Be Careful Selecting Your Goal
Dear friends,
I remember a great joke I heard years ago. The pilot of a commercial jet comes on the intercom and says, “I have good news and bad news [I bet they are never supposed to say that!]. The bad news is our navigation and communication systems are down, and we are completely lost. The good news is that with our current tailwind, we are making great time!”
Hmmm… This is cute, but is unfortunately a bit like real life. There are many ways to have selected what is not the best goal. Making “good time” if you do not know where you are going is perhaps not as good as it sounds.
We tend to get so busy we forget that we are a manifestation of Spirit and that our goal must always and forever be centered on knowing that fact more and more deeply, so as not to get overly caught up arranging and rearranging the things of this world.
But this week I wanted to share thoughts on a different goal-setting trap: Picking an imagined state of being rather than working on progress.
In all human affairs progress is directional, not absolute. I cannot tell you how many times I have encouraged meditation for someone only to be told, “I tried to do it and it is not for me.” When I probe they usually say they have a restless mind and have thoughts, so cannot quiet the mind like meditation demands. Well, after 40+ years of practice (!) I can say that I always have thoughts when I meditate.
The question is not whether you attain some imaginary state of complete calm and expansiveness. The question is whether the practice would help you at whatever level is possible. I will give you a hint as to the answer: Yes!
Eating well does not guarantee good health. But that fact does not mean it is okay to subsist on junk food. A farmer who plants a seed and digs it up every few days to “see how it is doing and to establish whether it has made progress” is not much of a farmer.
Meditation is physics. All the studies from Harvard, MIT, U Mass, NIH, etc. show that meditation rewires the brain, calms the nervous system, enhances the immune system, fights insomnia, etc. No need to do a day-by-day examination. Yes, gravity still causes things to fall down, not up. No need to wonder or fret about that.
Patience, self-kindness, and persistence are the fertilizer that virtually guarantees success of your meditation practice seed. May we each remember that in every aspect of our lives the goal is progress, not some imagined target, lest we fall short and become discouraged.
Blessings,
David G, manager
For the gang at East West