I have always liked the idea of meditation. And though I appreciated the form, I could not comprehend its purpose on a practical level. I understood the usefulness of calming my mind and managing my stress. But somehow, I always sensed that managing my anxiety would be like managing my drowning; I wanted to understand and overcome my stress, not manage it. Why does meditation feel good? What happens when I meditate? These were the essential questions I wanted to answer before I meditated.
Instead, I have always preferred mindful contemplation as long-running inner dialogues. Not only did contemplation feel good, but I understood why: I worked through questions I had. Every time I had a revelation, I felt closer to a truth I had always sought. Contemplation is practical in the way I require.
Meditation only began to make sense after I realized how it fit into the truth that was right in front of me the entire time. In awakening, I can enter two states: thirdself-facing, and firstself-facing. Eyes open, looking into the world, I am thirdself-facing. Eyes closed, looking outward toward myself, I am firstself-facing. These are two versions of the exact same thing, but every awakening I choose one over the other. In demiself, I make the decision to look inward into my thirdself, or outward toward my firstself.
When my eyes are closed, I am everything. I am the center of everything. There is no illusion of a larger world I am within other than the impressions of my second and thirdself which persist. Time spent meditating is time spent deconstructing the illusion of my second and thirdself. The illusion of the second place.
The purpose of meditation is to remember that I experience my real being when my eyes are closed. That is the authentic me, where I am the totality of existence. The world I have created when I open my eyes is a story I have gotten lost in. In my meditation, I focus on my two states: my moment in meditation, with my eyes closed and concentration focused. And my moment in awakening, with my eyes opened and concentration diffused. In my meditative state, I am absolutely everything; there is nothing in the distance. There are no objects of my thirdself, only those interrupting forms in my secondself. This is closer to my true nature than the state I experience when I open my eyes. I open my eyes, and suddenly what was infinite and expansive, is now divided and desire-infused.
Selfist meditation is deliberate and specific rather than unintentional and general. I have goals in my meditation: I go in with answers I have found in contemplation, and I seek to validate them experientially. I can deploy the answers I find in selfist contemplation to ward off the intrusions of my second and thirdself. But why are they intrusions? Why are they unwanted? That is what I see in meditation: that the second place of desires, people, movement, and change is an illness I seek to overcome. Through selfist meditation, I can stand on a fence and clearly see two versions of myself: the infinite version of peace and abundance in the first place, and the constricted version of pain and desire in the second place. In selfist meditation, I see my choice starkly before me. I will open my eyes again, but every time I loosen the hold my illness has upon me.
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