Why Do I Medtiate? (Part II)

With my departure on a 10 day meditation retreat I thought I would write a blog on why I meditate. When I began I had intended a single entry. By the time I was done I realized that I had significantly more words than would comfortably fit in a single entry. So with that in mind I’ve prepared a series of blog entries where I explore the question of why I meditate. And with technology empowering me to schedule posts when I am not even at a computer I shall leave you to read while I spend time in my metaphysical cave.

The more I have meditated the more often I have experienced mystical moments. Trying to describe the indescribable is futile. But the closest I’ve come to articulating words for this Infinite subject is to say that such moments are sublime. There’s an expansiveness and weightlessness that transcends words. Sometimes it feels like a faded awareness of where my body ends and the air around me starts. It is as if I am expanding, and yet this expansiveness of I am is actually a re-joining. My soul’s choice to wear this garment I call a body is suddenly exposed, and with a mental and emotional gasp I sit in wonder at how beautifully peaceful, still and loving the eternal moment is. Time stops, ideas and thoughts evaporate.

And yet with experience of such moments I have come to realize that this is not the goal. Such blissful moments of expansiveness, whilst entrancing, are merely something to be enjoyed along the way, just like the apparent reality. However, the key with both is to en-joy without losing the sense of the truth; to be in the world without being seduced by it.

A question that has emerged through practice is; “Well this is nice. I wonder what will happen next.”

This question is an important one. When we do not lose ourselves to mystical, blissful moments we can continue a rich journey of discovery and development. And the journey is about experience and choice. By acknowledging the pleasure of the moment whilst reminding myself that there is yet more to seek I am not ceasing my development. If anything I am cultivating a grounded-ness that will serve me well as I continue. For I am convinced that the moment we start thinking we’ve made it is the very same moment we have succumbed to the ego’s desire. The ego wants the experience to be unchanging. And it would like nothing better, after all these years of having its duties as a prison guard being eroded, to return to as the gaoler, only in this case I would be the one handing it the keys.

The part of us that is soul, individualized incarnation of Oneness, will truly only be satisfied by a full and complete return to the One. This yearning is what drives us, and has driven so many masters and seekers to aspire and explore as the enlightened mystic. Yet, my experience, and the spiritual texts of note that I have read, has made it clear that it is only through practice that I will find my way.

I am not one of those avatars that came to earth and decided that I would be enlightened through an instant of awakening. I, like so many others, have chosen to delve deeply into the journey of discovery and will awaken gradually, sequentially and inevitably.

So far my journey of spiritual practice has taught me that the intellect alone is a poor judge at how best to spend time. My philosophical wanderings, debates, and intellectual reasoning have never brought me to dwell upon what my True Self actually is. Certainly, I’ve spun a fine series of words at times. But experience has taught me that entering into practice has done more to reveal that yearning for Self Realization than any number of steps along the path of the intellect.

I will confess that I aspire to be awakened. I wish to be in this world but not of it. My desire is to show up in every moment, armed with unconditionally loving thoughts, words and deeds.

The irony as I write this is that I know that there was a time when I thought I understood what such an aspiration meant. And in this moment I understand more than I did, and will in the future know more than I do now. What I do know in this moment is that I am yet to reveal what this fully means. But without a shadow of a doubt I know that my aspiration to be an enlightened mystic will only be realized through practice.

Over the course of my life I have made many choices and reacted to many sensations. As a child in a dysfunctional home it was not 5 years before social services placed me under a care order. In my earliest years of a being exposed to heroin (my birth father was an addict), alcohol and violence I got to experience impressions of apparent reality that were beyond my ability to process. I know what it is to be a vulnerable child. I know that the first 10 years of my life were filled with much blood, shouting, angst and abuse. And yet, regardless of how innocent and helpless I was, I reacted in those moments and in turn agreed to the expressed beliefs around me that this world worked a certain way. Over the course of the next 15 years I played these beliefs out, carved more grooves in my reservoir of memories, and so enforced the earlier memories. In short, I spent the first 25 years of my life completely lost to this world and my mind. It had me, and I was heart-brokenly seduced by it.

Spiritual practice has been necessary to counter my early years. The fears and desires of so many years needed a rebuttal. Meditation has been central to this righting of the scales. And now after many years of slowly working my way toward balance I have become very clear upon a simple truth revealed through my direct experience – meditation as a practice is serving the purpose of smoothing away the old grooves of separation and polishing in grooves of love. When my spiritual practices have served their purpose, when I have been liberated and freed from every last vestige of the pain, fear and separation I so often felt they will no longer be needed.

Before I became intimately partnered with meditation as a practice I was occupied with whatever sensations surfaced. My objective mind would analyze what arose from the depths, and like a slave I would stumble through life not even feeling the chafing of the shackles. I would wallow in emotion, lose myself to anger and act out the stories that had been passionately played for me as a child. I would see boredom as a cue to find something to do, to keep me busy. I would act upon impulses of lack, inherited from a childhood of poverty, and buy toys to support my need to be kept busy.

Meditation is a practice that cleanses the mind. I have glimpsed moments beyond description that have validated that yearning I felt so long ago. My mind feels purity more than it feels deprivation these days. When I feel a sensation of boredom I meditate or read a spiritual book. When I get done with meditation I pray. My meditation practice has inspired me to aspire for more.