“Meditation hasn’t got a damn thing to do with anything, ’cause all it has to do with is nothing. Nothingness. Okay? It doesn’t develop the mind, it dissolves the mind. Self-improvement? Forget it, baby. It erases the self. Throws the ego out on its big brittle ass. What good is it? Good for nothing. Excellent for nothing. Yes, Lord, but when you get down to nothing, you get down to ultimate reality. It’s then and exactly then that you’re sensing the true nature of the universe, you’re linked up with the Absolute, son, and unless you’re content with blowing smoke up your butt all your life, there’s the only place to be.” – Bobby Case
Meditation is a risky business. When you become really good at it, you may end up risking all your previous hard work and reputation. You drop your titles, your trainings, your need to prove you have been there and done that. Why?
Because when you get real with yourself, you get real with the world.
All veils melt away and all that remains is only this: Space. No more here and there, just this. Nakedness. Nowhere to hide because there is nothing to hide. Nothing to prove because there is nothing to prove. Nowhere to go because there is nowhere to go, really. Just here.
Past and future disappear before they even enter the horizon. You try to grasp and it all slips away. You try to hold on to someone but they are gone. You try to manipulate something and it comes back and hits you right on your face. You want something so badly that it makes you throw up. And there you are, cleaning up the mess of your wanting.
Because you forgot that what you are wanting is only a future reflection of your current vibrational state.
Please do not go woo-woo on me.
It simply means that there is nothing out there in the world that cannot belong to you, but in order to have it, you need to match it, my love. You need to get out of your mind. You cannot give it form too soon, and you cannot define it too much. Pretend that you already have what you want, and find an energetic twin, or a version of that. It can show up as a color, a symbol or pure feeling tone. (Energy does not speak English.)
Once you get what it is, then be it. Step into it, embody it, and surround yourself with it. Dance with it. But please, I beg you, do not try to control it, manipulate it or make it yours too soon. Trust your powers. Only hold on to your intention of what you want, and as for the rest: drop it. Let it go.
Stop whining about things you do not have, because dear heart, you are being heard. It is already on its way. Do not ask for something and then change your mind.
Receive, baby. Open your arms and let yourself have it. All the way. To the deepest, softest, juiciest and ecstatic corner of your inner temple, open the door, for God’s sake. Make some tea. Sit down and ask: can I pour you some, too?
We resist the present moment because there is not much that is happening in the present moment. It drives our mind nuts, because our mind wants to solve problems, and figure shit out. Thank God for that.
But it gets tricky only if we think there is always something to figure out—kind of like if you were to think that you need to lie down under your car all day long, waiting and watching if something goes wrong, before you can go for a ride.
Let me get this clear: I am not talking about existential nihilistic nothing, that sees life with no meaning, no purpose, and no point. I am not talking about a transparency a la Jean Baudrillard that has become borderline depressing, too dull and indifferent to leave any room for the divine presence to occupy the emptiness:
“The apocalypse is finished, today it is the precession of the neutral, of forms of the neutral and of indifference…all that remains, is the fascination for desertlike and indifferent forms, for the very operation of the system that annihilates us. Now, fascination (in contrast to seduction, which was attached to appearances, and to dialectical reason, which was attached to meaning) is a nihilistic passion par excellence, it is the passion proper to the mode of disappearance. We are fascinated by all forms of disappearance, of our disappearance. Melancholic and fascinated, such is our general situation in an era of involuntary transparency. — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, “On Nihilism”, trans. 1995
I am talking about the kind of nothing where we go to discover our meaning, our true potential and reason for being. I am talking about the ultimate freedom from suffering, and from everything that we are not.
How do we do nothing in the culture that is full of everything? How do we access nothing in a society that worships bigger, better and faster? How do we stay still when we are surrounded by chaos? How do we replace indifference with neutrality? How do we learn to love without conditions when most of our agreements are built on conditions? How do we remain in the state of wonder without being swallowed by curiosity?
How can we become so passionate about God’s love that your lover needs to knock on God’s door before entering your Heart?
Right now, close your eyes, and find out how many thoughts, concepts and beliefs—yours or other people’s—are shooting across your mind like you had built a freeway inside your head, available to host anybody and anything? How many? 10? 50? 1000?
Nothing is not about sitting around being useless, but being in full action, while being a host only to the guidance you receive directly from your own divine and authentic core. It is about being so empty that whenever something arises, you know it is something original, something uniquely you, something that is fully aligned with your magnificence. You have a filter system in your mind that recognizes what is yours and what is not.
And this takes practice. Yes, practice.
“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free” – Michelangelo
Just like David, you already have it all inside you. There is nothing out there that will fill your sense of lack. It is the chipping away of anything that is not you that will set you free.
But it is often that freedom itself that scares the shit out of us.
So we keep resisting the one thing that could give us what we so desperately want.
May this guided meditation give you a glimpse of your own Nothing. Use it to hold onto your Nothing – because “It is the silence between the notes that makes the music; it is the space between the bars that holds the tiger.” (Old Saying)
(The affirmation in the beginning of above audio is from Jenai Lane/Spirit Coach Training)
Sitting, doing nothing, creating nothing.
Feeling useless, an outsider, a failure.
Been there.
Keep holding the tension between doing and not doing, dear one.
Somewhere between the two, a star is being born.