Going Deep Within

 

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Going Deep Within

There are many sadhaks who have suddenly gone into deep meditation which felt like death, and have returned in fear of death. Suddenly a key fits, and one is transported into infinity, and then the experience of deep meditation is exactly like death. The problem is created because one gets scared. Meditation leads us deep into our own self. Beyond a certain point it is felt like drowning, sinking, suffocating. If we accept it and cooperate with it and simply say that we are ready to die, then we don’t create the opposite process of trying to come out of it. Then there comes a peak where all disturbance disappears.

Something happens – but we are still there. In fact, for the first time, we are there – and everything becomes blissful. Before it comes to the peak there is pain and anguish, and it is natural that one starts thinking about how to get out of it somehow. In the getting out, that cooperation is broken, so we are moving now in two ways. Something we have done in meditation is taking us deep, while we are trying to cling to the surface. In that confusion and conflict, the whole body feels the turbulence.

It was not really because of the experience, but because we create this conflict. This phenomenon has to be faced one day by anyone who is moving into meditation; there is no way to avoid it. When it happens one naturally becomes afraid to meditate again. When it happens for the first time, it is natural to feel the fear – but don’t be afraid, hold on to Swamiji’s locket and have faith in Swamiji as you cross the threshold into nothingness. Simply say that we are ready to die, and relax; sink, and allow it. Once we allow it, the whole of the energy is moving in one direction so there is no inner conflict; and because there is no conflict there is no anxiety. The whole body will feel rejuvenated. Otherwise, we create a disturbance.

It is just as when we are driving a car. We go on pushing the accelerator, and at the same time we brake: the whole engine feels the shock because we are doing two contradictory things – racing and braking simultaneously. That’s what we have done. The meditation turns the energy inwards – and it is a tremendous experience, deeper than any death.

When it happens, it is like an explosion within and we feel the whole universe within us, and then there is just bliss, silence, bliss, silence, something that truly needs to be experienced – it is beyond words, beyond description!