Have you ever felt that sense of being part of something much vaster than yourself?
… listening to your favourite music, feeling swept up to another realm of harmony, beauty and perfection …
… witnessing giant ocean waves crash over rocks, feeling this stupendous power surge through you …
… gazing into the night sky, feeling at once the inconceivable distance and intimate closeness of each star to your own heartbeat …
… running through the forest, feeling you could run forever effortlessly, your feet turned to wings soaring with the wind and the pure joy of birdsong …
… drinking in the sunset from a mountaintop, feeling profound peace as sky farewells the day and earth surrenders into the arms of night …
… observing something tiny – caterpillar on leaf, dewdrop adorning a blade of grass – feeling the entire universe held lightly in this moment …
Stop reading for two minutes. Close your eyes and re-live one such moment in your life. Recreate every detail in your mind’s eye, open every sense and breathe in that fullness of feeling. Surrender, become the moment. Find one word that expresses your feeling in this moment.
After these two minutes, chances are you will feel lighter, brighter, uplifted, clearer, happier and more complete than before. If not, try again more sincerely…
Now go back to your “magic moment” for another minute. Re-live it once more, its thrill and fullness. This time, ask yourself one question: not – what am I feeling in this moment, but – what am I thinking?
Stumped for an answer?
Most people respond: “Nothing!”
This is meditation: a moment of pure feeling, a glimpse of pure being enabled by a brief pause in our mind’s activity. These are life’s most precious moments, and pure meditation.
Everything grows from within. As a flower blossoms from the bud and the tree grows from a seed, so all our perceptions, thoughts, feelings and actions flow from our inner awareness.
Meditation dives into our inner awareness, the root of our consciousness. It can therefore benefit everything that is determined by our inner awareness – which is virtually every aspect and activity of our outer life.
It is said that “We are what we eat,” which is absolutely true on a physical, energetic level. Yet how much truer to say that we are what we think; what we feel; what we long for. Just as our commitment to good health demands we take control of our diet, so – if we are to be happy and fulfilled – is it essential to take control of what we think, feel and long for.
Yet how to do this?
The surest way is to go to the root: beyond the source of our thoughts, feelings and longings. This is practically the definition of meditation.
The root sustains the tree. Meditation re-connects us with our roots, and thus nourishes our inner – and hence our outer – awareness. Regular practice of meditation can thereby affect, influence, sharpen, enhance, intensify and expand our perceptions, thoughts, feelings and responses. It can change us at the level of our very being, and every dimension that flows from there.
Want to sleep better? Swim better? Play the harp better? Meditate …
Want to control thoughts, desires, feelings, responses? Meditate …
Want to understand yourself and your role in life, the world, the cosmos? Meditate …
Want to be happy, not by having, but by simply Being? Meditate …
How can meditation expedite all these goals and much more? The same way one Sun nourishes all living things …
