Meditation and Flexibility

[Jitendra Hy-do-u-no-us?]

Over the years i have made some interesting discoveries surrounding Flexibility, spontaneity and meditation. People who have some degree of understanding garnered from the practice of meditation begin to realize that many people are set or locked into certain life styles, certain attitudes, inflexible positions and limited perceptions of reality. This becomes more obvious as we realize that we have to let some people in our lives go because they are unable to adapt and change because of changing circumstances. They may refuse to entertain looking at things differently or refuse to try something different or do things to share with others. Sometimes i have really missed old friends and acquaintances and tried to go back into the lives of these people and found that they were 'stuck in the mud' in their patterns of living. Whereas meditation and spiritual practice had taken me to different dimensions of understanding people and life. It often was like going back to a pattern of life that could really never be replayed as nostalgic as it may seem.

People often ask the question "What are you doing". Often we do not realize the full significance of our questions. It most cases for those who regularly meditate. It becomes a question of being rather then doing. That is what are we being at each moment of our life. Meditation often the concept of time so we are engrossed in the moment at hand and completely satisfied with what is happening to us in that moment.

i have also recognized the importance of taking breathers in life. Relaxing. But the interesting thing is that many people believe they are relaxing when they are in fact-for the most part just taking a break or are involved in temporary distractions. True relaxation only comes when the MIND as well as the body is relaxed and this can not really occur with any depth unless one is meditating. Also other spiritual practices like Hatha Yoga, Energization, Bhakti Yoga, Jhana Yoga, Karma Yoga, Thai Chi, loosen up our body and mind so that we can expand awareness and be more flexible in our approach towards people and life.

It is fascinating to see how sometimes we may take a slightly different routine and find that it may be needed to understand our own self imposed limitations on reality.

[Jitendra Hy-do-u-no-us?]

I have noticed that people often gravitate towards spiritual or religious positions because of having quite dogmatic mindsets that are quite fixed. Consequently they become dogmatic and self-righteous about their spiritual views as well. It is their job to change others so to speak. It has become apparent to me that meditating thru the years does help us take off our blinders and see people and their views with more tolerance. It can also help us be more flexible in our social encounters.

[guest88]

Thank you for highlighting the importance of relaxing our mind as well as our body, something which requires practice, especially in a society working around instant-gratification. Any external stimulus may temporarily provide the body relief but experience teaches us that often something is taken in return. Interesting to note how entities that profit off of our carnal desires relentlessly impose their definitions for relaxation and often we humor them creating costly habits. At a certain point in our evolution we evaluate those habits and realize the contentment our souls long for is unsatisfied thus working towards forming new habits. Though we still might not know where to find peace, eventually we learn to look within. It looks like the history of our culture has numbed itself from greed, things that should be common-knowledge have become fragmented concepts. Maybe this is the way, let's transcend our greed to be hungry for Truth and Love.