Silence is Golden: Meditation 101

Peace, joy and health can only be obtained by entering into one’s Silent self.   However, while trying to get to a state of Silence, we often we have to face issues that are unresolved, problems we are struggling with and feelings we do not want to feel.

This stops many a person from meditating, being in Silence or lying in shavasana ( corpse pose)  on a yoga mat.  The key here is to stay with the Silence while releasing all connection you have with the issues entering and swirling around your mind. One way to think of this is to allow the ideas,  thoughts and issues that show up to pass across your “mind screen” and out of your focus.  A mantra, a point of vision like a candle or attention to breath can help to bring our focus back to Silence.  A mantra might be,” I am One with All That Is”, or “I am God’s  Beloved Child”. With enough detachment from our mind’s issues, thoughts, problems, and people, one can move past the monkey mind to a place of no thought while in stillness.  This however does not come quickly to some.

When I first began to try to meditate sitting up,  I would sit with my back next to an old black walnut tree.

One day when I was wrapped in a sarape, covered with a hat and gloves and determined to “have my own time”, I thought, is this really what I am doing?  By then, the snow was coming down rather steadily but that tree and I had bonded so I sat until I was completely snow covered.  I felt a certain peace in doing that because, I so desperately needed time for Silence, even if it was snowing.  When I could get to that tree, I felt welcomed because of having put all else aside to go into Silence.  I did not really know what I was doing but I knew I had to show up and be still and let the Silence guide me into greater Peace.  Bit by bit, step by step I was led into the Silence until that state increasingly stayed with me through the day, through my work, through my creating and through my pain.

Here is what I have learned along the way.  We can’t be in stillness and Silence if we don’t show up.  The first step in meditating is to show up with the intention for Silence and stillness. Another step is to select a place dedicated to enter into Silence.  It may be in a corner of a room or it may be a favorite chair or a special tree or garden.  The place has to be a haven for the time you intend to meditate.  The major challenge though is to continue to come to Silence,  even when your last experience was of the mind churning with thoughts.

One can think of this process as training the mind, like one would train a dog to obey.  For most non-meditators, the mind runs willy-nilly all over the place, most of the time. As you begin to sit in the quiet, with the intention to connect to the Greater Whole, the Oneness, you have to let the thoughts pass through without picking any of them up and without giving any of them attention. In the beginning this may be all you do for months.  Then one day, you will come out of mediation and realize that you have “lost time” when you were not conscious of sitting in the Silence.  This is the golden feeling of peace and balance.  As we begin to have a glimpse of this, there is nothing in the entire universe that can touch us this way.  We have created the time and space for peace in our lives.

Meditating in a group is easier for most people than meditating alone.  This is because as we gather in a group,  there is more energy focused on meditation making it easier to enter into that energy flow.  However, you can simulate this by setting the intention to meditate with those of the Highest Light around the globe who are meditating at the same time you are.  You will be connected energetically with those meditators and it is often easier to get into the flow than trying to meditate alone.

In our lives we get very attached to what is going on with our friends, family, job and affairs. We have opinions, ideas, concerns, conflicts, solutions running around in our heads constantly.  Meditation is a time to check out of the dailyness of our lives and seek Peace for a few moments while remaining conscious of being awake.  It is like taking an energy nap to renew yourself.  However, unlike sleep, meditation trains the mind to be still in the midst of chaos,  and this expands into the very fabric of our lives. Over time, as we begin to be able to detach from our mind’s daily drama while in meditation, we increasingly do detach from the drama  in our daily lives as well. When our mind gets used through Silence and stillness to our letting thoughts and feelings pass us by, we learn to increasingly remain non-attached to all outcomes in our lives as well.  This enables us to increasingly hold the space for the Highest Benevolent Outcome for everything we are involved in all areas of our lives.

In Ray’s efforts to learn to meditate he kept coming up against his feelings about work which were not positive. This would throw him out of a peaceful state, again and again. He became very frustrated with his efforts to meditate. When this happens, we are being led to attend to the negative feelings that are coming up.  It is not that we are “failing”  in our efforts to meditate, it is that we need to attend to these negative feelings.   Here are some ways to do this:

• 1. Out loud, say “I release all these negative thoughts and feelings I am carrying about work, totally and completely”.
• 2. In a journal, write out all the negative thoughts and feelings you have about work and the costs and benefits to you of holding onto these.  Decide which thoughts and feelings you are going to keep, which ones you are going to let go of and what further actions you are going to take.
• 3. While you are coming out of your state of Silence and stillness, call forth you sacred inner flame and command it out loud to consume all your blocked emotional, mental, thermal( self-protective) and spiritual energy from their originating sources which are manifesting as these thoughts and feeling about work in the present.  All that can leave you energy field today will go.

There is nothing in the world like Silence for healing and for guiding us to balance.  Our thoughts and feelings create the imbalances and the balances in our lives. The more we are in Silence and stillness, and attend to the imbalances surfacing there, the more balance we will manifest in our lives.  Silence trumps everything we think we are for a glimpse of the peace and stillness within, which is who we truly are.