Last time, (see Letting Go of the Mask), we began to examine a path for freeing us from the way that life has indoctrinated / traumatized us into reacting to it, with patterns of unconscious knee-jerk reactions, instead of living full-out as God intended.
We also discussed some of the vital tools that we need, to bring us success in our venture to return to our real self. We looked at the necessity of having willingness to follow Jehovah’s guidance and introduced ourselves to the concept of meditation as well. Today, we will examine one simple way to meditate.
Get yourself a silent timer that plays a pleasant tone (like a bell or a gong) at preset intervals. These sounds offer a gentle reminder to stop chasing after your thoughts, (which you will do repeatedly when you first begin this practice) and return to just noticing what is presenting itself.
Find a quiet place, free from distractions like music, media devices, or other people. In the beginning, you will find yourself squirming, because it will be uncomfortable just being with yourself. So, if you feel that you absolutely need music, limit it to instrumentals only, so as to not fixate on lyrics.
Wear loose clothing and find a comfortable place to sit with your spine erect, and your eyes open. We are learning to stop resisting reality. When your eyes are closed, you tend to engage in useless mental chatter.
Speaking of that, be aware that that voice in your head will fight you every step of the way, because it knows the moment that you become truly conscious, it will become insignificant. Ego will use mental abuse, confusion, distraction and even sleep, to stop you from waking up. In the beginning, it will be successful. Don’t judge yourself for losing a round(s) to your old enemy. You will gather strength through Christ and prevail with practice.
The most important thing in this entire process it to be kind and compassionate to yourself!
Set your timer for one minute; and then add a minute a day, until you can mediate for one full hour. Repeat that hour daily, for the rest of your life. As a result, you will achieve better focus, concentration and awareness.
You will be more peaceful, happy and be able to live in the present moment, where all reality is lived. Thus, you can spend much more time on your God Channel.
Breathe slow and deep – in through the nose, out through the mouth, relaxing after each exhalation. This makes you an active participant and acts as your point of focus. Focusing on your breathing initiates the beginning of your awareness. It is one of your God-connections. You can’t stop breathing because God breathes you. It is a celebration of life.
As you sit still, staying with your breath, you may want to count them to help you focus, or, use guided imagery, e.g. ‘Breathing in, I accept life; breathing out, I release love.’
Meditation looks easy, but de-conditioning yourself an arduous (yet doable) task. Your ego will declare war – flooding you with your fears, parading your strategies to try to avoid life in front of you, and shame you for those ‘weaknesses.’
We lovingly notice, without making excuses. Instead, we consider what has been motivating our unworkable actions, and then look for the lies in the construction of those motivations. With recognition comes dissolution. All the while, we give ourselves love and compassion, without condemnation – knowing that just like everybody else, we have done our best to make our way in this world.
That voice in your head will tell you that meditation is stupid, and that it doesn’t work. It will also say that you’re stupid, and that this path is too hard. Ego will try to cajole you into returning to your distraction patterns, telling you that your life is fine just the way it is, (because it lives off of your suffering). It will tell you that you’re not meditating the right way, to keep you unconscious, inferring that you’ve failed again.
Ego want you ‘dead in the head.’ However, all you have to do is to kindly and lovingly acknowledge, that in this moment, you lost your concentration again; then let the thoughts go, and take the next breath. You refrain from beating yourself up for building a false mind, (your collection of masks). Everyone has some degree of a similar brainwash.
Everything that has worth, (peace, love and joy), is foreign to our false mind. The sacred things live in our spiritual space. When we gain awareness of our mind / spirit conflict, we can shift to the spirit and let our reactionary state go. Our quality of life is entirely dependent upon the quality of the relationship we have with ourselves and God.
Meditation is a way of bringing you back into spiritual alignment, by helping you shed more of the world’s influences. It reveals how you’ve been living your life and what that has cost you. In that aligning, you discover your highest and best path for pairing back up with your Creator.
If you’re putting off meditating, look to how you put off everything, and commit to stepping over that.
During meditation, if an old belief presents itself, examine it for its veracity. If it’s a lie, let it go, return to your breath until another one pops up, and rinse and repeat. You can’t overdose on truth. Peace comes with truth. If you experience stress and resistance, celebrate! It means you’re on the cusp of a good, healthy change.
You’re not trying to get something. Instead, you are learning how to live in the present moment. It’s the only place where you can commune with God.
Relax and let all your thoughts come, see them for what they are, and let them go. Instead of being afraid, be curious. Your thoughts are not you. They are illusions. Here’s something for you to ponder, ‘Who is thinking your thoughts? Who is watching them?’
If you quit meditating because you come up against something that you think you can’t handle, don’t judge yourself. Simply recommit. Each time that you meditate, step further into those thoughts and emotions that frighten you. With every crescendo, take a deep breath and discover the meanings that you’ve attached to those thoughts and to your associated physical reactions.Discover what made you think that they were true, and when you see they have no healthy purpose, let them go.
When you sit still with fear, it will dissipate. If you are squirming, you’re on the verge of discovering another way that you resist suffering. If you feel that you are reaching a ‘breaking point,’ realize that this process is not a punishment, and know that you are on the edge of a life-transforming revelation.
As you face that fear, let it wash over you instead of running from it; and your struggle will end.
Resistance is a force – showing up as confusion, self-criticism, self-sabotage, perfectionism, blaming, envy, busyness or procrastination. If this approach fails, (eventually, they all do), we judge ourselves for our failures. However, if we return to our meditation practice to discover our ‘resistance pattern,’ we can drop it and be open to whatever happens next.
The mind will lose its frenzied ways, taking on greater clarity, with which we can identify our habits and who we are trying to be when we try to hold our world together with unworkable beliefs. Simultaneously, we’ll discover the ways that we punish ourselves for falling short. We let them go, and have compassion for ourselves for thinking that these patterns would protect us.
There is nothing in your head that can really hurt you. It is the ignorance and denial about the nature of what you have unconsciously let live there, that brings pain. A thought is only an ephemeral wisp, an emotion just a form of energy.
When a thought arises, instead of letting it hook you by giving it importance, question it:
‘Who would I be without this thought?’ Replace it with a thought that loves you.
Meditation is not about eliminating your thoughts; the mind never ceases to think. It is about disarming them.
Then, we lavish forgiveness on ourselves for what we’ve ignorantly said or done to ourselves and or others. In addition, we stay on the hunt for any other covert ways we’ve used to hold tight to those unworkable beliefs and set them free.
Remember that you must implement the revelations you gain in meditation. When you shed that person that you thought you were, you can remodel your inner space to hold peace love and joy. Then, your outer world will reflect the same.
When we become open to every present moment, we can be part of the unfolding of life, accepting what is presented to us, without suffering, because we no longer make life, the events in it, or ourselves, wrong anymore.
We can give up having to know what happens next. We appreciate the gift of life and the contributions that we are here to make, spreading the love. That’s what living in the kingdom of God is all about. Stay tuned…
Goodnight and God bless.