Meditation can, on the best days, open us to extraordinary inner experiences. I had such an experience last night and I am going to do my best to reconstruct what happened.
The story begins yesterday morning. I received an email which I read just before I left the house for a Yoga session. It's the sort of email that just has you sitting back on your chair, emotionally altered by the words. A correspondent had compared me to a novel character and as I re-read his words I realized he was right. I was very much like this woman in very fundamental ways and it is why I had such a visceral response to the story, I suppose.
During yoga I thought about how wonderful it felt for someone in the world to understand me so deeply and I was truly amazed at how much that meant to me. I had to squeeze my nose tight to stop my eyes from tearing up too much because I can become overwhelmed by this sort of emotion. Other than that, it was a usual sort of day, spent having pleasant conversation over lunch and time in the afternoon with my son watching 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower'; more about that another time.
I went to the meditation at dusk. It was my first visit to this meditation centre and there were about 60 people there. I knew the background of the man taking the session and I felt immediately comfortable there. I looked about me and they were regular people of varying ages. Most of them had been there before, I learned.
Bill talked first about an article on his website about how not to worry and then we did some sound work. Ummmmm and Ahhhhhhh, whilst our eyes were closed. I felt the reverberation in my body. We all nodded that we did. Then, a woman took us through some gentle exercises. Finally, it was time to settle into the meditation.
Bill turned off the lights and for about ten minutes he made some gentle suggestions, prior to the period of silence. I don't remember what he said but I remember some thoughts bouncing around my head and my awareness of that and then, gradually, the thoughts were losing power and a complete stillness was settling into my mind. I had no sensations in my body whatsoever, just my thumb touching my index finger on both hands and I had absolutely no need to move a muscle. I did not. I was very open to the experience last night.
Just before we moved into silence I felt a huge wave wash over me. It was a wave of deep emotion and I was enveloped in a state of love. It wasn't a sense of love in that worldly sense of love that I recall feeling after an intense spanking; a subspace sort of sense of worldly love; that is, love for all man. Rather, my mind was spontaneously traveling throughout my life bringing up images of when I was loved, felt love and experienced love.
I traveled randomly through my life - Andy, someone who worked for my parents, teaching me how to ride a bike at the age of perhaps six, my father sitting beside me in hospital and crying that I was unwell when I was a teenager, my mother tying my hair into braids, one or other Maria cooking me food, the birth of my children, my wedding day, moments when I have walked home with the children, or been to their nursery school, my husband smiling up at me in the stairwell at an apartment in Connecticut; his making love to me in such an intense way that I was shaking and he needed to wrap me tight in a blanket. On and on and on the images came to me and as each one appeared it prompted another huge tear to fall from my eyes. I saw my life for what it was - a most privileged life - one filled to overflowing with love. I felt extreme happiness.
I didn't scoop up the tears until I had a conscious thought it was close to the meditation's end and I wiped each side of my face in turn, just so that I'd be presentable when the lights came on. When Bill did turn on the lights he told us that it had been 36 minutes. I could have been 'under' for much longer. He spoke to us for a few moments afterwards and I felt incredibly peaceful and still. Words weren't an option. I was glad to be alive and to be here and yet I felt that I had traveled somewhere else; that I had a sense of what it was to not be here. I had a sense of heaven.
It is said that meditation is a construction of the mind and if that is so, for whatever reason I was ready last night to experience peace; love; joy; free-fall. I'm extremely grateful for the experience. I hope that you have such an opportunity yourself.
The story begins yesterday morning. I received an email which I read just before I left the house for a Yoga session. It's the sort of email that just has you sitting back on your chair, emotionally altered by the words. A correspondent had compared me to a novel character and as I re-read his words I realized he was right. I was very much like this woman in very fundamental ways and it is why I had such a visceral response to the story, I suppose.
During yoga I thought about how wonderful it felt for someone in the world to understand me so deeply and I was truly amazed at how much that meant to me. I had to squeeze my nose tight to stop my eyes from tearing up too much because I can become overwhelmed by this sort of emotion. Other than that, it was a usual sort of day, spent having pleasant conversation over lunch and time in the afternoon with my son watching 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower'; more about that another time.
I went to the meditation at dusk. It was my first visit to this meditation centre and there were about 60 people there. I knew the background of the man taking the session and I felt immediately comfortable there. I looked about me and they were regular people of varying ages. Most of them had been there before, I learned.
Bill talked first about an article on his website about how not to worry and then we did some sound work. Ummmmm and Ahhhhhhh, whilst our eyes were closed. I felt the reverberation in my body. We all nodded that we did. Then, a woman took us through some gentle exercises. Finally, it was time to settle into the meditation.
Bill turned off the lights and for about ten minutes he made some gentle suggestions, prior to the period of silence. I don't remember what he said but I remember some thoughts bouncing around my head and my awareness of that and then, gradually, the thoughts were losing power and a complete stillness was settling into my mind. I had no sensations in my body whatsoever, just my thumb touching my index finger on both hands and I had absolutely no need to move a muscle. I did not. I was very open to the experience last night.
Just before we moved into silence I felt a huge wave wash over me. It was a wave of deep emotion and I was enveloped in a state of love. It wasn't a sense of love in that worldly sense of love that I recall feeling after an intense spanking; a subspace sort of sense of worldly love; that is, love for all man. Rather, my mind was spontaneously traveling throughout my life bringing up images of when I was loved, felt love and experienced love.
I traveled randomly through my life - Andy, someone who worked for my parents, teaching me how to ride a bike at the age of perhaps six, my father sitting beside me in hospital and crying that I was unwell when I was a teenager, my mother tying my hair into braids, one or other Maria cooking me food, the birth of my children, my wedding day, moments when I have walked home with the children, or been to their nursery school, my husband smiling up at me in the stairwell at an apartment in Connecticut; his making love to me in such an intense way that I was shaking and he needed to wrap me tight in a blanket. On and on and on the images came to me and as each one appeared it prompted another huge tear to fall from my eyes. I saw my life for what it was - a most privileged life - one filled to overflowing with love. I felt extreme happiness.
I didn't scoop up the tears until I had a conscious thought it was close to the meditation's end and I wiped each side of my face in turn, just so that I'd be presentable when the lights came on. When Bill did turn on the lights he told us that it had been 36 minutes. I could have been 'under' for much longer. He spoke to us for a few moments afterwards and I felt incredibly peaceful and still. Words weren't an option. I was glad to be alive and to be here and yet I felt that I had traveled somewhere else; that I had a sense of what it was to not be here. I had a sense of heaven.
It is said that meditation is a construction of the mind and if that is so, for whatever reason I was ready last night to experience peace; love; joy; free-fall. I'm extremely grateful for the experience. I hope that you have such an opportunity yourself.
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