February 1, 2011

"I cannot make you into what you already are. All I can tell you is the way I traveled and invite you to take it." N.M.

Almost 30 years ago my interest in meditation emerged from the eleventh step of AA: "sought through prayer and meditation to cultivate a conscious contact with God as we understood him." I did not understand God, in fact held any God concept in contempt, but I did understand that the Beatles had added a "cool factor" to meditation when they traveled to India, so I could retain my intellectual arrogance and still investigate a direly needed chemical-free path back to sanity. At the time Zen Buddhism had some cache, so I loaded up on Zen books and began my practice. The irony of this is laughable to me today because reading about Zen is the furthest thing from it. I gained good posture in sitting still, better power of concentration, a yen for "satori" and profound respect for the crazy wisdom of koans. They stop the mind like a seized up engine. When thought arises again, as it must, it stands out in bold relief and no longer runs the show. I meandered off into raja and kundalini yoga, sought superconscious states and unfortunately attained some brief openings, which kept me coming back for more like an alcoholic trying to recapture his first drinks. Was all this necessary? Yes and no. Something was needed to kick-start the process of ripening and that surely happened. However, I have since found that jnana yoga, the direct path of discrimination, fits me best. Or, rather, dissolves me best. Now I don't even require meditation to open into voidness and clarity. A gentle word or two from one of the masters, and I am nudged back into reality. My body-mind and the manifest world are not me. I am consciousness itself, wherein the unmanifest opens its eyes, so to speak, and witnesses itself.

For me, the fruit has yet to fall from the tree, but it is streaked with brilliant color. "The very facts of repetition of struggling on and on and of endurance and perseverance, in spite of boredom and despair and complete lack of conviction, are really crucial. They are not important by themselves, but the sincerity behind them is all-important. There must be a push from within and a pull from without." N.M.