Let him throw tantrums while you feel somewhat embarrassed in the public.
Try to pacify him with the promise of taking him there in the future.
Take him to the candy store and get him the candies.
Overpower him, lift him and rush to the parking lot.
It is not a desirable situation and none of the options seem to be pleasant. This is exactly what happens when your mind becomes restless. It starts to behave like the grumpy toddler. It tries all sorts of tricks to get its way.
What Causes Restlessness During Meditation
The interesting thing is that the mind does not become restless on its own during meditation. It is only when you try too hard to concentrate or force your mind to think a certain way (rather than gently guiding it), that the mind becomes restless. At that moment, it wants to break free of the obedience of posture, concentration and stability. A conditioned mind is not designed to operate according to you, it is strong enough to lead so that you follow what it wants. These are the natural tendencies of the mind because mind does not want to be told or controlled.
“I try very hard to control myself, my anger and my negative emotions but they always win over me,” a disciple once said to Buddha. “O Venerable One! How do I overcome this weakness of mine?”
Buddha ignored his question and kept moving. After a while, he sat down in lotus posture under a banyan tree and spoke, “I’m thirsty. Can you get me water from the river?”
Eager to serve his master, the disciple moved towards the river at once. Before he could lower the bowl and fill it, a man with a bullock cart started crossing the shallow river. The water became turbid. Dismayed, the disciple went back empty handed. “The water is muddy and unfit for drinking as a bullock cart just crossed the river.”
Buddha nodded. After a little while, he asked the disciple to try again. The water was still murky and he came back empty handed again. “It was less muddy,” he said, “but still unsuitable for drinking.”
Buddha maintained quietude for half an hour before instructing him to go back again. The disciple was pleased to find clear water this time, the mud and other particles had settled down. He filled the bowl with water and went back to the master. With utmost mindfulness, Buddha took a few sips. He put the bowl down and said, “You see, when the water became muddy, the easiest method to clean it was to let it be. Had you made any attempt to clear it at the time, it would have ended up getting worse. You just let it be, you simply waited and the mud settled down on its own. Other than patience, there was no effort. Similarly, when your mind is greatly disturbed just let it be. It’ll calm down, it’ll settle in due course, give it a little time, be patient.”
The Remedy
The best way to overcome restlessness is to stop meditating at that moment. Stay in the posture if you can but make no attempts to concentrate. Hold a little dialogue with yourself. Just relax. Stop all efforts to meditate. Take a deep breath. Get into a self- communion on any subject matter you like, not the one that will arouse you but something that will give your mind a break from the act of concentration. If restlessness still persists, just get up and take a break. Resume after some time.
We have to distract the toddler till we are past the candy store. When your mind is tired, give it rest, when it is restless, pacify it. Give it a bait, do not be too hard for too long. We are teaching it discipline, we want it to move according to you. Be patient. Calm it down. Restlessness is normal and pacification is an art, a skill. Have you ever seen an expert dog trainer? A good trainer knows when to reward versus reprimand, when to leash versus let loose, when to be soft versus strong. And, this is all there is to learn in meditation, that is, when to be firm with your mind versus when to let it roam free. It comes with practice. The more familiar you get with yourself, the more effective is your meditation.
Eventually, we want to take a route where the toddler doesn’t get to see the candy shop in the first place, or the toy store, or the swings. If he does not spot those, he will continue to be a happy child while you shop. No candies, no tantrums.
Dullness
Raghu Swami, one of my foremost disciples, once shared his life in a certain ashram where he lived for more than seven years. The ashram had a strict routine.
“We had to get up at 4 AM and be ready in the meditation hall by 4:30 AM,” he said enthusiastically. “And from 4:30 till 6:30, it was the best part of my day. Truly divine.”
I was anticipating he would share some insight about his meditation but he just kept smiling.
“Why was it the best part of your day?” I asked.
“Because I would always fall asleep,” he replied with his lips curling upwards in a big smile, “I could never sleep so deeply while on my bed as I did in the morning meditation.”
We both had a hearty laugh.
The primary difference between Raghu Swami and numerous other meditators I’ve met is that Raghu Swami was forthcoming in his confession. Even advanced meditators routinely fall prey to the second most common defect in meditation, laziness.
Laziness is of two types. Let us say that you have decided to meditate for 45 minutes every day. That is your resolution. The first type of laziness makes you want to skip your meditation. Your conscious mind gives you excuses because it does not enjoy being tamed, it wants to go its own way dragging you along. Purity of discipline is paramount in executing any plan, be it meditation or any other routine. The only way to encounter laziness of this type is to not listen to your mind. If you sit down and vow to meditate no matter what, your conscious mind will eventually understand that you are the master and that you have no plans of showing any laxity when it comes to following your discipline.
The second form of laziness, is what we are concerned with over here. It is the one you encounter during your meditation.
As you sit down to meditate, motionless, still in one posture, you enjoy the first few minutes. In the beginning, you are aware of the restless nature of the conscious mind. You work hard to channelize your thoughts, you exert to concentrate and you try to stay focused. When you do that, you experience restlessness. Such restlessness may prompt you to move, engage in thoughts or abandon your session of meditation altogether. The best way to overcome such restlessness is to relax at that point in time.
As you relax, however, you run the risk of losing sharpness of the mind. Such relaxation, if unchecked, can lead to inertness, inattentiveness, stupor or torpor. Above all, it robs you off the clarity of your visualization. A meditation that lacks lucidity is as good as sleeping. If you are meditating by way of mental visualization for example, the image you were holding mentally dims and disappears. If you are meditating on a mantra, it becomes a superficial exercise of just mentally chanting the mantra and you are no longer hearing it, let alone becoming one with it. Basically, your meditation has lost its lucidity, its crispness and has now become a mostly useless activity of sitting still pointlessly.
Laziness during meditation can take the form of dullness of the mind or lethargy of the body. If your mind experiences dullness or sluggishness, the clarity of the object of meditation disappears. A session of meditation that is not clear, crisp and lucid, will not allow you to experience even a relaxed state of mind, much less its natural one.
You will get up from your meditation feeling quasi relaxed, the type you feel after a nap. Often an overwhelming number of meditators mistake that for good meditation. Good meditation is not about putting your conscious mind to sleep, it is clearing it. Such clearing brings bliss and sublime sensations with it. If a meditator gets into the habit of meditating incorrectly without actively working towards clearing the hurdles, it becomes extremely hard to get rid of such flaws later on.