Higher Meditation Concerns

Comment: "I feel that I may be afraid of 'higher energy, stillness, that feeling of peace that comes from meditation...I'm afraid that it is a Zombie-like state...no emotion."

Response: “The world of the senses is a very exciting and interesting place. There is an infinite number various experiences to be had here. After a lifetime of living, we become accustomed to our environment, and often it is hard to imagine a different state, or that things can be better, or that there is a clearer state of being.

When I teach yoga and meditation for the purpose of spiritual growth there are students who desperately want to know God and their real eternal nature, because their current life circumstances are not very pleasant. That makes sense, right? Spirituality has often been a means of escape. There are other students who enjoy their life, have a good job, pleasant family, and a lot of fun being alive. They too want to know God and their real eternal nature. However, the latter can have a harder time with the process since they are enjoying life and might not want to let go of attachment to their pleasant circumstances. This is understandable.

Eventually though, both categories come to a point when they realize the truth of their being. They realize that they are not their problems, they are not their enjoyable circumstances, they are not their minds, bodies, or personalities.

For some this is an extremely good feeling. Everything that can be perceived is realized for what it is, non eternal, and passing. The elation of being freed from a hundred-year-long imprisonment descends. An eternal joy springs from the heart. Imagine being forced to walk around with heavy lead weights attached to your limbs for 10, 20, 70 or 100 years, and suddenly you find the key! You can run, jump, swim, and move about freely again!

For others this may be scary at first. Suddenly all that they have known, everything that they thought they were, all sense of self (as defined by the personality) vanishes. The great expanse of infinity now fills every aspect of experience. It is eternal. There is no end to it. Just moment after moment of deep peace.

Think of someone you may know who can’t stand a moment of silence in a conversation, or who always needs to have the radio or TV on. Silence is unbearable for them. To a degree this unease exists even in many people who have been practicing meditation for years. Except they substitute the constant repetition of their mantra or focus on their meditation technique to keep the silence at bay. Ask them to simply drop the technique and all of the sudden a wall of resistance rushes up. “But the technique is everything! You can’t just sit in the silence!” They may say. This is why it is good to see that the techniques are just training wheels to give you the power of concentration and focus, so that when the time comes and you are ready you can focus on surrendering into the silence, the divine peace. All that work with the technique has empowered the attention to be able to stay steady in the peace, rather than running for the shelter of some kind of distraction. In this case, when I speak of techniques I am speaking of any form of religious or spiritual practice for the purpose of clarifying our awareness and realizing our relationship with the divine.

To speak directly to your comment, it is true, that things will be different after you become accustomed to that silence and stillness, and if they don’t become different, then the silence and stillness won’t last that long. It can’t. It cannot be contained in such small blip as our egocentric consciousness. It is not possible to retain our limited sense of self and still think and feel and act as though we are small separate beings in the universe cut off from the divine and still experience that depth of peace. That peace only comes when we realize the vastness, the timelessness, and the eternity of our being.

Now, that doesn’t mean we cease playing our part within the world. We don’t go up in a puff of smoke or become a zombie. We realize what we are, and infinite peaceful being, interacting with the world of form through the personality that we have known. We continue to play our part in the divine drama. The difference now is that we do not cling to or feel the need to defend our personality. Just like (hopefully) when we put on our clothes, we do not all-of-the-sudden claim that what we are wearing is who we are, and by god to say otherwise is heresy! We know what we are, and we play our role accordingly. This is why I’ve often said that most enlightened people cannot even be recognized if you saw them in a crowd, because they know what they are and they are simply playing their role, exhausting their remaining karma. Their role may be an office worker, the president of a company, a beggar, a musician, a yoga teacher, or a cashier. The peace is still the same.

By following the yogic practices of learning to act appropriately in life, have a healthy body, learning to sit still, to deepen the breathing to calm the mind and emotions, learning to turn the attention within- letting go of external distractions (**addictions), and to find out what exists as the foundation for your experiences, this peace begins to dawn. To the mentally scattered, over stimulated individual, this seems crazy and like you are wasting time. After all there is so much to do and so little time! I used the word addiction above because we are addicted to sensory experiences for the most part. That is why true meditation is so hard, because it is simply existing, alert and attentively, of course.

Now, let me say, it is very worth it to undertake the required tasks to master your consciousness and free your self back into your infinite nature. Then you become truly powerful. Not in a power hungry way, but because your live as the whole universe living through you! You then have all the time in the world! You are infinite after all. What is one life time in infinity? You can then do your work in this world with even greater clarity, precision and skill, because you don’t have to rush. You can do it right.

If you’ve ever had a meal cooked by someone who was completely and totally present as they chopped the vegetables and sautéed the onions, you would find it to be the most delicious meal ever, even if it was only collard greens, rice and sweet potatoes. The entire universe was preparing that meal in deep peace. This same principle can be applied to any work that needs accomplished in the world.

If you are still afraid of that state, or think that you are going to miss out on life in that state, pretend for a little while that it is going to be a wonderful experience, and then sit quietly and meditate. Sit and become still and ask, “What will it really be like when experience pure stillness?” Ask as though you really want to know and then wait for the response. It may come as a flash of realization or you may suddenly experience a perfectly tranquil state where all is well. Be open to the possibility so you can see for your self what it is like. Once you have the experience, the freedom from all your personality bonds, you will no longer be addicted to the experiences of the world. This may happen quickly, or it may take persistence. It just depends on you, and your capacity to surrender. It will happen. You just have to stick with it.

You will know peace. You will still have emotions, but you are no longer identified with your emotions. If you are happy, fine. If you are sad, fine. If you get angry, fine. If you are momentarily scared, fine. If you are filled with bliss, fine. If you feel normal, fine. These are all changing states anyway that come and go. Once you know your Self, you can let these emotions pass over the screen of your mind without having to indulge in them or worry about them. They come and go just like the people in your life. You go to McDonald’s and you see the cashier. You leave. The cashier is gone. You go to visit your great aunt. You enjoy the visit. You leave. Your aunt does her thing, you do yours. That is the ebb and flow of life. The key is to know who you are, as eternal. Then the rest…does what it does!

You have come an the edge. You may be afraid of going forward. But I want to encourage you to press on. There is no point in stopping. No point in clinging to what you’ve always known. What has that got you anyway? You are an immortal soul almost freed from the confines of incorrectly identifying with the body and mind. Find out what you are! Turn inward in meditation, letting go of all attachments, and see if that spontaneous state of living is really like being a zombie or not having any emotions! Wake up! 

There truly is no bliss, or feeling of being alive like the realization that results from meditation and spiritual growth in this world.  The thing is though, when we experience it, it does come into this world, and that is where it is most needed.  It is not dramatic or emotional in the way we are used to thinking of bliss.  It is beyond conception by the mind, yet is able to be experienced and maintained.  You just have to try it.