Thoughts on Meditation

Thoughts on Meditation


One becomes a meditator for certain reasons, enlightenment or nirvana…perhaps to

understand the mind…but to meditate predisposes the want of a result. Quickly the teacher or

the text will suggest giving up all goals, like the Christian dictate to renounce all wealth, this is

an inherent contradiction writhe with hypocrisy. One starts to meditate to find truth or

knowledge. To become greater in power or harmony. To unlock hidden forces inherent in the

physiognomy or soul. Perhaps after long study, sitting with the breath, focusing on this or that,

one finds sensations that are pleasant. But to try and repeat or find again these sensations is

the same contradiction, a spiritual hypocrisy for a reward in the future. Actively giving up the

rewards of meditation is to cease meditating, to renounce the future goals is to discontinue

practice. This canondrom becomes pronounced along the path while searching books and

teachings, and meditation. It can only lead to an end of the spiritual journey where the

culmination of meditation ultimately resides in transcending meditation itself.

One may ask at this point if they have not wasted their days searching for a great nothing. One

may think they have come full circle returning to what they were previously. This is not wrong in

respect to the movement of consciousness, which may not move at all as we think. Believing

consciousness matures or grows, it may be true that the person has not changed fundamentally,

and who knows what would have been if the path was never explored. As we age and go

through phases of interests, maturing with experiences, liking things we do not appreciate in

later life…perhaps the spiritual journey is just that… perhaps without it we would have been

more ambitious or less free. It is also with meditation, if one thinks they are wasting their time it

may be true. Running to sit in meditation, struggling against the other urges of the day, isn't that

a sign of contradiction, a seeking for results?

The mind can be quantified by outward behavior and medicated to conform to the standards of

society. Psychology can label the behaviors and coax standardization. But what of the

meditator? Are they escaping or searching, are they seeking solitude or avoiding relationships?

It may not be as simple as a label. To observe oneself as one observes the outer nature, to find

within oneself a semblance or unity with the greater whole. These may be things one stumbles

upon trying to understand even the reason to start meditating, and it may indeed be a relaxed

harmony that culminates from sitting in that very nature, absorbed by it, and a child of it. There

may just be a false divide between relaxation and meditation that convolutes terms and actions,

where one may come in later years to a point that values a lack of restlessness and seeking.

One may believe that starting meditation and study will result in ultimate enlightenment or

simple progressive positives. Perhaps it is an exploration of spirit and mind. To move beyond

meditation seems another part of the journey. When one matures in age and experience and

moves on to other avenues of life it also seems that transcending meditation or a spiritual path

is natural and beneficial. For one who chooses meditation for whatever reason and has

transcended it, if one’s spiritual path comes to an end, there’s is not time wasted, but perhaps,

even when it seems to have run its course, one may be free of aspects of consciousness that

need no further exploration, standard, or label.


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