How to Build a Stronger Ego

February 11, 2014 by

Another brilliant contribution of intelligent thought to our global consciousness by my unofficila guru, Steve Pavlina.

How to Build a Stronger Ego

There’s a notion that’s been spread around the spiritual side of the self-help field that suggests one of our primary aims in life should be ego-less enlightenment, a state where we achieve near-perfect inner peace, where we’re one with everything but attached to nothing, and where nothing in the physical world can knock us off balance.

This creates some personal challenges for me because whenever I write about anything remotely spiritual in nature (and sometimes even when I don’t), some readers assume I’m one of the guys promoting this same sort of ideal. Then they question why my behavior doesn’t seem consistent with it.

My behavior isn’t consistent with the pursuit of ego-less enlightenment because I have no interest in that path. If other people find value in it, that’s their choice, but I find other paths of development to be much more practical and fulfilling, both for myself and for others I’ve observed over the years.

Do you really want to kill your ego?

Do you even want to weaken it?

In this case I’m using the word ego to refer to your physical world identity, mainly your personality and sense of self. I’m not referring to ego in the sense of being arrogant, such as when people say, “So-and-so has a big ego.”

Many spiritual seekers claim it’s wise to weaken the ego as much as possible. The ones who really go all out with this idea give away all their possessions, shave their heads, and spend their days meditating and doing chores, striving to burn away any last bits of attachment to their previous identities.

But most people who claim to pursue this path have mixed feelings about it, so they hold themselves in a state of limbo. They can’t get themselves to progress on the ego-empowering path, so they don’t take strong steps to advance in their careers or make much more money — that would be too ego-based for their spiritual beliefs. On the other hand, they can’t get themselves to relinquish all attachment to their identities and their stuff, so they strive to get by with a sense of minimalism. But they’re never really satisfied living in this halfway space, so quite often their “spiritual practice” devolves into attacking others they believe are more ego-based than they are. It temporarily makes them feel better about themselves.

Often the people stuck in this middle place maintain careers with pseudo-spiritual associations such as being a healer, massage therapist, yoga instructor, tarot card reader, astrologer, etc., but the one thing they usually have in common is that they’re borderline broke most of the time.

This is a very half-assed approach to enlightenment. From what I’ve observed in those who attempt it, it just doesn’t work. It leads to long-term stagnation. You can find whole communities of bloggers like this, and they seem to spend much of their time writing posts that express frustration and judgment at everything they dislike about the world. Meanwhile, they do nothing tangible to make the world any better.

You may want to question whether or not you really want to weaken your ego. Is that truly a wise idea? Sure it’s a popular piece of religious dogma, but is it really how you want to live? Does it even make sense?

Building a stronger ego

Instead of weakening your ego, let me suggest an alternative approach that works really well for me, one that will allow you to avoid stagnation… not to mention bitter blogger syndrome.

Build an even stronger ego.

Your ego is your character, an important part of your human avatar. If you try to weaken your ego, you’re simply weakening your character. Do you really want to devolve into a sidelined NPC (non-player character)? Or would you rather build out a really strong character with well-defined attributes?

How does it serve you — or anyone else — to play the game of life with a weak character? Are you really doing much good by checking out from life and cocooning yourself in a mini-monastery?

Instead of trying to weaken your ego, consider what good you might achieve with it instead. How would you like to develop your character during your time here on earth?

Let me offer you some ideas to get you thinking…

Character-building ideas

Honesty – See how honest and open you can make your character. Be honest in your dealings with others. Stop pretending and hiding who you are. Share yourself openly with the world.

Courage – Continually push yourself to face your fears instead of shrinking from them. This will give your character more options.

Exploration – Experiment. Learn by trial and error. Step into the unknown and learn by doing. Develop an ego that loves to dive in and explore new things.

Service – Tune your ego in the direction of serving others, such that the stronger your ego becomes, the more you push yourself to help people. Make service to others part of your identity.

Acceptance – When you accept yourself as having a strong ego, you’ll be more willing to accept other strong people into your life as well instead of feeling you need to attack the strong in order to justify your own weakness.

Discipline – Develop an ego that identifies itself with good habits like regular exercise and solid productivity.

Connection – Develop your social skills, so you can connect with others easily. Learn how to surround your ego with social support that helps to refine your positive character qualities while chipping away at your unwanted attributes.

Notice that since these are character qualities, they can’t be taken away from you. You may lose your possessions, job, relationships, etc., but your character qualities are yours to keep.

Intelligence, not enlightenment

My gold standard for conscious living isn’t enlightenment. It’s intelligence.

In this case I define intelligent living as having three main components:

1) Developing a progressively more accurate model of reality and living in accordance with it.

If you’re living intelligently, then as a general rule, you should find that life becomes progressively easier and your results get measurably better as your mental model of reality gradually becomes more accurate.

When you encounter a spiritual teacher who can’t pay his/her electric bill, I’d say something is off.

2) Deliberately engineering your social environment to actively support you in fulfilling your desires.

We humans are very social creatures. Your environment plays a huge role in your development. Unfortunately most of us find ourselves with rather unsupportive social circles when we try to stretch and grow. We have the power to change that, however. We can drop the connections that don’t support our continued development and invite new connections that do. This is a significant growth accelerator.

It isn’t intelligent to remain stuck with an unsupportive social circle. Place your loyalty not with your pity posse but with your highest vision of yourself, and surround yourself with people who can help you support that vision. The first step is to say no to connections with those people who reject your vision. Hang out with people who will help you develop a strong, positive, service-oriented ego, not a frustrated one.

Don’t become obsessed with trying to transcend your feelings towards people who consistently bring you down. Just drop the nay-sayers and move on. Saying “I’m done with you” once can be more effective than having to say “I forgive you” a dozen more times. This creates the space where new connections can come into your life, the kind that will have you saying, “Thank you so much!” dozens of times instead.

When you’re living intelligently, you won’t settle for social connections that drain you. You’ll consciously build ample social support and resources for pursuing your goals and fulfilling your desires. You will notice that over time, your life becomes increasingly abundant.

3) Getting stronger.

Intelligence seeks its own improvement.

If you’re on a path of intelligent living, you should find your character growing increasingly capable. You should see yourself progressively building courage and overcoming more and more fears such as fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of embarrassment, and fear of success. You’ll learn to stop giving your power away and take your foot off the brake pedal.

Engage with life

Checking out from life and trying to pursue ego-less enlightenment may be popular in certain spiritual circles, but it’s not a path I recommend, especially after witnessing the long-term results of many of the practitioners, not to mention the behind-the-scenes inconsistencies of certain proponents. It’s a path that can feel comforting at first because it gives you permission to avoid many of your fears instead of facing them. You can shrink away from life instead of boldly pushing yourself. You don’t have to stand out much. You can simply sit still and quiet your mind. There are many benefits to meditation of course, but don’t let the practice turn into escapism.

I think you’ll find it much more beneficial to relate to life on the basis of ego development as opposed to ego destruction.

Ego destruction is slow suicide. It’s yet another version of giving your power away. As long as “become ego-less” remains on your spiritual to-do list, you can use it to distract yourself from facing the real life challenges that scare you… like stretching yourself to go out and make a real difference in the world instead of escaping into the land of make-believe enlightenment.

Having a strong ego is not in conflict with inner peace. Inner peace doesn’t mean being passive. You can be quite active and engaged with life and still feel very peaceful and centered on your path.

Part of the reason ego-less living has so many people pushing it is that it’s a control strategy. People with strong egos are harder to control. If a religious leader wants to be surrounded by a bunch of loyal followers, it’s much easier to do that while encouraging all the followers to shed their egos. Then standing up to the leader can be called out as an act of ego and therefore something that the culture itself will repress, thereby keeping the leader in charge. However, this structure stunts the leader’s growth as well if the leader must pretend to be upholding the same ego-less standard that’s being preached to the followers.

Own your character

Again, having a strong ego doesn’t mean putting yourself above others. But it’s perfectly fine to take complete ownership of your character and express your pleasure with what you’ve developed so far. That’s much better than being secretly ashamed of your character, isn’t it?

There are limitless ways to grow your character, and where you take your character’s development is for you to decide. But when you catch yourself criticizing others for the choices they’ve made, consider that perhaps you’re giving your power away to them because you aren’t satisfied with the character development choices you’ve been making. Stop fussing over other people’s egos, and direct your attention back on your own to see where you need to improve.

When done consciously it can be fun to develop your character. You can shop from a vast menu of new skills to learn and character attributes to develop. Do you want to build a character who’s very brave? Very physical? Very social? Very musical? The choice is yours. You can even dress up your avatar with a little extra bling if you’d like.

When I blogged about fashion a few months ago, I saw comments from a few people on Twitter and Facebook to the effect of, Well, Steve… this is a rather ego-driven pursuit. And I thought, Well of course it is! Is that supposed to be a bad thing???

I’ve been writing this post from my hotel room in Puerto Rico. I’m here for a weeklong leadership retreat for the Transformational Leadership Council. When I got in late last night, I exchanged hugs with about a dozen TLC members in the lobby. Several of them gushed over how much they liked my new hair. By making a small change to my avatar, it created a fun shift in the way people relate to me, even people who already know me. But prior to making this change, I was one of those guys who could criticize others for fussing over their appearance. It took me a while to realize that I was giving my power away to others so as to avoid taking full ownership of my own avatar’s appearance.

It’s very easy to give our power away and use it to feed criticism of others. It’s much more challenging — but a lot more beneficial — to channel our power into creating what we desire, including the myriad ways we can develop our characters’ potential.

Are you taking full ownership of your character? Where do you catch yourself criticizing others for being too ego-driven? What does that say about the character attributes you’ve been refusing to develop in yourself? Are you bothered by people who are super confident, very focused, very attractive, financially abundant, successful in relationships, super healthy, etc? Stop giving your power away to other people’s egos, and reclaim 100% responsibility for developing those aspects of your own character. It will take time to be sure, but you won’t get there faster by succumbing to denial.

Even though your truest identity is the consciousness behind your ego and not the ego itself, that doesn’t invalidate the reasons for building a strong and capable ego as your primary means of interacting with the physical world. An underdeveloped ego won’t do your consciousness much good anyway; a weak ego will only limit the range of experiences that are possible for you, thereby stunting your conscious growth. So don’t be so quick to buy into the notion that ego-less enlightenment is an intelligent spiritual ideal. Consider that building a stronger ego may be the more intelligent, heart-centered choice for you.

Filed Under: law of attraction, life purpose, meditation, Personal development, spirituality

Becoming the person you were meant to be

February 11, 2014 by

Another great piece of genius by Steve Pavlina

Becoming the person you were meant to be

Are you normal?

I’m certainly not normal.  I was born blond-haired, blue-eyed, and colorblind.  So not only do I look different – I also see differently than “normal” people.  To make matters worse, I’m left-handed… just a cesspool of recessive genes.  Over time my lack of normalcy only grew worse when I started noticing other differences and making choices of my own.

Eventually I realized that “normal” was only a concept in my own mind.  In fact, my “normal” wasn’t the same as someone else’s normal.  Even my “normal” was unique.  And in fact it was just a way of limiting myself, a concept rooted in fear to begin with.

Realize that you are not like anyone else on earth.  No one on this planet is exactly the same as you are, even if you have a twin.  It’s not even close.  Your individual collection of experiences makes you unique.

Yet what do most people do with this uniqueness?  They try to forget it.  They cling to the pack, thinking that need to be like everyone else.  They strive for normalcy, to be similar to everyone else.

This is pure folly, since normalcy doesn’t exist except as an imaginary concept.  Have you ever met a 100% normal person?  Are you normal?  Or is there anything unique about you that separates you from the pack?

Throw out dumb labels

“Normal” isn’t a label worthy of your pursuit.  It’s worthless.  Perhaps you’re worried that if you’re too different, you’ll be ostracized.  That’s true.  You will be ostracized by other fear-driven normality seekers, but their acceptance is basically worthless anyway.  On the bright side, when they kick you out, the ever-growing high awareness community will welcome you with open arms.  Plus it’s a lot of fun to go back and tease the normality seekers afterwards.

“Abnormal” or “different” aren’t labels you should pursue either though.  In this case you aim for the opposite of normal out of an egoic drive to find a sense of uniqueness.  But the person you were meant to be doesn’t lie anywhere on the linear spectrum from normal to different.  Comparing yourself to others isn’t going to help you.  What you need is a way to compare yourself to yourself.

Get to know your higher self

The best way I’ve discovered to become the person I’m meant to be is to first go and meet that person.  You can do this too, and it’s not even that difficult.  You can do it in your imagination.  See My Favorite Meditation for details.  Basically you just visualize yourself going to a room, meeting your future self, and having a conversation with him/her.  It’s a very enlightening experience.

When I did this meditation in my early 20s and met my future self in my imagination, one of the first things I noticed about him was that he was completely free of fear.  He was amused by all the fear I seemed to have in me, and he would even tease me about it.  If I had a problem or concern, he’d recommend a very bold and direct solution, but it often required a great deal of courage to implement.  He was brutally honest and direct, never playing games or doing anything manipulative.  I always knew where I stood with him.  He always held me to a higher standard than I did.

I could see that his courage gave him a tremendous sense of inner peace.  But I didn’t understand how I could reach that level myself.  It took me many years to find out what his source of courage was.  His courage came about because he saw reality a certain way – a way in which it didn’t make any sense to be afraid.  It’s not that he was overcoming his fear or facing his fear.  He just wasn’t experiencing any fear at all.  He saw fear as nothing but an illusion, so it was pointless to be afraid.  So fearlessness might be a better description than courage.

But he wasn’t a perfect success – in fact, he experienced more failure than I did.  He had his own problems to handle, but he would handle them by diving in and taking action.  He’d never hesitate or worry about the outcome.  To him life was about action, results, experience, learning, and growth.  Fear just wasn’t part of the equation.

One way of looking at this meditation is that my subconscious created this imaginary person as a projection of who it felt I could become – an idealized version of me.  But perhaps on some level, this person actually exists.  How this model came about, however, isn’t as important to me as how it enables me to grow.

Become your higher self

When you meet your higher self and get to know him/her, it gives you a model for your own growth.  It’s a way of comparing yourself to yourself.  You don’t need to worry about labels like “normal” that are based on comparing yourself to others.  You’re presented with a vision that is uniquely you, one that you can actually achieve.

Year after year as I continued doing this meditation, it gave me a powerful path for personal growth.  By comparing my present self to my future self, I could always see what I needed to do to take the next step.  My future self became the vision of where I wanted to go.  He was the person I was becoming.

My future self also had the solution to all my growth problems because he’d already solved them.  I never had the problem of not knowing what to do.  The challenge was always in getting myself to do it.

Eventually this vision become so strong that I felt the presence of my higher self even outside of my meditations.  He was a part of my consciousness that I could tap into whenever I wanted, like accessing a living memory.  Some people would define this imaginary person as a spirit guide.  It certainly felt like that at times.

After a number of years, I felt a fusing of that higher self with my present self… to the point where the two became indistinguishable.  I actually became the person I first envisioned in my 20s.  It took more than a decade to reach this point though.  And now I have another projection of a new higher self, one that is more expansive and which is helping to guide me through the next steps on this incredible journey through life.  Whereas my original higher self served the purpose of helping me let go of fear, there’s a new higher self forming that seems to be here to help me learn to develop greater compassion, especially as a balance to courage.

Coming full circle

The irony is that by pursuing your own uniqueness, you’re likely to feel a lot more normal.  You’ll be able to connect with people from your own inner strength instead of your fear.  You will own yourself, knowing who you are and who you’re meant to be.  The judgements of others, whether positive or negative, won’t knock you off course.

A strong connection to other people lies within you already.  Your connection to your higher self is your connection to others, one that is always on and simply needs to be noticed.  This connection is very different than third-dimensional connections based on ego and attachment.  At this level you connect with others through their higher selves too.  And this often has the effect of waking them up.  Plus it’s a lot of fun to connect with people this way.  It’s how people should connect.  You simply bypass people’s fears and labels and talk to them as free spirits.

High awareness people do this very naturally.  Labels and titles are irrelevant.  Two high awareness people can meet for the first time, and inside of a few minutes, they’re discussing things like mission, purpose, and the meaning of life.  It makes no difference if one person is wearing a suit and the other is wearing ripped jeans and a t-shirt.  They’ll barely even notice.  Communication is high on content because such people speak as if talking directly to each other’s souls.

On the other hand, when two low awareness people meet, communication is shallow and timid.  Each person feels out the other instead of communicating their true selves.  They aren’t even in touch with their true selves because they identify with their egos.  Egoic communication is competitive and fearful.  People play silly games with each other in a vain attempt to protect themselves from potential rejection.

Conscious relationships

I remember shortly after I met Erin in 1994, we were talking on the phone one day, and I said to her, “Erin, I like you a lot, and I’d like to us to be boyfriend-girlfriend if you’d like that too.”  She said yes, and we’ve been together almost 12 years now.

This might not seem like a big deal, but consider that this conversation happened before our first real date.  Erin and I had only known each other for a few weeks and were just friends.  In fact, I was dating someone else at the time we met.  So it was a fairly bold thing to say, but it certainly moved things along quickly, since a few months later we moved in together.  We could have played games with each other and dated for a long time, but it was easier and faster to just see if we both felt the same.  This worked because Erin and I were both the kinds of people who didn’t need to play games with each other.

I’m often amazed at the silly machinations people go through when they’re interested in beginning a relationship with someone.  Fear causes people to miss all sorts of opportunities and overcomplicate things to the point of being ridiculous.  Imagine how simple relationships would be if fear were removed from the picture.  If you like someone, just go tell them and ask if they feel the same.   How simple is that?  In a matter of minutes, you’re able to move on one way or the other.  When you move beyond fear, your accuracy will increase as well, so you won’t even ask the question except when you know you’re going to get a yes.  If you get a no, it just means you misread the other person, but that really isn’t a big deal.  Getting rejected unblocks your energy and frees it up to attract someone else.

Awareness makes life easier

As you consciously strive to become the person you were meant to be, life becomes much easier.  Actually it would be more accurate to say that life is just as hard, but your capacity for handling it grows to the point where life seems to get easier.  You’re stronger, so the weight feels lighter.

What’s your vision of your higher self?  If you want to become this person, take some time to get to know him/her in your imagination.  Allow this vision to inspire you and to guide you.  Visualize the type of person you always wanted to be, and then hold that vision until you’ve become its physical embodiment.

Filed Under: law of attraction, life purpose, manifestation, meditation, Personal development

Visualisation Meditation Exercise

February 11, 2014 by

This post by Erin Pavlina

Visualisation Meditation Exercise

It’s a visualization / meditation exercise for communicating with your subconscious mind (or your higher self, spiritual guides, a higher power, etc.). Feel free to adapt the paradigm she uses to fit into your current belief system. She taught me this about 11 years ago, and I’ve been practicing it ever since.

Go To Your Room

Wouldn’t it be great if your subconscious mind could leave you messages the same way someone might leave you a message on voicemail?  How valuable would it be to receive a direct message from your subconscious or higher self?  What if you could not only get a message but have a back-and-forth conversation with your subconscious mind?

When I was a teenager a friend of mine taught me a method for doing just that.  I’d like to share it with you and see if you find it as amazing and valuable as I do.  It’s a method I still practice today when I want to receive a direct message from my higher self.  Here’s what you do:

You can do this lying down or in a comfortable chair.  I usually do it at night before I go to sleep since I know I won’t be interrupted, and it also helps prepare me for sleep and interesting dreams.

Close your eyes and relax.  Imagine you are walking into an elevator and the doors close.  You are on the 21st floor, and you are on your way down.  See the numbered display above the elevator doors, and notice that the light for the 21st floor is lit.  Now you are going down the elevator, and you see the light for the 20th floor turn on.  Breathe deeply in between floors.  Next you see “19″ and so on.  Feel the motion of the elevator as you go down, see the numbered lights counting down, and count them in your mind as you breathe deeply once or twice in between floors.  When you reach the first floor, the doors open.  Step out.

Now you see a staircase, going down.  There are exactly 21 steps.  Imagine yourself walking down the staircase, but pause for a moment on each step, and take a deep breath before stepping down to the next one.  Count in your mind, and really feel yourself walking down the stairs.  When you reach “1″ you are at the bottom of the staircase.

Now you see a door that is slightly ajar.  You walk up to it, open it, and see a brightly lit corridor with dozens of closed doors along the way.  A guardian is standing there, and you ask him or her to be led to “your room.”  Imagine you are being led down the corridor to your room.  Open the door.

What you see inside as you step into your room is entirely up to you and your imagination.  Explore the room and take note of what you see in there.  Is it cluttered or neat?  Is it sterile or cozy?  Does it look futuristic or antiquated?  Is there furniture or is it bare?  Whatever you see is fine.  Just take note of it.

Find a place to sit down and ask to speak to your subconscious, or your higher self, or even your spirit guides.  See who shows up.  Have a conversation with them and ask them what they want you to know.  Then listen.  When you are through, thank them and exit your room.  Be sure to close the door.  Back track your way to the staircase and climb it, counting up from 1 to 21.  Then step into the elevator and do the same, count up from 1 to 21 and step out.  You’re done.

Now that is the setup.  Later you can go back to your room any time and talk to whomever you find there.

Then experiment!  When I go to my room, there is a chalkboard.  And on that chalkboard is always a written message from my higher self.  Perhaps in your room there is an answering machine, and you simply need to press play to hear the message.  Or perhaps when you enter your room a phone is ringing, and you answer it and hear your message on the other end.  Come up with a way for your subconscious or higher self to leave you messages that you can check when you don’t want to have a lengthy conversation.

You can use this method to get clarity on a problem by asking a specific question, then going into your room and seeing your answer on the chalkboard, or dry erase board, or hear it on your spiritual answering machine.  Or you can use this method to have a long talk with your higher self or subconscious mind.

I’ve even gone so far as to lay down on the couch in my “room” and proceed to mentally enter another elevator and go down another 21 floors, then 21 steps, then into another corridor with another room!  Talk about a trip!  You could also try asking the corridor guardian to be taken to someone else’s room (perhaps a spouse or family member) and meet their higher self!  See what happens and what their room looks like to you.

You can redecorate or make other changes to your room.  If it’s cluttered, clean it up!  You might find that your life is getting “cleaned up” by doing this.  I’ve also done a room addition on mine so that now there is a cozy, comfortable bedroom for me to sleep in when I don’t feel like going all the way back up the stairs and elevator. :)

The insights on this journey are invaluable.  And the dreams you’ll have after doing this exercise may be a little more clear than usual.  Pay attention to them and what they might be trying to tell you.  And the next time you’re feeling unsettled or unclear about something in your life, just go to your room!

Filed Under: law of attraction, manifestation, meditation Tagged With:

My favourite meditation

February 11, 2014 by

Steve Pavlina’s Favourite Meditation

Here’s a simple but powerful meditation exercise you may enjoy. Teaching you the basics of meditation is beyond the scope of this blog entry (maybe someone can post a comment with a link to a meditation primer for those who’ve never done it), but if you’re already familiar with it, I think you’ll find this one interesting and valuable.

I didn’t learn this particular meditation from anyone else — it’s just something I made up at one point and have been doing for around 10 years now.

First I get myself totally relaxed and into a peaceful state. Then I imagine a special room in my mind which has two chairs facing each other. I sit in one chair, and in the chair opposite me, I visualize my future self five years from now. He appears as the ideal “me” I’m striving to become. He’s physically fit, strong, brave, confident, driven, passionate, enthusiastic, etc. We have a conversation for 5-10 minutes where I ask him questions, and he willingly answers them. He usually looks at me almost with a sense of nostalgia and compassion, since he knows where I am right now as well as the challenges I’m dealing with, challenges he’s long since overcome.

Eventually my future self leaves. Then I get up and take his seat, and my past self from five years ago enters the room and takes the first seat. So now I’m the future self (Steve 2005) looking back on my past self (Steve 2000). I take a moment to remember what my life was like exactly five years ago, so I can recall what that past Steve is experiencing. Now he’s asking me questions about his future (my present), and I’m providing the answers. I’m often amazed to look back and see just how trivially easy his challenges seem to me today, even though I remember that they appeared much grander when I was in his shoes. I take the time to reassure Steve 2000 that everything turns out well for Steve 2005. I also let him know what things I haven’t yet solved that I’m still working on.

Then I do one more step and fast-forward time by five years. So now I’m Steve 2010, and I’m facing Steve 2005. I’m looking back on my present situation from the future — from a vantage point where I’ve already solved my biggest challenges. Now I see my Steve 2005 asking the same questions I was previously asking Steve 2010, and I’m able to answer them with confidence and certainty.

Then I imagine all three of us in the room together (Steve 2000, Steve 2005, Steve 2010), and I visualize all three of our bodies becoming translucent. We walk into each other and blend into one being in a flash of light. When this happens I’m often overwhelmed by a release of emotion — the feeling is somewhat different each time I experience it. We become an integrated whole, a single being who exists outside of time but has been splintered in order to experience the sensation of growth and change.

As I slowly bring myself out of this meditation, I feel very peaceful and calm. But the most important benefit is a feeling of oneness, a sense that I’m more than just a physical being moving forward through time. I feel like an integrated being who exists at all times but is merely focusing his consciousness on a particular time in order to experience it more fully. When I’m in this state of mind, I see the present moment as something contained within my being instead of the more common perception of being a person contained within the reality of the present moment. This has the effect of melting present-moment concerns and replacing them with a feeling of expansiveness and transcendence. My new perception causes my present-reality problems to shrink, which makes them far easier to resolve, sometimes almost trivially easy.

I encourage you to try this meditation at least once to see if you find it as beneficial as I do.

Filed Under: meditation, Personal development Tagged With: