Clearly there are many methods and
approaches to meditation, but these are, after all, methods and
approaches. Meditation is the objective. What is it, how
can we discover or realize it, and how do we recognize it when we have
achieved it?
It would be foolish to try to define meditation - it is beyond
definition and words will surely fail us. It can be realized and
recognized only in our immediate awareness of its reality. All
methods and approaches which can be used in the practice of meditation
are valid only in so far as they bring us to this immediate awareness,
only in so far as they can lead us to the threshold of meditation - and
the door is always open.
To open up the field of our enquiry it may be useful to consider the
following incident which occurred to a young lady, well practiced in
meditation. She related that she was cleaning her house, like
Martha in the gospels busily engaged in many things, pre-occupied with
a busy schedule. She entered the room in which she was sleeping,
and was suddenly brought to her senses. She recalled the baby was
wide awake and the room was filled with a peaceful, blissful and silent
presence. This made a startling contrast to her own state, which
she saw to be an unnecessarily noisy turmoil. She quickly left
the room to "compose" herself. The baby, she was convinced, was
in meditation.
Every detail of this lady's observation carried the authenticity of
clear and direct perception and we can draw from it many pointers to
our basic questions concerning meditation.
