only for one day or two days, and then again the urge would come so tremendously, it would simply take him away. Again he would fall into the same pattern.

OPENING THE  HEART

The heart is the gateless gate to reality. Move from the head to the heart.
We are all hung up in the head. That is our only problem, the only one problem. And there is only one solution: get down from the head into the heart and all problems disappear. They are created by the head. And suddenly everything is so clear and so transparent that one is surprised how one was continuously inventing problems. Mysteries remain but problems disappear. Mysteries abound but problems evaporate. And mysteries are beautiful. They are not to be solved. They have to be lived.

From Head to Heart 

The first point: try to be headless. Visualize yourself as headless; move headlessly. It sounds absurd, but it is one of the most important exercises. Try it, and then you will know. Walk, and feel as if you have no head. In the beginning it will be only "as if." It will be very weird. When the feeling comes to you that you have no head, it will be very weird and strange. But by and by you will settle down at the heart.

The Heart of Peacefulness 

A very simple method but it works miraculously - try it. And anyone can try it, there is no danger. In an easy position: the first thing is to be in a relaxed position - easy, whatsoever is easy for you. So don't try some particular position or asana. Buddha sits in a particular posture. It is easy for him. It can also become easy for you if you practice it for a time, but in the very beginning it will not be easy for you. And there is no need to practice it: start from any posture that comes easy to you right now. Don't struggle with posture. You can sit in an easy chair and relax. The only thing is your body must be in a relaxed state.

Heart Centering 

Shiva said: Blessed one, as senses are absorbed in the heart, reach the center of the lotus.

If you feel that you are a heart-oriented person, then this method will be very helpful to you. But know well that everyone is trying to deceive himself that he is heart-oriented.

Atisha's Heart Meditation 

Atisha said: Train in joining, sending and taking together. Do this by riding the breath.

Atisha says: start being compassionate. And the method is, when you breathe in - listen carefully, it is one of the greatest methods - when you breathe in, think that you are breathing in all the miseries of all the people in the world. All the darkness, all the negativity, all the hell that exists anywhere, you are breathing it in.

MEDITATIONS ON LIGHT AND ON DARKNESS

In your heart a flame is burning and your body ig just a light aura around the flame.

Just like the seed that starts its life in the darkness of the soil, or the child that starts its life in the darkness of the womb, all beginnings are in the dark, because darkness is one of the most essential things for anything to begin.
The beginning is mysterious, hence darkness is needed. And the beginning is so delicate, that's also why darkness is needed. The beginning is also very intimate, that's also why darkness is needed. Darkness has depth and a tremendous power to nourish. The day tires you; the night rejuvenates.

The morning will come, the day will follow, but if you are afraid of the darkness then the day will never come. If one wants to skip darkness then the day is impossible. One has to go through the dark night of the soul to reach to the dawn. Death is first, then life is. In the ordinary sequence of things birth is first, then is life, but in the inner world, in the inner journey, it is just the opposite: death is first, then is life.

Golden Light Meditation 

Do this at least twice a day - the best time is early in the morning, just before you get out of bed. The moment you feel you are alert, awake, do it for twenty minutes. Do h first thing in the morning! - don't get out of bed. Do it there, then and there, immediately - because when you are coming out of sleep you are very, very delicate, receptive.

Heart of Light 

Shiva said: Waking, sleeping, dreaming, know you as light.
  While waking - moving, eating, working - remember yourself as light, as if in your heart a flame is burning, and your body is nothing but the aura around the flame. Imagine it: in your heart a flame is burning, and your body is nothing but a light aura around the flame; your body is just a light around the flame. Allow it to go deep within your mind and your consciousness. Imbibe it.

Seeing etheric presence 

Shiva said: Kind Devi, enter etheric presence pervading far above and below your form.
  This method can be done only if you have done "Touching as a Feather." It can be done separately also, but then it will be very difficult. But if you do the other first, then it is good to do the second and very easy.

Translucent presence 

Shiva said: Feel the cosmos as a translucent ever-living presence.
  This technique is based on inner sensitivity. First grow in sensitivity. Just close your doors, make the room dark, and light a small candle. Sit near the candle with a very loving attitude - rather, with a prayerful attitude. Just pray to the candle, "Reveal yourself to me."

Inner Darkness 

Shiva said: In rain during a black night, enter that blackness as the form of forms.

Carry out inner darkness 

Shiva said: When a moonless rainy night is not present, close eyes and find black¬ness before you. Opening eyes, see blackness. So faults disappear forever.