What is Meditative Life (and how I can be of use to you)

 What picture does ‘meditative life’ draw in your mind? 

Is it one of a quiet, contemplative life of a hermit? Or is it a life of service and action of a large-hearted, compassionate person? Or is it a colorful picture of a life full of devotion to spiritual or religious ideals, full of poems, pilgrimages, and prayers? 

Our cultural ideas, roots, and personal inquiries would inform what a meditative life is for us as well as what ‘personal development’ and ‘spiritual growth’ mean. To each his own - the definition as well as the means; the goals and the paths. 

Even then, for most of us, there is more that is common than that which separates our understanding. Here’s how we have arrived at our definition based on certain presumptions:

1. We have strong unconscious behavioral patterns developed through many factors such as childhood conditioning, past traumas or emotional wounds.
2. Some of these behavior patterns no longer serve us. In fact, they are the root cause of our suffering. 
3. By identifying, weakening, and eliminating them, we create space and freedom. 
4. We now have more power to create the version of ourselves we have in our mind’s eye.

Working on this four-step process is Meditative Life for us. It is a way of life. 

Identifying our current behavior patterns requires self-awareness and reflection. Most of us aren’t sitting in a wooden cabin near Lake Walden absorbed in high thoughts about self and society; we are working in high-rise buildings of the modern metropolis, surrounded by WiFi-enabled attention-grabbing devices. There is no time or space - there is little energy or intention - for introspection. That’s where Meditative Writing comes to the rescue. Through proven writing exercises, you can find that assisted, distraction-free time for looking inwards. 

Once you have identified patterns that don’t help you, the wounds that you would like to heal, the old paradigms that you would want to shift from, it is imperative to work on yourself to bring about positive change. Tools and techniques are available in plenty, but one must sincerely seek them and put them to use. Once again, here’s where we would like to assist you by curating the best resources that are out there. By helping you commit to change. By sharing with you the subtle science of changing your mind through awareness, breath work, introspection, and action. By making sure, other things don’t delay or take over the process of self-healing and self-transformation, as they most likely will. 

With time, you will discover freedom. The harmful behavioral patterns will be removed through your intense presence (awareness), and you will find yourself wondering how to respond in triggering situations now that you don’t have to react. It will be best, in our understanding, to do some groundwork on what kind of ‘self’ you envision having: your vision and mission, your dreams and goals, your values and meanings. This will require work. Through mentorship, commitment devices, and meditative writing, we would assist you to forge those ideas in your mind so that you realize them sooner rather than later. 

A lot of people who are personal growth enthusiasts, despite high self-awareness, suffer their own minds. Why? Because personal development becomes a means to an end. A step towards abstract enlightenment sometime in the future when they will be perfect and blissed out. 

That’s not what we are doing here. We are reducing our suffering right Now. We are healing our relationship with ourselves. We are becoming our own best friends. And we are exploring our potential, easily, gently. 

This is the crux of Meditative Life. Being kind to ourselves even as we take responsibility for our current behavior (which is less than perfect). Becoming mindful and non-reactive, even in the midst of persisting, adamant, decades-old patterns. Becoming powerful, by making choices of how we wish to be. Becoming creative, by building the life we want. 

And the measure of one’s success won’t be in achieving a particular goal or reaching a height. As soon as one hill is climbed, there are other, larger hills visible. And as every mountaineer knows, the journey is not just about reaching the top but having the wits and energy enough for making your way back down. Nobody stays at the mountain top.

Therefore, the ultimate joy is in living a life of high self-awareness. In cultivating and experiencing the universal value of loving-kindness. In being present in every moment. In being alive. In the words of one of my favorite authors:

“A warrior must cultivate the feeling that he has everything needed for the extravagant journey that is his life. What counts for a warrior is being alive. Life in itself is sufficient, self-explanatory and complete.” - Carlos Castaneda, Wheels of Time

That is the picture we have in our minds when we talk of Meditative Life.