Meditation

I would like to blog tonight about meditation. I've been meditating for a little over a year now and although I have a long way to go, I have experienced a clarity and peace that I've never known or felt before. I have better focus and although my OCD and need for structure manifests itself from time to time, my spirit flies freer now than ever before in adulthood. Meditation has helped me to let go much more than ever before. So much that when I was in Indiana in April, I put my life and schedule in someone else's hands for three days. This was a major accomplishment for me.

Do you know how some people are natural swimmers, soccer players, artists and musicians? Well, I think I may be a natural meditator. It's not that meditating has come easier for me than others because everyone moves at a different pace when moving through meditation but because meditating feels so natural to me.

Anyway, below are some thoughts and musings on meditation. These suggestions and ideas work well for me and they may for you also. Enjoy

When you meditate regularly, you start to confront the nagging mind, which drags you constantly out of focus. You start to see how your perceptions are shaped by your own concerns, fears and hopes, which shut us off inside, we become lost in the constant barrage of thoughts that arise within the vortex of our minds.

It’s vitally important to understand that meditation is active work, the work of constantly keeping the mind ‘soft’ and bringing it back to the object of attention. It’s not about being lost in distraction, nor daydreaming, nor getting into a ‘nice inner space’, however enjoyable. Its to reach out mentally and hold your attention still – it’s as simple and as difficult as that.

One of the greatest drawbacks in meditation, is the ambition to becoming enlightened, or attain your ‘higher self’. These desires are actually destructive - the very act of trying to attain anything is a part of the distraction.

You may well experience your "higher self"– you might sense chakras opening and all sorts of subtle changes may take place within the physical and etheric bodies. However, don’t yearn for, or chase these experiences, or feel disappointed if you don’t have them. These are staging posts, and it’s important not to get stuck on any one of them.

Remember that meditation is not the property of any particular religious group, you don’t have to be a Buddhist, nor a spiritualist, nor a mystic, it’s a simple and natural function of the mind that anyone possesses, and can easily practice.

The first thing you need to do is establish a regular time for your practice. Then find a place, preferably the same place. Don’t worry if you can’t get complete peace and quiet either, learn to focus in distracting circumstances.

Try to get comfortable, without necessarily being in a perfect yoga posture. If you don’t go to sleep, it’s fine to be lying down, but this can encourage drowsiness and mental drift, therefore a position on a stool, or on a pile of cushions, or in a chair with the back straight, is best.

A good, basic practice, is to count the breath, but by all means try chanting, or contemplating an object. I focus on a picture of a field of gold flowers that I took in Indiana this past April. Before that I focused on my mala beads. You could try focusing on a flower, or a crystal, or any other natural object.

Whatever the object of your attention, reach out and mentally ‘grasp’ the object and hold the focus there. No matter how many times you get lost, keep coming back to the focus object. Every time you do so, you become stronger.

Keep the mind soft and relaxed, reach out very gently with the gentlest, lightest touch. Don’t get annoyed with yourself if you find you’ve been thinking about that annoying coworker for the last ten minutes. Bring yourself back to focus, gently stay on course, this is the beginning of a journey that never ends.

Try to have a sense of being all in this moment, completely involved in this experience, the greatest treasure is here and now, not in the yearning for any other experience than the one you are presently having.

After you have been practicing a while, you will find that concentration, intuition and inspiration improve, you feel more relaxed, and you sleep better.

It’s a myth, by the way, that you must avoid sex and sensual experiences in order to deepen you meditation practice. A healthier sense of judgement and a more holistic view of life arises as one cuts the tether to the ‘mad, restless, ego I’. Things seem to take on a sense of proportion, and universality.

We all experience meditation differently, and we all flower spiritually in different ways. Enjoy your experience and let meditation help you to grow as an individual.

Thanks for reading. I hope that you enjoyed this little insight into my meditations. Before I go I have to give thanks to Isabella Valentine for introducing me to meditation. In the year I have been meditating I have achieved a peace and comfort level that I never was able to reach through organized religion. Goddess Isabella, for introducing me to meditation, and the host of other things you've done to improve my quality of life, I'm eternally grateful and forever in your debt. Mahalo. I love you dearly and I always will.