How you meditate is how you live the rest of your life.
Chances are, you probably meditate, have meditated, or wish you were meditating regularly. You understand that a regular practice in this chaotic, whitewater world is now more important than ever.
Consider that how you are actually meditating, how you go to the process, how you think of it beforehand, and afterwards, and what you do while sitting, is a pretty good reflection of how you are living the rest of your life.
How you meditate is how you live.
I mentioned this concept recently to a group of people I was leading in meditation, and there was a lot of initial pushback. “What do you mean? That’s not true. One has nothing to do with the other.”
But as we carefully unfolded some of their experiences afterwards, there was much truth in my assertion in every case.
If you are drifting off and spacing out while meditating, unable to focus on your inhaling and exhaling (or whatever the focus of your meditation is), then you are most likely drifting off and spacing out in life.
If your body is tense, maybe even unconsciously holding in some places like your neck or hips, and you have difficulty relaxing while meditating, then you are most likely tense and less able to engage in life fully.
If your mind is very busy, thinking, thinking, thinking while meditating, then the same pattern occurs out there in your everyday, and maybe this keeps you from being fully present.
If you are mostly cut off from your bodily sensations, and are going up and out while meditating, then perhaps you are doing this in life a lot, cut off from your deep desires and passions, and avoiding your deep wounds that want your attention.
What is the attitude that you bring to your meditation practice? Complaining, finding excuses? Take a look at how you think and feel about it.
I’ve been learning a very specific and powerful type of breathwork meditation recently, and my teacher, Elijah Nisenboim, says, over and over, that how you breathe is how you live your life. I think the same is true for meditation in general. http://www.effijibreath.com/effiji-breath-1/
https://jimwolfson.com/events/lifepurposebreath/
See what you can learn about yourself by looking at your meditation process this way. The really good thing about meditation is that you can break patterns in your life out there, and reprogram yourself, in many ways, through practicing meditation on your breath, or chanting, or some other form. By meditating, all parts of your life get cleaned up.
This is not to say that meditating will take care of everything. It will not! There is still good and necessary work to do one-on-one, and in groups, to address our shadows and hurts. But meditating is an essential component.
I said that meditation is holographic. What does this mean? A little piece of something contains the essence of the whole. Out little lives, these little units of consciousness that we represent, are holographic. That is, what is going on in one part of your life represents all parts of your life. So, for example, your body is an accurate indicator of all the rest of your life. How you are living and feeling, what you are resisting and what is in shadow (those parts of you that are repressed and denied).
For instance, for me, I’ve been going through quite a health crisis in recent months. (A Pluto transit, for you astrologer types). Inflammation is a big part of it for me. But it’s far from just physical. I’m inflamed emotionally too. Big anger and grief. I’m like a loaded gun, a lot of the time. Ha ha ha. Just ask the people around me! And….I’m learning a lot by holding the perspective of being a student, and being curious. Seeing what life can teach me. Loving my body more. Seeing how it is doing, like reading the daily newspaper, rather than ignoring it, wishing it would go away.
A good book about all of this is The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot, and the author Lynne McTaggert also writes about it.
Tom Kenyon writes……”we are all part of the universal hologram, an indispensable piece to the cosmic puzzle. Not only this, but because we are holographic by nature, the whole cosmos is inside us. This is indeed one of the fundamental teachings of most Perennial Philosophies and mystical traditions. In some inexplicable way we carry the cosmos within us. And the exploration of one’s own consciousness eventually takes one into the cosmic realms of existence. We are like mobius strips. On one side of the strip we are isolated individuated primate humans. Yet at the same time we exist on the other side of the strip as well. On that side of things we are part of the whole. We are One with all life and the entire cosmos is inside us.”
So we are connected, completely, always, and…we are individual units of consciousness that have our own unique spark and shine! Both at the same time. Wow! When you are meditating, see if you can find the universe inside of you. Allow it, and you might be surprised. There is no out there. Ha ha ha.
