About this Blog

Please note: The thoughts and opinions expressed in this blog are solely those of Swami Anandakumar, and do not represent any other person, authority or institution. Quotes or thoughts of others may be used, but they are only intended to convey succinctly some of the ideas expressed here. At the same time, nothing is new. It is an attempt to communicate a little ancient wisdom in today's words, with relevance to a very modern world.

Fellow Spiritual Seekers, Brothers and Sisters 

Welcome to this blog site dedicated to meditation in all its aspects and mystery. A subject such as meditation needs to be approached in the spirit in which it is practised. Practical aspects and techniques may be learnt or known, but the essence of it can’t be described so easily. In order to understand meditation, the meditation-mind also has to awaken and listen, because the voice that describes meditation can never define so completely that understanding will automatically follow. 

It's like having something precious and wonderful and holding it up to the light and turning it and seeing it reflected from different angles in the changing light. One moment it looks like this, another moment it looks like that, and yet in essence it is always the same. So how to understand it accurately? We build a picture from different images which come gradually more and more into focus as our observation and understanding increases.

So the aim is to look into and reflect upon the spirit of meditation. It will not be a focus on technique. There are many books, and thousands of practices to try, and choose from. The cornerstone of developing our understanding will be: That whatever the technique, there is a constant. And developing awareness of the constant brings a different dimension to practice. What is the constant? Just think for a moment… It's obvious, but we often take it for granted. It's the one who is having the experience, who is always present when practising: me, or you. And it is that me that we are trying to know more fully through the medium of meditation. And we may have to accept that the me we think we know now is not going to be the me that we discover on out inner journey.

Much of what is revealed as wisdom in meditation often sounds mundane and obvious at first, but behind some of these obvious thoughts, when deeply considered and applied directly in practice, turn out to be very sound guidelines when we encounter the many experiences that arise during the long journey of meditation, some of which reflect the light accurately and some of which are confusing and misleading.

And much of the journey is spent in coming to terms with many things, that we know, and so many more things we don’t yet know about ourselves, that we have not met with, though we may suspect they are there within us. Perhaps we have either not yet had the inclination to look deeper, or perhaps the will is there but we have not known how to go about it; we have not yet found the map to guide the way accurately.

The one who is always present – you, me, having the experiences of a lifetime – can be recognised and in time seen more accurately. This is the basis of discovering our innate wisdom. If we are able to internalise for some time, and awaken and develop our own inner awareness, everything in life becomes clearer and more meaningful. This is what happens in meditation. And meditation when understood correctly and practised accurately can provide the answer to every important question in life. 

So come and be an adventurer in the inner world, and look into this wonderful mystery we call meditation.