Silent Self.
When your mind and heart are truly open abundance will flow to you effortlessly and easily.
Question:
Namaste Deepak,
I have two questions that both relate to meditation. 1.) It is said that our silent witness is in a sense our true-self, yet we should ask ourselves everyday ‘Who am I?’ and ‘What do I want?’ which will elicit some type of answer from our deeper nature. So is our silent witness always present, but not literally silent when we ask questions such as these? Also, it is not localized yet I feel that, when I ask these questions, my answers continually come from the heart region (heart chakra). How can this be understood? 2.) To become fully enlightened, we clearly need to reach, and purify, the deepest levels of the mind, yet other forms of meditation teach that mantras will not take you to this level. I recently went on a Vipassana meditation retreat, and was fascinated by the meditation techniques but also puzzled by S.N. Goenka’s believes about meditating with mantras. Can you explain the positives and negatives of the two techniques? And why mantra meditation (which I prefer), can allow you to access the deepest levels?
Response:
The true self remains the silent witness awareness that it is at all times, it’s the stillness of the mind that recognizes its source as that luminous, open consciousness. It is that recognition of the mind that answers the core question of “Who am I”? Self-knowing awareness just is what it always is.
We often associate this sense of knowing our deepest self with the heart area because that is the area of our body awareness that the mind operates through most strongly.
Regarding your question about the effectiveness of mantra meditation: They have been working for many thousands of years. To bring attention from the surface, outward directed thinking to the presence of pure, open awareness, the mind needs a vehicle that allows it to become undirected, that is not focused through the channels of sensory perception or cognitive thought patterns. The sound quality of the traditional mantras does this. Once attention is undirected, the inherent quality of awareness to move to its source can come into play and the mind can go beyond itself and experience pure consciousness, its essential nature.
This transcendence can happen with other non-mantra practices, but you still need a way to break the mind’s patterns and habits and reach this state of suspension so that awareness can slip into the gap and experience its true nature.
Love,
Deepak
I purchased your book THE BOOK OF SECRETS and I can't put it down. You define the secrets of life in such a mind altering manner. Thank you for writing this magnificent book. It is healing my broken heart.
I purchased your book THE BOOK OF SECRETS and I can't put it down. You define the secrets of life in such a mind altering manner. Thank you for writing this magnificent book. It is healing my broken heart.
I purchased your book THE BOOK OF SECRETS and I can't put it down. You define the secrets of life in such a mind altering manner. Thank you for writing this magnificent book. It is healing my broken heart.