How to Meditate Without Even Trying
Foreword by Eckart Tolle
Beginners as well as advanced meditators and spiritual seekers will greatly benefit from this book. Peter Russell shows you how to meditate and then takes you beyond formal meditation to the very core of your identity. He reveals to you the essence of spiritual awakening, not only through conceptual understanding but, more importantly, through the possibility of direct realization as you read — if you are ready for it.
Probably the greatest obstacle to true meditation, for beginners and seasoned practitioners alike, is the largely unconscious assumption that meditation is something that you do. As Peter Russell puts it, we think “there is a ‘there’ to get to and something to do.” Anything that you do takes time and usually implies future.
Making a cup of tea, learning a new language or a new skill, building up a business, going from A to B … it all unfolds in the dimension of time. Therefore it is only natural that we approach meditation in the same way, with the underlying mindset that it is something that we do, or try to do. After all, most meditators set aside a specific length of time for meditating, be it ten minutes or one hour. This assumption, however, in a very subtle way creates future in your mind — which, by the way, is the only place where the future exists.
Future implies that there is a point to reach or a desired state to achieve, such as finding inner peace or becoming enlightened.
This mindset prevents true meditation from revealing itself to you.
What is true meditation?
It is the realization of Being or, as Peter Russell puts it, “abiding in the peace of our own being.”
No doing can get you to the realization of Being.
It requires the relinquishment of the idea of doing.
You then realize that nothing needs to be added to this moment for you to be fully yourself, to be who you are — not as a person, but who or what you are in your essence.
Your usual timebound state of consciousness is replaced by the higher frequency of Presence.
Mental concepts can point to Presence, like signposts, but you cannot understand Presence by thinking about it. As the Buddhists say, “The finger pointing to the moon is not the moon.” In fact, thinking is the obstacle to the realization of Presence.
As you start trying to meditate, you quickly become aware of the voice in your head. It is the involuntary, incessant, compulsive, and mostly useless stream of thinking that occupies your mind. It never stops speaking. That voice is the ego, the false self, as long as you are completely identified with it. Most people are addicted to it, because it is the basis for their sense of self.
Even if you cannot stop your thoughts, becoming aware of them is a significant gain in consciousness. “I am not my thoughts” is a liberating realization that is one of the great benefits of meditation. It opens you up to the possibility of discovering who or what you are beyond a thought-based, conceptual identity.
So the question may arise: “If I’m not my thoughts, who or what am I?”
The answer to that question is not a mental concept and is not arrived at through thinking. It is the realization of Being, the I AM that is prior to thought.
Time — past or future — is the obstacle to this realization.
That I AM is consciousness itself, timeless and unconditioned.
It is consciousness before it identifies with something, before it incarnates into a form: a thought, an emotion, or a sense perception.
In the gap between two thoughts, there is an alive stillness. That is a glimpse of your true identity, the timeless I AM. It is always there, underneath the mental noise. Therefore it is not something to be achieved (which would take time), but to be discovered, here and now!
I sometimes refer to it as your essence-identity, as opposed to your form-identity, which is your physical body and the psychological entity called a “person,” conditioned by the past. You as a person cannot become spiritually awakened or enlightened, but the unconditioned consciousness that is your essence-identity can awaken from the dream of being no more than a person and become self-aware as the timeless divine Presence that emanates from God as light emanates from the sun.
This is the “I AM the I AM,” which, amazingly, is God’s self-definition in the Bible when asked by Moses, “Who are you?”
Peter Russell’s book does not convey secondhand knowledge, but clearly was born out of his own realization. Not only does it show you how to meditate, but the reading itself can become a meditation and open up a portal into the timeless dimension of consciousness.
— Eckhart Tolle, bestselling author of The Power of Now and A New Earth
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