Do you bristle, freak out, suddenly need to clean your house when someone suggests that you meditate?
There is a lot of confusion about Meditation. I find that our definition of and our feelings about meditation determine whether or not we do it. And, the majority of reactions to the suggestion that we meditate fall into three categories: judgement, discouragement, and helplessness. The judgement: I have a life. I don't have time to sit in meditation for hours, communing with the cosmos, but neglecting to open my mail. Discouragement: I see the value, but it just never works for me. I've tried, but I can't meditate like others can, something is wrong with me. Helplessness: I'd do it, but I don't know how. I've listened to all sorts of people and it just never clicks for me.
These responses are born out of confusion about the plan for and the purpose of Meditation.
Meditation is not something you learn, it's something you are at your core. It's in you like hunger and thirst and breathing. No one found it, created it or can teach it. No one can guide it either. Sure, someone can record a reassuring, relaxing message for you to listen to and call it a meditation, but that's like someone drawing you a picture of a meal and calling it eating...
Meditation is your communication system with your Inner-Being.
It's the simple act of listening to the Non-Physical part of yourself. And, the reason you need to sit, stop talking and have quiet around you, is so that you can Be Still and Hear your Inner-Being.
The point of meditating is not to become a good meditator. The point of meditation is to have a relationship with the larger part of yourself.
The assignment I give a woman in the beginning of our work together, is to sit for fifteen minutes each day and focus on her breath, or some constant background sound she can count on - like a fan. I do this because I want to invite the messages of her Non-Physical Being into our work. There is more resistance to this exercise than any other I give. And, I have come to believe that's because, for women, there is strong resistance to personal power.
Women are afraid to become powerful actors in their lives.
When you start listening to your Inner-Being, you begin to KNOW rather than doubt. You begin to act rather than suffer. You begin to trust rather than fear. You become decisive, fierce, secure and self-loving.
When you and your Inner-Being are in ongoing communication, you know who you are.
"Know Thyself" was carved into the stone at Apollo's Temple in Ancient Greece. And, that is the purpose of mediation... To know Your Self. This message has been handed down for Millennia - from every culture on the Earth. And, it has been a message obscured by those who wish to conquer and control. It is the edict that instills Personal Power - the power to transform and manifest within your life.
This, therefore, is the definition of Mediation, a conversation between you and You, and in fifteen minutes each day, you fulfill your destiny, becoming the powerful being for which you were created - joining The Universe as it conspires benevolently on your behalf!
All Is Well.