Meditation and Creativity

"Ideas are like fish. If you want to catch little fish, you stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you've got to go deeper. Down deep, the fish are more powerful and more pure. They're huge and abstract. And they're very beautiful. Everything, anything that is a thing, comes up from the deepest level. Modern physics calls that level the Unified Field. The more your consciousness - your awareness - is expanded, the deeper you go toward this source, and the bigger the fish you can catch'. - David Lynch, Catching the Big Fish.

The Dalai Llama says that if we taught one generation of children to meditate, it would end all war and there would be world peace. How crazy a statement is that? Yet regardless of how much evidence arises, both scientifically and metaphysically, to prove the vast and unbelievable benefits that meditation creates, so few people actually take the small amount of time every day to do it. Why is that? I think it's in large part due to all the misconceptions that surround it that make people feel like they just aren't someone who can do it or that they're doing something wrong when they try.

For example, I became very fascinated and excited about meditation and all the implied possibilities it contained for a long time before I even took the time to experience it for my self. It's intimidating, it seems boring, and just so out of the ordinary from how we're used to doing everything. You want me to what?! Sit STILL? And I can't even play with myself? Oh no, I definitely can't do that. Finally I had to pay an Indian man $30 (which is a LOT when you're in India!) to sit with me in a very hot room and watch me sit still for three hours a day for three days. I thought he was finally going to unlock the key to meditating for me and all he said was to watch my breath, silently say Aum at the end of each exhale and come back to it every time I get distracted. That's it? That's all I get for god knows how many Rupees and not to mention all the hope and faith I had that finally I was going to learn this beautiful and ancient art? I guess not. But then I had no choice. So I sat. And I suffered. And I SUFFERED. And when I came out of it and discussed my experiences with the wise yogi he didn't seem surprised. He didn't seem concerned that there was no silence to speak of, that I kept falling asleep, or that the voice in my head started to sound more and more like a whiny, spoiled, teenage girl the longer I went without obeying it. And when I came back the next day it was the same thing. And it was the same the day after that.

Meditation is really just focussing your attention on something other than your thoughts so that you come to realize that you are the attention and not the thoughts. And when you realize that you are the attention and you start to spend more time with it, it will slowly and steadily start to grow and grow and grow until you finally have full control over your thoughts and emotions. Thoughts will never stop going through your head and trying to hook your attention and take you away on a tangent about Ryan Kwanten's RIDICULOUS body, or how much you HATE Miley Cyrus, but the more you break away from your steady stream of thinking and come back to focussing on something else, allowing the thoughts to just float on by, the more space will open up, and the more self aware and in control you will become.

I have been meditating for the last three years on a surprisingly steady basis and I can tell you that for the most part the experience hasn't changed a ton. While the spaces between are definitely longer, I still get a constant stream of thoughts through my head and I still get restless. But that's okay. The most important thing I know is that meditation isn't about stopping my thoughts! It's being able to seperate my self from those thoughts that really counts. Some days are better than others and I feel myself settling into some vast and peaceful place that I recognize as the real me and when that happens I enjoy the experience and let it float by like everything else. But regardless of what the practice looks like, I can tell you that the benefits i've felt make all the frustration and confusion totally worth it.

I think the best way to learn is to start reading about all different forms of meditation. There are literally thousands of ways to meditate and any and all will completely transform your life. Watch 'What the Bleep do we Know" and read "The Power of Now". Learn more about the scientific side and then learn more about the spiritual side. The more information you get about it, the more your consciousness can start to make small shifts in awareness about it and the more comfortable you will become with actually doing it. Go to a class, or buy a cd, but whatever you do, find a way to bring meditation into your life. Without it we have no control over our thoughts and are left to the mercy of our minds which are are simply "drunken, drugged, and devil-possessed monkeys" in the words of many yogis. Just look at the world created by unconscious thought? Even sitting for 10 minutes a day with your eyes closed and focussing on different parts of your body and filling them with love will COMPLETELY transform you. And will probably make the people around you happier too! Trust me.

Before I write I sit in stillness for a few minutes to connect with my true self. Or if this works better for you, I come back to seeing my self as the attention and not the thoughts. This brings me back to the place where all thoughts come from. Where creation comes from. This is where my art comes from. This is where I come from. Meditate. Find stillness and let the universe fill you. Explore yourself and all you have to offer.

Namaste :-)