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Meditation is an entirely simple practice. But it affects us profoundly. Don’t think your life will be all plain sailing. It won’t be. Over the years you will find yourself becoming more sensitive. Trying to balance your spiritual life and the requirements of this world will get tougher before it gets easier.
Increased sensitivity
Years of meditation gradually increase compassion. We become more sensitive to cruelty, violence, anger, hatred and other aspects of life that are not love. Things that used to wash off us like water off a duck’s back, now move us deeply.
The sight of a beggar that once irritated, now leaves us in tears and wracked with sadness.
Increased sensitivity is a tough personal growth journey. It opens up personal vulnerability. That can also include opening to your own hurts – to some of the wounds from the past you have covered up. I have known people that weep in meditation. Some need to slow down their meditation progress.
Meditation is about love and so any emotions that are unbearable and lead to sustained dark sadness should be addressed. There’s a difference between tears of compassion and depressed sadness. Careful discernment may be required.
Tears of compassion lead to healing. They lead to a certain loving energy that sees joy beyond the pain and suffering. The dark night of the soul is followed by love, hope and faith.
Depressed sadness is sustained darkness. It is accompanied by destructive feelings toward self and/or others. If you feel at risk of these effects, you should seek a loving psychotherapist who has experience with spiritual development that can help you work through your feelings.
Seeking balance
Perhaps the biggest challenge for those who delve into their spiritual selves is finding balance with the demands of the physical, material world.
We humans are unique creatures, perched between the spiritual and the animal. We have all sorts of yearnings and ambitions pulling us both ways. Sometimes it feels like we’re on a medieval torture rack.
Many can’t take this torture. So they release themselves from one aspect or the other – they opt out of the spiritual life or they drop their every-day physical world responsibilities.
But balancing the two aspects leads to growth. The stretching is terrible uncomfortable and at times we may scream to be let off the rack. But we get stronger and wiser on it. We learn to balance spiritual yearnings and physical desires and responsibilities.
It is in that position of balance that we can celebrate our loving natures fully. The eternal dimension of love in the spiritual self can manifest in the world and send waves of the deepest joy through the chemical-physical nature of our beings.
Balance is difficult and it takes time. We never fully balance. We have relapses. But through embracing the struggle of the human condition – the unique pulls of spiritual and physical – we learn the gift of our nature. We learn the beauty of love emanating from deep and refracting through the prism of life.
Practical advice
Certain simple rules help us on the journey with meditation:
Don’t get carried away
Don’t allow yourself to get carried away with any effects of meditation. Stay aware but let go. If you feel emotions welling up, don’t be engrossed in them. Take note and then let them pass. When you feel sensitive and compassion rises up, acknowledge it and let it go. Return to your simple intention to be distant from those thoughts and actions that tend to grab hold of you no matter how gratifying or ugly they may be.
Routine
Meditate on a routine daily schedule. I recommend two sessions per day of about twenty five minutes each. The best time is first thing in the morning plus one other time that suits your daily schedule. Routine keeps you in the world – it places you in time. Like any other practice, such as gym or lunch time, meditation is a daily commitment to be scheduled within a finite time. Time management gives life balance.
Don’t change anything
Don’t change anything in your life too quickly. Sometimes the consolation of the spiritual life is so profound, people want to leave their jobs, quit perceived bad relationships, leave their home or country, or sell their things and move to the mountains in sack cloth. Don’t! The spiritual journey is a life-long one. Whatever changes are authentically required for you to make progress will beckon you for years. You will discern how to address those after years.
Let yourself change first
Meditate more and do less. The injustices of the world will shout out so loudly that you may find it unbearable. But again, take time. We are not on a quick-fix path. We are on a slow, gentle path that fills the years of a life – and beyond. Don’t feel anxious to solve the world’s problems. Rather, slowly focus on your internal life. Rest in the silent healing at your centre. That is where you will get deeper wisdom that will guide you to act appropriately in response to the world.
Be patient
You are a human, suffering the human condition. No matter what you may hear from the gurus and the self-help, positive psychologists, life is not easy. Balance is an ongoing act. Enlightenment is not a box of chocolates. It is never complete. The truth is we grow with waves of ups and downs along the way. And even if we stick it out for all the years of our lives, we will still not have arrived. Perhaps arrival is reserved for after our years on this Earth.
It is in the imperfect journey that we experience the effects of love in our lives. Meditation is not an end in itself. It is a practice that helps us experience the end – and that end is the experience of oneness, of eternal, selfless and unconditional love in the millions of interactions that make up life.
Meditation is a simple practice with profound effects. Do it and leave the rest to love… slowly, gently.
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