messenger pigeon

We’re back!

The past two months, I’ve felt in question as to where I’m going and what I should work on in my spirituality and life longings. Wanting to make progress, I would tell myself that I needed to get back into meditation, to go deeper in meditation to find this new direction that I longed for. Or, some direction at least, where I would really feel called. So, sometimes, when I’d just be in my thoughts, sitting doing nothing, maybe thinking about things with my mind being active, it would occur to me, “OK, work on your meditation! Go do this thing that you’re supposed to be doing.”

And so, I would cut off the thought that I was currently having to try to go into some other place that was the “world of meditation”. Doing this on occasion, and occasionally having a nice meditation, felt like I was somewhat moving towards my goal of getting more time clocked in the meditation world, spending more time deeper in the astral, and getting a more immersive experience in the astral.

But tonight, laying down in half pigeon, drenched in sweat near the end of an invigorating yoga class, after hearing some enlightening and motivational tidbits, thoughts and ideas from our wonderful instructor, I did that jump into the abrupt change in thought pattern to get into a deeper meditation.

It then occurred to me that this was not a relaxation into meditation. This was a forcing oneself to cut off the thought to try to get into another zone, which only exaggerates the tussle between relaxation and mental activity. To truly surrender, as was one of the themes of the class, I needed to allow that thought to simmer, to savor it, enjoy it, and wish it well as it fades away into another realm. Or allow it be as long as it needed to be. But to bring that consciousness, the consciousness that made me aware of my thought pattern that I wanted to subside. To bring that consciousness into the thought pattern, and not to replace it with itself. The self observation can only take place if there’s something to observe.

So, with that realization I enjoyed some appreciation for everything that has happened recently. For this class to bring me an amazing workout and this epiphany that I feel was much needed. And it is much appreciated. And it is a weight off my shoulder from the feeling that I needed to do something about meditation. I really needed meditation to do something to me.

And, a twist in thinking pattern, or the way that we describe the desire to meditate or to fit meditation into our schedule, came to me in class. This is, that instead of thinking we need to make time to meditate, that instead we can allow time to meditate. We let time to meditate. This allows the yin of meditation, the yin of relaxation, to come in the form of yin. And not for us to take the yin of meditation and bring it in the form of yang, or to force it into a schedule that things are organized in in the world of yang. We can allow the yin to come in the form of yin. Or in other words, we can simply stop doing everything else, instead of seeing it as adding another activity.

This conclusion leads me back towards the idea of OKness. That instead of rushing to get where we’re going, and feeling a need to be somewhere else, we can move forward a bit slower yet more consciously. Stopping to look around, we might find a better route or simply be in a better mind state to handle the hurdles that lie ahead.