Smile with Your Whole Being

Do you remember when you were a toddler, crying, and someone inevitably tried to make you stop? They might have done things to try to make you smile. It was as if they needed to rescue you and make things better. Only a smile on your face would do!

Many people today smile as a courtesy but, internally, they might be sad, nervous, anxious, or even indifferent. Sometimes people laugh in a similar manner. Everyone is laughing, so they automatically join in. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to smile with our entire being all the time? Is this possible?

Sadhguru shares subtle truths about the depth of a smile and meditation.

Sadhguru: So you must smile with your bones, not just your lips, not just showing your teeth. Meditation is like the blossoming of a flower; a flower does not blossom in parts, when it blossoms everything is on. To make yourself like that – that if you sit with eyes closed or eyes open, there is a smile on your face, or even if there isn’t a smile, it doesn’t matter, everything is at its best, that is flowering. That is meditation.

Meditation is a serious business – a lot of people have become very serious about it. I am not talking about Isha meditators, many meditators in the world have become so serious that they have even forgotten how to smile because, in their effort to be aware of something, they have forgotten everything.

Meditation means you don’t have to grin every moment of your life. You learn to smile with your bones; you learn to smile with every aspect of who you are. You do not have to necessarily show your teeth. Try, without using your lips, to just smile. Really, without showing your teeth, simply smile. Now see if you can smile with your eyes; just use your eyes and smile. Then see if you can smile with your hand. If even the bones in your body begin to smile, that is meditation – not becoming rigid and frigid within yourself; that is not meditation. That is preparing for the final journey – to rest in peace! That is preparation for the grave.

So you must smile with your bones, not just your lips, not just showing your teeth. Meditation is like the blossoming of a flower; a flower does not blossom in parts, when it blossoms everything is on. To make yourself like that – that if you sit with eyes closed or eyes open, there is a smile on your face, or even if there isn’t a smile, it doesn’t matter, everything is at its best, that is flowering. That is meditation.

So if you are rolling your eyeballs up and sitting, this is to see that the smile moves from just being upon the lips to every cell in the body. You are trying to ingest the smile. A smile is not an expression; other people may see it as an expression, but if you are in a certain state of relaxation and pleasantness, even if there is nobody around you, there will be a smile on your face.

LET IT RATTLE

I would know

you are happy

if your bones did Smile

and I hear the rattle.

Not the cackle of an old witch

nor that of an infant.

But the gentle smile of the

flower, fruit and leaf. The smile

of plains, mountains and rivers.

The absorbing smile of the

ocean, earth and moon.

Let me see, feel and hear

the smiles of your bones.

Before the maggots eat through your marrow…

Love & Grace

         –Sadhguru