One way to think about meditation is that it’s like a cat basking in the sun. Gradually our minds dissolve in the sunshine. The sun does the work. All we do is enjoy the warmth.
The sunshine is consciousness or love. The cat is the mind.
The mind basks in consciousness or love, soaks in it, rests in it, abides in it.
Once the sun’s work is complete, meditation of this kind is no longer possible because after our minds dissolve, we realize that we always feel sunshine. More exactly, we realize that we are the sun. We can’t ever not be the sun.
Somebody who always feels the sun is in sahaja samadhi, the so-called ‘natural’ state, the state of an enlightened person, a state of unbroken consciousness and uncontrolled attention.
The kind of meditation I’m describing is a simulation of sahaja samadhi.
We don’t create the sun. It’s already there. All we do is notice it and keep noticing it.
This isn’t the only kind of meditation. There are other kinds too.
Some types of meditation are purely mental. The person focuses on thoughts and never places the attention on anything beyond the mind.
The kind of meditation I described above, bask-in-the-sun meditation, is different because it focuses on things that are beyond the mind: love and consciousness. The mind does the meditation — the mind is the cat — but our attention is on something beyond the mind. Consciousness and love are not thoughts. They are real. We do this kind of meditation to simulate enlightenment. When enlightenment arrives, we no longer need the simulation and we stop doing it.
Photo by Huixiang Qiu
This is beautiful. How many humans do you estimate actually live in the state of sahaja samadhi? Or, is this not really possible to know? A handful, maybe?
Thanks. 🙂 Whatever the number may be, I suspect that the vast majority of these people aren’t spiritual teachers or seekers. Most of them probably don’t think of themselves as enlightened. They may not even see that there’s anything unusual about themselves. A hospice nurse once told me stories that make me think it’s not unusual for dying people to reach this state shortly before death, probably because they give up. They surrender. My mom, who is in her 90s, and who doesn’t have the slightest interest in this stuff, astonished me the other day by saying that sometimes lately she gets the feeling that the world isn’t real. If I had to guess the total number I would say hundreds of thousands or low millions. What do you think?
Wow, well, before I read your reply here, I would have said maybe 10 people total! But, I really have absolutely no idea. I have just always assumed (not sure why) that it is incredibly rare (a human being in a perpetual state of samadhi). I hope that I am wrong, though, and that it is more like the numbers you suggest here.
This is comment of yours is an usually enlightening point of view! And way different than many of those around. But sounds very reasonable and natural to me.
This comment along with your main post above can change the way one aims for enlightenment. It’s also very much in line with many of the quotes in your web site. e.g. http://freddieyam.com/gen2/p/quotes.merrell-wolff.html
As always, I’m very grateful to you.
Thank you.
You’re welcome, Focus, and thank you.
Sorry, I meant “an unusually enlightening point of view”.
Id say its not rare to intermitently be this state but perhaps what is rare is it being permanent with no fluxuation. For some reason it seems more reported and demonstrated in India. I have only met one american who I would say lives in the natural state permanently but I could be completely limiting the actuality. Another approach is that everyone is and that its not possible to be otherwise as everyone is only ever the natural Self.
This is so interesting and encouraging…it also makes me realize that I need to get out more…lol…Seriously, though, it is helpful to know that there are people (currently alive) who are able to live in – or at least frequent – this state.
Hi, I don’t know why my comment above is showing as “anomymous”…it was posted by me, Barbara, aka., K2Love…I love this post and thread and this entire website <3
I’m so glad to hear that. What a great Christmas present. I changed the name slightly. 🙂
I’m so glad to hear that. What a great Christmas present. I changed the name slightly. 🙂