Effortless Meditation
What is effortless meditation? Well, this type of meditation is actually very easy to understand. The only requirement for doing this type of meditation is a one-time experience.
In my teaching of meditation, you don't need to practice meditation every day or every minute of your life. What we teach in our path of knowledge is simple meditation.
Get a one-time experience. That will be enough for you.
Once you know what the experiencer is, and you can see clearly what it is and its basic nature—once you experience this knowledge of the experiencer, and similarly, the knowledge of oneness—this is enough for students on the path of knowledge.
Now your meditation will become effortless, and automatically, awareness will follow.
Now the question arises: "But I don't feel like I am doing anything special." See, this type of feeling is labeled as ignorance. The more ignorant you are, the more blind you will be. Ignorance comes from beliefs. We simply believe that we have to do something special to remain in oneness. That is not the case at all once you experience the knowledge of oneness. That will be enough for you. You will also know that forgetting your own true nature is also part of this oneness. You will eventually come to realize what oneness is and how effortless it is.
Do we exert effort to know what gravity is or what it looks like, or have we already experienced it?
Similarly, the most effortless meditation is to gain the direct knowledge of oneness. That is all; and if you still feel like you are having trouble, then it simply means your ignorance is too high. It means your beliefs are too strong, holding you back.
Here is an example of how our ignorance is the only wall in the path of our effortless meditation:
A baby elephant is once tied up with a rope and is not able to break it. This belief is put into its mind so deeply that even after becoming so strong, that very same elephant is not able to escape that tie. Similarly, that belief works on us. Even after knowing oneness, we are not able to achieve effortless meditation because of our ignorance, or more simply, because of our belief systems.
So, how do we break free from this ignorance? The answer is simple: ignorance comes from our beliefs. To break a belief, you need nothing but evidence—which we have already provided to you through our knowledge of oneness.
Now, you can do one thing to remove the biggest wall of ignorance: keep seeing or remembering this knowledge of oneness every day. Throughout your day, keep checking: aren't both the experiencer and the experiences present? Keep repeating the knowledge of oneness to yourself. Simply remind yourself of this knowledge of oneness, and check whether you are abiding in oneness or not.
The more intensely and for a longer time you do this, the more you will destroy your ignorance. Once you completely destroy your ignorance, you won't need to do anything at all—meditation will follow automatically.