When I meditate, body sleeps but I am awake, but still there is grief that nothing is happening. That compulsion if mind to expect something is not fading away.
This description is actually a very important—and very subtle—phase.
The body becoming quiet, almost like sleep, while awareness remains present… that’s not “nothing happening.” That is something happening. In many traditions, this is considered the mind withdrawing from sensory engagement. But the mind has one last habit left: expectation.
That feeling—“nothing is happening”—is not an observation. It is a thought colored by desire.
Let’s look closely at what’s going on:
1. Two layers are present
- First layer (deeper): silent awareness, steady, not asking for anything
- Second layer (surface): a subtle voice saying “this should lead somewhere”
You are already resting in the first, but attention keeps getting pulled back to the second.
2. Why the grief appears
That “grief” is very revealing. It usually comes from:
- wanting progress
- wanting confirmation
- wanting a “state” to arrive
The mind is used to achievement in every field. Meditation feels like failure to it because:
There is nothing to acquire, nothing to show.
So it creates this discomfort:
“If nothing is happening, I am wasting time.”
But notice carefully:
- Who knows that “nothing is happening”?
- That knowing itself—is it absent?
3. The trap: expecting non-duality as an experience
This is the core issue.
The mind is subtly waiting for:
- bliss
- light
- silence becoming permanent
- some shift that it can recognize
But what you are touching is not an event. It doesn’t arrive. It is already there.
So the mind cannot “see” it as an achievement—and calls it “nothing.”
4. What to do (very precise)
Don’t try to remove expectation. That becomes another effort.
Instead, during meditation:
- When the thought comes: “nothing is happening”
→ Don’t fight it
→ Don’t analyze it
Just notice:
This too is appearing… in the same awareness.
Even the grief:
- is known
- comes and goes
- does not disturb the knowing itself
Stay with that.
5. A small shift in attitude
Instead of:
“Why is nothing happening?”
Gently see:
“Even this dissatisfaction is being witnessed.”
That shift is everything.
6. One honest pointer
If I put it very directly:
You are not stuck.
You are at the point where:
- gross distractions are gone
- only subtle seeking remains
And this is the hardest layer to dissolve, because it feels “valid.”