Meditation - Happiness not mindfulness

It is disheartening to see people struggling with meditation. Meditation is not supposed to be hard but we have made it so.

There seem to be three equations prevalent in the meditation domain:

Meditation = mindfulness where

Mindfulness = no thoughts

Meditation = no emotions

The second and third equations are messing with people’s mind and practices. Newcomers drown in stress because no-thought and no-emotions is an unattainable goal.

I spent a few years chasing these goals myself and I see my friends chasing the same rainbow. Completely demotivated while they are at it.

If you are here, pause and reevaluate your meditation practice.

Recalibrating my meditation goals to experience joy, happiness rocked my world for good. Recalibrate your goals too, if you are stuck in your practice.

How to practice once you have re-evaluated your goals and decided to focus on happiness and joy?

Here is a practice…

Change your equation to:

Meditation = Happy Emotions

Go back to the moment that you were the most happy. Hang around there, re-live that moment — experience it, immerse yourself into it. Find your friends, family who were with you at this point. If you did this right, you will come out energized and very very happy.

I learnt this from my guru. The practice liberated me from chasing the impossible goals outlined earlier.. He calls this as “bhaav re” which is hindi for “bring your emotions”.

“Bring your emotions” is contrarian to meditation best practices today. Note: bring your emotions doesn’t mean bringing in anger, hatred or rage. Bring in happiness, love, joy and the fastest way to connect to it is to go back to your happiest moment in life.

I was pleasantly surprised at the efficacy of the method.

Try it, go contrarian — remember to meditate for happiness.