Ashok Gupta explains that meditation isn't about stopping thoughts, but observing them without judgment. More thoughts during practice is normal and actually good, like opening a pressure cooker. Regular practice creates small gaps between thoughts and activates your rest-and-heal nervous system.
So meditation is about taking the observer position and observing what's going on in the mind without judgment, or trying to stop your thoughts or trying to direct your thoughts. And often meditation is accompanied by a sound or you become aware of your breathing. Because the mind can be quite busy, we like to give the mind something to do. So instead of a constant stream of all these types of thoughts, we say to the mind, hey, perhaps we can bring all of these disparate parts of the mind together and focus on one thing. So perhaps we become aware of our breathing. Perhaps we become aware of a sound or music. Perhaps we become aware of a particular mantra that people are given to meditate on. So that all those disparate parts of the mind can come together, and the mind will listen and become aware of the breathing, and then it will go off in a different direction and think about something else. And we become aware of that without judgment. We gently bring it back to that focus, that awareness, and then it does it again. But we don't tell our minds off. We don't think there's anything wrong. We don't think meditation is about having an empty mind. We know that what's happening is perfectly good, perfectly normal, and with complete acceptance. We observe and very gently and slowly bring our mind back to the focus of the meditation. And you might say, well, I might be meditating, and all I'm experiencing are just constant thoughts, constant stream of thoughts. And if that happens, that's perfectly normal and perfectly fine. In fact, one way analogy I give that helps us understand what's going on in meditation at the beginning is imagine our minds are like a pressure cooker, and we've been stuffing down all our thoughts and emotions for years into this pressure cooker. Perhaps you've had a lot of stressful emotions today or yesterday. And that pressure cooker is storage, is storing all those emotions and thoughts. Meditation is suddenly when we stop using the outside world as a distraction away from our unresolved emotions, which is often what we do. And instead we become aware, okay, what's in this pressure cooker? And the moment that we look at that pressure cooker, it's like opening the valve at the top of the pressure cooker and some steam comes out. And suddenly we become more aware of all of these thoughts, all of these emotions, some negative, some positive. And it comes out like a constant stream of thoughts, a constant stream of energy being released. So for some people at the beginning of their meditation practice, they may notice an increase in thoughts, an increase in some emotions like anxiety. But we have to go through that to allow the release of all that unconscious pressure. And that's what we're doing sometimes at the beginning of meditation. And that's why for some people, it can be quite tricky at the beginning or quite extraordinary. Feel that agitation. But it's so worth it, because each time you meditate, you're releasing more and more and more pressure from that pressure cooker until eventually the pressure cooker can begin to slow down, calm down. It's not. There's no pressure stuck inside. And you begin to get those glimpses of what we think meditation is, which is those silent spaces between the thoughts. So we have a thought, we bring our minds back, and just for a millisecond or half a second or a few seconds, we notice a space of nothingness. And then another thought comes in, and that's okay. But it's those little spaces between the thoughts and emotions which is deeply restorative for our mind and body. It's deeply healing. It's a deep, calm feeling that triggers the opposite of our stress system. And the opposite of our stress system is called the parasympathetic nervous system. So we know from research studies that people who regularly meditate, it's easier for them to kick in that parasympathetic nervous system, which is sometimes called the rest, heal and digest system. It's a system that the body uses when it's in downtime to heal itself. So meditation is that art of being the observer, and also it's the art of doing nothing. So when you're meditating, you're not trying to do anything. Sure, you're observing, bringing your mind back to your breathing. But apart from that, there's nothing you have to do. You don't have to focus or concentrate really hard. You don't need to worry about anything. You don't need to think about your wants and cares and desires. You know, sometimes we're meditating, but thinking, come on, come on, I haven't got time for this. I've got other things that I should be doing. But this is your relaxation time. This is your downtime. And I appreciate, and I felt like this when I first meditated, but isn't this a bit of a waste of time? I could be doing better things. And that's because as a society, we've not learned the ability to just be. We are a human being, not a human doing. We just can learn the benefits and appreciate how powerful it is just to sit and do nothing for a period of time and deeply healing and restorative it is for us mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually to do that.
