BLOG

Question from the reader

How to Awaken in People an Interest in Meditation?

by Younousse Tamkeloe

In life, there is a day and a night. When the day comes, people wake up from their sleep, but they wake up differently. Some people wake up early in the morning, some wake up in the afternoon, and some stay sleeping till the evening. This depends on their health condition, tiredness, work schedule and so on. You cannot force someone to wake up in the morning to pursue their daily activities because every person knows how important it is to pursue their daily activities to be healthy, financially independent, and solve their life challenges. Everyone gets family education, intellectual education, spiritual education, etc., which teaches you since your early childhood that in the daytime you have to wake up to pursue your daily activities. However, if the day comes but you decide to sleep the whole day—although you are not sick—then you will have problems with your finances, health, etc. because you sleep too much. Therefore, it is very important that when the day comes, people wake up and pursue their activities. But if the day comes and you are waking someone up to send him to school or to pursue his daily activities, and this person refuses to wake up simply because he likes sleeping, then he will lose every benefit that the day brings. And there are also some people who are sick and they are sleeping long hours for a reason. When they get healthy, they will wake up. It is the same with awakening people’s interest in meditation.

A second example that I want to mention is planting grains. When you plant some grains in soil, not all grains will start growing at the same time. Some will grow faster than others, but some will ripe faster than others, and some will reproduce faster than others. This happens because some grains are in a more favorable condition to grow faster than others according to the climate and the soil quality.

A third example is offering water to a thirsty person. Imagine someone in the desert who is thirsty and who needs to drink water or die. And you offer this person pure and clean water to drink; however, he refuses to drink the water for some reason. Maybe he thinks the water is not clean, or he doesn’t trust any other water rather than his own, or he has suffered a health impairment after a long time of not drinking water. In a normal condition, this person has to rush to drink the water to save his life – but he refuses it. However, even though he may refuse the water initially, he cannot refuse it forever. He will drink it because it is the only way for him to stay alive.

So, it is important to understand that if you want to do good to someone, then do it. Like the day comes and gives life to everyone, making everyone awake and helping them enjoy the benefit of the day. And also, the night comes to help everyone sleep and relax their bodies. The second example is that it doesn’t matter how long it will take for a grain to grow, it will grow eventually. And when you find someone in the desert and you help this person by giving him water, you already created a good cause. You cannot force this person to drink the water; he has to decide himself whether or not to drink the water. If he doesn’t drink it, his condition will worsen and he will die. So, he has to drink it eventually to stay alive.

In conclusion, you cannot force someone to take a decision, but you can help this person in understanding the benefits of taking it. But it is the choice or the decision of that person that counts. Not everyone is awake spiritually to understand the benefit of meditation. So, you just have to explain it to them, and when their time arrives, they will meditate. Some people will understand the benefit of meditation the first time you tell them about it, for others it will take more time to understand it, and still others will never meditate in this lifetime.

The benefit of meditation is life, it is everything, it is life itself in a positive way. So, you cannot force someone to meditate. But you can talk about meditation to someone. It depends on the person to meditate or not. But if you explained the benefit of meditation to someone, even if he doesn’t meditate in this lifetime, he will meditate in another lifetime. Because it is the only way to eternal life. Therefore, it is very good to talk to people about meditation.