The energy that rests.....at the base of the spine...

The year was 1988. The setting was a meditation retreat in Southern England. The month was July. The name of the week long retreat was called 'Awakening the Heart'. I went along without any expectations. For as many of the years that I have been following a spiritual path I have found sitting meditation extremely difficult. Every minute feels like an hour and I spent most of my time in a battle with my mind which was on a continuous inner rant about how much time I was wasting sitting 'doing nothing'. But yet there was always a strong pull towards the spiritual. It was like there were two people living inside of my head. One which pulled for me to go and go on meditation retreats and read spiritual literature and the other which would do everything in its power to ensure that I didn't go.

This push and pull has been the way my spiritual path has developed. Lured by an elusive carrot which I couldn't define yet which had a hold on me that was irrestible and which I couldn't shake. I was later to define this tension as that between mind and no-mind. For years I would mistakenly use one to access the other.

I entered the meditation room innocently for this retreat like I had done for many retreats before. I sat down to begin to meditate....then something quite amazing happened.....

I will write about this tomorrow...these blog posts are going to be quite short..