Meditation: Steady As We Go

In a twist of positive irony, by managing our interior, we become masters of our exterior.
Ramone G. Corrales

Growth takes place in a person by working at a deep inner level in a sustained atmosphere of silence.
Ira Progoff

We are dominated by everything with which our self becomes identified. We can dominate, direct and utilize everything from which we disidentify ourselves.
Roberto Assagioli on the process of “disidentification” (letting go of self)

Just as the pure crystal takes color from the object which is nearest to it, so the mind, when it is cleared of thought-waves, achieves sameness or identity with the object of its concentration.
Patanjali

I honor those who try to rid themselves of any lying, who empty the self and have only clear being there.
Rumi

As the body heals its wounds strengthened through the support of mind, so too, the mind’s wounds may heal in prayer and meditation through the support of Spirit. Simultaneously, the healing mind, strengthened and purified through Spirit, begins healthier energies of motion, “e-motions”, for the deeper healing resonance with the body. “All Ways” Mind, Body, and Spirit are inseparable for the harmony of health and wellness.
Dr. Darryl Pokea

Our present world situation reflects the state of our collective learning. The most fundamental lesson in this existence is to learn to embrace our conflicts within, so that we do not project them out onto the world as thought missiles that do harm. In harming others, we harm ourselves and continue the cycle of projection. Meditation is the process of self-contemplation that awakens our consciousness to truly know what we are doing each moment. Consciousness is carefulness in observing the self objectively. This process can set us in motion again to move beyond what may seem to be immutable barriers in our own self-growth. Meditation opens our mind to the continuum of self-observation necessary for true compassion to emerge. It stops the projectiles that our disconnected ego sends out that contribute to the disharmony with others and the world.

During meditation, self-reflection brings us back to the awareness that all perceptions we have of the world outside ourselves are a mirror that can be rotated and viewed from many angles. It is through multiple lenses and their clear focus that the mind expands in consciousness so that we remain careful about all we think, say, and do. Processing our own internal conflicts unfolds the layers of self, and compassion blossoms. That same compassion extends to others as we become more easily attuned to their process of self-discovery. Our individual Spirit and every person’s Spirit are aspects of Universal Divine Consciousness. Meditation is the heart-filled reverent process of seeking the Self beyond self and the abundant expression of Spirit in us all.

Meditation allows consciousness to move freely from the specific to the whole and then back again to the specific, for whatever is required in the moment. For example, we may be focused on an event that happened during the day where we felt conflicted. Next we may expand out in consciousness to look at this event in relation to the life lessons our Spirit presents. Then we return our focus back to the original event with new perspective.

Consciousness breathes. Traditional meditation devotes portions of our attention to the process of breathing. We focus specifically on our breath as it expands and contracts. As the mind focuses on breathing during meditation, so too the free gentle movement of consciousness expands, like the breath, as it explores new constellations of compassion and understanding. Following each expansive inhale, comes the contraction and release of those insights into the specifics of the situation and daily living. Our breathing is intricately interwoven with our ever-traveling consciousness that journeys throughout the many details in daily living. Our consciousness also expands outward to understand our deepest lessons in the bigger picture. Meditation reminds us of our life painting, our Spirit, the true artist, who illustrates and teaches us what we came here to learn.

Without the balance of meditation, our rapid paced living creates waves of fright/flight/ fight that can dominate and fragment consciousness. This creates a type of massive attention deficit disorder. This clouding of consciousness impairs and cloaks the awareness that we are becoming careless about caring less. When we are in such states of being, we loose our sense of compassion towards others and ourselves. The mind, in this clouded, overworked state, still continues to perceive self as compassionate, though in reality we have drifted away from that virtue. The mind finds it unbearable to even consider that we may have strayed from living that way. This denial not only stops our truly living compassionately and virtuously, but also creates even greater dissonance between mind, body, and Spirit that are to serve one another. This self-deception, concomitant with the attention deficit, quickly overwhelms the mind without our Spirit’s assistance to deal with it. In this state of illusions, the mind then quickly acts out through the body as it expresses its conflicts and congested thoughts and feelings. The fragmentation and disintegration deepens as the ego driven mind (devoid of all Spirit) attempts to project outward, the images of self we wish others to have of us. Though we have lost true compassion in the moment and disconnected from Spirit by not embracing our painful internal conflicts, we still try to deceive others and ourselves. The talk may no longer be the walk, but all our mind’s energy tries to make it look that way. It tries to chatter the pain away with mind spam.

When the mind has become spiritless and trapped by ego, it looses focus and our true wounds and vulnerability are not dealt with. They become disguised and are buried and we no longer have the full range and expression of emotions (the energy of motion that is one of the many fuels of consciousness). Throughout this impeded state, we cover up any real exchanges in the relationship with our self and others. It is important always to keep in mind that you must have a healthy relationship with yourself in order to have healthy relationships with others. We all witness and experience the massive disconnection in relationships in these times. These reflect the many areas of disruption in understanding all layers of the self. Each separation with our fellow humans is a splitting within our self and each cutting off from our self is a disconnection with our fellow humans. All of this process leads to further attention deficit and promotes carelessness, though we may wish others to see us as caring. The deficit disrupts the focus from the many lenses of the mind that are necessary to really look at what we are becoming each moment.

Infinite Exploration

Meditation allows us to move consciousness freely from the specific back out to the whole and then back to the specific. It invites the full movement of consciousness for the broadest unfolding perspectives as we fly over the fires below. It also allows us to dive fully into the fires, see what is fueling them, and if necessary, gain altitude again for another aerial holistic view. In the emotional aspect of ourselves, meditation allows us to fly over the stormy seas for perspective and relief and then dive fully into the huge emotional waves that we fear will drown us. We discover that we can breathe through all these aerial views and that the holistic perspectives don’t take our breath away. We experience that we can survive the dive into the deepest flames in the fires of our mind and our Self doesn’t burn up. We learn that we can plunge into the deepest and stormiest waves of our emotions, remain steady, breathe and not drown.

In meditation we experience our Spirit that provides the courage to have the aerial perspectives, the dives as well as the specific and holistic explorations. We learn that in all the fires of the mind and the deepest waves in the waters of emotion, that we can return to being one with the One, the Self beyond self, truly living fully within mind, body, and Spirit again. Throughout the integration with the Whole, specific wounds within the mind begin to heal and our most vulnerable emotions transform. The body’s restoration also begins again as it cultures its many landscapes of cells and weeds its organ gardens. This conscious reconnection to mind, body and Spirit further expands beyond ourselves. It moves outward in compassion to our fellow travelers in consciousness, as they too, may specifically witness the effects of meditation that bring wholeness with every breath of the body when our consciousness is fully alive.

Though we may be hurried with much multi-tasking in our daily lives, meditation balances us and returns us to our comprehensive life lessons with specific attunements to every moment of our inner development. As meditation allows the many lenses of the mind to focus our attention clearly, we can return to healthy relationships with all the layers of our self and with others. The process of meditation unifies all the rotations of the mind’s mirrors to understand both the inner and outer world with courage, consciousness and compassion. Meditation continually reminds each of us that the moments you decide to transcend yourself are the moments you are one with the One. The One that keeps us steady as we go.

Thoughts are energy and attention sends energy to aid the body’s healing process. So too is that true with psychological pain. When we can get past the immediate impulse to deny it, to run away, blame someone, or sugarcoat it with positive platitudes, then we can allow ourselves to feel the pain which is actually healing. The mere act of feeling the pain is sending energy for healing. We can then open ourselves to the inner lessons, so passion, and understanding that come from deep within our self; to see the big picture from an elevated perspective. If you deny what is happening, if you run away from it, it festers and becomes infected. It grows in the dark and controls us in ways we don’t realize because we don’t want to look at it.
Jan Jennings

Listen to “Think Fit: The Power of Your Mind”:

Additional Reading:

“The Surprising Science of How Feelings Help You Think”