Mind over matter, the famous and useful axiom that many of our parents teach us as children to overcome some physical or psychological obstacles. I remember living through Northeast winters, freezing from the cold, dreary winters of New Jersey. Mom used to say, “mind over matter,”as I braved through bitter, cold days. “Picture yourself in a warm place,” she said, and the cold wouldn’t be so bad. At the time, It never worked, I could never get my mind to a point where it helped me overcome my physical and psychological existence, but it paved the way for deeper thinking as an adult. The mind is a powerful thing, it shapes our existence as conscious observers and thinkers. Today, the early morning of September 26, 2025, I wish to talk about this concept of mind over matter through the means of meditation. Deep and powerful, meditation is a guiding practice that helps me relax my physical body and mental state through practices of controlling one’s thoughts, breathing, and heart rate. Here is my story: Levels of Meditation.
As we begin this story, my mental vision rewinds time, re-emerging to my 21 year old self. I am accompanied by my life-long and best friend, Jared. I don’t remember how the conversation came to be or where we were, but I remember the dialogue. Our conversation diverged on the topic of meditation. One of our acquaintances, Bryan, began to meditate, and in one instance, saw his body from the ceiling. At first, I was dumbfounded by such an idea, casting doubt on such a concept. How can one have an out of body experience? After doing research on it today, AI and science say it’s all in your head, that it truly doesn’t exist, but nonetheless the 21 year old version of myself was skeptical, but I kept an open mind and set out to replicate such a task. I went home that night and began to meditate in my bedroom. The lights dimmed, my mind turned off, my chakras aligned, I began to meditate in my bed. Hours passed with no such results. I almost gave up before all at once, my body began to melt away and all at once, I saw myself. I was looking down at my body from the ceiling. The year was 2011.
As we continue this story, the lamp light flickers in my room. I am laying in my bed again, the year is 2014. I remember looking out the window, it was a dark, summer night. I lay alone in my room and decided to meditate. I lay flat on my back, eyes closed and crossed across my mental vision, arms crossed at my groin, legs crossed, ready to slowly delete thoughts from my conscious being. Next, I began to control my breathing, slowing my respiration and heart beat, and soon I reached even keel. Soon after, I began to feel my body vibrate. Science says this is caused by discharges from the autonomic nervous system as it re-balances. Nonetheless, pictures and images began to propagate in and out of my mental vision. The most interesting part of my meditation is the perception of time. What felt like five minutes was actually twenty to thirty minutes in real time. As I opened my eyes, I felt sheer and utter bliss, like I just got the best sleep of my life.
Fast forward two years and many experiences later, I felt as if I mastered the art and science of deep state meditation. The year is 2016 and once again I'm laying in my bed on a summer’s night. Following the steps laid out in the previous paragraph, I positioned myself preparing for another experience, but this time was different. No sooner that I close my eyes and align my energy centers, or chakras, does the meditative experience begin. As my body vibrates, my mind shoots across space. As I travel in my mind, space is created out of nothing, like pieces of a puzzle, space attaches to itself and replicates from itself as I travel forward. The feeling of acceleration was exhilarating, as if I was traveling on a beam of light across the cosmos. Soon enough, I came to a stop. I look down from my mental vision, and see the Earth below. I let out a deep breath and the Earth came to life from darkness, a deep blue and green planet. In the dream-like state, I lowered myself down to the surface and found myself in a forest, standing before me was a man and a woman. Soon after, I opened my eyes and came back to reality wondering what just took place. What felt so real in my mind was simply a story created by my imagination in a dream-like, but conscious state of being.
Meditation has a deep history in eastern culture. During the Vedic Period from 1500 BCE to 500 BCE, hymns of the Vedas mention contemplative practices for stilling the mind and communing with cosmic order. In later Indian history, the Upanishads described meditation as a means of realizing the self as one with ultimate reality. In Buddhism, Siddhartha Gautama, or the Buddha, taught meditation for insight and concentration to end suffering. In Jainism, meditation was emphasized for inward stillness and austerity for non-violence and liberation. In China, Daoism, Zen Buddhism, and Confucianism also practiced and were highly influenced by meditation. In Daoism of the 4th century BCE onward, they practiced breath-focused and inner meditations aiming at cultivating vitality, or being strong and active, for energy. In Zen Buddhism, meditation was used for direct realization of the mind's nature. Although meditation in Confucianism was less mystical, it encouraged stillness and introspection as moral cultivation.
Over the course of my life, I have taken to meditation. From age sixteen into my thirties, I lay in my bed at night, eyes closed and thoughts cleared, meditating. Without the shadow of a doubt, I feel as though there are levels to meditation:
Clear and quiet mind, stillness
Physical Reactions
Mental and physical reactions
Each level of meditation must be mastered before moving on. Sometimes I wonder how common meditation is in today’s society and whether others share similar experiences. Please feel free to share your experiences with me.
No comments:
Post a Comment