Now is all you have

Now is all you ever have. Our minds tend to live in the past and the future, rarely in the present moment. We dwell on the past, we get anxious about the future, but we hardly live right here, right now in this moment. We tend to get stuck in these trances and many never escape the whirlwind of thoughts that virtually do not exist. Meditation is performed to awaken from the trance of living in the past and future into the present.

When we sit still, we begin to see with new eyes, we become more aware of our internal self. There is a huge misconception that meditation will help us to achieve eternal bliss with God, Allah, the Universe etc. This may eventually happen, for a very short time period-seconds, but it is not the goal. The point of meditation is awareness, to become aware. We get trapped into the trance of everyday life and we hardly realize this because it is all we've ever known for our entire lives up until this point. When this happens, the mind begins to create stories and we hardly realize what's truly in front of us. The mind is like a muscle, we can train it just as we can do bicep curls and sprinting to train the musculature of the physical body.

So, why meditate? To become aware...yes, to escape the trance...yes, and to become fully alive. Some people live their entire lives being asleep-they skip from one thing to the next without ever slowing down, or getting to truly know themselves or what they were birthed on this planet to do. When we slow down, when we become quiet, we begin to unwrap the gifts that have been within us all along, and we begin to share those gifts with humanity. One of my teachers says that a truly healthy individual is free from selfishness, free from the ego, that selfless people help humanity and that selfish people destroy it. When we establish a meditation practice, we begin to cultivate selflessness, we start to quiet and transform the ego into compassion, gratitude and grace. Meditation also helps us to start cleaning up our moral and ethical behavior and helps us to practice contentment-intentionally being content.

One of the greatest gifts you will cultivate through a daily meditation routine is patience. Patience is a virtue, inwhich we all could use a little more of.

Where to Start:
1) Begin by sitting down, sitting in a chair, standing-whatever you are most comfortable with. Take several deep breaths, inhaling and exhaling. My teacher always starts meditation by saying, "I sit down, I breath in, I breath out, and I smile".
2) After several breaths, begin to focus your awareness on one object. Often, the breath is the best object to begin with. Focus on the inhale-how it feels going through your nose all the way down to your kidneys, and then exhale focusing on releasing from the lungs. Just watching, observing, seeing.
3) As the mind wanders, do not get upset with yourself, do not self-criticize, notice where your mind drifts to and come back to focusing on the breath. Remember, this practice is about cultivating compassion, so have compassion for yourself, especially as the mind wanders.
4) Continue to focus on the breath, the rising, the pause, the exhale for 10 minutes-1 hour per day. Set an alarm clock if you need so that you're not continuously checking the clock. End the practice by silently (or aloud) saying what you are grateful for. It is OK to start with shorter duration, try to increase the length every week or so. A regular meditation practice will absolutely transform your life in remarkable ways. Good luck and I would love to hear about your experiences!