Meditation : an introduction

I want to talk a little about my experiences in creating what I most want in my life. In fulfilling relationships, in novel experience, in abundant finance, etc. Whatever you want to create.

First off, it is important to understand that our minds and brains create our outside worlds. Literally.

Without your brain functioning in precisely the way it is in any given moment, the "exterior" world wouldn't exist in the same way. Hallucinations are real to the person experiencing them. When you change the chemistry of the experiencer, you change the chemistry of the experienced. Subject and object become really blurred in this space.
This truth becomes abundantly clear when someone has a psychedelic experience, or a deep meditation experience. What you think is unequivocally true, is often a complete mirage.

As a population, we tend to live, almost entirely, in an illusion. We are driven by influences which more than likely were not chosen by us, though they seem to be. Take a minute to observe your mind. You might think that you are the driver of your thoughts. You're "you" afterall. But upon further exploration, in fact with any sort of preliminary mindful practice, it is made obvious very quickly that our minds are in total free association mode nearly all the time. We do not have any control over what our minds choose to think of. We do however have control over how we respond to whatever our minds choose to feed us. This is wherein the power lies for us as humans.

Everything changed for me when I was 19 years old, (I'm 24 now.)

I was going through an exceptionally difficult period in my life, coping with chronic pain in my body which prevented my from playing and performing my music, at all. I had just been accepted to a top North American music school with full scholarship and I was unable to play for more than 2 minutes at a time. Under fear of losing my scholarship, which I'd worked for years to obtain, I was desperate.

After being thrown around the medical world for a number of months, meaning dozens of sometimes helpful, usually useless appointments with chiropractors, physiotherapists, osteopaths, traditional chinese medicine practitioners, etc. I decided to try meditation. I had nothing to lose. I really needed to get better, and nothing else had worked.

I lay down on the floor in my tiny dorm room and vowed to not get up for 30 minutes, the duration of a youtube binaural beats video. I'd read a little bit about meditation and knew that to focus on the body and the breath, maybe while chanting a mantra, was the easiest way in to awareness. Though I had no formal training, I knew I really wanted to experience a shift. So I committed to chanting OM until the audio stopped.

I guess I was ready for it, because I felt the lucid effects of clarity, well being, gratitude, borderline euphoria near instantly. Huge emotional releases were common that first few months of practicing. Build ups of anxiety followed by release. Understanding, acceptance, gratitude.

That year I experienced the biggest transformation of consciousness that I could have imagined. I realized all the thoughts I had been wasting energy on, usually unconsciously, for my whole life. The thing about expanding consciousness is you can't possibly understand what it could be like until you're in the new mode of being, so to speak. People don't commit to meditation because they can't possibly imagine that it will provide real enhancement or alternative to their normal life. To someone outside, it looks like the meditator is doing nothing. This couldn't be farther from the truth. Meditation is a deeply active and involved process.

Though it took some time to heal my physical ailments, I learned that thoughts and emotions play an absolutely integral role in health and disease. If you continually push away fear for instance, or anger and sadness, those emotions will manifest in the body over time. We continually hear mind and body, but mindbody is a much better term.

For more info on this process of healing through mindbody, I suggest Dr. John Sarno's work.

I want to encourage everyone here who has thought about meditation but never actually practiced it consistently for at least a couple weeks, to give it a go. Your life will change before your eyes. In subtle ways at first, but day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, the NOW will become stronger. Cravings for short term pleasure subside, and instead we are met with a desire to meet larger goals, establish fulfilling relationships. The buddhists say to realize enlightenment is to realize there is no self, but it could also be described as coming into contact, maybe for the first time, with the real self. Of peace, of belonging, of ease.

Since learning to tame my mind, I have extensively explored visualization. Without it, I am not sure I would have been able to experience the things I have the last few years. Touring all over the world, getting paid to do what I love. Though it is hard to put into words, I know that there is something deeply true about deliberately experiencing an event mentally before it happens to you physically. We understand very little about how our minds connect to the larger collective experience. I encourage everyone to tap into their inner world. Make it a habit, and your world will grow. I promise.

Thanks for your time. Keep inspiring each other!