Experiencing God

After talking about God, and how we connect from an existential place, I felt the need to share a bit of what my meditation world looks like.

I was first introduced to some active meditations at Osho’s Ashram in 1992.
The idea was that westerners have a hard time sitting still, and so as a first step of the meditation, we can learn how to be present with the movement we are doing, and then sitting and lying down in stillness becomes easier.

Other systems offer concentration techniques to train the mind into finding centeredness. A candle flame, a vision, a word or sound that repeats within the mind (mantra), or the breath are some points of attention to keep the mind from wandering.

After practicing in different ways, I found that the breath worked best for me. I have it with me always, and do not need the use of the mind or senses in order to be with it. At first my Zen teacher told me to count inhales and exhales up to ten. Start by inhaling – one, exhaling – two, inhaling – three, till I reach ten. If I loose my count, I just return to one.
After some time and practice, when this became comfortable, I was told to count each inhale and exhale as one, inhale and exhale two…This still uses the mind but helps it stay in one place.
Eventually letting go of the counting all together, and just dropping the awareness to the belly. Eyes opened, looking down towards the floor with a soft gaze. Sitting with a straight and relaxed spine, not doing anything.

Sitting still, and just observing, the mind, the eyes, the ears, all drop on their own, the separation of me and things I see and hear disappears, I, as I know it disappears, and a new state of consciousness is there.

Since sitting was never easy for me, doing nothing, a great task for me, I have learned to practice preparations for this in the functioning life.
My first practice was when I used to sit on my balcony in Tel Aviv while being an art student. A very big tree lived right in front of it, and I found myself many times sitting and watching it. Just looking at it. The feeling of no boundaries would arise, the tree would appear more dimensional than before, and time lost its meaning.
This first step in this kind of being is the art of non-labeling. Once I would recognize what I was doing, it was lost. The moment I thought,” the leaves are big”, or “this is awesome” it was gone. I’ve created a separation between the tree and me. It is only through the state of complete surrender, of Just Being, that this happens.
There used to be posters that looked like some unknown messy drawing. When one could stare at it, without focusing, without the mind and without trying to see anything, an amazing 3 dimensional image would appear. I find this to be somewhat similar in the way of letting go.
There is an intention involved, but there is no trying. The harder I try the further away I get, the more separation I create.
Who is trying? Who is there when no effort is involved?
Sitting still doing nothing the river flows on its own, the waves come and go and the earth spins.
Can we let go of controlling, of being in charge; can we just be an awareness, acceptance, leaving no footprint behind? Then we achieve it all. We have all that we could ever need.