Meditation and Simplicity

Meditation and Non-Attachment

If one looks at all the great meditation masters in the history of man, one sees some very interesting traits that they all had in common.  These traits can give us great insight in their spiritual success and point us in the direction we need to go in order to evolve spiritually as well.  In this article I will look at 2 of these aspects of the great masters.  These are simplicity and the power to stand apart from the world (aloneness).

Whether it is Ramana Maharishi, Jesus, Buddha or Krishnamurti, what they all had in common was being free of society and having a simple, innocent heart and mind.  The following quote from J. Krishnamurti really drives home the point of why simplicity and freedom are so essential for meditation to take place.

Krishnamurti Quote on Simplicity and Meditation:

Author:      J. Krishnamurti
Book:        Meditations

The words “you” and “I” separate things.  This division in this strange silence and stillness doesn’t exist.  And as you watched out of the window, space and time seemed to have come to an end, and the space that divides had no reality.  That leaf and that eucalyptus and the blue shinning water were not different from you.

Meditation is really very simple.  We complicate it.  We weave a web of ideas around it – what it is and what it is not.  But it is none of these things.  Because it is so very simple it escapes us, because our minds are so complicated, so time-worn and time-based.  And this mind dictates the activity of the heart, and then the trouble begins.  But meditation comes naturally, with extraordinary ease, when you walk on the sand or look out of your window or see those marvelous hills burnt by last summer’s sun.  Why are we such tortured human beings, with tears in our eyes and false laughter on our lips?  If you could walk alone among those hills or in the woods or along the long, white, bleached sands, in that solitude you would know what meditation is.

The ecstasy of solitude comes when you are not frightened to be alone – no longer belonging to the world or attached to anything.  Then, like that dawn that came up this morning, it comes silently, and makes a golden path in the very stillness, which was at the beginning, which is now, and which will be always there.

The Simple Mind and Meditation Analysis:

Below I will discuss this excerpt, especially the importance simplicity plays in meditation.

Simplicity and Meditation:

The key to meditation, is the statement which explains that it happens when you are essentially free of the world.  That is what Krishnamurti means by the “ecstasy of solitude”.  That you are no longer entangled in the world of man, that you are able to stand apart, stand alone.  What this means is that you have managed to free yourself from the monstrosity of society and have broken away from its clutches.  You have become your own person, original and first hand.  This is a very important thing to understand well, so let’s go into it a little further.

Essentially, the more you want, the more ensnared you will be in the world of man.  For example, wanting to be wealthy, might lead you to choose professions that pay well, but are not in line with your passions or interest.  You will then be in fear of losing that job, as with it you would lose the money you are attached to.  So you will conform and struggle to keep the job.  What this means is that you will not be able to remain untouched and unbothered by the world, but would instead be immersed and affected by it. 

In the same way our other endless desires and attachments, keep us more and more tightly bound to the world, and ensure that our life is nothing more that a movement from struggle to struggle.  So the first step is to inspect carefully the value of having so many desires.  The more one studies oneself, the more one realizes that there is no lasting happiness to be achieved by the pursuit of material desires.  That finally, such an approach leads to nothing but more pain and suffering.

So why not simplify your mind, simplify your life and follow your heart instead?  Just drop all your struggling right now, immediately and just trust life.  This is what is meant by going with the flow.  Don’t worry about the future and what will happen, instead just relax and do what needs to be done in any given moment.

This dropping of your ambitions is the act of simplification and purification.  It is ambitions and desires that keep you constantly in pursuit and prevent you from being simple and being with life in the moment.  Drop them and you drop the world along with it.  

Simplifying and freeing your mind in this way is what makes meditation possible.