During meditation, it is crucial that we harness our senses. As long as they are outward bound, they will pull us hither and thither. So, for the first 15 minutes of meditation, we may feel sudden hunger or thirst. We may have itching sensations in various parts of the body. Our back may hurt and our legs may become numb. We may feel restless and be tempted to postpone our meditation and go for a walk. We may suddenly remember urgent or unfinished tasks. So, during the initial part of meditation, we are actually meditating against our mind and senses. Just as we strike a matchstick against the matchbox to create friction to ignite it, we are rubbing the matchstick called the senses against the matchbox called the soul to ignite the flame of awareness within us. If we do not succumb to the outward pull of our senses during the first 15 minutes of meditation, we have won the battle for the day. Then we will be able to continue our meditation easily and recharge ourselves.
In a way, this can be compared to the game of cricket. Once a batsman enters the pitch to begin his game, he takes some time to settle in. He has to get a feel of the pitch and understand the style of the bowler. Once he gets a grip over these factors and settles in, he becomes invincible. In the same way, we must also gear ourselves up to cross these first 15 minutes in meditation. Many times, just as the battle is turning in our favour and our senses have been nearly subdued, we get up thinking, “However much ever I try, I cannot concentrate. It is simply impossible to meditate today.” This is like boarding a train fully prepared for the journey, but getting off suddenly just as the guard is giving the signal for the train to move.
Why are we so easily swayed by our senses? We can understand this through another simple example. Let us say that instead of meditating early in the morning, one day, we sit down during the mid morning hours. As we begin meditating, we hear the doorbell chime. If we get up to answer it, our meditation is disrupted. If we ignore it, we begin to feel, “Maybe I should have answered the doorbell. What if it was something important?” This thought nags us all through our meditation. So, whether we answer the doorbell or not, our concentration is completely shattered. This is happening because we have cultivated wrong priorities in our lives. We have become accustomed to assigning priority to external stimuli all the time. We feel that attending to the demands of the outer world is far more important than fulfilling the needs of the inner world. If we have an iron nail and a gold chain at home, we may throw away the nail, but we will never throw away the chain because we are aware of its immense value. Likewise, if we are aware of the priceless value of our soul which powers everything we do, we will never give greater priority to external stimuli when we meditate.
Our senses are like delicate strands of hair. If we examine our hair, we will find that each strand is only a few microns thick. It is light and fragile, but if 10 or 15 of them get entangled, we cannot disentangle them with our fingers, though they are very strong. We need a good comb to help us do this.
Likewise, our outward-bound senses are intertwined very intricately with the objects of the external world. We need the right tool to untangle them and turn them towards the soul.
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