Meditation

What does that word mean? I am reading a book that has a whole chapter on it and they are suggesting different kinds of meditation and even different places to meditate.

In one chapter they talk about the different brain waves from Beta to Delta with Alpha and Theta in between.

Last week a lady asked me how to meditate. She was afraid that she might fall asleep or not do what the group was doing if she took a class.

Group meditations are usually called guided meditations. I have done this for groups and been part of groups that do this. It is a fun exercise but there is no place like just being me.

All of this sounds like a lot of work. Meditation shouldn’t be work, in fact it is pleasure. To drift off into another place in your mind is a comfort and should be thought of that way. It needn’t be a place to solve problems or to do anything but just BE. Our world is so busy we don’t know how to just BE.

Sudden thought: People think that the mind is confined to the head or the brain of the body but it isn’t. The mind is larger than….I am stuck here because I can’t find something that doesn’t include the mind.

I probably have an unusual situation because I have always found that I can split my attention and still be. An example of that would be while I was in school and I was out of focus relaxing in my seat; the teacher would call on me to answer the question and the answer was there. I do not look like I am paying attention so I remember getting called on often. My eyes are focused in front of something or in back of it but my mind was still recording what was happening all around me.

My son has this ability too. One of his teachers told me that he would be staring out of the window (Most present time schools don’t have windows, maybe for this very reason.) and she would call on him. He would have the right answer so she would ask him what he was thinking about. He would tell her that he was working on the angle of the curve that a wing would need for a certain amount of lift.

We are multi-faceted beings. So do we need a place to meditate? Do we need a set program to meditate? In my case, I find myself lost in other worlds all the time.

Let me tell you about something that I had to learn a long time ago. To function wholly in this world, one must be in present time. So for a person like me who finds herself drifting into other worlds easily, I had to work out a system to keep me here. What I found was a finger snap and the words “present time.”(This might be a reason that I don’t want to have a cell phone or that I can’t wear a watch?)

It is necessary to be in present time. How would you like to be riding in a car when the driver is functioning in a future or past tense or no tense at all? The safety of everyone around me is based on this. I need to be in present time when I am doing things, just for my own safety. Perhaps this is another reason that I find driving a car so much work. I need to continually make sure that I am here!

What do people expect in meditation? In the book that I am reading, they expect answers to present time problems. Meditation isn’t some hidden place with all the answers but a place where the soul can be without the harshness of the world around it.

Meditation is home. It is where we live and we just go to work in the world around us.

When I dip into meditation, it is like going on a vacation. I have no expectations. I am never disappointed. I don’t find anything or anyone. I don’t do anything. I just am the me that lives in this body.

If I am looking for answers to things, I might ask before I drift off into my “other world” or I might check in with other people or write down the problem and put it into the universe for them to solve. Most of the time my solutions are found in dreams and not in meditation sessions.

Where can I meditate? I can take this body for a walk in a woods and meditate while walking. I might come into present time enough to enjoy something that my eyes see but for the most part the sensations that I get are feelings of contentment that resonate through my whole being. Meditation allows my body to realign with itself and the world around me. I can sit on the library lawn and allow feelings to enter this body. I can sit in the back yard and enjoy the colors and feelings of the plants that I have there. I can even just sit in a chair in my living room, relaxing while holding my cat and drift into another world altogether.

This is something that I take for granted and I do wonder if at some point, I will refuse to return to the world around me. As I get older, I see this as a wonderful place to live and might take refuge there. It is my hope that I will be granted a pass to leave the body and return home instead of being a bother to those around me. Bodies are such a bother.

But as long as I have this body, I will continue to come and go at will and enjoy every minute of it.

Meditation is there for all of us to become who we really are. Lose yourself in a different time and place and see if it doesn’t help you to function better in the real world.