Day 85- Why I Meditate

My meditation practice is very important to me now.  I discovered meditation many years ago when I thought I was going nuts and had to find something to calm my mind- besides drugs.  Contemplative prayer caught my attention and that started me on a journey that led to meditation which I found to be quite beneficial.  I recall many years being in church and hearing people say “God told me this or God told me that.”  I wondered why God talked to all these other people and never talked to me. I begged God to talk to me. I talked to Him.  Nothing. Not a word. Not a peep. For decades.  Finally, when I started meditating, I started hearing from God. I remember one day being in a hotel room in Chicago.  I was sitting and meditating and felt this overwhelming sense of peace. Nothing in my circumstances had changed. All the things that were stressing me out were still there, but I had shifted. And I heard the “voice of God” say to me “You can come back here any time you like.”  Weird that I remember that moment even now- what has got to me 15 or more years later.

I got too busy for meditation in recent years though.  I was too busy exercising my body to worry about my mind.  Meditation is like exercising.  You feel great when you’re doing it, but stop for a day or two and it turns into a week, which turns into a month which turns into years. The results are not drastic or immediate and missing a few days won’t cause any noticeable difference.  But over the course of weeks or months, you’re sluggish, you’re fat, your muscle tone is gone.  After Shayna passed, I was meeting with my friend Nico who has reached a level of spirituality that I covet.  Nico is able to communicate with spirits and I wanted to be able to reach Shayna. So, the reason I started my practice up again was that, to be able to reach Shayna.  However, over the last few weeks that is no longer the primary reason.  I remembered that when I meditated I actually could hear from God or from my guides or my Higher Self or whatever you want to call it. When I meditated, I felt calmer.  I was more patient. When I meditated I felt like a better person, more who I was meant to be. And as I’ve been retraining my mind I realize that the person I will be when I shed this skin is there already inside just waiting for me to reach him and meditation is the way to experience him now.

As a Christian I was taught that God is transcendent.  God is out there. God is the Creator. All of that is true, but God is also immanent.  God manifests through His creation, including me. God is the ocean and I am a drop. I have access to God within myself. I don’t have to reach “out there” somewhere. I can just sit and be me and contact my Source. I can get inside and glimpse what I truly am, an eternal Spirit having a human experience.  Reading about this, listening to sermons, that stuff is helpful. But, to truly experience the divine, you have to meditate.  You have to still your mind.  You have to turn off all the distractions and focus.  There are many ways to meditate (too many which tends to trip some people including myself) up.  

So yeah, that’s why I meditate.  I’m making it a daily practice again and I hope not to give it up again.