Monday, January 31, 2011
One by One
Music has an other-worldly quality to me. This song by Enya is so beautiful - it is like she reaches into my soul and pulls out everything I mean. She can sort out what it means to be Roxy on days when I cannot. Enya is not the only one (and I promise, most are less typically *~spiritual~*). So I thought I would post this song for you all to contemplate with. You can ignore the video...heh.
What does it mean to be Roxy today, while listening to this?
To begin, this class has got me thinking A LOT. A whole lot. What is my inner spirituality? In what do I believe and what does my soul really connect to?
I love meditation. But for some reason, I continue to wake up depressed from it. I cannot blame all of these sentiments on meditation - I recently just attempted to take myself off of anti-depressants (giving up on this for now), recently went through some issues with my boyfriend, and am a Floridian trying to survive her third winter. All of these have taken a toll on me. So maybe I am sad after meditation because I have trouble finding the "pure joy" buried in us all - my sadness creates too large of a blockade.
But when I meditate, I don't feel sad. I feel calm, content, I feel kind of excited, kind of awesome. But then I wake up and feel overwhelmed with sadness. That's not supposed to happen. Do I just feel upset to leave my mind and wake up to the "real world"?
I don't mean to sound down, I am still very optimistic about meditation and look forward to beginning the program tomorrow. I suppose what I am saying...is sometimes meditation does what you don't expect it to. It reveals what you are feeling deep down. It is like a psychoanalyst, but needs no physical speech, or concentrated thoughts. I wish I could *exhale* whatever ill thought is going on in my head away, but I don't think that is right. Sometimes it is okay to keep our problems with us, and work through them in time.
I am curious if anyone relates to what I am saying, definitely feel free to comment. :)
On a completely separate note, I want to discuss the "guru" aspect of meditation. I find practically everything else in the Meditation book relatable, inspiring, or exciting to incorporate. But I am having trouble with the gurus. I even found the section on it to be quite confusing, as though she was hesitant whilst writing it. Is it just me?
Who can explain this better to me?
What is a person who really prefers to not think of a single higher power to do? I know with my beliefs I could focus on "positive energy" or nature; but it sort of bothered me that she did not even suggest how to work with those kinds of things, you know? Also, what are we to do as students very new to spirituality for the teacher-guru aspect? When I really thought about it, the best idea that came to me was Patrick Wolf - he is my favorite musician and has truly influenced my spirituality within the past seven years of my life, even though that was really not his intention...
Basically - I am wondering what you guys do in terms of gurus, and what you thought of the book's explanation? I really want to see meditation as seriously as possible in the next three weeks, and definitely want to try incorporating those aspects!
Thanks for reading, and see you tomorrow :D x Roxy
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Dear Roxy,
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, thank you for rekindling my love of Enya - I have been listening to her for the last half hour.
I was thinking about what you said, about feeling sad when you come out of meditation, having to leave that blissful place behind and come "back to reality."
I want to offer you an alternative view of things that I think may help you. In the Waking Life, there is a scene where a long-haired dude describes why dreams seem so real to us. Apparently there is a part of the brain that decides which internal experiences correspond to "reality." When you are dreaming, the brain experiences your dreams as reality because of that special part says they are. My point is, *reality is arbitrarily defined by the brain*.
It is possible to believe that the inner peace and connectedness you feel in meditation is actually the more real reality, and that the material world you return to is somewhat like a dream. It certainly seems that way to me. While the material world is transient and ever-changing, the Un-nameable Oneness of deep meditation is always reliably the same.
The enigma is, you get to choose which reality is real. You can choose to identify with the detailed, fragmented, unpredictable reality known as "Roxy's Life," or you can identify more with your spiritual Self, which knows no pain.
I guess you can tell I hold this belief - that my material life is a dream, and I am closer to the more essential reality when meditating. This belief has changed my life completely. I can easily tolerate suffering and even depression because I know it's not real.
I wish you all the best, Roxy! You're wide open wondering heart is inspiring. (like Enya)
Hey Roxy,
ReplyDeleteThe song is beautiful! I like it, a lot!
I have never experienced depression myself, and I don't think I've known anyone close to me to have had depression.
I do admire your optimism and your search for inner peace and also your openness in your post.
Here's what I have to offer right now:
I was told that I have a 4-year-old "me" living inside of me, and I need to always remember that and take care of him. When I was meditating tonight, I began to think negative thoughts about myself, like "I'm so inept at concentrating on something...I'm not as smart as the people I'm around...I'm not good enough...I won't be good enough....". But I caught myself, and just reassured myself, over and over again, "It's okay, it's okay, it's okay. Everything's fine. You're okay."
If my two-year-old cousins came to me, complaining that they couldn't walk as well as the other kids, I know I would just give them so much loving and hug them and not be anywhere near as harsh on them as I often am on myself. So what's the difference between them and me? Nothing.
That beautiful, perfect place that we go to when we meditate is not some unreachable, unreal mirage of a place. We are sitting somewhere, maybe a bedroom, library - wherever - and it's some place in the "real world" that you mention. What we are doing is taking a moment to acknowledge our meditation. The meditation is always with us, and every so often, we stop and regard it...kind of like the "there it is, again" moments that Dick talks about.
Reading over your post, I was thinking, "Wow, this is a girl who really FEELS!" You are so in touch with your emotions and really aware. That's great, and I would say that when you feel you are being a bit too harsh on yourself, to remember the 4-year-old Roxy inside of you and to take good care of her - tell her how much you love her and how beautiful she is, how grateful you are to have her. And also, remember that you have your meditation wherever you go.
Roxy -
ReplyDeleteI was affected by the sweetness and by the honesty of your words.
My teacher, Baba Muktananda, used to tell the story about the man who came to a teacher and said, "I don't believe in God. So how can I worship anything?" And the teacher asked, "Well, what do you spend most of your time thinking about?" and the man said, "I think a lot about my goat." And the teacher said, "Fine. Worship your goat."
And another story:
A well educated Indian gentleman told Gandhi that he couldn't him because he didn't believe this business about God is Love, as Gandhi obviously did, because he didn't believe in God in the first place. So Gandhi asked him, 'Well, do you believe in love?" "Of course," said the man. "So then," Gandhi replied, "for you, love is god."
In the best of times our goat is transparent and reveals that something behind it or within it that has no name and no form, but we still orient to it through the outer form of our goat.
And love is transparent, as it too suggests that it is great and beautiful even as its roots extend far beyond our capacity to follow the trail with our mind.
Enya is glorious, but is that not because of some unknowable inner Enya that is expressed through her singing?
I think the notion of feeling awe and love and gratitude toward anything or anyone is not supposed to suggest any one deity or guru, although such images might work for others, but rather it suggests that inner yearning and recognition that connect us to our own Patrick Wolf or Baba Muktananda or just to pure Love itself. It's the feelings that tip us off to where such objects of reverence and ease might be found. We can feel our way there, it seems to me, easier than we can think our way there. And having a different form come to mind every time we seek to locate this connection seems perfectly fine.