Meditation and the Negative Mind
Last month, the kirtan we shared was magical for me. The mantras continue to draw me further outside the known and familiar. The unknown space has an alluring quality. My senses expand, connections appear and trust abounds.
The peace and calm stayed with me throughout the weekend. I was relaxed, grounded and full. Imagine my surprise when on Monday I seemed to fall off an emotional cliff. I saw it happening but couldn’t quite talk myself out of it. I went from feeling full and elated to worthless and inadequate.
I walked to the waterfall Tuesday morning with my friend, Leah, feeling deeply confused. What can I do to land more softly when I go on these energetic journeys? Why do I keep crashing after big expansions? The walk in nature helped me regain perspective. I felt the beauty of the sun shining on my face, the soft moss under my feet and the sound of the waterfall rushing. It became clear that everything else was a story in my mind. The negative spin slowed and I was able to carry on my day calmly.
I soon found a philosophical answer to the cycles of opening and closing in Guru Singh’s book Buried Treasures. I took much comfort in this passage, “There will always be a conflict when you reach into the infinite to produce your mission… For every action there is an equal reaction… Every position, every movement forward, creates opposition; it’s a law of physics…The faster you move forward, the greater the opposition against you…You will retain your power when you don’t take the opposition personally. Just see it as the law of what is and move around it tactfully.”
The quote reminded me that these cycles are natural, even expected. By its nature, an opposing force will accompany any forward motion on the road to increased consciousness. It’s our reaction to the opposing force, which determines how much growth we can tolerate. Every time we say yes, there is a fearful part of the mind that will say no.
The question is how to move around the negative mind gracefully. For me, meditation is essential. In terms of what else to do, I doubt there is a universal prescription. We need to do whatever makes us smile and remember not to take ourselves so seriously.