Meditation Metaphors

Over the course of last month, after taking up the 30-day meditation challenge, I have been witness to some incredible insights about our mind and body and how it relates to our external world. The picture above is an attempt to capture that in a metaphor. We are so often bogged down by external stimulus that we do not take an opportunity to look inward. Please bear with me especially if it exposes my lack of articulation 🙂

In the picture above, the beautiful and intriguing castle is the mind. But in order to get there, we need to either create a bridge over water or swim through the water. The water has some harmless creatures but it can also have alligators. We have to tread the obstacles ( water, the animals and any other dangers) with deftness that is developed by practice. You may want to learn the skill of swimming or you may want to build a walkway over water. But, eventually to explore the castle (beautiful, intriguing mind), you have to learn to overcome the water (of external stimulus). The actual task of exploring the castle (intriguing mind) begins only when we can cut through the treacherous external stimulus. The castle (subconscious mind) itself is an intricate work of art filled with artifacts(all our programmed memories right from childhood) that were brought in by years of construction. Only when you can understand the blueprint of the castle ( true nature of mind), you can notice why you behave a certain way in certain situations.

This is the beginning of greater things to come. But it takes a strong intention and years of sustained practice to totally understand the castle and restructure it the way we want. However, I personally believe it is well worth the effort. In this day and age of instant gratification, I personally feel that we need to go back to basics and understand why we do what we do.

If you are brand new to meditation, I would suggest looking at the following youtube video for a quick start.

If you want to know more about the whys, there is Meditation For Dummies, with Audio CD.

If you choose to try it out, my best wishes to you.