“Always look on the bright side of life.”
– Monty Python
In meditation, as we focus on peace, light and bliss, so are we gradually immersed and merge with these very qualities. Diving into this inner reality, the turmoil of our surface lives – our stress, confusion and dissatisfaction – recede into oblivion. Darkness is dispelled in Light, falsehood expunged in Truth, restlessness expires in Peace, unhappiness yields to Bliss.
If we always face the West, we will never see the East, and may imagine the East not to exist. Yet to discover the East, we have only to turn our heads and look. The peace, light and bliss we feel in meditation is always here within us; yet we are not usually experiencing these divine realities because we absorb our consciousness instead in doubts, fears, criticisms and day-to-day challenges.
The dark side of the moon is not inherently ‘dark’ – it is only in darkness because it is not facing the Sun. So are our lives only enmeshed in problems because we are lured into the ego game, charmed by complexity, fascinated by fantasy and enamoured of dissatisfaction. We starve ourselves and complain of being hungry; we dive headfirst into a hole and bemoan the darkness.
What is the point of striving for liberation in meditation, if we spend our non-meditating hours dancing with ignorance, nurturing those very ‘problems’ we hope meditation will resolve?
As an untended garden is overrun by weeds, so meditators and spiritual seekers must carefully tend and protect our consciousness at every moment.
For the peace, light and bliss of meditation to grow and blossom in our lives, it is essential always – always to shun the ugly, the negative, limiting and false; and always – always to look on the bright side, the joyful, uplifting and True.