I set a meditation intention at the new year for daily meditation. 20 minutes has been the norm. It has been good. I've mixed it up with a bit of Quaker waiting worship (listening for the word of God or Alfie, apparently), centering prayer, mantras, and just my own brand of a mix.
Meditation is not easy. Imagine, sitting and and and.....but then the mind goes ZOOM and thoughts collide with intention, like painting over wallpaper...covering the wait, a cheap fix.
I've not complained. Well, once I did. Once, back in March I looked up to the object of my meditation and said, "Really? Is this all ya got?"It was not what I was expecting. To be fair, along the way I've had insights and ahas and a good deal of joy. But I was searching for something and I didn't even know what it would be til it showed up.
It showed up.
Back in college, I had an intense daily spiritual discipline of reading from scripture for 20 minutes, prayers of 20 minutes...including praying in tongues...then a quiet time that inevitably was a time of praise. I also had taken on the discipline of fasting once a week. It took from September to March until the fast finally felt like a link, a connection, a goodness instead of deprivation for some elusive goal. That held true through the end of the summer. That feeling of it still resides in the memory systems of my body.
Today, I was awake at 2:45am. After the obligatory game of 3 (30?) of solitaire and a quick browse of facebook, my little inner guidance voice said: "meditate". When I hear and act on that voice, I am never sorry. So, I propped myself up there in my room at 3:30 am and began. I went through my own ritual of settling and centering. and then BAM I was there.
Bliss. I've been there before. It is a state of pure flowing equilibrium. Balance. Harmony. And what I was aware of was that in that space I was in my truest self. A truer reality than when I'm awake. I was without wound, story, narrative, defense, ego. It was everything. Not zingy or mystical or anything one might be expecting. It was real.
equilibrium
balance
harmony
It has stayed with me today. I am seeing people, myself, live issues, from within a different vantage point.
I think we can all get to this place. It does take a heck of a lot of work. And not particularly head work. Heart work. I'm talking about the kind of work that transforms and releases. It is not for the head alone, but heart and body. The soul part is trusting in something transcendent and beyond our material self.
Thanks for being with me on this day.
In Harmony,
Amy