You may have a medically fit body. That does not mean you are completely healthy. Of course, I can say from my experience of having seen millions of people, ninety- nine per cent of those who do not have the ‘self-healing clarity’ in their system are never able to maintain even physical health. When I say ‘self-healing clarity’, I mean the clarity and understanding to bring yourself out of depression whenever it tries to grip your consciousness.

As you start witnessing your own actions, you will realize that there is someone inside you who does not change, who does not get angry or feel sad, who does not care about money or security or fame. That is the real you

Just a year ago, I did a small research study. I selected one group of people who had been through some meditation programs and had done some spiritual study. I asked them to write for just twenty minutes whatever came into their mind without editing. Then I also asked another group of people who had never been exposed to spirituality to also write down whatever came into their minds without editing for the same twenty minutes. The results of my study were shocking.

In the case of those people who were not exposed to spirituality, if they had written one hundred thoughts, more than eighty of them were directing them more and more towards depression. Only twenty thoughts were self-healing or bringing them out of depression. But in the case of those who were exposed to spirituality and meditation, I saw that more than sixty percent of their thoughts were self-healing! Only forty percent were taking them towards depression. This is the impact of meditation! It keeps you healthy holistically. The knowledge of the Truth is what I call ‘knowledge-weapons’ or shaastra-shastras. Shaastra means Truth, knowledge; shastra means weapons. Knowledge-weapons are the weapons of Truth that can destroy the depression of your being.

Whenever depression or suffering attacks you, suffering attacks you, your mind brings different scenes in front of you. In those moments, these shaastra-shastras, knowledge-weapons, can be so powerful, that you simply come out of the depression. They are thoughts that help you to raise yourself out of the suffering. So never feel that the Truth is too much to take in. Try to digest, assimilate and keep it in a corner inside you. Store it as knowledge-weapons inside you.

The more knowledge-weapons you have, the more depression will be afraid of you! If you have a huge army, naturally the enemy country will be afraid of attacking you. Just by seeing your pile of weapons, the other country will think twice before attacking you. In the same way, the more you accumulate the self-healing thoughts, the knowledge-weapons, inside your being, the more depression will fear to come near you. Practically speaking, you will have fewer depressive thoughts that can torture you and the self-healing thoughts as antidotes when they do. With meditation, you can live your life in a much better way, with greater clarity and greater intensity. You will be more aware, more creative. Yet internally, you will experience a deep and undisturbed silence.

You will no longer be doing, you will only be watching the doer. This is the whole secret of meditation – to become the watcher, to become the witness of your own actions and emotions. As you start witnessing your own actions, you will realize that there is someone inside you who does not change, who does not get angry or feel sad, who does not care about money or security or fame. That is the real you! The real you can never be touched. The rest is just a personality you have formed around yourself.

Once you become aware that the real you is not the one who acts, that the real you is not the one who feels angry or hurt or depressed, then you experience a tremendous sense of freedom. This will happen through meditation. This is real freedom.

The whole game of meditation is to get out of the work-oriented mind and look at every moment of life as a beautiful Divine play.

All our life we are searching for freedom. Whether we realize it or not, every single one of us is searching for freedom. We think our freedom is dependent on others. Now you know, the other person is in no way connected to your freedom.

What we search for in our ordinary lives is either ‘freedom for’ or ‘freedom from’.
Freedom for doing, having and being all that we wish, freedom to live as we imagine we want to live. Freedom from all the things that we hate – disease, worry, anger, stress, low self- esteem, pain and so forth.

We are caught between the greed for something good and the fear of something bad. Our whole life is controlled by these two ropes of greed and fear. But when these two ropes of greed and fear control us, we forget the real freedom that we are craving for. To be really free is to be free no matter what. That’s what I call real freedom, not ‘freedom for’ or ‘freedom from’.

Real freedom comes out of living completely in the present moment. Freedom that doesn’t depend on any external circumstances is the only true freedom. This is the freedom that you will experience with meditation (living in the moment with total awareness). You will be amazed to find how much love rises and floods your being when you enter into meditation. Through meditation, you will experience a dimension of your being communicating with you, that you haven’t touched before. When you experience lasting joy that no external circumstance can alter, it means that you are moving deeply inwards. You will want to share this joy with everyone you meet. When this joy overflows from you and touches the other person, it is called love. Just like freedom, this love will be different from any love you have ever experienced before.

All your life, you have loved and been loved for a reason. Even in your most intimate relationships, even between husband and wife, between parents and children, there are hidden reasons for loving. All our love is tainted by jealousy, possessiveness and expectations. With meditation, for the first time, you will understand what it means to love for no reason. For the first time you will not be giving something in order to receive. You will give love simply because you have so much to give! You will shower love upon the world in the same way that a rain cloud showers upon the earth or a flower spontaneously spreads its fragrance all around. You will love because you are so full and overflowing!

Most of us feel that life today has become so competitive and stressful that we have no time to do anything that we want to do. Actually if you see the truth of the situation, it is not a question of less time or more work. It is your attitude about these things that makes the difference.

Just try this:

whatever you do, act with awareness. If you are eating, eat with awareness. No extra time is needed to do this. In fact, it will take less time to eat because when you eat with awareness, you will eat just the amount your body needs rather than stuffing food down your throat thoughtlessly.

Awareness has tremendous knowledge. Awareness can do better miracles than all your planning. Awareness doesn’t contradict, it complements the plans. It will add to the potentiality.

When you are aware, you are absent. When awareness is present, your ego can’t exist. When your ego exists, awareness can’t be present. ‘Your absence’ will make you live enlightenment.

When you are aware, you will work optimally and use your energy efficiently. So at the end of the day you are just as fresh as in the morning. You see, it is not the work that exhausts you. It is your mind, your attitude. Take a simple example. Compare when you have to walk two miles to office versus taking a leisure walk for the same two miles along the beach. The walk to your office is like work and you feel tired. But the walk on the beach is refreshing because you feel it is a leisurely experience. The whole thing depends upon your state of mind when you do things. The whole game of meditation is to get out of the work-oriented mind and look at every moment of life as a beautiful Divine play.

source: Living Enlightenment