Just Be

YOUR EYES ARE CLOSED and you are breathing deeply and intentionally. With each inhale, your body is filled with energy and light. With each exhale, your body sheds stress and tension and problems from the long day. Your mind is focused and is as light as a feather, while your body is slowly becoming numb, one appendage at a time. You are not falling asleep but instead are slipping into a higher state of consciousness where every sound is a symphony and every smell is the inside of a warm French bakery at 4:30 AM.

How did you arrive at this place? Most likely, you arrived here by following a series of steps during your arduous journey.

Move Slowly

The importance of performing physical tasks slowly is often overlooked when discussing meditation. There is more to meditation than sitting upright like a statue in the lotus position and chanting a mantra. Meditation, even deep meditation, can be accomplished while performing everyday tasks.

The next time that you are brushing your teeth or washing dishes or watering your front lawn, focus upon the task at hand. In yoga, we spend quite a bit of time discussing the “monkey brains” that we all have — our restless minds which flip and flop within our skulls and change channels so frequently that we can never get a firm grip on what we are really thinking or feeling at any given moment. One of the best exercises to control your monkey brain is to focus on your everyday tasks and perform them slowly. A great way to begin this exercise is to simply take a walk. Take smaller steps than usual and let your arms gently glide by your body for the duration of the walk. Focus on your deep breathing and smell all the wonderful smells of the great outdoors. Focus upon how the earth feels beneath your feet and how each bone and tendon along the soles of your feet move and shift with each step that you take.

With time, your slow movements and focus upon even the most mundane of tasks will become second nature.

Decrease Your Stimuli

A life of yoga and meditation is often a Spartan life, but ultimately a better one. You cannot meditate and achieve a higher level of consciousness and explore your soul and the universe if you are constantly bombarded with incoming information and data from every perceivable angle. Significantly limiting Internet use and iPhone access is crucial.

Does this sound too extreme for you? Give it a week and see how you feel, then you can judge for yourself. You will almost certainly find that after a week without following the news and carrying a phone around and being annoyed and taunted by electronic notifications and beeps and buzzes and whatnot, that you will finally become grounded with your true self and will see things more clearly. The incredibly fast pace of modern life circa 2021 only seems normal because we are currently stuck in the thick of it. But our simple and ancient brains are millions of years old and are no match for the algorithms and custom tailored marketing schemes that are coming at us from all directions 24/7.

Do yourself a favor and unplug, tune out, turn off, and party like it’s 1865. The quiet will do your soul some serious good.

Lose Your Desires

You cannot truly succeed at yoga or meditation unless you are living a life free of desires. Sure, it is human nature to set goals and try your best to accomplish them. There is also nothing wrong with working hard and saving to purchase something that you have wanted for some time. But a life of coveting and jealousy and greed will halt the progress of your meditation dead in its tracks. You see, much of the “monkey brain” is fed and taunted by a never-ending barrage of desires and wants and needs.

What you will learn through the process of yoga and meditation is that when it comes to material gratification, there can never be enough. True peace and serenity cannot move through you until you shed your wants and desires and leave them at the door.

Just Be

Learning to just simply exist and wanting nothing more out of life is at the heart of all teachings and practice of meditation. You will learn to take what you’ve got and be happy with it. Because in the end, you mustn’t DO anything — graduate from college, make money, buy a house, drive a nice car, marry the perfect person, look good on social media, complete a triathlon — it’s all a cosmic scam, man! The only thing that you must do in this life is learn how to JUST BE, and learn how to be truly happy doing it. Don’t let your monkey brain pull you around by your nose!

Return to Yourself

So now here we are again — you are sitting upright on the ground with a straight and firm spine and your legs folded before you like a perfectly restored mannequin. The room is silent and your eyes are closed. There is nothing that exists outside the four walls of your room. Your little room is the entire universe. With each deep breath that you take, your body sinks further into the floor beneath you. The air that you breathe and is full of bright colors, and the air that you slowly and deliberately exhale is black and sooty. Your body is starting to tingle ever so slightly, when you realize that you have arrived at your true home.

You sit in silence in your own comfy universe, and you are content to JUST BE.

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