The benefits of meditation are being enjoyed by an increasing number of people in the West. But some are put off from trying, or abort their attempts, tormented by painful thoughts and feelings that make sitting still unbearable. It is worth considering how meditation can help people move beyond the pain.

Google Image Fallacy

It is useful to remember that Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, teacher of The Beatles, insisted that any period meditation is a positive thing, cautioning people against judging themselves harshly. When asked “What makes a good meditation?” he replied simply: “When it happens”.

A far cry from Maharishi’s teaching is the idea that the mind should be calm, and that meditation is all about beautiful people sitting on beaches or mountain tops, legs crossed, forefinger and thumb together. This is nowt but a fallacy made popular by the domination of such images on websites and other materials promoting meditation.

 

 

The danger of the fallacy is that by applying advertising techniques (beautiful people, an easy route to happiness) to sell meditation as a lifestyle product, much of the real experience goes unmentioned. Meditation is a simple technique, but it is by no means easy. Learning to meditate means exposure to one’s vulnerability. It is to be authentically open to what is, without familiar distractions. In short, meditation is not superficial, nor is it for sissies. The qualities required include grit and determination, and not so much of this…

 

The technique of transcendental meditation exposes a person to their current state, while enabling them to be slightly removed from it, meaning that it is almost inevitable that discomfort and pain will arise at times.

Sitting there in mental distress might seem like an inelegant defeat, but this is no failure on the part of the meditator, and there should be no criticism of those reporting difficulty in sitting still and attending to their mantra or their breath.

Instead, those who admit their frailties and humanity are worthy of respect, after all they aren’t conforming to what they think they are supposed to be experiencing, but are being real about what is actually happening.

Realisation

If being with oneself is too much, meditation exposes it, a truth that could have laid dormant for years without being addressed. Pain, agitation and attention deficit open the way for an enquiry: Not an angry ‘What’s wrong with me, why am I not blissed out?’ but ‘What’s going on for me that I feel so much terror? How can I help myself, or reach out for help?’

If meditation takes you to the realisation that you are suffering with mental or emotional dis-ease, it has served you far better than Google’s instant new age hit…

Why? Because the next logical step is to accept that nobody can comprehend, let alone resolve with the rational mind, the depth, intricacy and pain of the human experience, with its intertwined stories, contradictions, training in self-loathing and the multiple powerful societal, cultural and familial influences on our fragile nervous systems. 

So don’t try to solve the puzzle of your pain and confusion. Instead give up, let go, at least for a few minutes.

And then you can go full circle, because meditation is less an activity, more a practice of letting go of what the human being does not need and coming to the true self: peaceful and complete…quite a sea change. With consistent practice come multiple benefits, and a healthier experience of life with all its subtle joys, lessening the chances of emotional terrors.

Peace and wholeness are the truth of the human being, and meditation can put us more directly in touch with this reality. But it isn’t an easy journey, and nobody should say that it is.

 

Tom Charles

@tomhcharles 

 

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