WORDS: PRATITI MEUNIER, S.E. PRACTITIONER, BODY THERAPIST, FACILITATOR OF MEDITATION GROUPS, EXTERNAL CONSULTANT IN BEAUTY IMAGINI, HOLISTIC CENTER
When I first heard of meditation and, as I was sitting in silence to stop the mind, I thought, ‘pffff…. No way… this is not for me… it’s impossible to stop my mind…’ This was my first thought, a deep belief about my incapacity to stop the tsunami of ideas and talks ‘upstairs’ and also, why not say it, a degree of doubt that this is possible….
More than 15 years later… here I am….writing about Meditation!
A part of my life story is to be a ‘good student’… Then, this good student inside started to read a bunch of articles related to meditation from all the possible fields. From spiritual Masters to physical body effects; from mental and scientific research to skeptical opinions; from the illusion and drug of escapists to the most clear reality of our own Being…
After all the lectures and information (a whole universe!), there was, literally, a chaos in my mind, full of more questions, doubts, insecurities, realizations, insights. And when the moment of writing arrived… there was a big BOH…. “What to say, how to say it? I will take this quote. No, that one’s better. I want to share this vision. Oh! This one too… But this is also interesting. How shall I put all this together, where shall I start…?’ I was listening to all those voices from within and I felt that it was a bit ‘crowded upstairs’, as you can imagine… It was like wanting to cross a highway during a rush hour in an unexpected rainy day…. IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND A WAY!!
Then, I stopped for a moment … I went back to my tools and I dropped my ‘to do’ and ‘want to do’ list, and I jumped INSIDE…closed my eyes… breathing slowly, gently, deeply…going back to my belly… away from the traffic jam in my mind… feeling my body, feeling the sensation in my body, noticing my emotions… observing… not changing anything… just observing … and, slowly, the sky started clearing up again… my heart started beating slowly and I could feel a sensation of the expansion in my chest… a sense of calmness, openness, relaxation, clarity, trust, vision… and I noticed a soft smile on my face… this was Meditation… no words, no theories, no explanation… it is a Sense, an Experience, our Essence, our Silence, our Nature…
But, what happens next? Why is there all this noise inside? If meditation is our Nature, why are we not there? And the answer is simple…WE FORGET…We get trapped in the rush of the modern world, in a crazy need to do, to produce, to improve more and more, keeping us busy, always wanting more and more…. we identify with the media, social circles or with what we do for a living. Our brain becomes our center, verbal understanding and intellectual theories are ways to communicate. Systematic methods are the way to strengthen it and more energy is reaching this endless talking center. Because this is the mind, this is its nature… a chronic commentator.
Our center is our mind… and we forgot that beyond our head there is a body, there are emotions, sensations, feelings, there is a heart beating and longing to be seen and listened to, and further down there is a belly, roots, a pulsating life, a passion to feel and fire to live…
That’s why, to me, Active Meditations or Meditations in Movement make so much sense. Because in order to silent my mind, first of all, I needed to re-connect with my body, move my body, release the tensions, the stress, give space to the talkative ‘upstairs’ and, in a way, destroy the false center, start feeling again, feeling my emotions, my sensations, my fullness… With active meditation or cathartic meditation we push the center of consciousness from the brain, the ‘upstairs’, towards the Heart in the middle of the chest. We give space to the suppressed heart and, by doing so, we are give lightness and bring space to the wishes and longings that make our hearts beat stronger. And when this happens, we can jump even lower and bring our center of consciousness to the area of the navel, our Hara. There is the source of vitality, of energy, the roots. There is a place that we call Home, where our truth pulsates, our inner wisdom… we go back to the beginning of it all. And this center is where transformation can happen, because in this space we are already what we are looking for… we come back to the vast space where everything is possible, where silence is the container, and clarity and vision are the guides.
It is in this moment that we realize that meditation is a natural state of the Human Being, we don’t need to learn anything, we need to REMEMBER. And, the more we reach for the Source, the more we absorb this clarity, with this Inner Beauty, with this Inner Peace. We feel connected again with something bigger than us and we trust that everything is perfect just the way it is.
Qualities as Acceptance, Trust and Joy arise from within, not as a mental effort but as a natural flow coming from a deep understanding…. The Miracle of Being Human, including all our colors, shapes, moods, embracing the whole as human as we are… because, for me, there is nothing more beautiful and Sacred than this… Being a Human Being.
