Q: Life today can often seem so overwhelming. Is there a way to look at our lives that will have it all make more sense?
It can help to think of life as a kind of maze. It has a beginning and lots of twists and turns, and even though we all try to see around corners to find shortcuts, the maze will still do what it will with us, until eventually we find the way out. That’s why, in all mazes, both people and animals have a tendency to panic because they are not sure where they are or where they need to go. However, from the overhead view, it’s possible to see that the maze has both an entrance and an exit. And it is only a matter of time—if one does not give up—to find the exit. If we don’t allow fear to drive movement but think of it as just taking a stroll, the maze is a great tool for experiencing presence.
But let’s be aware that within this presence—because one cannot constructively see what one is facing—we have the mind racing and doing its thing. The maze never defeats. It is always the mind that defeats. So, we should use this period we’re living in to practice presence and controlling the mind. It helps to view it as simply a walk through time.
The challenge for many is that we can’t use Western constructs to beat the maze because, again, the maze is just a reflection of the mind. It’s like a koan. How do you find your way out of a maze? Through stillness and quieting the mind. Why does that work? Because on an energetic level, the path through the maze has an energy trail. When the mind is still and quiet, it will be able to discern the energy trail. Truly, at that point, one could walk out of the maze with eyes closed, because it is not visual, it is energetic.
When one enters the maze, there is also an element of artificial time pressure. If you don’t get out of the maze in X amount of time, what? The body will respond as though there is a clock ticking, when not only is there no clock, there is no time. It is an incredible spiritual exercise.
Q: What are the forces at work that are making life a maze right now?
It is a time of circuits. Many circuits are switching on while many other circuits are switching off. This is happening in a compressed period. It might be viewed as working like a broken stoplight flashing too quickly. We don’t know whether we should stop, go, wait, or turn back.
Because people are not centered spiritually, they cannot see the energetic line that would lead them through all of these circuits switching. It is political, religious, environmental, cultural, financial concerns that blur everything—on every level.
Q: You said, “not centered spiritually.” Can you define what you mean by not being centered spiritually?
We’re talking here about being grounded spiritually. People think of spirituality as esoteric because there are so many concepts that people can find challenging to grasp. Being centered spiritually means that you are able to remain in the present. There is no racing forward to the next problem or excitement. There is no falling back into old habits and ways or worries. There is only the moment. There is nothing to be done. There is nothing to be thought. There is just the awareness of full presence. It is a state of peace and calm, of everything settling, of quiet. But in the modern world to allow things to, in effect, stop means one falls behind. Because the modern world runs on panic and fear.
Truly, only one practice is required to be spiritually centered, and that is a sustained practice of meditation, which is the only peaceful, kind way to teach the mind to quiet.
Q: Why has the mind become such a supreme force?
The mind allows for constant creation and destruction. It is a reflection of the All-That-Is. The more it creates, the more it wants to create. It is not true that the more it destroys, the more it wants to destroy, but destruction is inherent within creation. One cannot happen without the other.
It becomes a self-rewarding activity, which then becomes overstimulation until, eventually, it becomes an addiction. Because the mind is capable of experiencing endless thoughts, it creates the concept of endlessness, of evermore. But because the planet exists in a closed system, these two concepts cannot coexist peacefully.
The closed system of the planet means finite. The infinite mind and the finite system creates the zero-sum game. Some think capitalism is the cause. It is a clash of the finite system and infinite thought. Which means I must get to the next thought before you do. I must create the next XYZ before you do. Depending on the culture, that determines what that looks like.
Q: Why does it become so competitive? Why do we feel that I have to do it before you? Where does that come from?
Because we live in a finite, closed system, there are not infinite resources. So therefore, I must use the resources to meet my needs before you use them and make them unavailable for me. Greed is nothing more than masked fear. “I must get it before you do because there is not enough.”
The more one runs on “not-enoughness,” the more greedy one becomes. “I must have it all. Only when I have it all, when there is nothing more to get, I can rest.” It is all an illusion.
Q: Is that why meditating is so hard for most people? Because thhe mind has that overpowering need to continue to create?
From the moment of birth, parents work to stimulate the child’s mind. They want a smart child. They want a capable child. They want to give that child a head start. They don’t know how to let the child be in quiet. Truly, from the moment of birth, the race is on. So, parents would need to learn, would need to be shown how to protect the innate meditative mind of a newborn. Then they would need to keep reinforcing that through all stages of childhood development.
But once the mind is reinforced to have one thought after the other in an endless thought loop, it becomes very difficult to undo.
Q: Are there ways of facilitating meditation we haven’t yet discovered?
Meditation is so simple. But like everything else, the mind wants to complicate it because it doesn’t understand it.
No, there are not more ways to facilitate the meditation practice. Sit in quiet. Realize that you are not your thoughts. You are not the thinker of your thoughts. They come and they go. That will allow the emotional self to calm down. “Oh, you mean I don’t have to do something with that thought? I don’t have to add it to my to-do list? I don’t have to worry about remembering that thought? Or reacting emotionally to that thought? Or setting up another trigger or response to that thought? Oh, I can just watch them come and go.”
Once you can maintain the view that you are separate from your thoughts, even though your thoughts may be going crazy, you will feel peaceful. That is meditation. Meditation is not about having no thoughts. Yes, in very advanced states of meditation, that can happen. But the type of meditation for being spiritually centered simply requires an awareness of “I am not my thoughts.” Realize that thoughts are really nothing more than white noise. If you are at a noisy restaurant, you know how to tune out what you don’t want to listen to. We all do it all the time. It’s the same in meditation—let your thoughts just be, and turn them into white noise. No charge, not positive, not negative. Just white noise.
This takes us back to the maze. Mazes do not provide instructions. You just enter and go. We’ve talked about the solution for finding the way out of the maze. It is the same for finding the way out of the mind.
Try taking the opposite approach to meditation. Instead of saying meditation is hard, tell yourself meditation is easy. Instead of telling yourself, “I can’t,” tell yourself, “Meditation is easy. I am not my mind. I am not thoughts. I am the silence.”
The analogy of playing an instrument also works here. You would not expect to sit down for five minutes occasionally here and there and actually learn how to play the piano. All you have learned how to do is make sounds, but not how to play a song. It is the same with meditation. Why would you expect meditation to feel normal or easy when you only give it five minutes here or there?
If one were to create positive associations around setting up the practice of their meditation, that would help. Because there is an unconscious and conscious negative association with meditation, “it is hard, I am not good at it, I am not doing it right,” many have developed an aversion to the practice of sitting in meditation. Creating a positive association would help break up the negativity. Each person must decide for themselves what that positive association would be.
The greatest gift a parent can give a child is to teach them meditation from the earliest age. Then they do not have to undo, they can just continue to do.
Also, don’t get locked into “I must meditate a certain way, or I am not meditating.” Some people can meditate by listening to music, others by walking in nature, and others by looking at beautiful art. Meditation is nothing more than a brainwave frequency change, moving from beta to alpha to theta, and so on, until the mind is in a deep, restful state. Biofeedback can be a useful tool for many because sound becomes the determiner of “I have reached this level, I am successfully meditating.”
Our culture is punishment/reward-based. Punishment is how most people experience meditation. It becomes a kind of punishment because “I feel inadequate, I don’t know how to do it, I can’t do it, it frustrates me, it’s a waste of time, I don’t like it.” One must set up positive rewards. Initially, this is completely the opposite of meditation: measurement, achievement, and accomplishment. But it is a backdoor way in.
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