The YouTube video of Father Bede Griffiths speaking of his surrender in the process of almost dying created a profound state of meditation for me. There's really nothing I can say but watch it! Note: Father Bede Griffiths, Swami Dayananda, was a Benedictine monk who became a sannyasi in India. You can read his inspiring biography here.
Relaxation as the ultimate spiritual state
I used to feel that relaxation was a somewhat insignificant by-product of meditation. Although I desperately needed to learn to relax when I started meditation, I needed to see myself as a seeker of enlightenment rather than the stressed out person that I was. For years I thought of meditation in very "lofty" terms. It wasn't until I was recording our Pure Relaxation CD that it began to dawn on me that to be able to be totally relaxed is the ultimate sign of spiritual maturity. Being able to relax is a reflection of everything that we seek spiritually. Think about what you are seeking on your spiritual path. How would relaxation fit into that picture? When I reflect on what I've longing for over the years, they are all the same as the ability to be totally relaxed. I've wanted to feel a sense of trust. How can you relax without trust? I've wanted to feel peace. If you are at peace, you are relaxed. I wanted spontaneity and freedom -- can these occur without relaxation?
Relaxation happens when there is an absence of tension and holding. It happens in surrender. It happens when we let go. The sense that we have to defend ourselves or be guarded in any way is gone. When we are really relaxed, we are open and intimate with everything. There is no more self and other, there is only one.
Can you remember a time when you were totally relaxed? Would you see that as a spiritual experience?
Discovering ancient meditations in present awareness
My guided meditations arise out of my own meditation practice and exploration. When I sit to record a CD or podcast, I close my eyes and enter a meditative state and see what comes. Currently I'm working on a CD of meditations using the breath. In the process of doing this, some entirely new meditations have come up. As I explore my own inner landscape, new ways of meditating are called forth. I try to assign names to the meditations that capture something of the essence of them. Inevitably, if I Google a meditation name I've come up with, I discover meditations online from various traditions that use similar names and work in similar ways. Often the meditations are based on ancient traditions. It is fascinating to see how in the freshness of my own consciousness the same meditations are born again which arose in minds in the past and became part of long-standing traditions.
This has made me appreciate the saying that "there is nothing new under the sun". We may learn meditation from a tradition or we may discover it within ourselves. The fundamentals of human consciousness and experience don't really change. Things such as clothing, language, technology, and lifestyle may change, but the inner reality doesn't change. Human consciousness, which is where we live our lives, doesn't change. Past and future meet there as the present moment, and the present moment is all there is.
What is meditation? On the play of student and teacher.
I have meditated for most of my life, I've taught meditation, I lead guided meditations and yet I can no longer say what meditation is. Once upon a time I thought I knew a lot about it. I thought I knew the best way to meditate and what the most "worthy" goals for meditating were. I had lots of opinions about meditation, and those opinions were extremely important to me. And now I find myself happily free of all these notions. Meditation means so many different things to different people, and from my point of view, all those meanings are equally valid.
Sometimes people see me as an expert in meditation, and yet here I am unable to answer the simple question "what is meditation?". My understanding of meditation constantly evolves. The idea of myself, or anyone else, being an expert in meditation is quite funny to me. Although it might serve my interests to pose as an expert (after I do make guided meditation CDs for sale), the idea seems absurd.
Each of us have such a unique journey on our spiritual path, and I can hardly pretend to be an expert on anyone else's. Perhaps I seem like an expert to someone who is really happy with the experience they have with my guided meditations. It seems as if it is something about me or my words that brought about their good experience, but in actuality it is simply the unfolding of their own journey that coincided in this most delightful way with the unfolding of mine.
The real expert on your spiritual path is you. You are the one having your experiences, and even if a teacher in some way seems to help you along, it is you who find truth or meaning in the teacher's words or actions. You are an expert on what meditation is for you. The teacher is your mirror.
Of course, we feel gratitude those who help us along the way. That we are ultimately our own authority does not diminish that. I feel tremendous gratitude for all of those teachers who have inspired me on my path. I also feel gratitude to those who thank me for what I have given them. Nothing is more fulfilling than feeling that we have helped another. We are walking this path together and our learning is mutual, and yet in this mysterious play of life we play the roles of teacher and student and the reward is love and gratitude.
What is meditation for you?
Emotional Ease Meditation
My most recent podcast episode is a guided meditation for "emotional ease". Those words may conjure up a vision of euphoria or floating in a comfortable cloud, but that's not what it means. Although you'll hopefully feel more relaxed and at ease after the meditation, it will be a result of being able to actually stay present to your emotions rather than resisting them or becoming mentally involved with them. Emotional ease is about being present to what is happening without struggling with it, and that includes feeling all emotions including those you may not want to feel, such as sadness, grief and anger.
Ease in living is not about life being easy. Life isn't easy! It's about the ability to flow with what happens, the "good" and "bad" events and the "pleasant" and "unpleasant" reactions to those events. While some guided meditations give us some respite from life's storms and a chance to relax by encouraging visualizations of beautiful, relaxing places, my approach is to encourage surrender to whatever is happening right here, right now. While it can be helpful at times to escape, peace in life ultimately comes from being able to remain right in the heart of the storm (whether it is a storm of events or an emotional storm). I hope this latest meditation will help some of you with that!