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

Even true yoga asana are done with great mindfulness and they burn your physical energy. Spirited meditation however is not about stretching your limbs and staying in that posture for a little while. It is about getting the physical energy out of your system. You may think it’s like playing sports then. Well, it isn’t. In sports, there are many emotions that come into play. You may feel down on losing a game, you may have to sit and wait for a while, you may envy your partner playing better than you or a spurt of ego upon winning. What the other player does is not in your control.

The closest to spirited meditation would be dancing with one fundamental difference – in dance you are focusing on the rhythm and perhaps the music. In meditation, you are entirely focused on a sense of mindfulness, on your breathing, on surrender.

Roughly 800 years ago, Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi, a great Sufi saint, deeply influenced by the Turkish culture and customs, started a unique ritual called the Sema ritual. Later it came to be known as The Order of the Whirling Dervishes. In this carefully crafted and choreographed ritual, a few dervishes dressed in a certain way would dance in the love of God.

During the Sema ritual, semazen or the whirling dervishes, dance in great synchronization, as if in perfect harmony. There are four distinct musical shifts, each one with a different tempo and rhythm. The first stage is to testify God’s existence, the second is devoted to unity, the third stage is about his majesty and the fourth about God’s power.

The Whirling Dervishes of Rumi states:

In the symbolism of the Sema ritual, the semazen’s camel’s hair hat (sikke) represents the tombstone of the ego; his wide, white skirt represents the ego’s shroud. By removing his black cloak, he is spiritually reborn to the truth. At the beginning of the Sema, by holding his arms crosswise, the semazen appears to represent the number one, thus testifying to God’s unity. While whirling, his arms are open: his right arm is directed to the sky, ready to receive God’s beneficence; his left hand, upon which his eyes are fastened, is turned toward the earth. The semazen conveys God’s spiritual gift to those who are witnessing the Sema. Revolving from right to left around the heart, the semazen embraces all humanity with love. The human being has been created with love in order to love. Mevlâna Jalâluddîn Rumi says, “All loves are a bridge to Divine love. Yet, those who have not had a taste of it do not know!”33

Three hundred years after Rumi, came another saint in India. Immersed in the divine love of Krishna, he started the mass movement of Kirtana. Known as Caitanya Mahaprabhu, he was the orginal founder of the Bhakti movement. Romaing through the streets and villages, he would mesmerize thousands of people where he would go. Dancing in complete ecstasy to the holy names of Krishna, a rhythmic chant of the Hare Krishna mahamantra was done.

Taken from an Upanishad, Mahaprabhu reversed the mantra to make it one of the most famous mantras of kirtana in the world today. It was further made popular by Srila Prabhupada known for spreading the bhakti movement in the West under the aegis of International Society for Krishna Consciousness, or ISKCON as it’s more commonly known. Mahaprabhu mantra was:

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare,

Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare.

Devotees and non-believers would feel helpless in front of his enigmatic voice, his graceful limbs, and the mind-numbing beats of mridanga, beautiful sound of harmonium, along with cymbals. Before anyone could gather their senses, they would find themselves jumping high up in the air in extreme ecstasy.

The whole environment would get spiritually charged. A wave of calmness and devotion would wash over all the participants as they would feel alive and in union with the divine.

The Russian philosopher and mystic, G. I. Gurdjieff, had also introduced a form of spirited meditation called the Gurdjieff Stop meditation. The participants were asked to stop whatever activity they were doing the moment Gurdjieff would announce “stop”. Stopping the moment after any rigorous activity brings about a great sense of awareness. Osho, a 20th century Indian mystic, introduced the Gurdjieff method in his active meditation and gave it the name of dynamic meditation.

My goal here is to strip all mumbo jumbo and present to you the most ancient, basic, and reliable form of spirited meditation.