I’ve only been meditating regularly for 2 years. Sometimes it feels like I’ve been doing it for so so long.. and other times every single sit is like the first time.. always and forever a beginner. When I look back and compare my current life experience with how it used to be, I realize that certain things are different. I can’t say I am a completely changed person, yet I feel like a profound shift has taken place. Can this be possible?
I remember how I used to dwell on things for so so long, how I used to let anger, hatred and greed consume my entire being. Self pity, hopelessness and feeling like a victim of situations were daily occurrences. Now looking back I can say that I was an open wound, bleeding.. and anything and everything I would come in contact with were hurting me. I would get lost in thoughts and assumptions.. get intimidated from anyone’s slightest look, fear any kind of confrontation regardless of how necessary it could be.
Now I look at my experience and I ask myself. What has changed? Has it been worth it? I remember quitting my job, leaving my girlfriend and our beautiful apartment to live at a meditation center for 7 months.. was it really that bad the way I used to live and is it any better now?
No concrete and quick answers here in this story. For better or worse by leaving, I feel like I did what I knew I could not not do. I look in myself and I can say that anger and hatred have become rare visitors, self pity and hopelessness too. And yet some new ones replaced their places. I have been feeling a lot of grief and sorrow lately. Such deep hurt is coming to the surface.
Childish excitement and unreasonable highs have also been replaced.. this time by burst of gratitude and a profound feeling of connectedness. I still care for my body yet now not only to be attractive to young ladies one of whom could potentially become my life partner, but also to be here as long as I can, as healthy as I can for all those who care about me and whom I care. I’m doing very similar things yet most of my motivations have changed.
In general I can probably say that life has become a lot easier and yet when I’m low sometimes I go very very low. The more aware I am, the more I see, the more desperate I get about myself and my own crazy mind and also about the world in general. Darkness has only been getting deeper and yet the cracks that are letting the light in have been getting wider too.
A unique quality of all this experience has been a deepening sense of genuinity. Sometimes I feel like the only thing that’s motivating me is the love of Truth.. the burning desire to reveal deeper and deeper aspects of “what is”. Sometimes, it’s Love itself.. the mere recognition of my own awakening benefiting all others.
Meditation is a personal love affair with the fabric of existence and I’ve never experienced anything more life enriching.
