How to Meditate- And Why You Should

This episode is for anyone who used to meditate and stopped, or those who are thinking about starting but don't know where to begin. 

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Resources:

Insight Timer free meditation app  https://insighttimer.com/

A FREE short video series on how to meditate  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thcEuMDWxoI&list=PL-bU36DrFzitVkenIgxr3AYv8kpHSQaQF

Quotes:

"Sit quietly and listen for a voice that will say, “Be more silent.” As that happens,                      your soul starts to revive." -Rumi

"When you remain silent from the thinking and willing of self, the Eternal hearing and seeing and speaking will be revealed in you, and God will see and hear through you." - Jakob Boehme

“God, whose love and joy are present everywhere, can’t come to visit you unless you aren’t there.”         ­- Angelus Silesius

"True prayer requires no word, no chant, no gesture, no sound. It is communion, calm and still with our own godly ground." - Angelus Silesius

“Although the modes of meditation may appear to be different from one another, in the end all of them become one. There is no need to doubt this. One may adopt that path which suits the maturity of one’s mind.”  - Ramana Maharshi

“What is meditation? What is abandonment of the body? What is fasting? What is the holding of breath? Is it a temporary palliative against the pain and folly of life? The driver of oxen makes this same flight, takes his temporary drug when he drinks a few bowls of rice wine or coconut milk in the inn. He then no longer feels his Self, no longer feels the pain of life; He then experiences temporary escape. Falling asleep over his bowl of rice wine, he finds what Siddhartha and Govinda find when they escape from their bodies by long exercises and dwell in the non self.” - Hermann Hesse

“At the end of the day, I can end up just totally wacky, because I’ve made mountains out of molehills. With meditation, I can keep them as molehills.” -Ringo Starr

"Silence and solitude, the soul's best friends." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"You are led through your lifetime by the inner learning creature, the playful spiritual being that is your real self."  - Richard Bach

“If you don't have answers to your problems after a four-hour run, you ain't getting them.” - Christopher McDougall

Transcript

"Sit quietly and listen for a voice that will say, “Be more silent.” As that happens,                                                      your soul starts to revive." Rumi

Welcome to The Soul Podcast. I'm Stacey Wheeler.

What is that thing that happens when we sit silently with ourselves, when we quiet our minds, and a sense of peace comes over us? What is this sensation that people have been drawn to connect with throughout history? 

You may have noticed in the first ten episodes of The Soul Podcast that a few ideas keep coming back around. One of them is the power of sitting silently. If you are a meditator, you already understand the power of this simple practice. I think we’ve all had some experience with how nice sitting silently with ourselves can be. Whether it's in nature, in prayer, and meditation -or just taking a moment to be silent… in those times we often find a gift. There's a sense of peace that comes over us. 

I’m embarrassed to admit that when I first started meditating, I had a flawed perception of what meditation was. I had a picture in my mind of a guru on a mountain top in Tibet or India. Or an old hippie sitting with legs crossed. There was a certain cliché’ aspect in my thinking. 

Did you know that the practice of being quiet with yourself sitting silently... Goes back for thousands of years and seemingly crosses all cultures? Seeking calm and peace is a human preset, (though it's possible some animals also seek it. Who am I to say?)  I’ve seen many different animals bask in the sun and look peaceful. There is peace available to us -and also levels of joy- when we sit silently with ourselves. 

I like to look at truisms. You know, ideas that are universal, and have stood the test of time. And the value of sitting silently -and the idea that we are a Soul – are somewhat of a truism. 

So, in this episode I’ll illustrate for you how old and accepted this concept is. We’ll look at 10 quotes from modern history -and back through time, which talk about the value of sitting silently with ourselves, and how -when we do -we feel a closer connection with our deeper inner self, and what some might call the Soul, and others might even call God. If you’ve wondered if meditation is useful… by the end of this episode, you’ll have your answer. 

Looking back at the opening quote from Rumi,

"Sit quietly and listen for a voice that will say, “Be more silent.” As that happens, your soul starts to revive." Rumi wrote that in the 1200’s.

Meditation is stepping away from the complications of life. When we meditate, we use methods to quiet the mind. When we do, this awakens a deep, beautiful part of ourself and we can find ourselves connecting to the our soul. 

Around 1600, Jakob Boehme wrote, "When you remain silent from the thinking and willing of self, the Eternal hearing and seeing and speaking will be revealed in you, and God will see and hear through you." 

Here, we can see how meditation, silent reflection and prayer can bring the same result.                                

In the mid 1600s, when Angelus Silesius wrote,

 “God, whose love and joy are present everywhere, can’t come to visit you unless you aren’t there.”

He was talking about how when we quiet our mind, we’re better able to connect to something beautiful. He was talking about the idea of quieting the Ego, 300 years before Sigmund Freud would coin the word and Carl Jung would go on to popularize it.  

Angelus Silesius demonstrated how prayer and meditation are essentially the same -and can have the same result when he wrote, "True prayer requires no word, no chant, no gesture, no sound. It is communion, calm and still with our own godly ground."

Others agree.  About the different types of meditation and prayer, Ramana Maharshi said,

“Although the modes of meditation may appear to be different from one another, in the end all of them become one. There is no need to doubt this. One may adopt that path which suits the maturity of one’s mind.” 

Good meditation is achieved when we can set aside the troubles of the day and other worldly distractions. When we do this, our deeper self can rise to the surface. When I meditate, the feeling I get when I drop in is usually the sensation of my Soul as it sees through my eyes. If you’re not a meditator, or haven’t hit this level, this description may sound strange. Meditation is an individual experience, so ultimately each person’s experience is unique to themselves. We may choose very different ways to describe the Soul Connection. I know when I get there because my mind is peaceful and worry-free. 

In his book Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse talked about meditation. Siddhartha explains to his friend Govinda how meditation is a form of escape -and how we all seek some form of escape from our worldly self at times. He wrote,                                                                                                                                               “What is meditation? What is abandonment of the body? What is fasting? What is the holding of breath? Is it a temporary palliative against the pain and folly of life? The driver of oxen makes this same flight, takes his temporary drug when he drinks a few bowls of rice wine or coconut milk in the inn. He then no longer feels his Self, no longer feels the pain of life; He then experiences temporary escape. Falling asleep over his bowl of rice wine, he finds what Siddhartha and Govinda find when they escape from their bodies by long exercises and dwell in the non self.”

There are so many worries in our lives. So many potential disturbances to our peace. The entire news industry and social media are based on capturing and keeping our attention. IN many if not most of these moments, we may become emotional. Most of what we see on the news, we have little to no control over -or the ability to change. So, why do we worry? Where’s the value? 

Meditation to me is a sense of escape from the anxieties and worries of life. And especially the things I have no control over -which can disturb me. When I sit silently, I find balance. The troubles outside my control fall away. Sometimes it is just for a short time. At other times I’m able to leave a category of worry behind completely. I’ve done this with ripples left over from old relationships, or regrets. There’s no value in holding these disturbances. There is no changing the past. So, I get quiet with myself and find peace. 

Ringo Starr put it this way, “At the end of the day, I can end up just totally wacky, because I’ve made mountains out of molehills. With meditation, I can keep them as molehills.” 

The power of meditation isn’t a secret… never has been. Back in the 1800s Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote, "Silence and solitude, the soul's best friends."

Meditation helped me see there is so much more to me than the body, my ego and my projections. This quote from Richard Bach, from his book Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah sums up a realization about the Soul that came to me in meditation. 

"You are led through your lifetime by the inner learning creature, the playful spiritual being that is your real self." 

I should stop and admit that the term “sitting silently” is a bit dismissive of other ways of connecting with your deeper self. Many people find a form of meditation in exercise. Running, Biking, hiking.. or other solo activities can be deeply connecting. Or as Christopher McDougall put it, in his 2009 book, Born to Run… 

“If you don't have answers to your problems after a four-hour run, you ain't getting them.”

To sum it all up, there is great value in the time we spend in silence with ourselves. 

Finally -the Native American poet Joy Harjo wrote, "You must be friends with silence to hear." 

Beneath the noise of every day life is a quiet voice -an inner guidance. It’s always there, even when we’re not paying attention. Do you remember? Can you hear it? Are you spending time with it? It’s right there.