I look up at the second set of stairs and let out a big sigh. This small building has a lot of potential, but instead, it’s sitting isolated in the midst of a campus. I picture a welcoming studio filled with a relaxing ambience, music, and scents that will aid in comforting one’s mind. As I approach the top floor of the great room, I’m greeted by my spiritual coach, who, for the last few days, has tried to get me to meditate.
He opens up the windows to let in the sound of nature and asks me to lie down on my yoga mat. I see the sound bowls behind him, and they amuse me as much as his ability to make me feel comfortable. He has not been so successful in helping to quieten my mind, and in his willful little way, he has been determined to win this battle. Every day, a new set of apparatuses, chants, or lectures awaits me.
I ask him why this place is sterile and unkept; maybe if it were more welcoming, I could do better. He laughs and tells me that I don’t need all that to settle my mind into meditation. “Nothing outside should affect what’s going on inside.” He tells me, I beg to differ, but reluctantly I agree and settle down.
I took this journey to a retreat to work on myself. I travelled to the birth country of yoga and Ayurveda. I suppose I was always a simple yet spiritual person, and then while healing from physical trauma quite some decades ago, I turned to yoga. In the beginning, I researched and self-taught and found my avenue for a therapeutic cure. I then went as far as yoga teacher training, but another physical blow stopped that dream in its tracks. But I never gave up on the practice.
In fact, yoga is not a practice; it is a way of life. It taught me to listen to my body. Yoga heals in ways we all need to learn. Stretching, sitting, and even the mere act of breathing are also work. Mindful work that takes effort when done correctly.
Yoga to me is discipline. It’s being able to make the mind and body connection in harmony with your breath. In everything you do and in everything you set out to do, there is an element of conjunction with the mind and body. So many of us are misled; yoga means intricate poses and asanas that only the skilled can perform. When in fact, it’s not that at all. Yoga means listening to your body, doing what is comfortable, and pushing a little more to strengthen and make amends with your limbs. It’s unwinding and deeply connecting, and taking the time to have awareness of what is good and bad for your body. It helps you align with your spiritual self and the world beyond you. I’ve learned many things on this journey, and on this particular occasion, I learned something new.
As I lay there on the mat listening to the sound of the wooden stick softly making sounds with the bowl, my mind again wandered off into another dimension. I tried hard, as with the previous lessons, to try and bring it back to be present, but I failed. Practice, they say, makes perfect, but this practice never availed.
I felt like a child eager to go home from school as I sat up. I told him I thought I did pretty well this time, and he laughed. “I know you were not present, but tell me, what brings you peace, cleanses your mind, releases you, and helps you settle down?” His concerned words warranted a serious answer. I took a moment as I lowered my gaze, “When I write.” I said.
On this trip, I learned that meditation doesn’t mean to sit for hours and chant mantras or have some sort of out-of-body experience, like I thought. Meditation is a mental exercise; it means to engage in the act of reflection. To have mental clarity and a calm state. And so on this journey of self-awareness, I was taught that if my writing makes me feel these things, it was my source of meditation, and I should continue down that path.
“Everyone is different, there is no ‘one size fits all’ when it comes to your mental wellbeing. You have to do what works for you. The key is to be consistent,” he advised. With these words, I took my leave. I looked around at the neglected building one last time. Perhaps it’s not neglected; it just needs to find a way to be restored. I was happy that after much searching in many places, the yogi in me finally found her meditative space.
