 Welcome to my Tantric Winter Meditation Journey. Today I want to introduce you to my very first meditation. First meditation meaning when I first started my journey towards Shunyata. Shunyata is that state of nothingness, of complete emptiness, that state of non-duality that we are all trying to achieve. Now in Tantra we say that this is the final aim of our life, but that it is the most difficult thing to get to because your brain cannot go from this to that in one jump. You have to negotiate this journey one tiny little stage at a time. You have to convince your brain one tiny step at a time. The problem is what is that first step? Where do you begin? In practical terms, what do you say you will leave behind and what will you take forward? So after a lot of agonizing and a lot of searching, I started my first meditation with something that Jidhu Krishnamurti used to teach. Now Jidhu Krishnamurti in case you are not familiar with him, was a very well known philosopher and he used to say that in order for any meditation to be effective, you have to create a complete psychological revolution inside yourself that you have to change the way that your psyche acts and reacts in order to be able to control your mind better. And this particular meditation that I started with is where he compares the mind to a room full of one million fluttering flying butterflies. Now I'm going to talk you through this one because it's the best analogy that I ever came across and it opened up a few doors in my mind. It opened up the understanding that had been lacking up till then. Now imagine the sound that the wings of one million fluttering butterflies would create. It's a sort of soft consistent shushing sound. It's enough to distract you but not enough to let you know that you're being distracted because see if it's a very loud sound that you're hearing like a big clanging. You know that's not what you want to be hearing. You will take steps to shut it off. But if there is this consistent buzzing humming sound at the background, you don't actually realize that it's over there. And what it does is it distorts what you are hearing. It's very insidious. But that's not even the full extent of the impact that those butterfly wings are going to have on you. Imagine now what the effect of one million fluttering butterfly wings will be on your vision. It will obstruct your vision but not enough for you to be conscious of it. Again, as in the previous example, if you have a big wall in front of you, you know that there is a blockage and you will take steps to remove it. But with something as insidious as a lot of fluttering butterfly wings through which you can still see, you don't even realize that it is an obstruction. And so what this does is it distorts your vision. Now you can only see in fragments. You can't actually see the whole picture anymore but we are not aware of it. And he says that this is your brain. Just like that room with one million constantly fluttering moving butterflies, your brain is full of constantly fluttering unfinished thoughts. Millions and millions of unfinished thoughts. You've probably realized this for yourself. How we think of so many things during the day but never stick to one thought. You know, you think of one thing, you get distracted, you move to something else. Then you don't like the way this one is sounding. So you move to another thought and back and forth and back and forth till all of those thoughts collect like a jumble in your brain and the noise of those unfinished thoughts distracts you and distorts the way that you think. And he says that in this state of unquiet, how can you ever expect to become? How can you ever expect to think clearly? And so this is the meditation that he suggests as a first step and I found this very effective. So this meditation is to be done at night. Sometime before you go to sleep, take half an hour out to give yourself completely alone time. Turn the lights off, lie down preferably on your back but in whatever position is most comfortable to you and you're going to now take 10 thoughts that you started during the day and you're going to think each thought through to its end. You don't have to find a solution for the thought. You don't have to find a resolution for the thought about how you're going to take it further or anything like that. You don't even have to find a grand ending to the thought to say this is where I finish and I tie it up with a bow. Nothing like that. You literally just think it through to its natural end. The moment you think a thought through to the end, you're able to actually lay it down to rest and the moment you can lay something down to rest, you make space in your brain. I know most of you will have discovered, I certainly discovered that meditation was one of the most difficult things to do. Not just a case of shutting your eyes and focusing on one particular object or focusing on your breath. For you to meditate effectively, every part of you has to come together in synchronization, your brain, your blood flow, your breathing, your soul. All has to quieten down and take part in that meditation and calming your mind is the very first step. Remember to like, comment, subscribe. See you in the next one.