posted June 27, 2007 08:39 PM         

I Learned from my Jewish Mother

Alan Cohen

When I first began meditating I tried to convert my mother. But Jewish mothers have arsenals of truth that young meditators can’t begin to penetrate.

“I already know how to meditate,” she told me firmly.

“Really?” I asked incredulously. “How do you do it?”

“I sit at the window of my apartment with my coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other,” she explained. “Then I just look out at the world going by, and my mind don’t function. I don’t think happy thoughts and I don’t think sad thoughts. I don’t think any thoughts ― it’s the best part of my day.”

Now, many years later, I recognize that my mother was far closer to real meditation than I was. In her own way she had mastered her intellect ― something I am still trying to do.

It is said that prayer is talking to God, and meditation is listening. You cannot listen if you are talking. You cannot access a divine frequency if you are flooding the psychic airwaves with mental chatter. If chatter worked for you, you would not need to meditate. But you do.

At a time when I felt troubled about a relationship, I attended a lecture by a Buddhist monk. He made a statement that shook my world and has helped me many times over. He said, “Since all of your troubles exist only in your mind, the only place you can solve them is in your mind.” A Course in Miracles teaches that although we think we have many problems, we have only one: We believe we are separate from the Source that created us. When we reunite with that Source, suddenly everything else we thought was such a problem evaporates.

The best way I know to make troubles evaporate (besides watching Star Trek reruns) is meditation. In meditation we shift frequencies until the meaningless ranting of the fearful self fades to nothingness, and we sit in the presence of love, where we were all the time, but did not know it because we were tuned to an inferior program.

Yet simply sitting for twenty minutes or hours with eyes closed is not meditation. What you are doing inside makes all the difference. If you sit and think for the whole time, you are not meditating. How do you know if your meditation worked? By the amount of peace you feel when you arise. Master metaphysician Joel Goldsmith recommends that you meditate until the meditation takes over. When you get to the point where you feel so good that you would rather not arise, you have arrived at the place meditation was meant to take you to.

If the Jewish Mother Meditation is valid, ― and it is ― any activity that takes you beyond your intellect and connects you with your spirit is a good meditation. If you write, paint, dance, play music, or engage in sports, you know there is a “zone” you enter where the small sense of self disappears and Something Greater moves through you. That sense is far closer to the truth of who you are than the one who is trying to succeed. You cannot try to succeed and succeed at the same time. As Yoda suggested, “Try not. Only do.”

The best doing proceeds not from a sense of doingness, but from beingness. You cannot legislate how beingness looks; it can show up through any form. I had severe judgments about my mother smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee, but the irony was that she was at peace with those activities, while my judgments were keeping me from the peace I was trying to teach her to attain. So the first step to real meditation is to drop judgments. You have no idea how someone else should live; indeed you have enough questions about how you should live. So let God be God in whatever form God chooses, and give God permission to be God in you, as well.

One of the reasons we love to be around children, pets, and spirited elders is that they are delightfully free of tyrannical intellect. They are not at the mercy of belief systems that tell us we should be other than they are. They are not trying to think their way through life; they are having too much fun to have to figure it out. That’s why Ben Williams noted, “There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face.” Imagine that life is a big puppy trying to lick your face; the only reason you don’t enjoy it more is that your mind is elsewhere. To get your mind realigned, invite it to think in harmony with Spirit, which is always affirmative and has a greater investment in celebration than complaint.

posted June 27, 2007 09:08 PM         

Hope everything's fine as frog's hair in your world

posted June 28, 2007 02:30 AM         

quote:

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If the Jewish Mother Meditation is valid, ― and it is ― any activity that takes you beyond your intellect and connects you with your spirit is a good meditation. If you write, paint, dance, play music, or engage in sports, you know there is a “zone” you enter where the small sense of self disappears and Something Greater moves through you. That sense is far closer to the truth of who you are than the one who is trying to succeed. You cannot try to succeed and succeed at the same time. As Yoda suggested, “Try not. Only do.”

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-Exactly! This is what I thought! I'm so glad others see/ have seen this too!

quote:

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One of the reasons we love to be around children, pets, and spirited elders is that they are delightfully free of tyrannical intellect. They are not at the mercy of belief systems that tell us we should be other than they are. They are not trying to think their way through life; they are having too much fun to have to figure it out. That’s why Ben Williams noted, “There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face.” Imagine that life is a big puppy trying to lick your face; the only reason you don’t enjoy it more is that your mind is elsewhere. To get your mind realigned, invite it to think in harmony with Spirit, which is always affirmative and has a greater investment in celebration than complaint.

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posted June 28, 2007 11:32 AM         

It raises some interesting questions for me.

Like,
what about vegging out in front of the t.v.,
"watching Star Trk reruns",
becoming a zombie couch-potato?

Is that meditation?

Or just regression to the "lizard mind"?

quote:

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How do you know if your meditation worked? By the amount of peace you feel when you arise.

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Many people are deeply placated by watching television,
and arise feeling a great deal of stress has been lifted.

quote:

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When you get to the point where you feel so good that you would rather not arise, you have arrived at the place meditation was meant to take you to.

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Ever tried to get a kid to turn off the t.v.?
They'd rather not arise.

Just some questions.

posted June 28, 2007 05:11 PM         

Be sure to also get exercise, all you TV yogis....

All about balance, remember?

posted June 29, 2007 08:45 AM         

I really liked 26T's post because it reinforced to me that sometimes we struggle to get our minds around certain concepts (meditation) and they end up being right under our noses.

posted June 29, 2007 10:32 AM         

Just to be clear, I am of the opinion that zonking out in front of the tube is hypnosis and not a form of meditation. My question was intended to be ironic and provocative. I don't see a big difference in what the Jewish mother was doing and what people who zonk out in front of the tube are doing.

quote:

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but, HSC gazing out the window at the blowing breezes most likely wont give you a sudden and insatiable urge to "step into a Slim Jim".

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True, but if it takes a cigarette in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other to get you to enjoy that view, it probably will encourage your insatiable urge to smoke and drink coffee, - two things that cloud the soul, pollute the body and make the mind restless.

Also, as an avid channel-surfer,
I personally don't submit to slim-jim commercials,
and I find there are some edifying things on t.v.
Hypnotism is just a hammer.

Some activities are temporarily calming,
and rejuvinate us with energy and awareness,
while others are temporarily pacifying,
and ultimately leave us sedated, sluggish, and addicted.
All activities contain shades of both,
rejuvinating some parts of our being
and creating dependencies and abberations in others.
The long-term effects ought to be considered.

But if you must smoke and drink coffee,
by all means, do it while enjoying nature,
and allowing the mind to quiet.
I would not call it meditation,
though I'll agree it is more meditative than some activities.
Just know that you are not truly meditating,
but do not further poison yourself with guilt and self-reproach.

posted June 29, 2007 11:42 AM         

Her feeling on meditation is that it is a mere 'shutting down' of the mind and while relaxing serves no real, long term purpose (so perhaps not so different to watching tv?!) She has always believed in 'active meditation' where you are not praying or in 'conversation' with something, but actively focusing the mind and learning to control the various crazy elements of it. You might look peaceful but by God! there's nothing peaceful about it - the benefits, mind you, lead to much greater clarity about so many things.

I've always wondered how just 'shutting down' can actually help...

posted June 29, 2007 01:57 PM         

hehe

Meditation is how you start the connection, it's something you do when you reach a certain level of spirituality..I like to call it, going in the zone..
by just sitting and being and relaxing, your Mind comes to Peace with your breathing and the rythem of God and the Universe..then you connect with God Source, this is when you will See and Hear, and travel...

After you have been meditating for a while, the sitting and being quiet is not necessary, for you can just connect, for the Truth is we are connected 24/7. Some people will never have to meditate, they will just naturally connect, tap into God Source...

For instance, while I am packing, my physical body is here, performing this mundane task, but My Mind, is in the astral realm of Heaven, where there is Peace and Conversation..uplifting me, showing me things, letting me know why things happen..
and so on, if I need specific answers, all I need to do is ask, some will be answered right away, some, I'm told I will know at the alotted Time, and that I just have to have faith that everything has a purpose, even though things may be difficult, the outcome is what I need.

I hope and pray for all to connect with God, so we can share our experiences, see the whole big picture, we are all here at Lindaland for a reason, to realize we are all connected, all Over the World.

This is Amazing!

posted June 30, 2007 10:47 PM         

TV watching is not meditation in my opinion. All movies, soaps commercials, etc, appeal to us because they can be classified in to main categories of human emotions such as violence, drama, comedy, love , etc.....

I don't think watching television cud be considered mindless. But an end result of meditation is also that you will enjoy things doubly(if i have to put it that way) than if you don't know how to meditate. William blake puts it so well how a person enjoys creation when he has quietened himself:

quote:

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To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.

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Like lotusheartone said its not necessary to become quiet once we have achieved meditational state. some gurus/teachers do that because others follow their every action and they are just being good role model for them.

Cheers!!!

posted June 30, 2007 11:24 PM         

This is why I call it hypnosis.

True meditation does not substitute one thing for another,
but removes all things and leaves nothing in their place.

posted July 01, 2007 03:53 PM         

I find the best meditative states come to me when I'm involved in something which allows my entire being to feel as if it is dissolving into something greater. Like, one evening, I was trying to pray in a dark room for answers when I felt compelled to go outside. I sat in my garden
and listened to all the birds singing. Just listening to them I could feel how they were at complete harmony with everything around them and with nature. I felt myself dissolve in their song. Such a wonderful feeling of oneness.

Or sometimes I may be listening to music, when all the emotion and everything is released and I feel myself in touch with a higher state of consciousness, of divinity.