Wake up! It is morning now.  While awake, you gain and you lose while sleeping. 

Same feelings were echoed in an ancient pious rhythm.

जागो रे जिन जागना, अब जागन की वार

फिर क्या जागे नानका, जब छोड़ चले संसार

Now is the time to be awake and aware.  How can you awake when you are sleeping for ever?  Gurudev Shri Swami Vishvas Ji recites in His holy voice:-

जागो ऐ सोने वालो, तुम्हे कोई जगाने आया

मैडिटेशन का मौसम, तुम्हे मस्त बनाने आया

O ye! Snoring in deep sleep, wake up! wake up! Someone is calling you to be blessed in deep meditation. 

Sometimes one may wonder what fuss it is all about.  We all are fully awake.

We had a very sound sleep last night and we are working very hard to perform our worldly duties and responsibilities.  We are putting our shoulders to the wheel, “Thou shalt earn thy bread by the sweat of thy brow” - is Adam’s curse that has fallen on all of us.  Day and night, we are in endless turmoil of worldly affairs, “We have no time to stand and stare”.  How can we be termed as we are sleeping and snoring?

Where do all these trials and tribulations lead us to? Perhaps to hypertension, depression, stress and strain, insomnia, diabetes or some other heart-related diseases.

Some opium eaters started rowing their boat on a journey from Haridwar to Kashi.  They took their turn to row the boat and for the whole night, they were rowing and rowing.  When it dawned, they started looking for the embankment of Kashi and were amazed to know that they were yet in Haridwar.  How could it be?  They found that their boat was tethered to the pole.  The rope was not taken off.  We are tethered to body.  We are not body.  We are not mind.  We are not the intellect.  We are not the thoughts.  We are the WITNESS (Sakshi) of thoughts, mind, body and intellect.  Body is a vehicle and not the goal.  We are the chariot, the rider, the Master though tethered to body.

We have to be awake and aware of ourselves - who we are and where we are leading to.  Are we going towards our Centre which is all existent, all knowledge, and all Bliss or are we drifting away from centre into endless anxieties and worries?  Are we going towards some light or are we groping in thick darkness?  When we sit comfortably and silently and gently close our eyes for meditation, thick darkness appears within and a caravan of endless thoughts starts inside.  There is no glimmer of light.  All this is clear evidence that we are not awake and aware.  A thick fog of unawareness surrounds us day and night and we go on working just like a robot or automatic machine with minimum of awareness.  Sometimes we come out of this fog in the company of an enlightened soul but soon this fog engulfs us and we go into swoon.

Awareness towards our own true Being, our true Self, is missing altogether.  In Gitanjli, Sh. Rabinder Nath Tagore exclaims beautifully: - He whom I enclose with my name is weeping in this dungeon. I am ever busy building this wall all around and as this wall goes up into the sky day by day I lose sight of my true being in its dark shadow.  I take pride in this great wall, am I plaster it with dust and sand lest a least hole should be left in this name; and for all the care I take I lose sight of my true being.

To this, Gurudev Shri Swami Vishvas Ji proclaims with thunder:-

कर लै दिल दी सफाई, जे दीदार चाहीदा

तूँ  जहान तो की लैणा, तैनू यार चाहीदा

That cleanliness is wakefulness and awareness which are the essentials for Vishvas Meditation. Thick veils of darkness become thin and thoughts start diminishing and eventually disappear in regular and persistent Vishvas Meditation.  Wayward thoughts give way to Bhav and Bliss and tear drops roll down in inexplicable ecstasy and the aspirant recites:-

तेरी याद में रो लेना, यह प्यास हमारी है

विरह का इक आँसू, सभी शास्त्रों से भारी है

A man drowned in intricacies and complexities of mind is not aware of such bliss which is his own real and true treasure.  A musk-deer runs here and there for the musk which is hidden within it.  It is not aware of it.  Rabia the saint was looking for the needle in the street which was lost in her cottage.  When asked for explanation, she replied that you all are looking for happiness, peace and bliss outside which is within you.  We look everywhere else.  We can go to the corners of earth or even to the moon in search of some illusory pleasure.  It is just one treasure we never enter and that is our own Being of which we are not aware and we are not awake.

Meditation is a simple way of entering it and being aware of it.  Meditation means awareness, watchfulness, wakefulness and understanding.  We are to have this understanding that no strenuous effort is to be made in meditation.  Silently, peacefully, without hurry, without any tension, without any anguish move into your Centre instantly.  Just watch your mind without any effort.  Watching is not an effort.  It is your natural capacity.  Effort is something which you have to do and watching is something you don’t have to do.

Meditation is not concentration, contemplation and thinking.  It is awareness, alertness and wakefulness. It is not to wage a war against mind.  It is going beyond mind or getting out of mind.  Mind lives in future.  That is the state of unawareness.  A man who lives in future lives a counterfeit life.  He does not really live at all.  To-morrow never comes.  It is always to-day. And whatever comes is always here and now.  This is awareness and wakefulness and it comes out of meditation which is nectar of all scriptures. 

Yet there are misconceptions and misunderstandings about meditation. Meditation is considered as a control or concentration of mind.  It is thought to be the most escapist thing in world i.e. running away from world.  Meditation is not running away from life, it is escaping into life.  Mind is escaping from life and unawareness is running away from life.  Meditation takes us to our own true Being and voice comes from heart.

दिल के आईने  में है तस्वीर-ए-यार ,

जब  ज़रा गर्दन झुकाई देख ली