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Chapter 2: The Mystery of Meditation

The same thing happens with the mind also. It is a gestalt. If you see the words, you cannot see the gaps. If you see the gaps, you cannot see the words. But now you know: there are words and there are gaps, and every word is followed by a gap and every gap is followed by a word, but you cannot see both simultaneously. If you are focused on the gap, words will be lost and you will be thrown into meditation. Words will not be there. The gap!

These words and these gaps, these are two things in the mind. Mind is divided into two things - gaps and words - but every word follows a gap and every gap follows a word. The division is in a series; the mind is not divided into two watertight compartments - words and gaps. They are mixed. They are in a chain. Two words are being connected through a gap, and two gaps are being connected through a word.

Mind focused, consciousness focused, only on words is non-meditative. Consciousness focused only on gaps is meditative. So meditation is a “gestalt attention” - attention, awareness, consciousness of the gaps. And you cannot be simultaneously aware of both, that is impossible. So, whenever you become aware, words will be lost. When you observe keenly, you will not find words; you will find only the gap.

Not even “gaps” because you can feel the difference between two words, but you cannot feel the difference between two gaps. So words are always plural and gap is always singular: the gap. That’s why I use “the gap.” Words can be many; gaps cannot be. They become one. They trespass and they become one. So meditation to me means focusing on the gap. The gestalt is to be changed, and the gestalt changes.the gestalt changes.

Another thing is to be understood. If you have the gestalt picture and if you concentrate on the figure of the old lady, you don’t know the other picture. You have become conscious of the one, and that’s the only way. You become conscious of one. You don’t know that the other picture is hiding behind it. You have become conscious of one. If you concentrate on the picture of the old lady - if you go on concentrating and focusing, if you become totally attentive to it - a moment will come and the focus will have changed. The old lady is gone, and now you see the other picture. The other picture comes in.

Why does it happen? It happens because the mind cannot be focused continuously for a long time. It has to change, it has to change. Either it will have to go to sleep or it will have to change. There are only two possibilities. If you go on concentrating, centering your consciousness on the figure of the old lady, either you will go to sleep. That is meditation Mahesh Yogi style - you will go to sleep. It is peaceful, it is vital, it is a refreshment. You come out of it refreshed. It can help physical health, it can help a mental equilibrium also, but it is not meditation.

The same can be done by autohypnosis, by suggestion - by Coué also - the same can be done. To take it as meditation is very dangerous. It is not. And if one thinks of it as meditation then he will never search for the real dimension of meditation. That is the real harm done by such practices, and by the propagandists of such practices. It is drugging yourself psychologically.

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