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Let’s begin with a very “difficult” question: what is Meditation?

This is not a difficult question, it’s an easy one, but different people will give different answers and everyone has their own way. 

For me, meditation is the practice of striving for 100% authenticity. It is the search for ones own truth. And, not necessarily only in a metaphysical way, in a literal way, too.

We have conditioning, habits, karma, situations, life experiences all of which have added their own flavors, their own points of suffering, or joy.

You are conditioned from day one by your family, parents, education, friends, country, society. But, when you seek the honest truth of the entity that is you, you purify your vibration up to the point where you can actually physically change how the body that is a part of your entity functions.

What do I mean by vibration?

Well, the body, it’s organs, it’s systems each have a frequency and when they are not vibrating at the right frequency you have disorder. Same with the mind. So, when the rhythms and frequencies of your body’s systems get to, and are maintained at, the right frequency you have truth. Completeness. Meditation is one way to walk the path of that truth.

When you are able to let go of your conditioning, accept karmic stories, change how you engage with your life…essentially be 100% truthful version of yourself you find peace and harmony. Within and without. Does that make sense?

How a regular meditation practice should look like?

Hmmm. I’m not comfortable with the word ‘should’ there.

I know people who follow very specific systems, and others who have developed their own way. But, the important thing is, is it producing benefit? And, that comes back to truth. If you practice a meditative practice once a week, and you feel it honestly benefits your life and therefore the lives of those around you, then that’s great.

Personally, I work at my practice twice a day, every day, because I need it. Because my negative tendencies crop up so easily. My tendencies of low self worth, for example. When I don’t invest in my life daily (meditative practice is basically that, you investing in your life), my life state goes down and I fall off the path.

A regular path, is about discipline. It is about fighting your fundamental darkness, negativity, whatever you want to call it, and winning…everyday…again and again. Until purity of existence, purity of truth shows itself.

Why do many people find difficult to focus and practice for a long period of time?

Simple. Because modern life has taught us that we are something that we’re not. It has taught us to produce, make, provide, show, work. So we are programmed to do that, and sitting for half an hour in meditative practice seems like a waste of time. We have better things to do. But nothing exists until you do. Nothing. And, if you don’t exist because you are so conditioned that you simply live to follow the same instructions again and again, you will never be. 

To be, to exist, you must cut the chain of modern life, stop believing in it, and start believing in yourself and you’re power…and your mission. Everything else in life is simply content. I’m not the first to say this, but it’s true. When you believe in your reality it consumes you. But when you invest in your life through a meditative practice it’s a joy to not be buying into the modern life that we are sold everyday. And, then you make your own reality. Thats what meditative practice is, making your own reality.

And focus…well…what are you?

You are an animal, you may have developed a different state of intelligence but you are an animal. But if you shower an animal with electromagnetic radiation, wifi, radiation from computer screens, mobile phone radiation, unusual light frequencies, etc this will affect your ability to maintain a brain state that is harmonious to your environment. 

Plus focus is what, exactly? Non thought.

But you are thinking all the time because you have the programmed need to show yourself, to prove yourself, to compete, to do, to work. And, how can you ‘focus’ when something like that, on a cellular level, something that is ingrained in your being has not been extinguished or dealt with.

On your website you write:

Life is no longer about forcing change, it’s about accepting it, allowing it. Assuming it. It’s about creating it yourself.”

What is acceptance? How acceptance can help people creating themselves?

Well, we have been conditioned to think that hard work gets results. That you have to work hard to get up the ladder of success. Of course, you have to work hard and diligence will help you achieve your goals but in the modern age, in this age of Aquarius this is a square, basic and limited way of thinking and it’s not enough anymore. 

When you push and push and fight all the time, you are believing wholeheartedly in your reality. In the bricks and mortar of your life. I have this life, this wife, this boyfriend, this house, this job, this stuff. It’s like life is a box you have your head perpetually stuck in. 

But, when you distance yourself from life, you can see it for what it really is. Just a series of sequences, concepts, patterns, tendencies that you believe you must control in some way. That you must direct, push or manipulate to get your way. 

But, when you raise your vibration, your vital energy, and dedicate yourself to spiritual practice you stop controlling, manipulating things, people and events and you free up so much energy it’s incredible. 

The law of attraction only works in you have the law of vibration first. If your energy is strong and pure and free, if your energetic body is free to just be, you need not attract anything, it will all show itself to you.

You see, you have the entire universe in the palm of your hand, all the time. It is you, you are the universe and you are everything in it. So, when you vibrate on that frequency, allowing acceptance, which are basically love, this is what you will experience in your existence.

How, a regular meditation practice, can help people get to know their inner selves?

Well, why do you not know your inner self? Because you can’t see it, have no proof that it exists and haven’t been educated unto the benefit of it.

If I told a 5 year child, that the most important thing is to take care of their spirit, invest in their inner life and work to raise their frequency of vibration at the age of twenty they’d be considered a saint or something. But, no. Instead we teach that information (the material of the mind) is important. That facts and figures are important, that the external is important. 

But the mind is just a tool, like your arm. You are not your arm. You are not your mind. Both exist to help you to survive. Simple.

We only look to the physical, the material. Because that’s what we can ‘see’. 

A regular spiritual practice can help people to know their inner self because that is essentially all there is, the rest is just content, stuff, situations, events…story. The reality, your reality you just create from the place of your inner self. So if you focus on the source (inner self) instead of the result (your life) the first simply allows the second to be wonderful.

Photo by Samuel Silitonga from Pexels

To help you know your inner self. That’s your question.

So, there are two entities here. The ‘you’ who knows and the ‘yourself’. The you who knows is the character you play, the self, who has a job, a life, a family, stuff.

You need him or her for your very survival. But if you take the image of water, this ‘you’ is like a drop of water and the yourself (inner self) is the entire ocean. And it surrounds and flows through and can obliterate the smaller ‘you’ and rebuild it instantly. Over and over and over again. There are many ways to ‘know’ the ocean.

Pray to it, listen to it, love it. Accept it. Seek it. And the more you seek, the more it’s waves will wash over ‘you’. And the more you will be amazed at the fact that you are everything. You are all. But you don’t believe that because your education taught you that everything is outside of you. God is outside of you.

The Buddha was a super natural being outside of you.

No, they were just men, simple humble men who were in touch with the ocean. And aware of their own insignificance in comparison to it.

It seems that recently, Meditation practice acquired popularity in the western side of the world.

Why do you believe this is happening? What is it that is changing in the world?

Because modern life is meaningless. Stuff, famous people, material things, money, fame. They’re cool when you are young, they are fun, it’s nice to have nice things, but as we age we see that they just come and go and repeat themselves over and over again.

But human beings crave one thing above all things, and famous people, material things and money can’t provide it. Human beings crave meaning. As Victor Frankl said, man searches for meaning.

And you can search and search for it outside of yourself. You can take on other peoples ‘meaning’, you can believe in ‘meaning’ that is not yours but eventually, and as is often the case, you will find it in the last few seconds of your life when you realize that it lies within you. And only there.

Meditative practice connects you to the ocean and the ocean is meaning itself.

Using Visualization techniques we can create a strong and vibrant connection to this ‘belief’. Explain these techniques.

So, as a Nicherin Buddhist I chant. I chant everyday twice a day. Why? Because it connects me to the ocean. To my essence. It raises my vibration and revitalises my energy body from the inside out. I’ve been practicing it every day for about 12 years. Why? Because I need it. 

But, someone who is not so fortunate to have found a practice like this, who’s life is stressy, hectic, full of difficulties and challenges, works all day, is running after kids, dogs, whatever may not have the time to dedicate to a practice like Nicherin Buddhism. So, I created my visualization courses. They are a combination of shamanic healing practices, ancient buddhist concepts made to be very simple, accessible and applicable, wrapped up in a package and sprinkled with auto-suggestion and story telling.

I create a visual world that’s very vivid and full of imagery that takes you very deep within yourself, within your energetic body where we start to change, enhance and fine tune your own frequencies. The shamanic drum, for example, is used to disrupt your brainwaves allowing space for a different frequency.

What does the different frequency produce?

Altered thought patterns, changes in your space of consciousness. My work is about taking you on a journey within yourself where we change things on a fundamental level. It’s about gaining clarity, opening your vision helping you to see the true nature of things. So that your reality changes through the fact that very your beliefs about your existence change.

You write on your website:

Using visualisation techniques we can create a strong and vibrant connection to this ‘belief”

Could you please tell us something more about these techniques?

It’s fantastic. You are making the idea of inner work genuinely accessible to everyone. You take away the mystique, the spiritualism and the fear that brings, and making it into a simple effective system to help people help themselves.

Photo by Jim Rajan

I did a MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Relief) course a few years ago. Loved it. Simple exercises, straight forward teachings but with a solid understanding behind it.

But, I think the most important thing, as is with my work, is that you discover the benefits of Mindfulness very rapidly. And, frankly that’s what people want nowadays, results. They don’t have time to waste, people want to know that if they invest their time in something it will reap benefits. 

Why our minds find it difficult to focus for long periods of time.

It’s because we have been trained to live in a very unconscious way. And, on a more cynical level we have been conditioned to be unconscious because when we are like that we are more easily manipulated and vulnerable.

But, if we work on our conscious awareness in each act, in each moment you have a wider vision. And we see through these superficial tricks. It’s like the 3000 Realms in a Single Moment of Life.

This is a buddhism concept that I work with a lot in my visualizations. It was introduced by T’ien Tai in the 5th or 6th century and it basically states that in any given moment you have 3000 different possible options available to you. 3000 opportunities, paths, choices. When you are in a normal state of life you maybe will use 50 or 100 or 200 at the most.

These include your habits, addictions, conditioning, patterns in relationships, patterns of dealing with people, ways of engaging with your life.

But when you open up your width of vision using visualization techniques, meditation, spiritual practices you awaken the rest of the 3000 possibilities and so you free yourself from these patterns, and you free yourself from everyday manipulations the you get stuck in because your head is in the clouds most of the time.

Meditative practice brings clarity.

That’s the number 1 benefit. And actually, that’s massive. Without clarity you are living in a reaction-sit way. Stuff happens, hits you in the face…and you react. But, spiritual practice, meditation makes you pro-active. You see what’s going on and you take action. You use the universal law of cause and effect. You make causes and so you will receive effects.

Taking your head out of normal everyday mundane life, and widening your vision instantly empowers you. And, that’s why I love doing this work, I love seeing people get empowered. Because they get happier. Much much happier.

You record guided meditation and they are all available on the web.

Where do you get inspiration? What is your life’s purpose?W

Big question!

Ok, where does my inspiration come from. Number one answer my daughter. She is the light of my life. And just seeing her dance through time gives me so much joy and inspiration. 

I think the more I connect to my own inherent inner wisdom, the more creation comes through me. I have always been fascinated by shamanism, Taoism, buddhism. Spirituality too. I never really fitted into society properly and so I always looked at it from the outside. And the parts that don’t make sense to me, I ask myself why, and then I turn them on their head, and look again.

My life purpose. Thats an easy one. I’m here to give service.

We all are. But, our education taught us otherwise. That’s why much of my best work is free. I’d rather you have access to it. Money will come to me as and when it needs to. But the cycle of prosperity is very simple.

You give, and so you shall receive.

But you don’t give so that you will receive, you give for the joy of giving. But, remember, as soon as you whinge, complain, talk badly about others, or succumb to negativity, the cycle of prosperity stops. And, it doesn’t start again until you give freely once more. My mission in life came to me along with my buddhist practice.

I get to go and support men and women to reveal their full potential, to manifest their greatness everyday. I get to listen to people, hear them. And give them the space to learn and grow. I’m the luckiest man alive.

What are you planning for the near future?

Well, I have a new album coming out, our first exclusively on InsightTimer the Meditation App.

I have a new 7 part guided visualisation that’s just done and on the website now, plus many more in the pipeline. And our Temple Arts Healing Ceremony work is going to Glastonbury this year.

Temple Arts is a project I’m really proud of, it’s like everything I’ve done up until now was preparing me for it. And working with Ana Otero is such an honour, she’s an incredible woman. I provide the music and sounds. I love making plans and living in the future. Yes, living in the now is important, but not all the time. 

Simone Santarelli

One Reply to “Meditation practice: an interview with Jim Rajan”

  1. I find it hard to belief a profound thinker like you, Jim, harbours low self esteem> Me thinks this more an act of excessive modesty on your part than judicious criticism.
    In your interview, I found the distinction “you” and “yourself” especially insightful. The pressures of daily lives turn human beings into human doings. Its so refreshing to have your perspective which provides a more refreshing dimension of our daily lives.

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