Krishnamurti on Meditation

Episode Notes

‘Meditation means the emptying of consciousness of its content. Then only can the mind be absolutely quiet.’

This week’s episode on Meditation has four sections.

The first extract (2:24) is from Krishnamurti’s fourth talk in San Diego 1970, titled ‘What is meditation?’

The second extract (16:41) is from the seventh talk in Saanen 1974, titled ‘The controller is the controlled’.

The third extract (42:32) is from Krishnamurti’s sixth talk in Ojai 1949, titled ‘Meditation is the beginning of self-knowledge’.

The final extract (1:11:11) this week is from a direct recording by Krishnamurti in 1983, titled ‘Meditation is without measurement’. This recording is exclusive to this podcast and has not been heard outside of the archives before now.

Part 1

What Is Meditation?

What is meditation? First of all, the mind, this mind that chatters, that projects ideas, that has contradiction, that lives in constant conflict and comparison, that mind must obviously be very quiet. To observe, that mind must be extraordinarily quiet. If I am to listen to what you are saying, I must give attention to what you are saying. I can’t be chattering. I can’t be thinking about something else. I mustn’t compare what you are saying with what I already know. I must actually, completely listen to you. That means the mind must be attentive, must be silent, must be quiet. Therefore, see the necessity that to observe clearly the mind must be quiet.

To see clearly the mind must be quiet, and because it is imperative to see the whole structure of violence clearly, and therefore to look at it, the mind must be completely still. Therefore you have a still mind. You don’t have to cultivate a still mind because to cultivate a still mind implies the one who cultivates in the field of time that which he hopes to achieve. See all this, what I have just now said, see the difficulty.

All the people who try to teach meditation say control your mind, your mind must be absolutely quiet. And you try to control it. And so everlastingly battle with it and spend forty years controlling it, which is completely silly because any schoolboy can concentrate and control. We are not saying that at all. We are saying, on the contrary, the mind that observes – doesn’t analyse, is not seeking experience, merely observes – must be free from all noise. And therefore the mind becomes completely quiet. If I am to listen to you, I must listen to you, not translate what you are saying or interpret what you are saying to suit myself or to condemn you or to judge you. I must listen. So that very act of listening is attention, which means not to practise at all. If you practise it, you have already become inattentive.

So when you are attentive and your mind wanders off, which indicates it is inattentive, let it wander off and know that it is inattentive, and the very awareness of that inattention is attention. Don’t battle with inattention, don’t try and say, ‘I must be attentive’ – it is childish. Know that you are inattentive, be aware choicelessly that you are inattentive. What of it? But the moment in that inattention there is action, be aware of that action.

Silence of the mind is beauty in itself. To listen to the bird, to the voice of a human being, to the politician, to the priest, to all the noise of propaganda that goes on, to listen completely silently. Then you will hear much more; you will see much more.

Now, that silence is not possible if your body, the organism, is not also completely still. Your body, the organ, with all its nervous responses, all the fidgeting, the ceaseless movement of fingers, the eyes, you know, the restlessness of the body – that must be completely still.

Have you ever tried sitting completely still, without a single movement of the body, including the eyes? Do it sometime and you will see. You may do it for five minutes or two minutes, that is good enough – don’t say, ‘How am I to keep it for ten minutes, for an hour?’ Don’t – that is greed! For two minutes is enough. In those two minutes, the whole of this thing is revealed if you know how to look. So the body must be still because then the flow of blood to the head becomes more. If you sit crouched, sloppy, then it is more difficult for the blood to go to the head. Which means the body has its own intelligence, which the mind has spoilt, thought has destroyed.

Thought seeks pleasure, therefore tasty foods, overeating, indulging sexually and in all the ways, compelling the body to do certain things – if it is lazy, forcing it not to be lazy, or take a pill to keep awake. That way we are destroying the innate intelligence of the organism. And when you do that, the organism becomes insensitive. And you need great sensitivity. Therefore one has to watch what one eats – I won’t go into all that business; it is up to you. Because if you overeat, you know what happens – you know all the ugliness of all that. So we need a body that is highly sensitive, greatly intelligent. And therefore love, which doesn’t become pleasure, is then enjoyment, it is joy. Pleasure has always a motive; joy has none. It is timeless. You can’t say, ‘I am joyous.’ The moment you have said it, it is gone. Or if you seek the cause of that joy, you want it repeated and therefore it is no longer joy.

So there are these three things essential: the intelligence of the body, the capacity, the fullness of love, without the distortions of pleasure, which doesn’t mean there are no pleasures but which doesn’t distort the mind.

Most of us have pain, physical pain in some form or another. And that pain generally distorts the mind – I wish I hadn’t it, I wish I were better – you know, spending years or days thinking about it. So when the body has pain, watch it, observe it and not let it interfere with the mind.

Part 2

The Controller Is the Controlled

When we go into the question of meditation, please look at it as though you have never heard the word, or the meaning of that word, or anything about it. But unfortunately you can’t do that because you have a lot of gurus, sannyasis, swamis, and all the rest of that gang, that come to this country, or to America, to teach you how to meditate, how to sit properly, how to breathe, how to concentrate and all the rest of it.

So what is meditation? Not how to meditate – that is irrelevant. The moment you understand what meditation is, it naturally happens, like breathing. You breathe naturally. So you have to find out what is meditation. Can you learn from another? Can you learn from another what is the real meaning of meditation? Volumes have been written about it; people have meditated according to a particular system – Zen or the Hindu systems of many, many varieties and models and methods. The content of all those imply an end to be achieved through control. Control implies a controller, and is the controller different from the controlled?

The meditative groups and their systems and their philosophies, with their breathing, they say: control your thoughts because thought wanders about, and the wandering about is a waste of energy. And therefore thought must be absolutely held, disciplined, subjugated in the pursuit of that thing: enlightenment, God, truth, what you will, Jehovah, the nameless – all that. That implies a controller, obviously. And who is the controller? Is he different in quality, in nature from that which he says he is going to control?

You are following all this? Please, this is very important to understand because the speaker wants to point out that one can live completely in daily life without any control, against all the traditions, against all your education, your social, moral behaviour. So he says: live a life without absolutely any controls. But that means you have to understand very, very deeply who is the controller and the controlled, and this is part of meditation.

Is the controller different from that which he is controlling, which is thought? Some say the controller is different: he is the higher self, he is the part of higher consciousness, he is the essence of understanding, the essence of the past which has accumulated so much knowledge. So the whole tradition and the gurus and the swamis, the yogis, all of them say: control. They have never asked who the controller is. They may have asked it, but they have translated it: the controller is the supreme self – which is still within the field of thought. However much thought may be elevated, it is still within the area of time and measure, which is thought. Do please see this. See the truth of this, not the verbal acceptance of it or the intellectual comprehension of it, but the truth of the matter, that all the gods – Christian gods and the Hindu – all of them are the invention of thought. And thought can project itself into all kinds of states, into all kinds of illusions, and when thought says there is the higher self, it is still within the field of thought, and therefore the higher self is still matter. So the controller is the controlled. Do see this. Therefore the whole aspect of meditation changes.

What is the meaning of meditation? The meaning of meditation – objectively, not my personal opinion, judgement, evaluation, dogma, experience; none of that – meditation means the emptying of consciousness of its content. Then only can the mind and the brain be absolutely quiet. That absolute – not relative – quietness is necessary to observe. Not to experience. Most of us want experience – experience which we have had; sensory experiences, sexual, every kind of experience we have had – and thought desires more experiences, an experience of another state, of another dimension. We are fed up with this world and its experiences – they are boring, they have a limitation, they are confined, narrow – and we want an experience which is totally different. To experience involves recognition. If I do not recognise, is there an experience?

I have had the experience of looking at a mountain: the beauty of it, the shadows, the lovely deep blue of an early morning, the whole sense of something extraordinary, magnificent. That experience cannot exist if there is no relationship to the past. So experience implies recognition from the past. It is so simple. So the mind wants to experience something supreme. And to recognise it, you must have already had it. Therefore it is not the supreme. It is still the projection of the mind, of thought. So meditation in which there is no experience. Swallow that! Because in that there is no element of time. As we said, time implies movement and direction. Direction implies will. And can the mind empty itself of time and direction and movement, which is the ending of thought? That is the whole problem.

Are we following each other, or is this still a verbal description and you are just enjoying the speaker’s delight in talking about meditation? We are asking: what is meditation? We said it is the emptying of the mind of the known. Emptying of the mind of its content as consciousness, with all its accumulation, and whether that is possible. We need knowledge to function. To speak any language you need knowledge. To drive a car you need knowledge. To do anything you need knowledge. And what place has knowledge in meditation? Or it has no place at all. It has no place because if it is merely a continuation of the past, it is still the movement of time, the movement of the past, and so on. So can the mind empty itself of the past and come upon that area of the mind which is not touched by thought? You have understood the problem, my question?

We have only operated so far within the area of thought as knowledge. Is there any other part, any other area of the mind, which includes the brain, which is not touched by human struggle, pain, anxiety, fear – all the violence, all the things that man has made through thought? The discovery of that area is meditation. That implies: can thought come to an end but yet operate when necessary in the field of knowledge?

You understand my question? Please understand this question. Pay a little attention. You may be tired but just give a little attention to it.

We need knowledge, otherwise you cannot function, you can’t go home, you wouldn’t be able to speak, you wouldn’t be able to write, and so on. Knowledge is necessary to function, and that functioning becomes neurotic. Out of function, status becomes all-important, which is the entering of thought as the ‘me’, which is status. So knowledge is necessary. And meditation is to discover, or come upon, or to observe an area in which there is no movement of thought. Can the two live together harmoniously, daily, in action? That is the problem, not breathing, not sitting straight, not repeating mantras, you know, slogans, paying a hundred dollars or whatever you pay in order to learn some ugly little word. And you repeat that and you think you are in heaven, which is called transcendental nonsense!

That is the whole problem of yoga, practising yoga, standing on your head and proficiency in yoga, and all the rest of it. It must originally have had a totally different meaning. The word ‘yoga’ means to join – to join the higher and the lower. That was what we have, but it must have quite a different meaning because who is it that has divided the two, and who is it that joins them together? It is still thought. So yoga exercises are excellent – one must do them. I do yoga every day for an hour or more, but that is merely physical exercise of a different kind to keep the body healthy, breathing and so on. But through that, you can never come upon the other. Never! Because if you give to that all-importance, you are not giving importance to the understanding of yourself – which is to be watchful, to be aware, to give attention to what you are doing every day of your life: how you speak, what you say, what you think, how you behave, whether you are attached, whether you are frightened, whether you are pursuing pleasure, and so on. To be aware of this whole movement of thought. If you are, and if you are really serious about it, then you will have established right relationship.

You know, relationship becomes extraordinarily important when all things about you become chaotic. When the world is going to pieces, as it is, relationship becomes extraordinarily important. There you seek security; you want to hold on to that one thing that can possibly give you a complete sense of unity, and all the rest of it. So there is this establishment between you and another of total relationship – that means a world relationship, not between you and me, but human relationship with the whole of the world, that is the basis. From there you can go on to behaviour – how you behave. If your behaviour has a motive, then it is not behaviour. If your behaviour is based on pleasure or on reward, it is not behaviour. It is merely the pursuit of pleasure or fear. Not the pursuit of fear – fear arises.

So relationship, behaviour and order – these are absolutely essential if you want to go into the question of meditation. If you have not laid this foundation then you can do what you like – stand on your head, breathe for the next ten thousand years and repeat words, words – there will be no meditation. You can even go to India if you have the money. I don’t know why you go to India – you will find no enlightenment there. Enlightenment is where you are. And where you are, you have to understand yourself. Having established that, laid the foundation, order – not mechanical order because order is virtue from moment to moment, not following a pattern, it is not the order for the establishment; it is not the order or the virtue of society, which is immoral – so order, behaviour and relationship, then you can go into the question of finding out what meditation is.

Meditation implies a quality of mind that is absolutely silent. Not made silent, not a contrived act, not brought about through will, but a silence that comes in naturally when you have established order, relationship and behaviour. And silence is necessary because otherwise you can’t see. If my mind is chattering, as most minds are, in that chatter there may be a period of silence. Between two chatterings, there might be a period of silence, but that is not silence. Silence is not the absence of noise. Silence is not the absence of conflict. Silence comes only when the content of your consciousness has been completely understood and gone beyond, which means the observer and the observed are one. And when there is no controller, it doesn’t mean that you live a life of undiscipline, but when there is no observer, no controller, action then is instantaneous, which brings a great deal of energy.

So meditation means the emptying of consciousness of its content, and that happens only when you observe your consciousness and its content without the observer. Can you look at something, whatever it is, your wife or husband, your girl or boy, or the mountains, without the observer? The observer is the past. And as long as there is the observer, he will inevitably translate everything he observes in terms of the past, and therefore he is the maker of time. And he divides the observed and the observer, and therefore in that there is conflict. When there is an observation without the observer, there is no conflict. There is no past, only the fact, and you have the energy to go beyond it. Do it and you will find out.

Part 3

Meditation Is the Beginning of Self-knowledge

Meditation has a great deal of significance. It may be the door to real self-knowledge, and it may open the door to reality. In opening the door and experiencing directly, there is a possibility of understanding life, which is relationship.

Meditation, the right kind of meditation, is essential. So, let us find out what is the right kind of meditation. To find out what is right, we must approach it negatively. Merely to say this or that is right meditation will give you only a pattern, which you will adopt, practise, and that will not be right meditation. So as I am talking about it, please follow me closely and experience it as we go along together.

There are different types of meditation. I do not know if any of you have practised them or have indulged in them – gone away by yourself in a locked room, sat in a dark corner, and so on and so on. So let us examine the whole process of what we call meditation. Let us take the meditation in which discipline is involved.

Any form of discipline only strengthens the self, and the self is a source of contention, conflict. That is, if we discipline ourselves to be something, as so many people do – ‘This month I am going to be kind, I am going to practise kindliness, and so on’ – such discipline, such practice, is bound to strengthen the ‘me’. You may be outwardly kind, but surely a man who practises kindliness and is conscious of his kindliness is not kind. So, that practice, which people also call meditation, is obviously not the right kind. As we discussed, if you practise something, in that the mind is caught, and so there is no freedom. But most of us desire a result, that is, we hope to be kind at the end of the month or at the end of a certain period because teachers have said that ultimately we must be kind in order to find God. Since our desire is to find God as the ultimate source of our security and happiness, we buy God through kindliness – which is obviously the strengthening of the ‘me’ and the ‘mine’, a self-enclosing process. Anything that encloses, any action that is binding, can never give freedom. Surely that is obvious. Perhaps we can discuss it another time if it is not clear.

Then there is this whole process of concentration, which is also called meditation. You sit crossed-legged because that is the fashion from India, or in a chair, in a dark room, or in front of a picture or an image, and you try to concentrate on a word, on a phrase or a mental image, and exclude all other thoughts. I am sure many of you have done this. But the other thoughts keep pouring in, and you push them out, and you keep on with the struggle till you are able to concentrate on one thought to the exclusion of everything else. Then you feel gratified: at last you have learned to fix your mind on a point, which you think is essential. Again, through exclusion, do you find anything? Through exclusion, suppression, denial, can the mind be quiet?

As I said, there can be understanding only when the mind is really quiet, not suppressed, not so concentrated on one idea that it becomes exclusive – whether the idea is of a master or of some virtue, or what you will. Through concentration, the mind can never be quiet. Superficially, at the higher levels of consciousness, you may enforce stillness, make your body perfectly still, your mind very quiet, but that, surely, is not the quietness of your whole being. So again, that is not meditation; that is merely compulsion – when the engine wants to run at full speed, you hold it back, you put on the brake. Whereas if you are able to examine every interest, every thought that comes into your mind, go into it fully, completely, think every thought out, then there will be no wandering of the mind because the mind has found the value of each thought. Therefore it is no longer attracted, which means there is no distraction. A mind that is capable of being distracted and which resists distraction, is not capable of meditation. Because what is distraction? I hope you are experimenting with what I am saying, experiencing as I am talking, to find out the truth of this matter. It is the truth that liberates, not my words or your opinions.

We call distraction any movement away from that in which we think we should be interested. So you choose a particular interest, a so-called noble interest, and fix your mind on it. But any movement away from it is a distraction, so you resist distraction. But why do you choose that one particular interest? Obviously because it is gratifying because it gives you a sense of security, a sense of fullness, a sense of otherness. So you say, ‘I must fix my mind on that,’ and any movement away from it is a distraction. You spend your life in battle against distractions and fix your mind on something else. Whereas if you examine every distraction and not merely fix your mind on a particular attraction, then you will see that the mind is no longer capable of being distracted because it has understood the distractions as well as the attractions. Therefore the mind is capable of extraordinary, extensive awareness without exclusion.

So concentration is not meditation, and disciplining is not meditation. Then there are prayers, this whole problem of praying and receiving. That also is called meditation. What do we mean by praying? The gross form is supplication, and there are subtle forms at different levels of prayer. The gross form we all know. I am in trouble, I am in misery, physically or psychologically, and I want some help. So I beg, I supplicate, and obviously there is an answer. If there were no answer, people would not pray. Millions pray. You pray only when you are in trouble, not when you are happy, not when there is that extraordinary sense of otherness.

What happens when you pray? You have a formula, haven’t you? By repetition of a formula, the superficial mind becomes quiet. Try it and you will see. By repeating certain phrases or words, gradually you will see your being becomes quiet. That is, your superficial consciousness is calm, and then in that state, you are able to receive the intimations of something else. So through calming the mind by a repetitive word, by so-called prayers, you may receive hints and intimations, not only from the subconscious, but from anything around you. But surely that is not meditation. Because what you receive must be gratifying, otherwise you would reject it. So when you pray and thereby quiet the mind, your desire is to solve a particular problem or a confusion, or something which gives you pain. Therefore you are seeking an answer which will be gratifying. And when you see this, you say, ‘I must not seek gratification, I will be open to something which is painful.’ The mind is so capable of playing tricks upon itself that one must be aware of the whole content of this question of prayer. One has learned a trick, how to quiet the mind so that it can receive certain answers, pleasurable or not pleasurable, but that is not meditation.

Then there is this question of devotion to somebody, pouring out your love to God, to an image, to some saint, to some master. Is that meditation? Why do you pour out your love to God, to that which you cannot possibly know? Why are we so attracted to the unknown and give our lives, our being to it? This whole question of devotion, does it not indicate that being miserable in our own lives, having no vital relationship with other human beings, we try to project ourselves into something, into the unknown, and worship the unknown? You know, people who are devoted to somebody, to some god, to some image, to some master, are generally cruel, obstinate. They are intolerant of others; they are willing to destroy others because they have so identified themselves with that image, with that master, with that experience. So again, the outpouring of devotion to an object, self-created or created by another, is surely not meditation.

So what is meditation? If none of these things is meditation – discipline, concentration, prayer, devotion – then what is meditation? Those are the forms we know, with which we are familiar. But to find out that, with which we are not familiar, we have first to be free of those things with which we are familiar. If they are not true, then they must be set aside. Then only are you capable of finding out what is right meditation. If we have been accustomed to false values, those false values must cease to find out the new value – not because I say so but because you think it out, feel it out for yourself. And when they have gone, what have you left? What is the residue of your examination of these things? Do they not reveal the process of your own thinking? If you have indulged in these things, and you see that they are false, you find out why you have indulged in them. Therefore the very examination of all this reveals the way of your own thinking. So the examination of these things is the beginning of self-knowledge, is it not?

So, meditation is the beginning of self-knowledge. Without self-knowledge, you may sit in a corner, meditate on the masters, develop virtues – they are all illusions and have no meaning for the person who really wants to discover what is right meditation. Because without self-knowledge, you yourself project an image which you call the master, and that becomes your object of devotion for which you are willing to sacrifice, to build, to destroy. Therefore, as I have explained, there is a possibility of self-knowledge only as we examine our relationship to these things, which reveals the process of our own thinking. Therefore there is a clarity in our whole being, and this is the beginning of understanding, of self-knowledge. Without self-knowledge, there can be no meditation, and without meditation there can be no self-knowledge. Shutting yourself up in a corner, sitting in front of a picture, developing virtues month by month – a different virtue each month: green, purple, white and all the rest of it – going to churches, performing ceremonies, none of those things are meditation or real spiritual life. Spiritual life arises in the understanding of relationship, which is the beginning of self-knowledge.

Now, when you have gone through that and have abandoned all those processes, which only reveal the self and its activity, then there is a possibility that the mind can be not only superficially quiet but inwardly quiet, for then there is a cessation of all demands. There is no pursuit of sensation, there is no sense of becoming – myself becoming something in the future, tomorrow – the master, the initiate, the pupil, the Buddha, you know, climbing the ladder of success, becoming something – all that has stopped because all that implies the process of becoming. There is a cessation of becoming only when there is the understanding of what is. The understanding of what is comes through self-knowledge, which reveals exactly what one is. And when there is the cessation of all desire, which can only come through self-knowledge, the mind is quiet.

The cessation of desire cannot come through compulsion, through prayer, through devotion, through concentration. All these merely emphasise the conflict of desire in the opposites. But when there is the cessation of all these, then the mind is really still – not only superficially on the higher levels but inwardly, deeply. Then only is it possible for it to receive that which is immeasurable. The understanding of all this is meditation, not just one part of it. Because if we do not know how to meditate, we will not know how to act.

Action, after all, is self-knowledge in relationship, and merely to shut yourself in a sacred room with incense burning, reading about other people’s meditations and their significance is utterly useless, has no meaning. It is a marvellous escape. But to be aware of all this human activity, which is ourselves – the desire to attain, the desire to conquer, the desire to have certain virtues, all emphasising the ‘me’ as important in the now or in the future, this becoming of the ‘me’ – to be aware of all that, in its totality, is the beginning of self-knowledge and the beginning of meditation. Then you will see, if you are really aware, that there comes a marvellous transformation, which is not a verbal expression, which is not verbalisation, mere repetition or sensation, but actually, really, vigorously, there takes place a thing which cannot be named, which cannot be termed. And that is not the gift of the few; it is not the gift of the masters.

Self-knowledge is possible for everybody if you are willing to experiment, try. You don’t have to join any society, read any book, or be at the feet of any master, for self-knowledge liberates you from all that absurdity, the stupidities of human invention. And then only, through self-knowledge and right meditation, there is freedom. In that freedom there comes reality. But you cannot have reality through mental processes. It must come to you, and it can only come to you when there is freedom from desire.

Part 4

Meditation Is Without Measurement

To live without comparison, to live without any kind of measurement inwardly, never to compare what you are with what you should be.

The word ‘meditation’ means not only to ponder, to think over, to probe, to look, to weigh; it also has a much deeper meaning in Sanskrit: to measure, which is to become. In meditation, there must be no measurement. This meditation must not be a conscious meditation in deliberately chosen postures. This meditation must be totally unconscious, never knowing that you are meditating. If you deliberately meditate, it is another form of desire, as any other expression of desire. The objects may vary; your meditation may be to reach the highest, but the motive is the desire to achieve, as the businessman, as the builder of a great cathedral. Meditation is a movement without any motive, without words and the activity of thought. It must be something that is not deliberately set about. Only then is meditation a movement in the infinite, measureless to man, without a goal, without an end and without a beginning. That has a strange action in daily life because all life is one and then becomes sacred. And that which is sacred can never be killed. To kill another is unholy. It cries to heaven as a bird kept in a cage.

One never realises how sacred life is; not only your little life but the lives of millions of others, from the things of nature to extraordinary human beings. And in meditation which is without measurement, there is the very action of that which is most noble, most sacred and holy.

How lovely are rivers. There isn’t only one sacred river – all rivers throughout the world have their own divinity. The other day, a man was sitting on the banks of a river wrapped in a fawn-coloured cloth. His hands were hidden, his eyes were shut and his body was very still. He had beads in his hands, and he was repeating some words, and the hands were moving from bead to bead. He had done this for many years, and he never missed a bead. And the river rolled along beside him. Its current was deep. It began among the great mountains, snow-clad and distant; it began as a small stream, and as it moved south it gathered all the small streams and rivers and became a great river. In that part of the world, they worshipped it. One does not know for how many years this man had been repeating his mantra and rolling the beads. He was meditating. At least people thought he was meditating, and probably he did too. So all the passers-by looked at him, became silent and then went on with their laughter and chatter. That almost motionless figure – one could see through the cloth only a slight action of the fingers – had sat there for a very long time, completely absorbed, for he heard no other sound than the sound of his own words and the rhythm of it, the music of it. And he would say that he was meditating. There are a thousand others like him, all over the world, in quiet deep monasteries, among the hills and towns and beside the rivers.

Meditation is not words, a mantra or self-hypnosis, the drug of illusions. It must happen without your volition. It must take place in the quiet stillness of the night when you are suddenly awake and see that the brain is quiet and there is a peculiar quality of meditation going on. It must take place as silently as a snake among the tall grass, green in the fresh morning light. It must take place in the deep recesses of the brain.

Meditation is not an achievement. There is no method, system or practice. Meditation begins with the ending of comparison, the ending of the becoming or not becoming. As the bee whispers among the leaves, so the whispering of meditation is action.