Is there a more beautiful art than the art of death and rebirth?
than the cycle of destruction and creation?
Our life and death is the universe’s poetry,
and us humans the characters and words
bringing those poems into life,
bursting with mystery and
in awe of our very own creation.

~ Samaya Adelin

Our life is a dance of stars within the cosmos.

Just as the stars, we are birthed, do our dance within the universe and then we die, only for new vehicles of life to be reborn yet again.

Like all cycles of nature, this dance is part of a fundamental pattern, existing within every single aspect of the cosmos, from the microscopic to the macro and beyond.

Meditation to me is one of the ways we can all kick start and activate our dance within the cosmos and move beyond the veil of superficiality. In its most mystical, meditation is a prayer reaching out from the deepest recesses of our soul, touching the sky with its encrypted hieroglyphic poetry, creating an invisible bridge, enabling us to experience the sacred in a way that elevates us to new levels of living and understanding.

To me that is true poetry.

Meditation taking us to the
edge of our human experience,
exposing us to the walls of our reality,
giving us the thirst to start chipping off the walls
and showing us what our human bones are made of.

So many of us tend to approach meditation as a way of creating more peace in our lives, as stress is such a common malaise of our modern lives. Yet, were we not to be living such stressful, deranged lives, we would most likely not be needing meditation for the sake of relaxation. Something tells me we’d be looking for a little bit more than that…

We’d be meditating for life’s adventure and searching to experience life’s poetry.

If we didn’t resist fighting off our true desires and how to live them out in the world, then we probably wouldn’t be meditating for enlightenment, either, because we d be living our purpose in such a strong way, we would not be seeking liberation from the human realm. We’d be having too much of a blast being part of it.

The very expression of our passions
is the key to our liberation.

When it comes down to it, meditation at its very best should be able to help us penetrate the human adventure we have been lucky to be granted. Not tone it down.

It’s useful to have our fire burning so that meditation has our raw material to sink its teeth into. Then it can be used as a vehicle to take down to pieces everything we have learned and known about life, only to then have it re-ensemble with a new awareness and re-formed understanding.

So here is my proposition: Rather than meditate for calm, meditate for the poetry.

Allow meditation to take you
to the edge of human reason..

have you look down at the edge of your mind’s cliff,
and in that moment of awe and fear
have the shackles of your human shell break free
’cause it’s either that or die on the inside..

Allow meditation to take you to the place
where you are to doubt everything you’ve known and
felt was real and possible
about everyone & everything around you.

And in that space of strength yet utter fragility,
find yourself re-commit to life
over and over again,
not because others told you to,
but because somewhere deep down
in the furthest recesses of your soul,
you found your own, personal reason
your unique desire.

Hallelujah!

Are we brave enough to meditate like that? Could we perhaps aspire to?

Our existence is first and foremost a poignant poetic affair.

It truly is. Sitting to meditate for relaxation alone, though a good start, is essentially somewhat of a limited expression of the journey we are here to experience on planet earth. And in order to grow we should always aim to evolve both in our intentions and actions.

Sure some basic relaxation is needed, however, once some emotional and mental safety has been established, we should be aiming for more mature experiences.

If you’re going to use meditation for one thing,
make it about amplifying life, not the opposite.

Furthermore, treating meditation as an early retirement is essentially insulting to the nature of the practice, as is using it as an after life insurance from our karmic shenanigans in this life.

This is more of a fear based mentality and not a spiritual quest.

Next time you notice in your meditation that you re trying to silence the voice within you that wishes to speak strongly or your soul to desires deeply, be sure to check that it’s not your mind that needs to be silenced instead.

Whatever you do, be bold in your meditation.

Author: Samaya Adelin

Editor: Emily Bartran

Photo: Biswajit Das/Flickr