31-Day Meditation Challenge: Day 30

Welcome! This is the thirtieth lesson to a 31-Day Meditation Challenge recently recorded in July of 2020 entitled "Seek and Find Within." The audio recording is divided into an opening discourse and a guided meditation.

This lesson introduces the third and final "axis" of reality as Maya, which is the Self. So, reality can be organized through time, space, and self. The key point is they are all equally "infinite". When these three axes are felt, that is presence.

Enjoy.

Transcript

All right,

Good evening everyone.

Day 30 upon us,

Only two more days.

As always again and again,

Congratulations and thank you for spending so much time in meditation,

But also with me and with everyone else who's been participating with this challenge.

So,

Kudos.

Today what we're going to get into is we're going to elaborate on this concept of maya,

Which we touched yesterday.

And especially because it's the end of this journey and after this formal education on meditation,

Hopefully you can take it forward on your own and use whatever has stuck to explore this space and this hobby and this practice by yourself.

So some key points.

I think it's really beautiful to understand,

Excuse me,

Understand,

Know and consciously appreciate every time you practice that meditation is an act of devotion.

And without really knowing what your relationship to that word devotion is,

Because it's a fairly intense word,

In your stillness,

In your quiet,

When you shut your eyes and when you internalize your mind,

What you're essentially devoting yourself to is the hope of understanding and witnessing reality or life in a clearer way.

And that's,

You know,

That's utterly beautiful and meaningful.

And so if we can appreciate that,

You know,

What we've been doing every day for the last 30 days is an act of devotion.

The second detail to appreciate is that it's something worth taking seriously.

And serious doesn't have to mean heavy,

But it means meaningful,

Right?

It is a deeply meaningful act as subtle and as nuanced as it might be.

And with that seriousness,

If we can really feel it and sort of commit to it and wear that seriousness as a badge,

It provokes sincerity.

And I hope you all can feel that,

Especially if you look in hindsight into those moments of impact,

You know,

When you're sitting down in your practice,

It's uniquely sincere,

It's uniquely meaningful,

It's uniquely personal.

Yeah,

And the fact that this profound meaning is sort of rising up when you're essentially doing nothing,

You're just sitting there is mysterious and perplexing,

But also magical.

So meditation is a serious act of devotion that provokes a unique sincerity.

And what we're devoting ourselves to,

Again,

Is perceiving the world in a specifically and uniquely expansive and truthful way.

And so what is that world we're trying to observe?

Mindfulness,

Most common form of meditation nowadays in the West.

It doesn't really ask any questions.

We just sort of sit and observe the world and calm our nerves down and find a deeper sense of peace.

But the yogis really took the time to analyze what exactly they were in a relationship with.

And what they coined that thing that they are in a relationship with as was Maya.

And so Maya means illusion,

As we discussed.

And the term illusion can be mystifying and cryptic.

But what it essentially suggests is that as we look out into our worlds,

Our experience of it is deeply limited.

But that limitation is often sort of overlooked that we don't think about our limited perspective.

We don't think about how narrow our narrow our understandings are,

But also how sort of how stifled our actual sort of ability to perceive the physical environment is.

And so some quick examples just to sort of illuminate that is we only see a small fraction of the light spectrum.

We only hear a small fraction of the sounds that are actually buzzing around in this moment.

And so even in a physical way,

In a literal way,

Our sort of window into the world is microscopic.

And so Maya suggests that,

That we don't really see anything at all.

We don't sense anything at all.

And that's that's profound because in that acknowledgement of how limited we are,

We at least we at least sort of embrace the fact that there is more.

And that also sort of connects us to the idea that everything is deeply transient,

That what it is,

Is not what it is now because it is already changed.

And in that life is sand falling from our fingertips.

And when we take the time to feel that we empathize again with the experience of the world in a more honest and truthful way.

This impacts us and feeds into this experience of devotion and actually knowing it for what it is and not what we think it is or what we see it as when we avoid the reality of it.

So these are some concepts of Maya.

Yesterday we focused on time and space.

And so the magnitude of it all the billions of years behind us the billions of years ahead of us,

And the millions upon millions of miles that are branching out of every direction.

This is all very true,

Taking the time to feel it I hope sort of change the way you interacted with sitting down in your room.

The last piece to that puzzle,

Time and space is self,

And one of the greatest insights that meditators sort of utilize to enhance that devotional experience was that they themselves are part of Maya,

That what they thought they were was really part of the dream.

They were part of the act,

Their bodies which most people,

You know,

Considered deeply,

Not just theirs but then.

And so the yogis disassociate within and feel that the bodies are also part of the environment,

Just like clouds just like trees just like rivers just like stars.

And they take it even further that even the mind that seems internal to so many people plays out in front of them,

Like the clouds play out in front of us and the stars play out in front of us.

And so this act of devotion forces us into ourselves,

It's a pilgrimage into our,

You know,

Proverbial center.

And as we shed the layers or sort of disown what we thought we were we come in contact and this is figurative mythical languaging,

But we come in contact with what we have always been.

And again,

That is the soul and that is nothingness and that is the whole point of spending time thinking about the empty mind.

And so in every way this essentially becomes a rebirth where we redefine ourselves as something brand new.

And so the last thing I want to say is,

For this reason,

After a yogi or meditator really starts to disassociate from their bodies and their minds,

They feel reborn.

And so the yogi say that when a meditator sort of reaches maturity they are twice born,

Born into the world,

Right from the mother,

But also born into themselves through the the power of their practice.

So some nice ideas to encourage our practice today.

So what we're going to do,

Same as always,

Take the time to feel the tingling sensations of the body.

This is the fundamental technique,

This is what's going to wipe out your thought process and keep you in the moment.

Take the time to feel time,

Right,

The timeline of time,

Billions of years behind you,

Billions of years ahead of you,

And work with that idea,

That concept of time as best you can until you actually feel it.

Then you're going to add to that and take a moment to feel space,

Right,

The millions upon millions of miles that surround you,

You know,

Very literally.

And you can you can somehow sense that within,

You know,

Within the moment that you're meditating in.

And then the last is to consider yourself,

That the little organism you are the little speck of flesh and blood and bone and brain matter and nerves and cells,

That little speck,

Which is your entire world,

The self,

That is also part of Maya,

But also deeply infinite as infinite as time,

As infinite as space.

And when you can feel these three horizons,

So to speak,

Interacting or sort of intersecting each other.

This is the reality of presence.

This is absolutely where you are,

Where you exist,

And where everything exists and sort of moves from and moves towards.

And so it's a really profound way of of dissecting and amplifying this concept of the now,

Which is integral to a meditative process,

And the place in which a meditator devotes themselves to this potential truth of witnessing reality for what it is.

So time,

Space,

And self.

Cool,

So let's get into this everyone.

Strong seated position.

So before we get into time,

Space,

And self,

Which are the three horizons of Maya,

The three horizons of the magic,

The dream,

The mystery of the physical experience,

We know of as reality.

Before we get into that,

Notice your stillness and notice your posture enhance both.

Enhance your posture by tilting your hips forward,

Lengthening the spine,

Straightening your arms.

And notice that immediately comes with a surge in wakefulness.

It's like a little flower opening to spring.

Your posture wakes you up to the spring of this moment,

The vitality and aliveness of this moment.

And then your stillness is increased by just relaxing.

Face,

Jaw,

Neck,

Shoulders.

Now take a second to breathe a bit more deeply into those seven directions as you inhale,

Feel the torso and belly inflate forwards and backwards,

Left and right,

Up and down.

As you breathe in,

The spine gets taller.

And as you exhale,

Your torso recedes from front to back,

From left to right,

But you stay tall.

And so to increase the experience of your breath,

Breathe more deeply into your belly,

But also more slowly.

So the nerve receptors in the bottom of the lungs,

They trigger the parasympathetic nervous system.

They trigger the calm response,

The tranquility response.

And so you're hacking the physiology of your body to promote a devotional state.

Now right off the bat,

Inhale,

Hold your breath.

Hold for as long as you can.

And when you exhale,

Hum.

And again,

Hold the breath with nothing in your lungs.

One time,

Maybe two times.

So you're building CO2 content again to wake the body up.

And you're humming to feel that vibration in a more obvious way.

And so that resonance,

That vibration,

That sense of tingling,

Buzzing,

Movement.

That is the main target.

That is the primary focus point.

But the mind is designed to think.

Our brains are designed to understand reality.

And so they will think.

They will distract.

When the mind does wander,

Think about meaningful things.

Think about time.

A billion years behind you.

16 billion years.

16 billion years ago,

Time was born.

Gravity was born.

Light was born.

Before that,

Nothingness.

Since then,

The universe has expanded from a ferocious soup of heated subatomic particles.

Cooling down,

Eon after eon after eon,

Organizing,

Stabilizing,

And evolving.

You have a billion years ahead of you.

These are devotional thoughts.

Slow down the breath.

And so on your own,

Take time to think about time,

Take the time to think about space,

And then take the time to think about yourself.

And when you start to consider yourself in relationship to time and space,

Appreciate that you are as infinite as both.

Not physically,

But psychologically.

Not physically,

But emotionally.

And that your body and your thought process and your story is part of Maya.

And when you can feel all three of these horizons interacting as one,

That is a perfect experience of presence.

Put the pieces together,

Take a deep breath in one more time.

And slow breath out.

And that is a perfect experience of presence.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

While one part of your mind feels another part of your mind thinks.

Our understanding of the world is limited.

We willfully keep our eyes low to the ground.

Actively avoid the infinite.

Think about the timeline.

16 billion years ago,

The universe as we know it hatched.

And here you are 16 billion years later,

Considering the fact.

And that sort of devotional thought changes the way you experience the moment.

The infinite axis of time intersects the infinite axis of space.

We all share this moment,

Yet we are divided by hundreds,

If not thousands of miles.

The final axis is you.

Strangely as infinite.

The self comparable to time,

Comparable to space.

Start to fixate on self.

And feel that your body.

And that your mind,

Your psyche.

Our maya.

The body and the mind and the identity that comes with it are parts of the environment.

Borrowed.

Fleeting.

Ephemeral.

Part of the dream.

Like a fly escaping a spider's web.

Disassociate from the body in the mind.

And feel that you are deep inside.

As something else.

You you you you you you Now try to feel of course meditation is devotional you are devoting yourself to time To space and everything that exists within space Especially what exists close to you and self of course that's what it is In that a meditator is defined as someone who has deep love for reality so much love That they work very hard to restrain their need to control it to suppress their tendency of changing it To witness it as it is So bring your hands to heart center very slowly this is always the peak of your practice Take the time to appreciate and consider and recognize that yes this is an active devotion In that it is serious not heavy not burdensome but meaningful and because of that there is an opportunity to be uniquely sincere Slow breaths Our sincerity our capacity to be real equates to our depth Our ability to reach into our guts and into our bones Take a few more breaths appreciating these three horizons time space and self identify that as the present moment both immediate and small but also expansive Thumb knuckles to third eye center back to techniques delicately press your thumbs into the skin of your forehead but with precision feel that little star of sensation And understand your ability to focus your mind on the sensations of the body is what will empower your relationship to presence and in that enable you to recognize these philosophical truths Truths that are embedded in the world and witness through meditative state not created not imagined but observed Focus the mind This is the work increase your focus for 5,

4,

3,

2,

Exhale hold your breath Release your wrists to your knees tall spine holding holding holding when you need to inhale breath in through the nose and again hold the breath When you need to breath normally start to breath normally Repeating the closing mantra OM in the head OM Maha Maya great dream Maha Maya Shanti peace OM Maha Maya Shanti This great dream is peaceful when I can feel this great dream through time space and self I experience shanti With your next breath in eyes open and again repeat the mantra OM Maha Maya Shanti