Relinquishing Control and Manipulation

Enlightenment is, in the end, nothing more than the natural state of being. If you strip it of all the complex terminology and all the complex jargon, enlightenment is simply returning to our natural state of being. A natural state, of course, means a state which is not contrived, a state that requires no effort or discipline to maintain, a state of being which is not enhanced by any sort of manipulation of mind or body—in other words, a state that is completely natural, completely spontaneous. Herein lies one of the reasons why meditation often leads to a dead end. Many meditation techniques, when you look at them closely, are a means of control. As long as the mind is controlling and guiding our experience, it is unlikely to lead us to a natural state. A natural state is one in which we are not controlled by the mind. When the mind is involved in control and manipulation, it can lead to various states of consciousness: you might learn how to still your mind, or you might come into psychic powers. You can achieve a lot of things through a style of meditation that is basically technique-oriented or manipulation-oriented. But what you can't do is come upon your own natural and spontaneous way of being.

This seems like the most obvious thing in the world. Anyone can tell you that you're not going to come to a natural and spontaneous way of being through inner control and manipulation, yet somehow this truth eludes us. It eluded me for years. The fault isn't necessarily in the style of meditation or even in the technique, although the technique we use can have a profound influence. The problem lies in the attitude with which we engage meditation. If our attitude is an attitude of control and manipulation—if we take the approach that we are going to master a discipline—then the attitude gets in the way. It's actually the mind or the ego that is meditating. And, of course, when we are talking about enlightenment or spiritual awakening we are talking about awakening from the mind, awakening from the ego. In what I call True Meditation, this tendency of the mind to control and manipulate and be disciplined is abandoned from the very beginning. This letting go of control and manipulation is the foundation of True Meditation. As funny as it sounds, the extraordinarily simple beginning to meditation is to let go of control, let go of manipulation.

When most people sit down to meditate the first thing they think is, 'Okay, how do I control my mind?' That's what I am calling manipulation. Manipulation is a strong word, but I am using it to get your attention, to call attention to the fact that when we sit down to meditate and ask ourselves, 'Okay, how am I going to control my mind? How am I going to come to peace? How am I going to come to stillness?', what the mind is actually doing is asking, 'How do I control myself so that I feel better?' And you can learn to control your mind and quiet your mind and your body by applying a controlling technique. For a while it might feel good. But when we control our minds in order to obtain a certain state of peace or tranquility, it's very much like getting someone to be quiet by taping their mouth shut. You've succeeded in getting that person to be quiet, but you've done it through a very manipulative technique. What good will come of getting that person to be quiet by taping their mouth shut? As soon as you take the tape off they are going to have a few things to say, aren't they? They're going to have an awful lot to say! I think anybody who has meditated knows the experience of entering into meditation and achieving a certain control of mind, a control of body. It may feel very, very good. The experience may even feel profound. But then you stop meditating—you get up off the cushion or the chair, you stand up—and immediately your mind starts to chatter again. We experience a type of meditative quietness through control, but as soon as we let go of control the mind is off and running again. Everything reverts to the way it was before. Most meditators are all too familiar with this dilemma. We may achieve a certain state of peace when we are meditating, but when we stop meditating the peace eludes us once again.

Real meditation is not about mastering a technique; it's about letting go of control. This is meditation. Anything else is actually a form of concentration. Meditation and concentration are two different things. Concentration is a discipline; concentration is a way in which we are actually directing or guiding or controlling our experience. Meditation is letting go of control, letting go of guiding our experience in any way whatsoever. The foundation of True Meditation is that we are letting go of control.

For a human being to let go of control is actually an immense thing. It sounds easy to say, 'Just let go of control.' But for most human beings, our entire psychological structure, our entire psychological self, our egos, are made up almost entirely of control. To ask a mind or an ego to let go of control, then, is a revolutionary idea. When we let go, even for a moment, certain hidden fears and hesitations arise. 'What if I let go of control,' the mind says, 'and nothing happens? What if I sit down to meditate, letting everything be as it is, and nothing happens?' This is usually why we grab on to some technique or to some discipline, because the mind is afraid that if it lets go of control, nothing will happen.

What I am suggesting in True Meditation is that we actually see, that we look at meditation as a way to investigate. True Meditation really isn't a new technique so much as it is a way of investigating for yourself—in your own body, in your own mind, upon your own authority, upon the authority of your own experience—what happens when you start to relinquish control and allow everything to be as it is. What happens when you allow your experience to be exactly as it is without trying to change it. Instead of a technique, True Meditation is actually a means of investigation. What happens when we actually let go of control and manipulation?