NRI
first generation MD, Swami Raamachandra founder of Mahatma Consciousness
Los Angeles, Nov. 16, 2008
By Dilip Butani
Swami Raamachandra, 30 year old founder of Mahatma Consciousness,
is a first generation Indian-American who has always been attracted
to spirituality from a young age. He began practicing meditation
at the age of 8 and is an expert on topics related to yoga, meditation,
and spirituality. He has an MD degree from George Washington University
in Washington DC, and he lectures frequently on topics related to
philosophy, spirituality, and the psychology of human achievement.
A fine sitar and tabla player, he is highly regarded as a motivational
speaker and spiritual counselor.
As per Swamiji, meditation is a systematic way of becoming aware
of your awareness. It is a way to create lab space to allow the
mind to know what it is. For awareness is not an abstract phenomenon.
Awareness is not something difficult for the mind to construe, but
in fact it is very simple and very real. It is you in the most candid
way. Meditation is not an art of thinking about the abstract. Many
people think this is what meditation involves. In reality, abstract
thought is contemplation. The actual practice of meditation though
is much different. It is much simpler and is about getting to know
one’s mind in the truest sense. It is about bringing stillness
into one’s life. Its goal is to help one gain perspective
about one’s mind in a deep way. It is a way of getting in
touch with your inner core.
Explaining further Swamiji says, meditation is actually the easiest
thing to do; that is why it is the most difficult. Meditation is
purely about you knowing yourself. It is a practice of knowing who
you are. Human beings have a tendency to complicate life. We get
caught up in our circumstances neglect the essentials in life. For
example, one of the essentials is learning to breathe properly,
you don’t need a doctorate degree to be able to just breathe
well. It is actually a very natural and common sense thing. The
problem is that we look over it as something that we don’t
need to worry about. We neglect the basics and forget the power
they have on our life. What we need to do is simplify matters. This
can be accomplished through meditation. When the mind is still,
the mind can perceive itself. If the mind is restlessness and distracted,
it is unable to understand its own habits and tendencies.
Being able to meditate is a valuable skill to have. It can enable
you to be your own therapist. It allows you to develop the skill
of observation to monitor all the things happening in your life.
Good teachers of meditation know that there really isn’t anything
extraordinary to externally teach. Real teachers of meditation know
that real knowledge of spirituality comes when you become your own
teacher. For meditation is not about anyone else except you. Advanced
practitioners of meditation don’t live like recluses. They
live in the world with all its ups and downs. Skilled meditators
practice meditation throughout the day. They see every experience
in life as a movement of consciousness. The difference between them
and normal people is that they don’t lose touch with themselves.
They preserve their identity through all of life’s challenges.
They remain aware of every fragment of consciousness that plays
itself out in the world. Most people in life live and react to the
circumstances. They lose track of themselves in what they do and
they neglect the simple tasks that really matter in life.
Swamiji’s organization had a different approach for meditation.
First step is the appreciation of the mindset of most normal people,
followed by devising a curriculum that allows people to unfold themselves
in a step by step fashion. Swamiji says ‘we look at meditation
from a very practical point of view, we realize that life cannot
be renounced in this day & age and we are inevitably tied to
the affairs of the world in almost everything we do. What we really
need is equipoise and balance in handling life. This skill is not
something that comes from Divine luck. It is something that we can
acquire in a methodical way.
More information about meditation and organization may be obtained
by e-mailing to swami.raamachandra@gmail.com.

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