To be aware is a verb
Of the many years I've been meditating, I spent about the first 17 years sitting still, literally! The big secret of good meditation is that it is all about energy and feeling, but I had never been told that. That has nothing to do with being able to sit still or not. From the Buddhist approach to Awareness, meditation is being aware. Being aware of your attitude, behaviour, dealing with others, how you speak to others and so on. Awareness is an attitude to life where you don't sit passively still, but are actively present in the moment. And so for 17 years, I sat mostly passively still.
So meditating makes no sense?
Not true, of course, but how do you meditate? Are you aware of whether you meditate in an active way or a passive way or do you find it challenging enough to sit still for 15minutes or half an hour. Most traditions teach you to meditate passively, while also being careful not to fall asleep. You settle down, every now and then a drop of insight falls down, but you don't become much wiser. This soon changes with walking meditation or yoga and that actually makes a lot of sense, you get into the more active part.
Trance as a form of passive meditation
First of all, let me start with the passive form of meditation and try to explain its characteristic and usefulness. When you meditate with a passive form of energy, you are practising the path towards trance, or surrender. Meditation in a passive form is always the first step, because it helps you get your head ‘empty’ to make, or understand what is going on in your mind. This is often the first step, but not necessarily the only step. “Trance” is used in mediumship for what they call Trance Healing and - Speaking.
The word trance is often used in different contexts:
- a change of a state of consciousness, or
- a state of consciousness
By going into trance, we give space to the spiritual world to make use of our mental and physical qualities. For example, they can use our vocal cords to speak or perform healing through our energetic body. Anyone who has ever experienced it knows how special this is and will be aware that there is more between heaven and earth. Of course, you don't develop this with ‘meditating once’, it is a combination of gift, perseverance and discipline.
The flow of your own power
From the passive form of meditation, you can learn to deal with the active form. Again, this need not be a difficult or complicated process. We all know this active form! When you are angry, nervous, in love, nervous and I remember it best from the times when I had to perform and went on stage. Your lower abdomen starts tingling, your heart starts beating faster and you start to perspire slightly. This is the energy you look for when you actively meditate.
What you learn with this is the “stand in your own strength”. Because no matter how nervous you get on stage, as soon as the first sounds sound, the feeling is gone and you get into a flow. And it is this flow where you are in your power and can take on the whole world, as it were. It will be a bit much to explain exactly what happens to you energetically, but there is an important power involved with this energy; the power of creation.
Make this power your own
Do you have to study for an exam, are you writing a book or do you like to paint from your intuition... this works best when you are in your own power. For true meditation, you don't have to try anything, you just have to do it. Standing with both feet in life, energising yourself and staying in that energy. Feel happy, in love or tense. Whatever it takes to generate that energy and you can realise anything you want. So does meditating still make sense? Definitely, but you shouldn't try it!
