Why Isn't Your Meditation Working?
Note: I am co-hosting an evening online event with Russell Bishop called The Myth of the Spiritual Path this Wednesday, February 8th, at 4pm Pacific/ 7pm Eastern (8pm here in Puerto Rico). It is free to attend. Register here.
One of the common themes I’ve heard throughout the years is people wondering why their meditation or spiritual exercises don’t seem to be giving them the results they are looking for. Sometimes they have had a period where they felt really connected in their meditation and then they no longer do. Other’s talk about how they haven’t seen or heard anything besides their own mind chattering or imagination wandering.
So then comes the question, why isn’t my meditation working for me?
When I hear this question, I tend to interpret it as, “Why am I not getting what I want in my meditation/spiritual exercises?” This is just a cousin of “Why doesn’t God answer my prayers?”, where you are looking to God as the great bellhop in the sky.
If you are feeling this way towards your meditative practice, I would like to suggest an alternative way to approach your spiritual exercises:
Approach your meditation as a gift you are giving, rather than something from which you are looking to receive something. Look to your mediation as a gift you give to your spiritual self, to the Spirit, and to God. If you get something in return, that is extra.
When you let go of the pressure from the underlying demand of what you want to get from your meditation, you are much more likely to be open enough to allow a greater inner experience to unfold for you.
It is funny how people turn to their spiritual exercises to experience something that is greater, and yet they think they know how that is supposed to happen. If it doesn’t happen in the way they have decided, then they look at their mediation as a failure. It is true that it failed. It failed to do what you wanted. In failing to give you what you want, that ironically makes your meditation a success. That’s actually the first thing it did for you! It dispelled the idea that you control the Spirit, or that It cares what you want, or that It will give in to your demands.
Once you really get that the Spirit is no respecter of your desires, then you can just let that one go when you are going inside. How about just watch with no expectation? Just observe. Just give your time to the Spirit, and let It do whatever It wants with you…even if that is nothing!
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