If you have ever attempted to meditate, you know how challenging it can be. Your mind rushes from one thought to the next, taking you from past to future events and back, in a relentless chatter; your body feels all sorts of discomforts, and even the slightest external noise grabs your attention. Before you know it, you are so distracted or restless that meditation seems not only impossible but also a futile endeavor.
Most people give up meditation because they are unable to quiet their mind; they perceive it as more powerful than themselves, and so it feels like a lost battle. They think meditation means controlling the mind, and that in order to meditate they have to suppress it somehow. Meditation, however, is really not about control as much as it is about discipline and focus.
When you sit in meditation, your mind is doing exactly the same thing it always does, which is to create thoughts. This is inevitable, because it is the nature of the mind to create thoughts. The only difference is that when you sit to meditate, you realize how active and noisy it is. When you are out and about, your attention is in the world, so it doesn’t bother you because you don’t expect it to be anything it is not: your mind and the world are one and the same when your attention is directed outwards.
Life is like a meditation. You have a desire or a goal, and off you go, trying to accomplish it, filled with enthusiasm and hope. Yet before you know it, you find yourself tangled up with thoughts, emotions, obstacles, or relationship dramas that distract you and take up the energy you were supposed to put into fulfilling your goals.
Achieving Your Goals and Desires
Accomplishing anything you want is a challenging prospect; it’s easy to get discouraged if you find obstacles and don’t seem able to reach your goals; so you’re quick to question your desires or purpose altogether, thus allowing your fears and resistance to take over.
Courage takes a lot of energy. Believing in yourself and your goals also takes a lot of energy; and maintaining the focus on your purpose takes energy and continuity. In truth, you don’t get discouraged because you cannot reach your goals; you cannot reach your goals because you get discouraged: you lose steam, don’t put enough energy or focus to create the momentum needed for anything to become a reality.
In other words, you cannot see the “big picture” because you do not believe that you can, or you do not believe that you deserve it—or both. Your mind takes you from desire to self-doubt to fear, back to desire, and then back to self-doubt. Your energy gets diffused and scattered.
Like meditation, life requires mental and emotional discipline and focus—the discipline to dismiss what blocks the true nature of reality, and the focus to direct and invest the energy any endeavor demands. Remember that wherever your attention goes, there goes your energy, along with your creative power.
Meditate to Empower Your Life
If you want to go beyond a simple relaxed state and achieve a truly meditative, superconscious state, where the mind is quiet and you merge with your true Self, even if momentarily, then you need the discipline to concentrate your attention one-hundred-percent on whatever technique you use—your breath, a mantra, an image, etc.
Likewise, if you want to accomplish your dreams or goals, you must focus your attention and energy one-hundred-percent on them, without allowing any distractions or doubts. If something comes along and sets you off, you get back on track and continue without doubting yourself or giving up.
This is why meditation is such an important practice. Not only does it allow you to access inner silence to gain clarity and insight about your divine nature; it also leaves peaceful imprints to master your mind in daily life in spite of the challenges and obstacles you may encounter along your journey.
You cannot control life; you cannot expect your mind to be of a different nature either; but you can definitely choose what to focus on and where to direct your energy. This is your real, inner power, and it is the key to accomplishing your goals and desires, as well as achieving higher states of consciousness. So contact me today to develop the self-discipline and self-awareness required to live a fulfilling life!
And as always, I’d love to hear what your thoughts and experiences are with this.
© 2012 Yol Swan. All rights reserved.
