For the last ten years I always go to a meditation and silence retreat at Easter in order to take some time away from the noise and daily activities, and to go inward instead. When I return from this sacred space, I tend to come back with a fresh outlook and the sense of serenity that I need to live in peace.
Today I would like to share with you some of these reflections.
- The practice of Mindfulness or any other form of meditation gradually leads us to experience reality with openness, calmness without the need to defend our ego and our vision, the embracing of the unknown and the immeasurable, an opening to ideas, emotions and spirituality.
- Meditation enables us to cultivate wisdom, and contributes to leaving the usual narrow focus of cognitive mental processes, and to opening the door to the inner transformation.
- Regular practice of going inward is what enables us to contemplate the mental processes and being able to melt or fuse (if only for moments at first) the observer and the observed, so that the self is dissolved in the All. This is what some Western scholars call peak experiences. In spiritual traditions it is called mystical experiences.
- Continued inner work is what allows us to live a life with meaning, establishing a strong commitment to lifestyle choice, to our life purpose and to close relationships, with the compassion that comes from knowing that we are all inter-connected. Thus, we can take every circumstance (also the adverse ones) as opportunities for growth. taking the path that goes from me to us.
- Awakening should be the ultimate goal of every human being, but to reach that, we need to venture into the waters of the unconscious first in order to face our demons and our collective heritage, only from there being born again will be possible. To ascend in consciousness, one must first descend to the basement or bottom, purifying and healing the wounds and remove the shadows.
