Spirit Fire

by Donna Mitchell Moniak

Meditation was not invented in the East, but it was cultivated scientifically there through the rigors of various yogas (subtle and physical) and codified spiritual disciplines. In the West, meditation was the prerogative and function of the shaman or holy person as well as the leaders and visionaries of clans and indigenous nations. All of them practiced inner awareness. All subjected their minds to emptying the thinking process of all that had already been thought. The difference in the East was that through the spreading influence of Buddhism everyone could be taught practices of mindfulness, equipoise, and inner peace, not just the select few according to caste, race, social position, or affluence. This difference was huge. In the West practitioners of meditation remained few and select: the shaman, the vision holder, or the religious. For the most part it is still that way today. Priests, nuns, and ministers are taught contemplative practices, parishioners are not.

Then what is a ‘meditative attitude’? It might include:
an understanding that what is apparent is only part of what is real, and that what is apparent might actually be deluding us from what is real.
an understanding that relating is more than an emotional process. That in fact, relating is as much a mental orientation, personal attitude, and an in-the-moment emotional state as it is whatever feeling that we want or seek to avoid when relating.
awareness and attentiveness. This includes a self-honest demeanor and respect. Respecting others includes respecting our selves.
heart. Heart is not the source of sentimentality and romance usually equated with it in the West. Those are personal feelings and projections that are generated and sustained within other parts of our energetic and psychological fields. Instead, heart is universal, wise, and inclusive. It is powerful because of its wisdom, fearless because of deep understanding, and is a source of cool courage. With a true meditative attitude, heart becomes the fulcrum upon which all is weighed and balanced; heart becomes the center from which we move, and the core to which we return after any fluctuation that takes us away from equanimity.
Finally, a meditative attitude experiences nothing as this or that, black or white, good or bad. The meditative attitude, due to all stated above, lives a middle way, a way free of extremes, a way that acknowledges one’s responsibility to understand and live that understanding, and to do so in a way that is right for oneself and leave what is right for others for their discovery. Does this mean there is no right or wrong? No, it means that there is harm and harmlessness. There is injury and assistance. There is imprisonment and liberation.

A meditative attitude begins with a cultivation of these asanas. Asana, being used in a Raja or Agni yoga way, means to generate and cultivate an entirety within oneself. An entirety might be the understanding that whatever is apparent is not all there is; or the entirety of heart. Living these asanas brings the whole of us into our awareness and brings awareness to the whole of us. Little by little, nothing is left unaware and therefore nothing is left unchanged. A meditative attitude has become the way one lives, the way one thinks or processes thought; a meditative attitude has become how one interacts and relates to everything.

Living a meditative attitude is comprehensive. Nothing is left out. No aspect of one’s life is left untouched. This is the powerful magic of a meditative attitude and why, in a study cited by Ken Wilbur, nothing changes a person more effectively and in a lasting way than meditation.