A feedback loop is a cycle of behavior that is mutually reinforcing. This is the case with daily meditation and the practice of nonattachment while engaged in action. Engaging regularly in these two practices helps us to have more clarity both in our inner experience and our outer activities. A beautiful saying from the Persian mystic, Abu Said, offers a vision of inner stability and outer engagement: A true [human being] is [one] who dwells in righteousness among [others], who may buy and sell, yet is never for a single instant forgetful of God!
If we become overly involved with worldly activity and attached to particular outcomes, it adversely affects our meditation practice. When we sit to meditate, we will notice that our minds are very restless. Thoughts, plans, anxieties, and inner conversations fill our mental field, making it difficult to focus. This is usually a clue that we have become too involved in the outer. This doesn’t necessarily mean that we are too busy and should do less. What it often means is that we have become too attached—too wrapped up in thinking of the ego as the doer and grasping too tight to our desires for particular outcomes. The practice of nonattachment is the key. The ideal is to bring a meditative consciousness into our activity. When we do this we focus our attention on what we are doing and work with integrity, but leave the results to God. This makes it possible to be thoroughly active but with a calm mind. Then, when we sit to meditate, we notice that peace already pervades the mind. In this way, our activity in the world grounded in the virtue of nonattachment, supports our meditation practice.
Our meditation practice also positively supports conscious action in the world. We are encouraged by the saints and sages to always maintain a dynamic balance between meditation and service in the world. If we find we are becoming so inwardly focused that we are not inclined to engage with others, then it is time to strike the proper balance. Our daily dip into the sacred river of divine Presence, should prepare us for a day of remembrance of God. Paramahansa Yogananda noted that we can take the peace we access in meditation with us wherever we go. He called it our “portable peace.”
When daily meditation and conscious activity work together in our lives, the line that separates them grows thin. Our life becomes our meditation.
Think About It: In a recent study published in the Journal of Pain Research, researchers discovered that individuals practicing mindfulness reported significant reduction in pain and related symptoms. They defined mindfulness as paying total attention to the present moment with a non-judgmental awareness of inner and outer experiences. “Yoga promotes this concept – that we are not our bodies, our experiences, or our pain. This is extremely useful in the management of pain.”
–www.psychcentral.com
Be Inspired: Solitude is necessary to become established in the Self, but masters then return to the world to serve it.
–Paramahansa Yogananda
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