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The goal of meditation is peace and happiness. Yet you are afraid of it. You have been told again and again that it will set you free, yet you sometimes react as if it is trying to imprison you. You often dismiss it more readily than the ego's thought system. To some extent, then, you must believe that by not learning you are protecting yourself. And you do not realize that it is only your guiltlessness, your fearlessness, that can protect you.
from A Course in Miracles
I have a friend who went to Al-Anon and learned that there was growth available for someone like her who had been raised in an alcoholic family with an alcoholic father. It changed her life. Then she called her mother, who was married to the alcoholic, and said that she, too, should go to Al-Anon. Oh, no, said the mother. I couldn't do that. Why not, asked my friend. Replied the mother, well because then I'd have to change.
Before I became a meditation teacher, before I was a meditator, I passed on learning this meditation twice. My reasons? I didn't trust that the teacher could deliver what he promised. I was afraid to spend money and be made a fool of. These are the reasons I told myself. But in retrospect, it's probably because I was afraid to change. There was little in my life that was giving me happiness, and yet I was afraid to change.
One of the things I've learned about change since learning this meditation is that there is very little I have to do in order to change. I have some responsibilities, but the real work is done by nature.
What is it that I have to do? I meditate twice each day. I examine my behaviors and my thinking, doing my best to be free of self-righteousness and defensiveness and egotism. I note every moment when I am being other than loving, and if I can, I correct my behavior. I notice all of these ways in which I am treating the world as a place of separation and battle, and I make the effort to see it differently, to see it as a place of unity. I try to behave in a way will make me feel good about myself.
These are not ideas unique to Vedic meditation. All sorts of spiritual systems call for this kind of self-appraisal; but as a meditator, there is a difference. For in meditation, each day I am clearing myself of the stresses from which my separative behaviors are born, and as I gently guide myself into alternative actions, nature does the changing for me. Nature transforms me into an ever more clear expression of itself, and with each day, these non-sustainable behaviors of separation become increasingly uncomfortable, and are much more easy to leave behind.
When we let ourselves be changed by nature, we find that change is not frightening at all. In fact, it's exciting. We begin to look forward to it. And if there's anything to fear, it would be the lack of change, the ever-repeating known.
Today I will notice where I have been afraid of change, and I will let go of an old behavior, trusting that nature will catch me before I fall.
Parking Lot and Mural, Grand Street, Soho, NY NY
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