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The Tendrils Of Consciousness

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The Tendrils Of Consciousness

Photo Attributed to Theinix

Sometimes I remember a specific event from my childhood or my university days and it seems like a dream. Did it really happen? If it did happen, where is it now? The only way this event exists is in my dreams. It exists in my mind and my heart. Maybe it exists in my soul if it had a big enough impact on me. But besides that, it is nowhere. It is as if it didn’t happen. If no one else was involved in it, it might as well have been unreal. A mirage, coated with real people and real places, but filled with shiny nothingness. When you touch it, it disappears. You try to run after it, but it runs faster. You stop and it lures you in. It beckons to you, wanting you to be consumed by figuring out what is really going on.

A lot of meditation sessions are like that. They are mirages. I do not know if what is going on is real or not. Am I really feeling that bright light above my head, white and piercing, or is it an illusion? Sometimes I wake up out of my meditation and see that the sun has risen and the bright light that I felt was the sun’s buttery-yellow rays shining directly in my face. Sometimes I come out of it, and see darkness. It is still early morning, darkness prevails, as the lights outside and inside are all dimmed. Then, I wonder did I really see that bright light? What does it mean? Is it a good or bad thing? Should I even be labelling it?

I have no buddhist guru to fall back upon, only the myriad posts on the internet about meditation. No one really speaks about the innard of it, how you might feel on the inside when you do it, but only about the details on how to do it, how to sit, what to listen to, how to end it. I feel the tendrils of consciousness, the singular entity, the consciousness that governs us all, coming upon me sometimes. Everything seems so clear in my mind. It’s so clear that it is almost scary at times. That is when I falter and fall back. I’m not ready for this yet. I’m not old enough or mature enough or smart enough or cool enough. Whatever it might be, I fall back. I refuse to see reality. I let the tendrils fall away. I dismiss them with the wave of the head. I do not want to be there. Yet.

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Meditation Music

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I have been meditating regularly for a year now – having missed only a handful of days. My day begins with meditation with some music from the various artists online on YouTube. I sit down on the couch as soon as I am awake, facing the windows, as the sun attempts to rise in the cold. I cover myself with a blanket as it can get cold when you are sitting for a long time without any movement. I close my eyes, hold my hands in a Chin Mudra and sit with my back as straight as possible, but not ramrod straight. As naturally as possible, I sit and try to bring my thoughts back to the music, my breath, and my body whenever it drifts off to my day, the future, or other random fantasies.

I have included my favourites here for you to try out and see if you like them. I use the first four on weekdays as they are about 30 minutes long. The last one of the five, I use on weekends, as it is long, about an hour and ten minutes. Let me know what you think of these.

Fear Of Deep Meditation

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Shadowed Street South America

Photo attributed to Thenix

(You might have noticed, I have changed the name of the site to Boom and Thenix. Nothing’s changed. Just moving into including Thenix from whom a lot of these musings come from). Sometimes when I am meditating, I go deep. Really deep, where I feel my body and my sense of self disappearing, and I feel that I am going to get lost in the dream that I am in. I am in this deep dream, where I see shapes and hear something, and I am really, really afraid. That is the point where I usually step back and leave. I get too afraid to see the dream/meditation through. I feel like I am not ready.

But the reality of the matter is that I am ready. The images and dream wouldn’t have appeared if I wasn’t ready. It is like the master appears when the student is ready. I feel the fear because I am not ready to face myself as I am in my most inner core, but if I let go of the fear, I would be able to trust that I can always come back to reality, back to waking state, surrounded by others.

Meditation is a mental cleanse. It feels like after a good meditation session, my mind is scrubbed free of doubt, anxiety, fear, and jealousy. I feel clean from all the emotions. I can think and see clearly for a little bit longer, until something muddies that clarity. I feel a little bit lighter and happier for a few hours, until something comes in to ruin my meditative state, usually work. Which of course begs the question why am I still at work? At a job that causes me to lose focus and get angry about the presence of it in my life.

The thing with meditation is that you cannot lie to yourself anymore. I try to lie to myself and it backfires, because I know I am lying to myself, so I get angry with myself. Not a productive way to deal with the situation, but still my go-to way with dealing with issues.

Little by little, I am going deeper and deeper into this scary meditation, where everything is clear, and I am facing my monsters. Oh God, is it scary? My heart starts beating harder and I see monsters everywhere. It is like your worst nightmare, but you aren’t sleeping. You are wide awake to receive it, and the problem is that, it will not go away until you face it head-on. You have to face it and get rid of it. Otherwise it will keep on coming up again and again.

Let’s hope the next time I go that deep, I will be able to report back some success.

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Meditation Increases Dissatisfaction

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Photo attributed to Thenix

Photo attributed to Thenix

I am dissatisfied with the current state of affairs. With the current way I live my life. I have certain aspirations, certain ideas in my head, that I wish my life to look like. Right now, those aspirations are in my head, until I can figure out a way to make them a reality. It made me wonder if dissatisfaction is a general state that we can never get away from. Will we as humans knowing all that we do, having all of this knowledge and power, will we always have an issue being and remaining happy?

I read this post, about Progress in Meditation, that exemplified that. The more you meditate, the more clearly you see everything around you. The crystal clear matter around you cannot be hidden behind a shiny exterior anymore. You cannot gloss over items in your life any longer. You start facing your deficiencies, and the deficiencies in your life little by little. You realize that you are dissatisfied by the way your life looks, and you look in the mirror. You cannot wait another moment before you change.

That is a problem for a person like me, who’s fairly impatient. I have improved quite a bit in the past few years, but I still have moments where I just cannot control myself. I am hasty and make impulsive decisions. I see the ugliness in my life, and I want it to go away right now. Like a petulant child, I want everything now. The problem with getting everything now is that you lose appreciation for everything almost as instantly. You do not see the beauty that your life is. You have gotten everything too easily.

In real life, you never get everything instantly. You have to wait hours, days, months to achieve something that you have been working towards. You have to accept that fate, and let it happen as it happens. Trying to hurry things along might actually ruin them in the end.

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Minimalism In Food

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Photo attributed to Thenix

Photo attributed to Thenix

For the past few days, I have noticed a lot of talk about minimalistic food. A lot of minimalism bloggers practice minimalism not only in the stuff they own, in the jobs they do, in the blogs they write, but also the food that they eat. They eat only as much as their bodies need to survive, they eat mindfully and they are fitter for it.

For me, food is one of pleasures of life. One of the most important pleasures in life. I have thought about the fact that even though I love food, at work, busy with the hundred tasks that are assigned to me in the day, I am unable to sit down and enjoy  my lunch with any thought of mindfulness.

I gulp it down to quell the hunger that I feel and I hope that my body will not need sustenance for a while, so I can finish all the work on my plate. I usually have one hand on the fork and one hand on my keyboard. It is actually quite sad the more I think about it. It would be better if I just fasted all day at work, then putting food down my throat in this unmindful manner.

I have been trying really hard in the past few weeks to take my lunch into a different room, sit down and have it at least for ten minutes without any email interruptions or phone calls. Even if I have to schedule it into my schedule at work, I do, and I try most days to take the time to eat. The funny thing is that the culture at most workplaces has now changed. It is actually frowned upon to sit down away from your desk for half an hour and eat your food.

Most people at my work look at me oddly. Why is she sitting there and eating her lunch? She must not have a lot to do. Or maybe it is just the guilt in my head talking. But no matter what it is, I am resolved to take the time to eat my lunch away from the keyboard. I find just that ten minute break resets me back to the calm that I felt after my meditation session in the morning. It helps me get through the rest of the day without tearing my hair off.

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Brain structure and Meditation

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Photo attributed to Thenix

Photo attributed to Thenix

Thenix recommended an article to me by the Dalai Lama the other day – if you haven’t seen his website or this article, check it out here. He speaks here about how thinking can change the brain structure. I think he’s basically speaking about thinking in any way, positive, or negative, forming certain neural pathways, that are your go-to patterns. If you think a certain way, your brain adapts its structure to fit that pattern. The part that I was interested in, was the study done on meditators. And how their brain structure changes due to meditation.

Not only does their brain structure change due to meditation, but the change stays for a long time after you stop meditating, and in between meditations as well. If you didn’t need any more incentive to start meditating yet, here you have it. Why would you want to change brain structure? As plastic and malleable our bodies are, I’ve always considered our brains to be very set in its way. We can add neural pathways by learning and doing something different, but I didn’t think the actual structure of the brain changed at all. It just added on more and more connections between the brain cells that are already present.

If we consider ourselves to be the most intelligent creatures on this planet and attribute it to the brain that we currently hold, any kind of manipulation or changes that we can make to this structure, especially any kind of improvements, should be welcome in general, I would think. The science in this area is still very new and there’s still a lot of learning to be had in it. But we do not need science to tell us that meditation and yoga does help in a hundred different ways to make us better human beings, to learn more about ourselves and our planet, and to change ourselves and our destinies.

Do you meditate? What kind of meditation do you choose?

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Forgiving Myself

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Photo attributed to Thenix

Photo attributed to Thenix

In conversations with myself, and over some meditation sessions over the past few weeks, I have come to the conclusion that the reason I feel unforgiven by my past and my family, is because I cannot forgive myself. I haven’t forgiven myself and therefore, I feel the showers of shame and condemnation from everyone around me.

I cannot forgive myself for all the horrible ‘sins’ that I have committed in the past, some more heinous than others. But because of those emotions that linger, I am having a hard time moving forward. Moving past the past. It sits there in my head, telling me that I’m not good enough. The past literally haunts my every move. I do something similar to the past, and I have already condemned it with the settings from the past. I cannot do something similar to the past, without expecting the same results.

I have a hard time forgiving myself, because I feel I do not deserve to be forgiven. Why would I deserve that? What have I done to deserve that? It doesn’t matter that I have been living to the best of my abilities, to the best of my happiness, for the past few years. It doesn’t matter that I have been trying to live a good life, with good people, and surround myself with goodness, in order to bring more of it into my life. It doesn’t matter that I have been giving and receiving for the past year, with meditations and yoga, volunteer work and learning.

All of it, nothing of it, matters. Whenever I do have a few moments, I tell myself that I forgive myself. It is a process. It will take a while, but I have to begin treating myself properly in my head. I have to stop berating myself for the past, move on and look at the present moment. How am I living right now? Why am I letting the past taint the present? What good would that do?

Forgiveness for myself doesn’t come easy. I wish to do it, and then I remember I do not deserve it. The main tenet of 2013 for me, will be forgiveness for myself. I deserve it and I have to realize it. Slowly, but surely.

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Vision for the new year

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High Park in the FallI have been thinking for the past month about the year coming up, and wanting to have a solid vision for what I would like to accomplish in this new year. A new year feels like a new start to me, a new beginning, a clean slate. You can start over, and not feel like you are doing a foolish thing. Everyone seems to have a new beginning in the new year.

But I do not want to begin anew without a clear vision about it. I want to have an idea where I wish to be at the end of the year. When I’m sitting down somewhere on December 17th, 2013, I wish to know that I accomplished something with the year past. There are certain parts of my life that will be a certainty no matter what I do or where I go, like yoga, meditation, blogging, writing in general.

There are other parts that are uncertain, but I want more of, like ideas for financial independence, Travel, lots and lots of it, more connections with people who are living a different life, who believe they can make a difference, making a difference ourselves, through volunteer or donation. I don’t know if any one of you are sitting down like me, thinking over what you are going to be doing over the next year, planning it out on paper, tablet or any other device. Or maybe you are going to be keeping it all in your head, like I used to do, until the burden of carrying it around in my head became too much to bear. Whatever you are doing with your vision, I wish to share at least part of uncrystallized vision with you amazing people.

As most of you who’ve been reading my posts know, I am going to be Debt Free by April 2013. That is one of my goals that is set in stone. Nothing will disturb its path. Another is going travelling next year. That is another one set in stone. I wish to do yoga 3 times a week consistently, go to the yoga conference and grow in my yoga and meditation practice. I wish to meld my relationship with my parents. I wish to concrete my relationship with Thenix.

The part of this that I feel is missing is the part about service to others. I realize that’s something that people are going to berate me about. I think of it this way. You cannot help others, until you can help yourself. Until, I establish myself body, mind and soul into the kind of life that I would like to have, I cannot imagine I can help others in any major possible way. I do the things I can by volunteering here and there and giving cash whenever I can, but it isn’t what I can really do when I am settled and ready to go at it.

Let me know your ideas about the Vision for 2013.

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How Do You Fill The Empty Space?

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Photo attributed to flickr user levilo

Photo attributed to flickr user levilo

I was reading Joshua Beckers’ post on ‘The Danger of Neglecting Time Alone’ recently and I came across a comment from one of the individuals that really made me think. Anita said, “My struggle is with checking email when I feel restless. When I get in those spaces, I can feel myself being bound to it. I’m looking forward to finding peace in that place.”

I found that comment really hit home, because I am a very restless Vata. I am anxious, constantly moving, always doing something, unbalanced, tiring myself out to the point of complete exhaustion, before dropping dead asleep. Even Thenix comments on the fact, that I am always doing something, yoga, or reading, or cooking or something, from the minute I wake up to the minute I fall asleep. My mind is constantly occupied with something.

I haven’t provided enough space for myself to even feel that emptiness. I do not know how to sit in silence and do nothing. Sometimes I do get the urge to just take a week off from everything, sit in an empty room, and stare at empty, white walls, without feeling, thoughts, emotions, work, or anything else.

The more suitable solution is solitude and meditation. The goal isn’t to fill the empty spaces, because the reason you have the empty space is so that you can be in that space and figure out the purpose of all of this surrounding you and all of you. The goal isn’t to run away from empty space, by watching drivel TV, or mindless consumerism. The goal isn’t to fear this empty space that is inside of every one of us.

The goal isn’t to be one of those people who live and die with the empty space untouched and unscarred.

The goal is to deep into that space, and stay there, despite the fear, despite the shame, despite the anxiety. Life will only reveal all the secrets to you when you are able to do that for an extended period of time, through meditation. Through concentrating on that deep space inside of you that nothing else in this universe can touch. Concentrate and release. Silent solitude. Ignorance and Bliss.

The days I don’t Blog

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Photo attributed to flickr user mikebaird

Why do I blog? This question has come up again and again in my head. The minute I start thinking that I am doing this bloggin’ thang for my readers, I start feeling the pressure to get more readers, more likes, more subscriptions, more of everything.

That is why I have decided and I have to keep on realizing this again and again, that I am doing this for myself. Myself and myself alone. The readers are lovely and welcome, but the real reason I keep on going, the real reason, I keep on writing, the real reason, I haven’t missed a day of writing in 3 months, is because I need it, like I need water. I feel incomplete without it.

It is not the same feeling as when I miss yoga or meditation, or if I miss food or water. It’s definitely not the same feeling as when I miss Thenix or my siblings, my parents or my friends.

But it is the kind of thing, that festers deep in your subconscious, and after a while, you start noticing the void, as the void starts getting bigger and bigger. And then a day comes, where you cannot avoid it anymore. You have to write, just so you can get that outpouring of words and emotions out of paper, before it threatens to overwhelm and drown you. A lot of blog readers are themselves writers. And I feel that they would appreciate the words above, because they themselves probably have felt the utmost pressure to write, write anything, when they haven’t written a word in a few days.

During this ‘need to write’ time, I usually end up writing at least a 1000-2000 words without very much effort. It is as if the words are just sitting inside of me, waiting to come out, and like a pressure cooker, they just need the release, to be poured out on any surface, a piece of paper, or a computer screen.

Sometimes I wonder if it is just the universe writing out through me, I’m just an instrument, but then, I tell myself to start being practical and think like the others do. But that thought never really disappears.

Creating time through meditation

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Photo attributed to flickr user bergaralphoto

I was meditating in the morning today – sitting in my car, after a nonchalant, easy drive through Toronto, over to my office. I find that the morning time meditation after a morning drive, in my car, is the best time to meditate for me. Unusual, I know, but still, totally worth the weirdness. It helps me in more ways than I can count. When I do not do it, that is when I feel the after-effects, the side-effects of non-compliance.

There is definitely time manipulation when you are meditating. Sometimes you feel like a lot of time has passed by when it hasn’t. Sometimes you feel like very little time has passed when it’s been much more. Mostly though, I feel like the days that I meditate, because of the fact that I am calm from the inside, because I feel like a tree with deep roots going all the way to the core of the earth, unshakeable, and unmoveable.

I’m calm. I’m Zen squared. Because of that feeling of deep calm, everything I do in that day is imbued with that light. I do everything slowly, but with such amazing concentration, that I do not make a mistake. I am able to take on tasks, that I have been procrastinating on, for the past two weeks. I am able to do more in the day, being slow and careful, and calm, then I would be able to, if I had been harried, and multi-tasking and hurrying through every item on my list.

I am not that much of an expert yet, that I can create actual time out of nothing. But the physical manipulation is not important. Time itself being such a ethereal concept, I think it goes really well with meditation, which itself is another ethereal concept, out of this world, out of physical space, in the mind, in the unreal world, in the world where anything seems possible.

I sit in my chair, and I dream of time slowing down, or quickening up, and my alarm clock and time on the radio seems to respond. Maybe I am just imagining things, maybe I am actually seeing it happen, whatever it might be, it is an interesting experiment.

Do you meditate? Do you think time is manipulated with meditation?

Meditating for 8 months now

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Photo attributed to flickr user AlphaTangoBravo

I was thinking about it today and I realized that I have been meditating for 8 months now. I have been meditating for 8 months straight through, without any breaks, 3-5 days a week, 30 minutes each, for eight months.

Wow! I can’t believe it. I am actually a wee bit impressed with myself right now. Of course, this is just the beginning, but just by meditating every day, I feel like I have changed my life, my outlook, and my spirit.

I feel like a changed person and I have a changed life. I have so much more in my life than I did eight months ago. I am in a satisfied relationship that I wasn’t eight months ago, I have made great strides towards melting down my debt, I have gotten really, really fit and am improving my yoga practice all the time, and I have met an amazing group of positive, unique friends.

But it isn’t just the outward changes that I look towards. I am looking inwards, and I do not see cobwebs and dark corners with shadows lurking around in my mind anymore. I see bright light, clean spaces, and I see happiness. In all of its shapes and forms. Sometimes I am ecstatically happy, sometimes I am just content, sometimes I am happy to be alive, sometimes I am cruising.

There are myriad other changes that I am sure I am not even aware of, but are there just the same.

Maybe I should ask the people who are around me about it.

How long has your meditation practice been going on for? How has it affected you?

Why do I blog?

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Photo attributed to flickr user Pearl Photo

I had a few moments of doubt over the weekend, where I noticed that my readership and followers have stabilized and haven’t gone up in the past two weeks. I started wondering about why I blog. Why am I doing this? Why am I putting my thoughts on paper? What is the point of it? If there is no point, why keep on spending hours a week, crafting my hopefully-interesting blog posts?

I thought about it through a yoga class, and then I decided to follow the intention espoused by yoga in general, non-attachment, non-grasping, detachment.

To let go of wanting a specific outcome. To just let go of wanting in general.

I find that a lot of people think of detachment as not caring. Detachment doesn’t mean that you stop caring or you give up with life. In fact, I find those people who are going through day-to-day motions without thought behind it, are the ones who do not care. They are the ones who have given up.

I find that detachment teaches you that you should think about every action that you are undertaking, you try to work as hard as you can in every situation, but once you have done all you can, you should just stop thinking about it. Leave it up to the universe to take care of. It will happen as it is going to happen, worrying about it, or analyzing it, or doing anything related to it, is not going to help.

This expansive way of thinking helps relax you. You are just chilled out. You are letting things happen as they happen.

The universe will take care of things. As long as you do all you can to take care of things on your end.

So now I practice detachment over the blog. I am going to keep on blogging because I like it, because I think I post interesting matter, because its cathartic. And I am going to forget about the future.