I got inspired to write something after reading a passage from someone complaining that in the 40 years of their meditation practice they hadn’t experienced so much as a peak experience, let alone lasting peace or enlightenment. It made me laugh, really in sadness mixed with amazement because for a long time they have completely missed the point of their practice. They haven’t been meditating. Essentially they’ve been going through the motions because they lost the first principle of meditation: Be innocent in this moment. In doing so, they missed the lasting peace and the enlightenment. See, the searching, the looking, the expecting – all of it hides peace from you. Any kind of searching, wanting or trying puts a big cover over God, even when the searching is noble, even when the trying is for a spiritual result. These things and freedom are mutually exclusive; they cannot exist together. Rather innocence, presence, and contentment are the signposts of God.
All true spiritual practice is the practice of letting go all the habits that take us away from our Self. As we do that in awareness, we are in the presence of Truth. It is the being aware of deep awareness exactly as it is, right now. The peace, the freedom, the joy - all the rewards of meditation come from stopping and getting off the mind train that only knows the future and the past and judgement and comparison. The beauty of a spiritual practice comes from the ever expanding realisation that you can afford to stop, you can let go of everything you have been chasing. You find that there is nothing else right now, no one to impress, no such thing as fame or fortune, no reputation or image or possession or future to secure, no past to defend, no argument to win, nothing but stillness to rest in. The relief is amazing. It’s just like I used to feel in the school holidays, I’d wake up in the morning and feel this contraction: “Oh no- I have to go to school” followed quickly by this release and joy as I realised I didn’t have to go anywhere, that there was nothing to be done right now.
By the way, this resting and contentment and allowing has nothing to do with holidays – it is completely internal. It has nothing to do with the circumstances of life. You still have things to do, decisions to make, responsibilities, commitments, you still have to wake up on a Monday morning and go to work, if that’s what you choose to do. But you are living life from a completely different place, one of joy, lightness and clarity. Those of you who practice everyday know what I’m talking about. The day is the same, except you are not. In this experience of internal rest you are active in that you feel inspired to do things, you have desires and you carry out your plans, but in this state of true non-attachment you simply are not concerned by the ups and downs or as to the outcome, because you are so present.
This moment is full of potential. Being completely full of presence is not abandoning hope and your dreams, it does not mean that you stop living, that you stop caring, that you stop feeling. It is being completely real, completely authentic to yourself without the madness that has taken over most of the world. It is stopping being what you think you should be, what you think is appropriate, it is stopping guessing what the other person wants to hear and instead it is accepting You, exactly as you are right now, saying and doing and being You. In this way the potential of you is limitless, released from the very box you put yourself in.
So if peace or happiness or freedom from limitation is important to you then rest in this moment. Pretend that this moment is the only moment there is. Allow yourself this moment, be attentive to your own presence and attend only to the needs of this moment. When you use your meditation techniques, be aware and be content, allow the experience to unfold as it will. Practice meditation not to get anything, but to lose your fixation on judgement, on the past and the future, on the shoulds. The experience you are having is the only one possible to you right now. You don’t have to lose yourself in it the experience, but you don’t have to deny it either. Instead go beyond it. Go beyond the chaos of the pushing and pulling and rest in the Self, free of expectation, free of neediness, free of loss, free of heartache, free to be whoever you are right now.
