Why isn’t Meditation Making me Happy?

Because we are not the ones meditating

Me: Question from readers: I have been meditating for days/weeks/months/years, and still feel like shit. Please help.

Teacher Readers, eh?

Me Yes. My “friend” wants to know.

Teacher:

Ok.Dear “friend”:

Meditation is not a happiness drug. It was never meant to make you “happy” though it may do so as a side effect, in some people.

Expecting meditation to make you happy is like taking a drug for the side effects, and then complaining it isn’t working.

Meditation’s goal isn’t to make you happy- it is to make you realise your true nature, to help you drop the false self you have created.

The True Self is one of boundless Joy and Peace, but you don’t get either of those on the path. Just like water boils at 100C, not at 99C, in the same way, the Peace of God is only found when you drop the false self, not a second before that :)

And that leads to the tragedy of people quitting meditation when they see nothing happening. Trust me: Even 10 seconds of meditation works! It works on the deep subconcious, on layers not visible to your conscious mind, which is why you feel nothing is happening, and sometimes quit.

Meditation can not only not make you happy, it can make you more miserable in the short term, because

1) You become more aware of all the shit you have been carrying

2) The deep unconscious doesn’t like being watched, or having its games exposed, so it throws a tantrum. And it is really strong, it can get you to you when you are at your weakest.

Me Ok, so what the fuck do we do? Give up meditation?

Teacher

You can certainly try :)

Once this process starts, there is no way to stop it. You may give up meditation, but meditation won’t give up on you.

The solution, which You hate, as do most people, is to be patient. Trust the inner self, trust it knows what it is doing.

Me That is your answer to everything. Wait, have patience, lah di dah. You have to do better than that.

Teacher ok. Who is the one meditating?

Me Whaaaaat? Bru, you going all zen on me? Who is the one meditating? YOUR MOM

Teacher Hehehe. Our mother is the same, the Divine Mother. But Im serious. Who is the one meditating?

You think it is YOU, the thinking mind. And the mind wants everything NOW.

But it is not the mind that is meditating. The mind is part of the false self. The mind, especially the mind that gets frustrated, will never find peace, for it is part of the problem.

So let me ask you again: Who meditates?

me

Going back in time, while meditating, I asked this question, who is the one who meditates, and saw a vision of something in my heart, glowing brightly. It was the Divine Spark, a part of God in me, and that was the one meditating. This is what the teacher is talking about below

Teacher The Divine Spark is the part of the Spirit in us. It is the one meditating, not us. It is the one controlling our spiritual destiny.

It is like we are pregnant with God. In a normal pregnancy, the baby is helpless, and the mother has to do all the work.

In the Spiritual pregnancy, the mother (you and me) are the ones helpless. It is the Inner Child who has all the power.

This Inner Child controls our destiny. It can change our material life if it thinks it will help us; it can change or create new relationships; it guides us on the path, gently nudging us to the path that leads to joy.

The mind hates this process, as the mind is not in control. The mind wants enlightenment NOW, dammnit. It cannot understand what the delay is about, and feels helpless and out of control.

The Inner Child, the one meditating, on the other hands, can see into the deep unconscious, and knows the trap of going too fast, of changing before the mind is ready to accept change.

And so it goes slowly, teaching one spiritual lesson after another, gently repeating lessons that haven’t been learnt. It is this Child that says: Have patience. Trust me.

It can say that because it can see our future, it knows we have a glorious future, if only we are willing to trust and let go.

When we feel impatient with our spiritual progress, when we feel nothing is happening, we are trying to assert our will over the Inner Child. It never works.

It is the same when we try to force others to follow our spiritual path. Oh people are so materialistic, stuck in their selfish ways, running after money and fame is the most unspiritual thing you can say.

Just like YOU have YOUR path, so does everyone else. You have to trust that just like the Divine is guiding so, so is he guiding everyone else.

Meditation is NOT needed for spiritual awakening, it is merely one method, one that gets far more focus than it deserves, mainly because people confuse it with a happiness drug.

You can get the same effect as meditation by practising loving compassion, practicing forgiveness, doing your role in life with love and dedication, practising self enquiry (and not just when sitting in lotus pose), living your daily life with awareness.

The Inner child has a lesson for each of us. Lessons skipped or ignored will be repeated until learnt. Maybe your lesson is not to learn to sit with a dull mind for 2 hours, practising some “meditation” you learnt?

The problem is, the mind wants to choose what lesson it wants to learn.

• The Spirit wants to teach us forgiveness, the minds wants to learn how to sit in lotus pose and be still

• The Divine wants to teach you patience, you want to learn how to raise the “kundalini”

• Most true for spiritual types- they want to “save” the world and help others, while having no compassion for themselves. And so they suffer for years, trying to “help” others while not following their own path. This leads to pain and suffering.

And so don’t lay too much stress on meditating or not meditating right. If the Inner Child thinks it is necessary, it will create the circumstances for you.

More important is being honest with yourself, and being in touch with the Inner Self, so you know you are not going down the wrong path of what the ego thinks is spiritual, versus what the Divine actually wants from you.