Ethereal Warrior

There are more books about meditation than I can count. Every book explains a different way to meditate and different reasons to meditate.

If we cut out all the excess information, there is only one primary reason and one primary way to meditate.

We meditate in order to stop our mental chatter.

Stopping our mental chatter brings euphoria, insight, improved physical and mental health, and taps into our intuitive unconscious. These are side effects of stopping our mental chatter and that is the goal of meditation.

Stopping the mental chatter can occur primarily by sitting and breathing. When a random though pops up we observe it from a distance, acknowledge that it is a thought, and then let it go bringing focus back to breathing. Sometimes we get the feeling of boredom that’s just another thought (strong because we’re identifying ourselves with it). Acknowledge it, let it go, focus on breathing.

Chanting is interesting because it’s basically a focus on breathing with an auditory component. Chanting with other people in unison… that’s an incredible experience that makes it very easy to stop the mental chatter.

The meditation books also talk about soft (new agey) music, incense, positions, etc. The point of all this is to put you in a better mood for meditation. They make you feel sacred and help you to relax.

When you meditate, if you’re going to use anything to help you, beyond sitting in a quiet place, make sure that your reason for using it is not ego based.

Being true in your motivations is very difficult to identify. The more you think or talk about it, the more false it is for you. You know right away if something is real, don’t ignore that.

When you get right down tot he basics, all we need to do is eat a small amount of food and water every day.  Food and water are the only external “object” we need to acquire to be alive.

Everything else we purchase is in the spirit of attempting to make ourselves more comfortable.  Being comfortable is not a bad thing, in fact being comfortable is a result of being happy (not necessarily the other way around).

When we start placing greater value on those other external object, that’s when we simply start creating unhappiness.  We start believing that we can’t be happy without this or that.

Stop thinking… stop thinking about your next purchase for a moment.  Stop thinking about your next paycheck AND stop thinking about your next bill for a moment.

Close your eyes, and take really deep breaths as if you’re pushing the air into your stomach.  Hold your breath for a few seconds and slowly let it out… and smile.

If you were able to do that without letting your ego creep in with also sorts of random thoughts about the future and the past… or “problems”… then you just experienced life right now.  Even if it was just for a moment.

If you can’t get past your ego chatter (called monkey mind by some)… then you most certainly will not understand what I just said.  You’ll probably have some negative thought/comment about my words.  That was your ego… not you.  If you were able to see that… now you know what I mean.

For most people, it dominates every waking moment. It makes us sick, it makes us hurt others. It refuses to allow us serenity. And it is illusive because we think it is ourselves.

So what is this Ego, that I speak of?

Echkart Tolle says it best in his book “The Power of Now”:

As you grow up, you form a mental image of who you are, based on your personal and cultural conditioning. We may call this phantom self the ego. It consists of mind activity and can only be kept going through continuous thinking. The term ego means different things to different people, but when I use it here it means a false self, created by unconscious identification with the mind.

To the ego, the present moment hardly exists. Only past and future are considered important. This total reversal of the truth accounts for the fact that in the ego mode the mind is so dysfunctional. It is always concerned with keeping the past alive, because without it - who are you? It constantly projects itself into the future to ensure its continued survival and to seek some kind of release or fulfillment there. It says: ‘One day, when this, that or the other happens, I am going to be okay, happy, at peace.’ - Eckhart Tolle

Wow… that’s a scary insight. Our minds create what is essentially a separate manifestation with a will… an agenda. It wants to feel important so it makes us identify with it. We think we are our ego.

So, to escape this … insanity, we have to constantly self-reflect. We take a step back (or out) and observe our thoughts. It’s very easy to identify what is the ego and what is not when you stop to look.

This calls into question the value of everything in our lives. Everything we buy, every abuse we dish out on ourselves (overeating, debasing, self-defeating attitudes), the way we treat the people around us… why do we do all this?

Unconsciousness is the environment that Ego thrives. We must pay attention. We must look inward.

Ultimately, this all comes down to being consciously aware of the present moment. Be here now… and allow your mind stop for a moment.