Meditation Isn't Easy

[Candice Wilmore]

If, as I've heard it described, meditation is "perfect concentration on a perfect thing," in my own experience after many years, this is not an easy thing to do.

Perhaps the problem at times is using this word meditation to describe a vast array of activities, from yoga to martial arts. This is neither right or wrong, but may cause discussions to become muddled a bit.

In my own practice, I was shown a way to take my senses, like the ability to see, and turn it around and use it to "see" what is within. It's very practical, not metaphysical or ethereal, just a very real feeling of discovering what is already there inside my body. Not in outer space, in me.

I've been through so many phases of learning how to do this, and will continue I'm sure, till the very end. The more I practice though and the more help I get from listening to the one who showed me these techniques, my teacher, the more I really get that it's just really about beholding what is there. Not about creating it, not about ideas and concepts, just beholding, watching, hearing, seeing, feeling.

And that, to me, is not easy. It's the hardest thing I have ever tried to do in my 60 plus years of life. As Maharaji, Prem Rawat, my teacher was saying recently that people always say to him "Oh what you say is so simple." He said, on the tape I was listening to, "Oh really? Then why aren't you doing it?"

Bingo. Perfect question. If it's all so simple, why do I spend hours of my day off in dreamland instead of with that moment called now? I get lost because it's not that easy. Simple yes. Easy no. Two different animals.

But it's fine that it's not easy. I love that it's the greatest challenge, the highest endeavor, the most noble thing to pursue. I want to do it, more than any other thing in my life. I want to be conscious, I want to be aware of that breath, that moment that just came into me. Why? Because it's that big "nothing" in the midst of "everything" and I need that very, very much. My heart can rest there. I need to come home to that place of "nothing" because, of course, in that place, in that moment there is "everything"

[Silja Saareoks-Kaldre]

Would it get easier when change the thinking about it? Starting to think about the meditation as the natural thing or even as easy? I must admit the fact that getting greatest results through the meditation needs continuous practice and it can't be achieved in a day or two. Could you try to meditate in the moment "now" and not seeing it as apart of the daily life?

I do meditate, when I feel the need for it, it is somehow like the getting the inspiration to do that. Sometimes it takes the whole night long to meditate and visualize the situations, that would help. I've also found it to be very helpful for to use the meditative state of mind when doing the ordinary things, working and so on. But reaching to this point really was not easy. The main problem occurs, when starting to "looking for something" instead the feeling in it. This feeling itself is really simple, but remains easily unnoticed because it seams like "too simple", like total silence, totally harmonious and the place of no time. Every wanting gets ourselves out of this place. So it would be better to choose, instead of wanting to get something. Wanting creates immediately the polarity and drives out of this inner peace. But finding that starting point in me was really nothing but easy. What's good about it, is that now it is just eternal way to develop further from that point, it's not getting lost anymore. But of course, if I would choose to start fighting with the soul again and change the lifestyle to something abnormal, I would loose the connection with my center point. So it is about the choices that we make, the how we feel about ourselves and how we treat everything else around us. When thinking of it all as something "apart of us", it instantly flows us out to polarity again.
Lately I've been practicing on filling this "nothing point" with the feeling and creating through it. Well, everything we see is also filled with empty spaces, when see the atoms, and to go further to that smaller, it still has spaces and it's endlessness in it too. Also to the greater, we can see ourselves as a part of the whole cosmical system and go with it how far we choose it. So, me personally I use these two directions when meditating - to the smaller and to the bigger and both are really endless. Then it can be imagined all of the different center points, where-ever they are, then it becomes like the crystal structure or something. Still, the most important for me is to create the love and harmony through the meditation, it is not like trying to get something through it. But I still do get the most, when I do it.
As I see, you reach your zero-point very well, maybe you would like to give some advices to discussion that I've been posted before, ( if you like, of course, this is Emptiness & Forming Thought Posted by Silja Saareoks on February 5, 2009 at 12:31pm). Sometimes it seams that it is really easy to get the feeling, but explaining it is nothing but easy... I'm truly grateful for that you share your deep experiences. Love you!

[desmond green]

Yes Candice,
In that "NOTHING" lies the Potentials of everything else.That "NOTHING " or our "BREATH" is one and the same and it is what we wrap our consciousness around, as we breathe consciously and deeply.Truly as we surrender to it and embrace it as our complete selves our search for meaning in our lives is fulfilled.
As we practice breathing consciously and deeply we will discover that the vastness of our "BREATH" and the limitlesness of our "NOTHINGNESS" is our invitation to develop the skill of trust in ourselves. This skill of trust is our key to all that we are seeking. It enables us to accept and rely upon our "BREATH" as our reality and to find absolute security in the bossom of our "NOTHINGNESS"or our "BREATH".
love and peace as we all celebrate our "NOTHINGNESS"or "BREATH" one conscious deep breath at a time.
Desmond