So if you’ve been with me so far, you know I’m a bit scattered. I’m sort of an adventurous type, especially when it comes to getting into things, commitments, the like. So recently, I made a big new commitment to myself: I’m meditating twice a day for 20 minutes.
This decision came a few months back in February when I took Bob Eklund’s meditation class at The Oasis Instutute in Homberg Place in Knoxville. I didn’t think there was anyone in Knoxville doing something as cool as “spiritual meditation,” but I was wrong. The thing about the UU church is, while encouraging ecumenical and cross religious interaction, I felt I was still missing something deeper and more fulfilling in my life: a communion with God. Let’s just say I found it.
Spiritual meditation, Bob explained, is different from non-spiritual meditation. Non-spiritual meditation is more concerned with the mundane: the breath, my body, nothingness, things we could realize as true and deal with now. Spiritual meditation is an attempt to raise the consciousness of the meditater. I was hooked.
I was taught three “rules” of the mind:
- The mind always needs an object
- The mind can only focus on one thing at a time
- Whatever the mind focuses on it becomes
Those three realizations led to only the natural conclusion that I should focus on a good idea, they called it a mantra, and that could raise my consciousness! I was skeptical to say the least, but I was in the class with my wife Cyndi, so we were along for the ride on this thing one way or the other. We were charged with meditating once a day for 10 minutes. No problem, I could do that.
The first week was not that hard, 10 minutes isn’t a long time. However I started to have some pretty amazing things happen to me, from the get go! Early on, I started to feel a strong sense of love and compassion for the world. I’ve always been tuned into loving others, but I was told
Love Is All There Is
I believed Bob, love could very well be the ground of existence in this world, at least for our spiritual bodies. Its hard to argue with such a positive affirmation. I dwelt on the sanskrit translation of the phrase above and started to notice how much I felt comfortable around new people, how much I wanted people around me to be happy and peaceful, and how much they weren’t.
