Get your mind out of meditation! (Are you making too many goals for your practice?).
I often come across the question: How do I meditate? And what is the goal of meditation? It is not what many people ‘think.’
Meditation is not about extending or controlling your mind or mental actions. Instead, it involves altogether quieting the noise in your mind and becoming entirely present in the moment.
The ‘goal’ of meditation is to be fully present in the now. But setting a goal is using the mind. This contradicts logic; being fully present can not be a goal, as a goal is there, not here. Let me explain…
Being honest with the self is where it all starts. My story of how I came to meditation follows, followed by my practice.
Yes, meditation and spiritual practice can completely transform your life! It will take you from frantic worry with continuous negative looping thoughts you repeat about yourself day after day to a calm-centered human being who cannot get enough of life! Exuberant and joyful for each day life unfolds.
The challenge with ‘meditation.’
The funny thing is, the mind cannot do it; it requires something more than an act of the mind or personal will. This is probably the greatest of all stumbling blocks on the way to ‘Mindfulness’ as the “thinking mind” does not participate in the experience! In truth, the mind cannot come to understand it!
It often requires devotion, an intense desire to break the bounds of the mind, an escape of spiritual proportion, or a deep dive into self-wrought pain and misery that shakes your soul to its foundation.
By itself, the heavy robes of the fabric of the mind must come undone. When undone by a dark night-of-the-soul transformation, it is not a pleasant experience.
I have been there. My life was plagued with anxiety, worry, aversions, and fears. Every day, I hid away, trying to get by without interaction with life. I avoided myself and others by indulging in movies, TV, and video games. I was the ultimate consumer. I convinced myself I was social as I loved ‘Social media.’ In truth, 99% of my contact was with only one person. Me!
Yes, I spiraled down into self-loathing. How could I not?
How does one fight with one’s mind? How can you win with an opponent who appears to know you better than you?
Once it hit me. I was lost within myself; I had no clue what was real and what was not. So-called “Real” experiences involving myself and others were ripe with worries, self-judgment, fear, and just wanting to escape. My mind lied, tainted my experiences, and repeated that there was no need to change anything!
I didn’t want to live like that anymore. That was not living; it was simply dying. Just slowly.
But how do you make a change, face life, face fears, and be able to leap without looking?
Start with the mind! It’s a snake eating itself. It would be best to conclude that everything in your head is not you or valuable.
Only embracing my wild thoughts and self-accusations as pure fiction helped me uncover what my mind was doing: It was repeating over and over what I had experienced as a child, those painful life lessons, regurgitating them over and over to avoid pain in the next moment.
How can you truly live in the present moment if your mind continuously looks for painful situations as weighted by your experience in the past!?
How can you be present if your mind is mapping your following actions by remembering what bumps in the road may have been there thirty years back!?
Throughout your life, you have formed beliefs about yourself, the people around you, and the world based on your experiences. These experiences have been gathered through your limited senses and stored in your memory, creating a version of reality unique to you.
However, it’s important to remember that these experiences do not represent reality accurately. They are merely recordings and constructions created to keep you safe and continuous. In other words, they are illusions that do not reflect the world’s true nature.
We all put too much faith in our own ‘minds.’
It’s time to discard all you have defined yourself as and shed off the illusions driving your life.
So, what’s left? How do you grab the wheel of living without your mind screwing it up?
Reality is here, now, at this moment. Not what happened this morning, not your plans for tomorrow. NOW, NOW, and NOW. Get your head out of the past or future!
Getting here, ‘with it.’
This is a simple practice starting just that, and with time, it will go so deep you did not know such depth existed within you.
It is helpful to use your breath; breathe in and out without thinking about it, without a thought for anything. If an idea comes, don’t catch it; bring your awareness back to the air, going in, going out. Being here.
There is no goal here, no right, no wrong. The idea is simply being. When you can completely release the use of your thinking, you move closer and closer to who you are.
Be with being, the life that you are, simply that, the eternally present something that exists has always existed, has never changed in your entire life, before, or even after. Don’t put a thought to it; just be.
Be with this as much as you can in your day. When your mind wanders off, come back to breathe.
Each time you come back is a success! There is nothing wrong when there is no goal!
When you are sitting and being quiet, be truly quiet.
With any goal in mind, your mind is over there, not here. What matters is being and becoming invisible in observation, not separating your being from this or that, becoming one and no one at once.
Allow the eternal to become manifest, and all separation ceases!
At once, you disappear; only ‘being’ is present. Experiencing this awareness of being is meditation. Not doing anything with your mind, not observing yourself, your actions, or your inaction.
This BE-ING is ALL BE-ING; it is and is not yours simultaneously; it is both here and not here, eternal and fleeting. It is space but not time, time but not space. Both silence and all manifestations at once.
Welcome presence and life. Welcome to being without doing.
Now, take your next step from this, and BE.
OM
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