How to meditate on "I Am" and recede into the Bliss of Being

Today I'll share with you how I managed to turn my mind inwards during meditation. This isn't a technique I learned somewhere. It came intuitively through experimentation and a kind of understanding.

You see, generally when we learn meditation we're given an object to focus on.

Usually it's the breath, or sensations in the body, or other mental phenomena; thinking feelings and so on, but all of this is keeping the mind focused outwards. Looking at things around you.

But if you listen to the truly realized and enlightened, they are not talking about. They speak quite clearly.

They say things like,

"Be still.

Just be.

Look within.

Know your Self.

Know your true nature.

Know that I am."

So what they're asking for is not to scrutinize the contents of the mind, but to understand the very basis of it. And this calls for a kind of "in-seeing". Insight.

Where the direction of looking is inwards.

So, let's discuss how this is to be done. Because it's not something you really need to learn. You already do it every morning.

Every morning when you stir from sleep; when the mind first stirs, your first reaction is to recoil from it. You don't need it. You don't want that sensation, or that thought, or that sound, or whatever disturbs your sleep. You want to go back to sleep.

That movement is to turn away from the mind. What you're turning away from is the entire realm of experience. Before it seduces you, you don't want anything to do with it.

And what you turn towards, that is the direction you need to look at.

If you think in terms of sleep, you would describe that as a very peaceful state. The bliss of sleep. Where there is just you. There's nothing else.

And not even the sense of you. Just a perfect, peaceful, restful be-ing.

This is the pure bliss of being described by the sages. They don't just experience it in sleep.

It seeps into your life. It lights up your whole day. Every time I am able to turn away from the mind, to take a moment, that bliss is there. It's always there.

It's only a question of whether I'm interested in what the mind has to offer or not. And now it is not a matter of choice at all, because it has taken over my heart. It thaws your heart. Seeps into it.

And you realize, the sense that "I am," that you always had, was in the background something very beautiful. It is the love of life itself. The bliss of being. The sense of being present, truly.

The sense of being whole and complete, and not just a part of something bigger.

And so this sense of being goes from being the background to the foreground. It fills and touches everything. You know everyone you love, from within.

You know everything you see, for what it is.

This calm can be yours. It is yours. It's your natural state.

So all we need to do is turn away from the mind a bit (initially).

But what happens every morning, is the mind finally manages to grab your attention somehow. Even though you didn't want it in the beginning, it finds its ways to interest you. It might tempt you, or threaten you, or just make some incessant noise that you cannot ignore.

But what happens after this is somewhat tragic, because your attention is now locked onto the mind; the contents of the mind.

For the entire day you never turn away from it. Almost never.

And so even if you sit for meditation, what you're doing is focusing on the contents of the mind. The breath, the sensations, and most often just the thinking, which doesn't stop all day. Until at night, you feel the urge to return to that bliss again, and you do it very intuitively.

If you try to do it; if you try to go to sleep, it doesn't work, as we all know. It just makes the mind more active.

But if you don't try, if you just lose interest in the mind, sleep comes very naturally.

So that is the maneuver you want to perform in meditation.

And then over time, as you learn it, during the day. And then, as I described, the job is done. Because once you taste that sense of "I am" a bit deeper, it takes over you. It'll do the job for you.

So what you need to do in meditation, as has been described by some sages, is try to fall asleep in the way you do at night, which means without putting in much effort, while being awake.

Go to sleep while being awake.

It's a kind of superimposition of both sleeping and waking. You just need to be very clear on the direction you want to go in.

You're turning away from all the content of the mind, just for a bit. Don't worry, it'll be there.

And what you're turning towards, is that sense of being. That is the only aspect of consciousness which goes within, and not outwards to the mental objects and phenomena; to the world.

This is the meditation on "I Am". The sense that I am. It points directly at what you are. It's not pointing to something or someone else obviously.

And the whole matter of meditation is settled only when you get to an intuitive understanding of your own identity. That is what meditation is about.

It's not about being mindful of the mind. That's what everyone is doing anyway.

Do you think they're not being mindful of what's in their minds? Everyone's obsessed with their minds.

And a meditator has to turn away from it. To get to the root of it; to understand the nature of mind.

The nature of Self.

So, when you sit for meditation, instead of inspecting the mind, trying to be super focused on what's going on, to glean something about experience from experiencing, use the only true lever you have here.

The lever of your interest. And pull it back.

Use your interest, turn it into disinterest. And when you let go the mundane experience in the moment, you'll gently float back to where you need to look at.

Or rather, where you truly reside. Your true Home.

Be interested in That. But in the way that you do when you go to sleep. Just let go of the mind and you'll be there.

The difference is, in meditation you will go there fully awake and alert.

And it may happen that experience completely disappears. The cessation of experience. And you will not know this has happened because there will be nothing there. No experience, no time, no space.

And then you will catch the moment experience reappears, because you went into that cessation while alert; in meditation.

You will catch the "I am" arise.

And you will know what you are in that moment. What you truly are.