Most people embark on the journey of meditation because they feel unhappy and unfulfilled. They feel something is missing – and hope that the practise of meditation will bring forth the clarity, happiness, confidence and satisfaction that has been absent.
Meditation initiates a process of transformation from within. Transformation requires change. We all want transformation, yet most do not welcome change, for change involves giving up old ways and habits which we are attached to – such as depression, doubt, fear, frustration, negative thinking and self-indulgence.
From time to time, when we face hurdles in our meditation practise and spiritual life, we may feel it is all too difficult and even yearn to return to our “old” life, before we embarked on our spiritual journey. We conveniently forget all the problems we faced in those days, the mental and emotional turmoil we endured.
How can we muster the courage and determination to continue our spiritual journey, and resist this temptation to return to our old familiar, desire-bound life?
If ever you find yourself regretting your spiritual choices, try this exercise:
Whatever it is that you miss from your old life – consciously picture yourself in that activity or frame of mind, or having or doing what you are missing … and then, in your imagination, picture your life in fast forward – not as you wish it would be, but as you know it most probably will turn out. Watch where each thread, each action, each choice, each possession, each involvement, each attachment takes you, all the way to the end of your life. Play it like a movie: you are the observer.
This movie inevitably ends in failure and misery. To envisage and then script a far better ending, continue meditating with ever-new eagerness, determination, love, joy and gratitude.