Hi,
I am Johnny John.
Spiritual lessons are the lessons which we can use to help us grow spiritually.
There are many ways to discover our spiritual lessons and today I will introduce the way of meditation.
The practice of meditation will always be the best way to uncover the mysteries of our existence.
Because it is by looking within the darkness that we can know what that darkness is.
Thus by turning our sight inwards,
It allows us to develop inner sight or insight.
Spiritual lessons can be seen as lessons that we have enrolled ourselves in to complete in this lifetime.
And these forgotten lessons can be brought out onto the surface through the practice of meditation.
Now this won't be a religious talk,
Rather I will share with you my experiences with meditation to help you gain the understanding in a grounded way,
So that you can use the clues from my experiences to motivate you to find your own truth.
So let's begin.
So I never had a good relationship with the practice of meditation.
In fact,
I really hated it.
The practice was basically torture.
In the beginning,
I did not know what to do as I was self-taught.
I just watched some videos on YouTube of these old people sitting around doing nothing.
I was quite interested in the magic side of Taoism,
So watching these Taoists sitting around in silence made me wonder if I can gain some sort of magical abilities through the practice.
And because I had a lot of time on my hands,
And a lot of fears,
I was soon going out or socializing,
So I had plenty of time to sit around and do nothing.
So that's how I began my meditation journey.
I guess my fears of going out kind of worked out,
Made me look into these practices,
Which would later help me to understand the nature of my mind,
Of my body,
Of my spirit,
Of who I am.
I never liked meditation,
But I continued because one of my tendencies was that I like challenges.
I had this bad habit of thinking that suffering was necessary for growth,
So yeah,
Meditation was perfect for that because I was torturing.
Remember the first time of sitting in meditation?
I only lasted for 5 minutes before I collapsed onto the floor,
And then patience and sweat.
Yeah,
That was the first time I realized I could sweat just by sitting.
So I continued the practice for the next 3 years,
Not knowing what I was doing and why I was doing it.
And then one day I realized that I had been meditating the wrong way.
Yeah,
It took me 3 years to figure it out.
So those 3 years of dwelling on the suffering states of the mind and meditation rather than simply observing them,
Really did no good for me.
And also my desire to develop spiritual powers sent excessive energy to different energy centers of my body,
And that greatly ungrounded me.
Anyways,
After becoming the master of meditating wrongly,
I realized the ways to meditate properly,
Which was to just simply do the opposite of what I was doing.
After understanding how meditation worked,
I wanted to address my suffering states of the mind.
So I would begin to throw myself into suffering situations to see how my mind would react,
And why I would react,
How the suffering states of the mind were emerging from the consciousness.
So from that day onwards,
I would begin to suffer day by day,
Just to study the suffering states of the mind,
So I can find a way to release it,
To transform it.
Anyways,
Let me share with you what I have discovered and maybe that will help you to understand about the practice a little bit better,
How to use the practice to discover your spiritual essence.
So through meditation,
I began to realize that there was a separation within the mind,
Which separates the personality and the person behind that personality.
It's like the personality that I carried and the person of who I really am.
To use an example,
It's like as if the consciousness,
If the consciousness was an ocean,
Then the personality is the waves upon that ocean.
And it's only when these waves die,
When it becomes still,
That we can see our truer reflection on the water.
So it's by stilling the mind that we come to know the person behind that personality.
Now the awareness of the separation became more and more apparent to me when I made the commitment to follow my heart every moment for the rest of my life.
I basically made this commitment because at the time I was working on the suffering state of the mind to do with commitment,
So I had to commit to different things in life to study it.
Anyways,
Through committing to following the heart,
It was then I began to see clearer and clearer the separation between the mind and heart,
Between the personality and the person behind the personality.
For instance,
I knew that forgiveness was the right thing to do,
But in life I just couldn't do it.
For instance,
I knew that I should not be fearful and be all accepting of everyone,
But in life I just couldn't let go of my fears.
So through the practice of meditation it helped me to understand about my own spiritual lessons,
Because I gradually understood what parts of my personality needs to be worked on so that I can become who I really am,
Which is infinite,
All accepting the Creator.
The subconscious part of the mind is always full of wisdom of the oneness in this world,
And it helped to guide me to complete my spiritual lessons.
To me,
The personality seems to be the mask that we have created for ourselves before coming into this lifetime,
So that spiritual lessons can be activated through them,
Which will take us to experience the suffering states of the mind.
And through them,
We can grow to become greater than before,
To become even more accepting,
More self-knowing,
More wise,
More happy.
That is why the practice of meditation,
Especially one which focuses on stillness and simple observation of the reality is powerful,
Because it is by quietening the personality that we can become more aware of the inner wisdom,
More aware of the separation,
More aware of the importance of connecting the mind and heart as one.
Anyway,
Studying the separation is my way of discovering my own spiritual lessons.
I know it can seem intangible and hard to understand when we talk about abstract concepts,
So to help you to understand how you can use meditation to discover your spiritual lessons,
We can talk about the mechanics of meditation in a scientific way.
In meditation,
As one turns their senses onwards to discover the wilderness side,
With the intent to simply observe it in stillness,
One will begin to uncover un-stillness.
This is natural.
But some people will think that when they experience un-stillness,
Discomfort,
Negativities,
They may think that they are meditating wrongly.
So when one encounters negativities in discomfort and meditation,
One can easily give up.
But realize that this is just simply meditation working.
That is the mechanism of meditation to bring out the un-stillness,
The inner chaos,
The discomfort,
The hidden suffering states of the mind.
So meditation will help to reveal what is happening in that darkness within.
So meditating in silence is a powerful way to develop self-knowing.
Meditating with music can help with relaxation,
But it can also distract one from simply observing the reality as it is,
Blocking the self-knowing.
The journey of meditation will always begin with the push and pull,
The pushing out of stillness and the pulling back into stillness.
With time,
As you experience the wandering thoughts again and again,
You will naturally develop the knowing of the nature of the wandering thoughts.
Maybe you'll start to notice that these wandering thoughts have to do with certain fears,
Certain negativities,
Certain worries,
Certain desires.
Through the meditation journey,
The more you develop stillness,
The deeper you will go into the mind and uncover deeper wandering thoughts.
And naturally,
Like spending time with a person,
The more you spend time with your mind,
The more you will come to know the mind,
Know the nature of your wandering thoughts,
The cause of your wandering thoughts,
The cause of your fears and unhappiness,
Until you know the mind like a close friend,
No longer a stranger.
This is the process of self-knowing.
As spiritual lessons will always be lessons to do with self-acceptance and happiness.
Through the practice of meditation,
You'll be able to uncover what is preventing you from going deeper into the states of self-acceptance and happiness.
And these will be your spiritual lessons.
So meditation is a really good practice where you become your own teacher,
Teaching yourself who you are,
What you need to work on for greater happiness.
So if you have the opportunity,
Give meditation a try.
And what you will discover is that in the periods of meditative silence and stillness,
Your wisdom will come and guide you through the experience,
Guiding you towards discovering and completing your spiritual lessons,
So that you can achieve greater self-knowing and greater happiness in life.
