Those who don't meditate wonder what is the point. What is to be gained from sitting quietly, seemingly doing nothing? The health benefits, both physical and mental are well documented, but how is it spiritually beneficial? What will these benefits look like in our lives?
Many meditation practices have some focus on the body. This is because body and the feeling experience are always in the moment. The mind on the other hand exists in the past, and its projection into the future. So when we are identified with the mind and thought, we are not in the present moment and, therefore, not in touch with our experience and response to it. When we are caught up in mental activity, particularly when we are upset about something and the mind is caught in cyclical internal dialogue, then feeling is vibrating in us and we are disconnected from it.
With meditation practice, we are able to notice ourselves being disconnected in this way, and we can simply ask ourselves "what am I feeling now?" we can then move our attention into the body and the direct feeling experience. Becoming embodied in this way we become present to our internal experience in the moment. With this development of awareness we can choose to engage with what in us is seeking liberation.
When we remain in identification with thought, our experience of life is largely governed by what we are thinking about it, or the 'story' we are telling ourselves about what is happening.
Most of the time we believe our 'stories' - our self-talk, we assume it is 'real' and true. In fact our thinking moves in habitual patterns, which arise from what is held in separation within us. Our thinking largely arises from this sub-consciousness.
The exception is when there is connection between our feeling state and the mind. In its present form this is the minds interpretation of intuitive feeling, inspiration also falls into this realm.
THE POSSIBILITY OF CHOICE IS NOW
Becoming present to our experience of the present moment opens the possibility of our having choice. Until we are present in the moment, our subconscious patterns and habits will be running our lives, and dictate our behavior and experience. This occurs seamlessly without our conscious awareness of it happening. We are identified with these habitual patterns as simply being who we are. Indeed our ego is engaged in constantly creating identity from them.
Feelings in response to the moment will arise without our noticing them, and we remain caught in the narcissism and tyranny of identification with the mind, which keeps us from the experience of now. When we are actually connecting to our feeling experience of the moment, we create the possibility of choosing our response to what the moment brings. With time we become more able to discriminate what part of our feeling experience is the vibrating of separation within us, and bring that awareness into our response to what is actually occurring 'now'.
For example someone may speak to us in a particular tone and manner and we are suddenly irritated and angry. If we connect with these feelings before jumping into reaction from them, we may realize that the tone and manner of speech echoes the way one of our parents addressed us when telling us off. The child within us, still holding our feeling response from childhood now reacts through the adult we have become.
Another example, lets say the above situation occurs but it is our boss who is speaking to us, or someone else we feel we has some power to affect us. In this situation the childhood resonance is denied and unexpressed, as it has been for sometime. Then for some reason you are late finishing work and are unable to buy something your partner asked you to pick up on the way home. You get home and they innocently ask for the item. In this moment, the original childhood feeling, the frustration at working late and lets say, the feeling of having failed through no fault of your own, all emerge at once and you snap angrily at your partner. This response is clearly disproportionate to the actual situation. This is re-action - projection. It is most often in our closest relationships that we do this.
Practicing meditation is an effective means of beginning to break the tyranny of identification with thought an demotion. It's value and usefulness though is greatest when the practice of meditation becomes a skill in living.
Ray Baskerville is a healer, meditation teacher, certified hypnotherapist, yogi and proud father. He has worked as a healer, taught meditation and yoga worldwide. Ray is also the creator and editor of lifedivine.net an online magazine for yoga, meditation, spirituality and personal development. Please visit for more free quality articles like this.
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