Surrender the Sacred

All of Life is nothing more than a conversation in your head.

Meditation is a conversation in your head about meditation. Yet, if you wish to make that conversation 'sacred' then by all means, feel free. So now you have your sacred discussions during meditation and your routine everyday self-talk. Can you see the duality? Can you understand the division that you have asserted?

When it comes to God, meditation is as useless as any other head-talk. You may feel more comfortable with the world because you believe you're getting close to God but, make no mistake, the idea that you can do anything to know God is just another conversation in your head. But then, when it comes to spirituality, ignorance is bliss.

But how else can we fill the time, if not by making certain times (meditation) sacred?

For me the goal is simply to sit still and reduce stress, not to attain any presence of God, but to negotiate the world with less stress. So when you meditate, focus on a conversation that will aid in reducing stress. In any case, conversate you will and there's no getting out of your head-talk.

Herbert Benson put out a neat little paperback called "The Relaxation Response" which addressed the benefits of meditative stillness in managing physical and emotional stress. His treatise was unconcerned with finding 'truth,' but more concerned with reducing fear as symptomatized and manifest through internal stressors such as anxiety, anger, and depression.

Yet, once we incorporate this stress reduction into some austere path to realization, enlightenment, awakening or whatever, I believe delusion sets in and this delusion becomes a part of our narrative, or self-talk, and may in fact impede the benefits of meditation for more effectively negotiating the world. Because now we are negotiating the world as a 'seeker of god.' (and those folks can really be a pain in the ass sometimes, if you know what I mean).

The very idea that 'you' can engage in some practice or DO some 'thing' in order to know God is absurd to me. But it certainly is a major part of many popular "spiritual" narratives and thus a big part of the self-concept for many 'seekers.' Then, of course, once you become a "meditator" seeking to be "awakened" you then must quit your day job, join a monastery, become a vegan, and wear long flowing bathrobes.

No Thanks!

If one wishes to add spiritual meditation to the regimen of things-to-do, that's fine since it is helpful in negotiating reality with less stress. Other than that it is simply another story or myth that we live by, and will eventually die with. Yet, I do recognize that for many, to sit still for long periods of time is highly unproductive. Therefore, adding a 'seeking god' outcome to the storyline may be helpful in adhering to a goal of meditation.

Just hope you don't get stuck in your sacredness, that's all.

When God wants to make your acquaintance, God will do so on God's schedule (which probably does NOT include 'time') and there's not a thing you could ever do to initiate that meeting. To think that you have some say in that meeting or 'realization' is the height of arrogance (I'm sure we have all run across an arrogant 'seeker' at one time or another. Hell, Christianity is full of 'em! Not to mention the Buddhist 'holier than thou' folks).

The meeting is certain, but the time will not be on your schedule. Sorry.

What you will subjectively verify in your meditation is an experience. I've had plenty of 'em and will have probably many more. However, try to avoid making an interpretation of the experience and just let it go. The moment you consider yourself "awakened" I would suggest substituting that label for "ignoramus" which would be more accurate and applicable.

The problem is that when you impress a goal of "realizing God" into your consciousness, that very goal impedes the knowing because all goals require a means of attainment. The means of attainment you subscribe to will bend and twist consciousness in a way for which you will believe the goal can be attained. This makes consciousness unavailable to Truth, except through the means you have determined.

HA! Like you know what you're doing!

One can label experiences as "awakening" if one chooses and many have. But I can just as easily label the experience of my morning bowel movement "awakening" as well. But that would be silly because everyone knows that a BM is not an experience of "god." Right?

If you want to become "awakened" then you have got to break from the "awakening" rules set by "ancient masters" who had great marketing teams that were able to generate an audience for the "awakened masters" wise platitudes.

Awakening requires you create you own rules in order to surprise yourself!