One of the reasons I love meditation is that it helps us recover the power to create. Knowing that I have the power to create and knowing how to use that power, these are two life skills everyone who wants true happiness should develop.
When they're confronted by difficult situations, many people lose the power to create, being stuck in and controlled by their circumstances. We live our lives immersed in
ever-changing situations and environments. Situations and environments are like the weather. Some days are sunny and clear, but others are rainy or stormy. In the same way, we can't avoid encountering difficult, trying circumstances. Exercising creativity in tough situations is really the life skill everyone wants to have.
Try asking yourself these questions:
- – Do I proactively manage my life in the direction I want, whatever my circumstances may be?
- – Oppressed by my situation or environment, do I experience difficulty in proactively creating the changes I want?
The environment I'm speaking about here is not only the external one. Our thoughts, emotions, habits, and the like are also an environment. We live immersed in continually changing internal and external surroundings. What's important, though, is that, although our environment surrounds us, we have an awareness that allows us to observe our situation and ourselves separately and simultaneously. I describe this awareness for observing ourselves as
"observer consciousness."
The most significant characteristic of observer consciousness is self-awareness. It watches the situation without becoming mired in it. When you can separate yourself from the situation you’re observing, you can
create the life you want without being controlled by it. When you lose observer consciousness, you become stuck in the situation itself, losing the freedom to separate yourself from your environment. You identify yourself with your surroundings, and you forget that you have the creative power to change your circumstances proactively.
Many people, with their heads, are well aware of observer consciousness. But, for the most part, they only understand it as information or knowledge; they can't really feel it. What can we do to "feel" observer consciousness?
Meditation makes it possible. Meditation is about recovering nature within us. Nature is not artificial. The heart of meditation is connecting not with the unnatural, but with what has always been there inside us.
When you're trapped in your busy, daily life, it's easy to lose the inborn nature inside you and retain only the emotions, thoughts, habits, and stories you’ve created. You easily forget your real self and remember only the shell surrounding it. If you fail to find it, you'll live as you have been living, according to your habits. You’ll continue merely adjusting yourself to your environment, not knowing that you have infinite creative power inside you.
I'll teach you a simple form of meditation that will allow you to connect with nature inside you.
Meditation for Feeling Nature Within
Sit comfortably on the floor or in a chair. Inhale and exhale, focusing on your breath. Feel yourself breathing in and out, without even trying. Inhale and exhale comfortably about five times.
Raise your right hand and place your left hand on your chest.
Feel your breathing slowly quiet, then feel the beating of your heart. Your heartbeat is one of your body’s most powerful life phenomena. If you focus on your hands, you will even be able to feel your pulse in your palm. Even concentrating like this on your heartbeat and breathing for just five minutes will bring you more peace of mind.
"Consciously" focus on your body. Have gratitude for your breathing, which happens on its own without you worrying about it, and for your ever-beating heart. Just as you concentrate all of your attention and care on someone you love, try to focus on your body with the same attention and affection.
No lower your hands and place them on your knees. Close your eyes and focus your attention inside your brain. It's enough to have a feeling of comfortably concentrating your awareness in the center of your head. Imagine that you have a "mute" button in your head and press it. The noise creating all the thoughts, feelings, and multitude of stories in your
brain quiets down, and your mind grows calm.
Feel your life. You're breathing comfortably, and your heart is beating regularly. Try to sense the life flowing in your body, its power and current. Try to feel nature filling you, its beauty and mystery. Observe your awareness awakening to that nature and life, feeling its beauty and mystery. And, using your observer consciousness, speak to yourself.
"I am nature.”
“I have the power to create."
Feel with your whole body the truth of the message you are speaking to yourself. Feel the message moving your soul. Inhale and exhale three times deeply, then open your eyes.
The
nature inside us wasn't created; it has always been there. That's why it can never be destroyed. Our connection with nature within may be momentarily broken, but it can never disappear. So all you have to do is make up your mind to recover that connection. By switching your concentration from outside to within and quietly feeling yourself breathing or sensing the rhythm of your beating heart, your vital phenomena, you can restore that connection. When we connect with nature inside us, we can love and create in any circumstance whatsoever.
Though a seemingly simple method,
this meditation is potent. I hope you will be sure to experience it. And please share with me what you felt through this practice.