A Million Thoughts: Learn All About Meditation from a Himalayan Mystic

A few thousand years ago, there was a tribe in India. No one in the tribe had ever ventured outside their small community.

The other unique thing about that tribe was that no one had ever tasted salt. They didn’t know what salt was or that it had anything to do with food.

Once a traveller, a rich merchant, lost his way in the woods and ended up in their community. The members of the tribe were shocked to see someone dressed so differently, wearing gems and jewels. This was markedly different from the banana leaves covering their privates. The traveler smelled nicely of exotic scents. They didn’t know such things existed. The chief hosted the merchant, who was in turn taken aback when he ate their meals. He kept asking for salt and they said there was no such thing. Not knowing the customs, the merchant thought it was best not to press them for salt. At least, there were bananas that tasted as they should. He enjoyed their hospitality for a few days and while departing, extended an invitation to the chieftain. He promised that he would send someone to personally travel with the chief.

Surely enough, three months later, the merchant’s people came to take the chief to their village. They crossed the woods, travelled through many villages, got on a boat and journeyed through a long river before finally reaching the merchant. The chief was welcomed with open arms and the merchant gave him the best room to stay. Musicians, dancers and courtesans entertained him. He was served the best wine, the finest fruits.

The real surprise, however, came when he tasted the meal. It tasted a million times better than anything he’d ever had.

“There’s something special about this food,” he exclaimed. “It’s so fulfilling. I don’t know how to put it but even though our food looks the same, that has no taste compared to your food.

This must be the food that the gods eat.”

The merchant was very pleased with the praise and asked that the chief be served another helping of the dishes. Each bite the guest took, he couldn’t help but be amazed. All kinds of surreal tastes tickled his taste buds as he relished every single bite of the sumptuous meal. After the meal was over, he requested that he be given a tour of the kitchen where this heavenly food had been prepared. The merchant gladly led the chief into the kitchen.

There he examined each ingredient, every spice and when he got to salt, he was intrigued for he had only seen white sugar but never white salt. He tasted it and jumped in joy.

“Eureka!” he shouted, “this is it! This was the taste in my meal. What is it, my friend? Tell me, I must carry this back home to my people.”

“Oh this? It’s just salt.”

Instantly the merchant understood the tasteless meals he had to force down his throat back in his guest’s village. The village folk had never tasted salt. The chief still excited about his discovery asked him how much salt they put in the food.

“Generally, a teaspoon full. It depends on the quantity of the food.”

“Wow!” The chief exclaimed. “You know what, don’t worry about the meal. I’ll just eat salt now. If a pinch of it made the meal so tasty, I wonder what a bowl full would taste like.”

“Sir, it’ll be repulsive!”

Ignoring the host’s warning he put his mouth to the bowl of salt and took a mouthful, only to spit a moment later, cursing and crying for water.

“Salt is used to enhance the taste of the meal, my friend,” the merchant said giving him a class of water. “It’s not the meal in itself.”

Similarly, meditation is not the meal. It is the salt in your meal.

The salt of meditation is designed to accentuate the taste of the meal called life. It can’t replace life, it can’t be your life. On the other hand, it needs to be taken in the correct quantity so you may enjoy your life. It does not go in desserts, but only in your entrees and main course.

What I mean to say is that the bliss promised from meditation cannot come from just meditation alone. It is not a substitute for love, compassion, humility, empathy and other virtues. Meditation is simply one of the methods to mould yourself into the person you wish to be, a process that can help you discover your primal state of peace and bliss.

Meditation is a way of life.

It is not a panacea, meditation is not the answer to everything. It cannot help you regain lost love or limbs. It won’t set everything right in your life. Even when you are in supreme bliss, it doesn’t mean that your stock or real estate investments won’t go south, or that you will never meet with an accident or that your partner will never cheat on you. All of those things can and will still happen. What meditation will do to you is give you the grace and mindfulness to ease through life.