Meditation and the urge to create

The course I am currently teaching in Amsterdam is going really well. It went well right from the beginning, we were all in a flow, finding out together about what enlightenment is and speaking about the cultural context that we share and the cosmic, evolutionary context that this all takes place in but that we often are asleep to.

The third night we had a bit of a struggle, I told people about Andrew Cohen's meditation instructions, and my own recent experiences with meditation. I explained that you don't have to do anything when you meditate; it made people, especially the men, a bit edgy; ‘How do you do that, nothing?' It is hard to accept that it is that simple, but once you get it, or better, do it, life changes radically, here is a note that one woman sent me after the class on meditation:

‘I have to thank you for the gift I got. I'm usually always judging everything and everyone and in particular myself the most. I'm harsh on myself when I do things the wrong way. I mentally punish myself. Regarding to meditating I experienced the same thing. I used to meditate and could never be satisfied with the way I did it or the results I got.

During class you shared your experience on how you felt that you always saw room for improvement in how to meditate and that in a way the/your meditation was never good enough.  And that as of this week you could let go of that belief. This had huge impact on me. Such an easy thing to do, when you see it. Now I too let go of this belief/thought on meditation and in return I feel more peace and relief.. It's all about doing it and not about how to do it!'

Last week we talked about the difference between ego and authentic self, this is a term that Andrew Cohen came up with to describe the expression in time and space of the absolute self, or limitless void that we experience in meditation. This is a force of nature, the true meaning of the word love, that emerges from the void as soon as we take our attention off our ego's fears and desires. The emergence of that force of love in myself, others and in groups of people is what I live for. After the enlightening, energizing and deeply inspiring class we had about this, one of the participants wrote me something I found very powerful because he is simply describing what he has been experiencing after the class and with that gives a beautiful illustration of the difference between ego and authentic self;

‘During the last week I am experiencing a profound shift in the way I relate to the world. I normally have a strong urge to fix things. I set very high standards of living for myself and my environment. This is not always easy, as one can perceive the world easily as imperfect. In fact, I think that from an ego perspective you always can and will find the flaws, thereby finding evidence that things are not yet good enough. And again the ego has found something to fix.

It is as if practicing meditation on a regular basis slowly, but powerfully, let's dissolve the inevitable need to focus on ‘what is not'. Instead I become more and more satisfied with ‘what is'. And, at the same time, I experience more and more drive to come into action. Not to fix things, but to do things. To make my life, the life of others, or even the world slightly better. Herein I see that connecting to the ‘ground of being' on a regular basis enables me to act and perceive the world from a different perspective. I see this as the authentic self, which is in his nature almost the opposite of the ego, creating life and setting a context in a way that is intrinsically good and perfect.'

This liberating, transformative investigation we are doing together makes me feel very lucky to be alive...