Everything that you do amounts to meditation. Whatever you focus on, whatever you concentrate on, whatever you give your energy to, whatever you think about—is meditating upon it. Ordinarily, that is not the everyday understanding of meditation, but it is true.
Most people are meditating on their problems. Most people are meditating on what they like or do not like. Most people are meditating on how to be happy, how to have a better life, how to make more money, how to get sex—so do not be confused. What you give your attention to, is your meditation. Formal meditation, the ‘practice’ of meditation, is an antidote for these involuntary meditations that people are always engaging in without realizing it. You get to focus on something different, something perhaps of your choosing.
Everybody is searching for happiness, but most people are meditating on unhappiness. Most people’s thoughts are concentrated, again and again throughout the day, throughout the week, throughout their lives, on what they do not like, on what is unsatisfactory in their lives, on what makes them unhappy. And then they wonder why things are the way they are, when they have been spending a lifetime meditating on unhappiness!—promoting thoughts and feelings and sensations of unhappiness, simply by dwelling on them, simply by anticipating, by imagining, by focusing on—in the attempt to prevent or eradicate. But nevertheless, that is not the result. The result is: you experience what you meditate on, more and more. The more you meditate on it, the more you experience it, the more it comes to you. Because meditation, deep down, is an attraction mechanism. It is a magnet—operates like a magnet. Where your attention goes, operates magnetically.
Most people’s attention is on themselves, twenty-four hours a day: “What can I get?” “How should I feel?” “What do I want?” The attention is all “I.” It is all self-focus. So everyone, in that sense, becomes their own meditation. They are meditating on themselves.
But it is not a fruitful meditation. It is a meditation that only keeps a tiny focus—does not usually bring anything.
You become what you meditate on; you become what your attention goes to. You become more and more imbued with what your attention is focused on. Magnetically, it surrounds you more and more, and even manifests more and more.
So the search for happiness, people’s focus on how to be happy, is actually practiced as thoughts of how unhappy they are. It is not “How can I be happy?” It is “How can I stop being unhappy?” “Well, I am unhappy about this” and “I do not like that” and “That did not work out” and “How come my wife left me?” and “My job sucks!” and “I do not have enough money” and “Who is going to pay the rent?” and “The kids are crying.” That is most people’s meditation. “I wish life was better”—that is most people’s meditation, that is most people’s focus.
So you have to ask yourself: “Am I meditating on unhappiness? Am I meditating on what I do not like? Am I meditating on what does not work in my life? Am I meditating on what I do not have, with the effect being that I will keep not having it?” Because you are not really meditating on having it, you are meditating on how you do not have it. The way it is experienced is very significant. That determines the nature of the meditation. Most people do think negatively—“I wish I had that.” That is negative. The magnetic force of it is to not have it, to not be it, to not find it, to not attract it, to not become it. Most people’s meditation is negative.
So this is why, in all spiritual traditions without any exception, there is at least some kind of emphasis on the thinking process, on how one handles one’s thoughts (whether that is the primary focus or not the primary focus). Every tradition has something to say about thoughts. Well, your thoughts are your meditation. It is for good reason that every tradition has something to say on that subject. And what most religions and most spiritual traditions say is: Nothing exists without a thought first. And there is no question that that is true.
So, if thought is the beginning of everything in this life, what kind of thoughts do you have? You have to ask yourself, “What am I meditating on? What is my pattern throughout the day, throughout the week, of my internal dialogue, of the thoughts that pass through me, of where my attention is centered?” You have to look with an honest eye at what you are meditating on. All the earnest meditation practices in the world will not take you far, if the rest of the time you are practicing negative meditation day in and day out.
People think it is what the world does to them, it is, “What other people and events in my life—what those influences have been—that is what shapes me.” That is the common thought. “This happened in my life—that is why it is this way.” “This person influenced me—that is why I am that way.” These influences are tiny, almost amount to nothing at all, compared to the ‘thought meditation’ of everyday life. You are really creating your reality. These influences are not big; the real influence on you is you.
So, if you are not happy with your life, put the credit where it belongs. You are the biggest influence in your life. Make no mistake about it. Nobody else comes close—no event, no circumstances of birth, no life story—nothing influences you the way you do.
🌿 Excerpt from “Meditate on Joy” with Swami Premodaya, JewelTree Center