Grace suffocated and I retaliated by smashing my ego to help free up her passageway during group meditation this morning.

     It freed me; I surrendered to the moment and bowed to a Power I hoped would open her to the rest of us meeting at the Tuesday morning gathering. I failed. She held on to her “control,” choosing the possibly safer route than the mysterious, mystical one that awaited her through calm abiding.

First Meditation in Years Arising Now

     This was Grace’s first meditation in decades, and I should have prepared her more for the silence we weekly seek with our eyes closed and hearts open. We, who meet in stillness and the expectation of . . . Nothing. It is that Void, that depletion of thoughts and desires that we welcome. One cannot “try” to obtain it.

     Nor should one “judge” whether their journey is a success or failure. There’s never any “failing” when one goes within seeking the True Self, the Essence. Even if we meet a roadblock, touch a nerve, or repeat a thought that impedes our pathway. It’s the seeking itself that counts. 

‘Open Up’ and ‘Let Go’

       I thought by symbolically “smashing” my ego, I could help you “let go.”

    To forget the past pain, the uncertainty of the future, the uncomfortable, vulnerable feeling anyone facing a new environment and persons for the first time usually serves up.

This happened to all of us.

      Many of us speaking may have spoken to us through what some may call “foreign tongues” about “past life regression,” the “Buddha’s middle path” or the pull of a Force greater than our own if we only let go.

     If we only let go!

‘Letting Go’ Can Help Guide You in Meditation

     Let go of the “control” we desperately cling to, as if it was a life preserver instead of dead weight, we’ve been unable to remove on our own. Such talk could be “nonsense“ to the initiated.

     Meditate. Sit in a way that you feel dignified. Close your eyes or drop them unfocused to the floor. Don’t try. Don’t judge. Breathe. Breathe in slowly. And breathe out. Feel the breath through the nostril, the nasal passages. Return to the breath over and over again as thoughts and emotions arise. Gently “nudge” out those intrusions. There will be time enough later to dwell on them. Seek the breath. Make it your anchor, your true “lifeguard,” the one exercise you are guaranteed to continue with the rest of your Life.

     Allow thoughts to drift away like clouds. Return to the breath. You might even be able to trace a thought, to step back from your Self and observe you Self, the observer looking at your own thoughts.

Are Thoughts Really Thoughts or Illusions?

     Who is more real? You? The thought? The observer? Are all but an illusion? Is all a reality created only by the mind?

     Let Love grow from within and spread through your meditation. Start with love of yourself. Maybe, forgiving that youngster who feels the hurt so keenly. Forgive yourself. But don’t try too hard. And don’t judge right or wrong.

          Let’s hope we can clear the passageways so no one will suffocate next time we meditate at the Resiliency Center in Ambler, PA.