This past week, I decided to venture outside of my usual bubble and get a library card. I’m new to the area, so I was excited to explore their selection for the first time. The library is relatively small with a collection mostly of children’s books, local history, and political biographies. After a thorough search through every aisle, I found it: spirituality and self-help. A small section containing about a dozen books, mostly by the New Age thought-leader Deepak Chopra. This is where I will narrow my focus today, inspired by Dr. Chopra himself, on meditation and enlightenment.
During my Liberal Arts studies, I took an awesome Philosophy class that I will never forget. That is not an exaggeration, I promise. I recommended that specific class with that specific teacher to multiple friends when they were questioning which elective to take next. I told them, “It will literally change the way you think”. With a good Philosophy professor, like the one I had, you can learn how to deconstruct the very nature of learning. I’m so thankful I took it early on in my academic studies, because it helped lay the groundwork for the decade of learning that was to come. I recommend this be one of the first Liberal Arts courses you take, if you are at the beginning of your academic career. Not only was it debate-driven and thought-provoking, but it was the first time someone interrogated my rigid religious programming in a way that actually made sense to me. Philosophy 101 was my real entryway into the process of critical thinking – but my understanding of some of the lessons has greatly evolved since then. I remember how strongly I connected to the philosophical ideas of René Descartes, with his famous first principle of being – “cogito, ergo sum” or “I think, therefore I am“. I have since changed my mind on how true this is. I believe that living requires a state of consciousness, but being conscious is not just having thoughts. It’s many things, but mostly it is the awareness behind our thoughts as we experience life. Consciousness doesn’t require acting on the thoughts at all – no attaching, repressing, doing, or fixing necessary. Consciousness is “being” – it requires directly meeting the experience as it is – THAT’S IT! Our consciousness resides in the awareness of being itself. Not to nit-pick semantics, but Descartes could use a rewrite – something like, “I am aware, therefore I am”.
When we meditate, we quit the constant stream of mental gymnastics and are grounded in zero point energy – the place of comfort and rest where our brain can heal (1). But the ultimate goal for a student of spirituality is to go beyond that, to a state of complete non-attachment. To a place where actual transformation can take place. We can use the zero point zone as a launching pad for gradually expanding our awareness with the help of our intuition and free will. This is the path to enlightenment, a journey on which we can connect to the source of life and heal deep internal wounds. In “Total Meditation”, Dr. Deepak Chopra describes the process as being like a balancing act, constantly recovering our consciousness again and again. Through repetition – choosing to be aware instead of repress, going to the center, and maintaining that balance – then the practice becomes second nature. I have outlined his techniques in the graphic above, but I really recommend reading the book for more guidance on your beautiful healing journey. “You Are the Universe: Discovering Your Cosmic Self and Why It Matters” is another book by the same author and the physicist Menas Kafatos, that I’ve read and also recommend. It blew my mind!
Refuse to end your story in a stuck place – evolve. Trust me, it’s in your nature.
Sources and other helpful links:
Rosemary Spirit 