Bring4th

Why I Meditate


Consciousness is this huge responsibility we bear continuously. As conscious beings we must each moment-by-moment redefine our being-ness to ourselves & others (in order to interact with self, others & the world around us). This is why we create (and/or are given) self-narratives along the way to aid us in this continuous labor of self-invention required by consciousness. By taking on our name, family, friends, occupation, skills, interests, likes & dislikes, etc. we allow ourselves some release from the heavy burden of having to start all over again from scratch. The insight here is to realize that all this self-story we tell ourselves in this journey of being & becoming moment-by-moment in self-consciousness is not who we really are as beings at all; but rather simply a help, a tool, or convenience we utilize to simplify & speed the self-projection of our consciousness into the external world we inhabit, which when "told" successfully will further our service to others in love & light.


The irony of it all is that by allowing ourselves this freedom of self-narrative, we also create a potential self-bondage which can (& sadly most often does) weigh heavy upon our shoulders. Based upon our self-narrative we thus set into place these expectations that we must live up to. Failure to do so opens the portal to feelings of guilt, shame, low self-esteem, etc.; & a plethora of illnesses & world malady. This believing the self to be one & the same with the self-narrative is the root cause of many/most (if not all) wars & social disorders. By allowing our self-narrative to supplant the self in our consciousness, we do ourselves great injury & take on self-created responsibility far greater than if we would simply allow ourselves the freedom-of-responsibility-to-be-who-we-are moment-by-moment in the Power-of-the-Now. Essentially our whole society is based upon this false-self-narrative self-consciousness. It is the basis for creating false needs used by marketers to sell us everything we don't need to be happy (in the lie we need it to be happy). This ploy only works if we believe we are our narrative. Once we cut that cord of bondage to the greed-monger-marketers (to which they themselves are in bondage … after all, in this, we are all one & the same) we take our power back to be self-conscious beings apart from the narratives. It is a “letting go” & “letting be” process.

Meditation is one way to gain this higher ground in our self-being-ness. In meditation (& other states of heightened altered states of consciousness), we let go of the false belief not only of the self-narrative, but also that we are our bodies, our minds, or even our feelings … this is sooooo deep & profound, yet soooo basic to self-hood & self-consciousness, that it is feared by those who want to keep bondage to the system of deception going, as it has done for millenia. Meditation is the Kindergarten of humanity, yet most of us never learn to be potty trained in terms of being conscious humans. Just look at what we are doing to our world. We are making a total mess of it, like a dirty diaper on a baby & there seems to be no stopping it any time soon. It is time for us grow up. Let's at least enroll in the Kindergarten of Meditation as our first step. We have the power to create a New Earth free of guilt & shame, free of war & violence, free of poverty & hunger. All we need do is to be in the power of the Now, not some silly false-narrative we have created to hide from ourselves. Won't you commit with me to meditate daily, to send love & light to all beings starting with yourself? It is one small step, but it is the biggest step humanity can ever take on our journey of self-consciousness. ...

An observation/question i have at this point: "Is/can the LOO Ra material just/become another self-narrative (shared jointly by many others) that we create/tell ourselves that prevents/interferes with our being our authentic selves in the NOW?" Put another way: "Can our following too closely the LOO/Ra Material be/become a self-narrative we create that interferes with our living as authenticate self-aware beings of L&L moment-by-moment in StO?" I am reflecting upon this presently. What do you think?  Apart from this question, my main hope here is that from this thread, we would be encouraged/motivated to enhance/deepen our meditation.

Dan Harris – Hack Your Brain's Default Mode with Meditation – [Script]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAcTIrA2Qhk from Big Think
0:00 There’s no way a fidgety and skeptical news anchor would ever have started meditating
0:04 were it not for the science. The science is really compelling. It shows that meditation
0:09 can boost your immune system, lower your blood pressure, help you deal with problems ranging
0:16 from irritable bowel syndrome to psoriasis. And the neuroscience is where it really gets
0:22 sci-fi. There was a study out of Harvard that shows that short daily doses of meditation
0:27 can literally grow the gray matter in key areas of your brain having to do with self-awareness
0:33 and compassion and shrink the gray matter in the area associated with stress.
0:37 There was also a study out of Yale that looked at what’s called the default mode network
0:42 of the brain. It’s a connected series of brain regions that are active during most
0:47 of our waking hours when we’re doing that thing that human beings do all the time which
0:52 is obsessing about ourselves, thinking about the past, thinking about the future, doing
0:56 anything but being focused on what’s happening right now. Meditators not only turn off the
1:02 default mode network of their brain while they’re meditating but even when they’re
1:06 not meditating. In other words, meditators are setting a new default mode. And what’s
1:11 that default mode? They’re focused on what’s happening right now.
1:14 In sports this is called being in the zone. It’s nothing mystical. It’s not magical.
1:18 You’re not floating off into cosmic ooze. You are just being where you are – big cliché
1:25 in self-help circles is being in the now. You can use that term if you want but because
1:30 it’s accurate. It’s slightly annoying but it’s accurate. It’s more just being
1:35 focused on what you’re doing. And the benefits of that are enormous. And this is why you’re
1:43 seeing these unlikely meditators now, why you’re seeing the U.S. Marines adopting
1:48 it, the U.S. Army, corporate executives from the head of Ford to the founders of Twitter.
1:52 Athletes from Phil Jackson to many, many Olympians. Scientists, doctors, lawyers, school children.
1:59 There’s this sort of elite subculture of high achievers who are adopting this because
2:03 they know it can help you be more focused on what you’re doing and it can stop you
2:07 from being yanked around by the voice in your head.
2:10 My powers of prognostication are not great. I bought a lot of stock in a company that
2:14 made Palm Pilot back in 2000 and that didn’t go so well for me. But having said that I’m
2:18 going to make a prediction. I think we’re looking at meditation as the next big public
2:22 health revolution. In the 1940s if you told people that you went running they would say,
2:27 who’s chasing you. Right now if you tell people you meditate – and I have a lot of
2:31 experience with telling people this, they’re going to look at you like you’re a little
2:34 weird most of the time. That’s going to change. Meditation is going to join the pantheon
2:39 of no brainers like exercise, brushing your teeth and taking the meds that your doctor
2:43 prescribes to you. These are all things that if you don’t do you feel guilty about. And
2:48 that is where I think we’re heading with meditation because the science is so strongly
2:52 suggestive that meditation can do really, really great things for your brain and for your body.
2:58 The common assumption that we have, and it may be subconscious, is that our happiness
3:04 really depends on external factors – how was our childhood, have we won the lottery
3:09 recently, did we marry well, did we marry at all. But, in fact, meditation suggests
3:15 that happiness is actually a skill, something you can train just the way you can train your
3:18 body in the gym. It’s a self-generated thing. And that’s a really radical notion. It doesn’t
3:26 mean that external circumstances aren’t going to impact your happiness. It doesn’t
3:30 mean you’re not going to be subject to the vagaries of an impermanent, entropic universe.
3:35 It just means you are going to be able to navigate this with a little bit more ease.

Sometimes meditation for me is focusing on something I enjoy, even with eyes open, and feeling it in my heart.