In the beginning of my personal inner journey (1970), I was introduced to meditation. Everything that was learned pretty much came from the Eastern philosophies and was about the chakras, meditation and mantras. At that time that was the main option for your inner journey.
I was first introduced to it by a local group, which was a spinoff from a guru in India. This group practiced meditation along with mantras and they basically taught you to worship the guru through exhuberant reverance of him. My first assignments were to sit one hour in a meditation and use the “secret” mantra. Well, needless to say if you remember when you began meditation, after about 10 minutes, my mind got crazy and then in about another 10 or 15 minutes I fell asleep and would wake up. It was the first time I had done anything like this and it was all a bit strange and yet exciting.
This went on for such a very long time. I began to feel like a failure at meditation. As I improved I could often last for 15 to 30 minutes before I would wake up and not know how long I had been asleep.
As I meditated, I saw no progress, no results. I didn't get any visions, insights, or cosmic revelations. It was all quite disappointing. After some time, I began to handle sitting in a meditation for one hour quite easily, and after several years. I worked up to sitting four hours a day in meditation, usually with just some personal insights, but never with any visions or cosmic experiences.
These inner visions that I did not have took a toll on my perceptions and expectations of what would happen in a meditation. Getting tired of this type of meditation I moved on and had many experiences with several different types of gurus, from several different philosophies and different types of meditation styles, all ending up pretty much the same.
What I did over time dicsover is that simple meditations are all that's necessary. However, if you are looking for true enlightenment, it requires the integration of your mind, of your body, of your spirit, of your energy fields and the elimination of limiting belief systems. The last one, belief systems, was always left out of the practices I encountered. Each one of these has a component of learning and resolution that enhances the other. In the early days of my meditative practices, it was often seen that the mind was an adversary and it was something to get rid of.
The ego was something to get rid of it was earthly and earthbound and prevented you from enlightenment by its temptations and unruliness. Possessions also needed to be gotten rid of so that you could be free. In the end, what I discovered is quite the opposite. It is the integration, acceptance, and loving of all of those aspects of you that contribute to the greater wisdom of your divine enlightenment. Not to mention you can “have” and do anything you want to experience, except it comes from a higher perspective.
Once enlightened, you use any of those human/earthly processes as a tool for your own experience on earth. There is nothing wrong with any of them. They were always just misunderstood. At this level you use the ego and human patterns as tools for your higher purpose and choices instead of you being used by those less conscious beliefs and patterns you have.
Today I no longer practice meditation. I am the meditation, whenever I choose to be. From my long journey and multiple practices, I have become able to place myself into a meditative state while being completely functional, social and interactive with people and the world around me. There is no need to isolate myself, to be in a meditative state or sacred space (as all of my experience is sacred space) for I have access to my inner knowing at all times and all I have to do is call upon it. .
Of course, this has occurred because of the many practices, the many discoveries, and the many aspects of meditation and inner growth that I have journeyed through, come to understand and experience.
This is available to everyone. Anyone can achieve this. You just have to find the missing parts in your meditative practices that will help you integrate “all’ of YOU into your enlightenment.
About Michael Cavallaro
Michael Cavallaro is a 20 year practitioner of meditation, a master life and business coach and half of the coaching duo “Adele & Michael.” He meditates three to four hours a day and has been featured in Mantra Magazine, Thrive Global and Meditation Magazine. Michael is considered an expert in human energetic patterning and is the Founding Director of Living Concepts LLC
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