reality of life

Last week I spoke about Life being the Meditation Practice.

If you missed it, read about it here.

Continuing on this topic, over the 23 years I have been practicing TM, much life has transpired. When I started my practice one might say I was a hot mess in some regards. More on that in a moment.

I bring this up because another myth I hear is that meditation will "stop" the pain of life, feeling, loss, etc. NOT true, at all.

Life is hard, takes effort, and is full of surprises no matter how much you meditate!

What does improve is our ability to deal masterfully (by being present and seeing clearly to name a few) with circumstances.

Over the 23 years I've been practicing TM, in a nutshell I have experienced the traumatic loss of my father, marriage, family drama, divorce, career transition, health challenges, relationship beginnings and endings, moves, a bunch of other stuff, and all the global issues that impact each of us.

I attribute my ability to navigate these circumstances and get better with age, to my TM practice. By "better", I am not talking ego superiority.

By "better" I specifically mean that my inner life and outer life are aligned. What I believe, think, say, do, and experience are one. There no longer feels like a separation with me internally and then with everything/everyone else. It's all one. 

Why? Because I listen to and trust the still voice within to guide my path.

Some of you get what I am saying here.

Perhaps another way I can explain it is by a quote I heard from Deepak,

"Happiness and sadness are mental states; Joy is a spiritual state."

I take this to mean that when we are solely in the grips of our humanness (our mind/thoughts/emotions/doing/circumstances/events) we lose perspective of who we truly are: spiritual beings clothed in a body...

It's our spiritual connection that gives life depth. It is beyond doing, tasking, thinking, feeling. It's a state of being -- and when we access it, we know it as joy.

Back to what I wanted to share about the reality of life. Allow me to summarize in 3 points. Hard!

1. Life is hard - at times it is harder than others. Stop wasting energy fighting it. Accept it is hard when it is hard. When it is easy, accept that too. Accept all of it...no separation. Separation = Suffering

2. Life takes effort. Accept this. Stop complaining. Tell the lazy human side to be lazy when it's dead. Choose wisely who and what you wish to invest your effort in. We don't get time back.

3. Life is full of unknowns. I share this often. When my dad died unexpectedly 3 weeks before my wedding when I was 29, I learned really hard and fast what "unknown" meant and would come to mean. Stop wasting energy in the future of unknown. Instead, remember the unknown is a powerful place of infinite possibility and creativity.

When we accept life is hard, takes effort, and is full of unknown, we understand it's  part of being human (the doing).

We are also a being (human being right?). When we embrace all of it, the human, and the being, the mind stuff and the spirit, we get to live a full rich deep life.  

More to come on the topic of "what it means to be spiritual" as I am provoked by questions of religion, spiritualty, etc. Seems many have lost their way simply because they have no access to their own spiritual dimension.

Namaste,
Stephanie