Meditation brings balance

we've got to get ourselves back to the garden

There is a dream of long-ago that we all have. It is of a garden where everything is in balance, each stone and plant in harmony, a childhood of simple joys – no worries or sorrows, no regrets or anger. Perhaps it is a collective dream. I would like to think so.

As elusive as that paradise may seem, the path that leads to that garden is easily at hand. Push the swinging gate and enter. It is as simple as this:

Put your attention to your Sahasrara, the uppermost chakra at the top of the head. Don't think. Don't worry. Become.

That original, in-the-present state that we experienced as children is a lot like meditation. But that state of being for which we now yearn does not come about through our own efforts. That state returns simply by desiring, not by doing.

If anything, perhaps not doing some things might help us all a lot more than adding another task to our list.

Look at your present life and see how it is different from your life as a child, or from the golden age for which you now quest. Are you mixing the medicines in your effort to get there? Is there a practice or a habit – good or bad – that you are doing now which might be interfering with that state of being in balance? Smoking or drinking are obvious drags on our spiritual ascent, but so are other things which might, at first, seem to be good. Another type of meditation, a ritual practice or "a false knowledge" fall into that category, but so does anything done in excess or extreme.

The thing to remember about that childhood garden is that it was not perfect. It’s perfection was not in its blossoms and blooms, the length of its hedgerows and cornstalks. The beauty lay in our perception. We lived in the garden, but more to the point we lived in the present, not the past or the future.

Meditation and yoga are all like that too – all about balance – while the events of this world are constantly trying to throw us out of balance. We say, “Peace.” The world says, “Expense account.” We say, “Aum.” The world says, “Tire rotation.” The buffeting can become so constant that it can appear as normal. The mundane supplants the divine as easily as our attention wanders.

Who knows what the answer is? Who knows how to attain balance? Chances are you do. For each of us, the answer is inside. And the gate is in within reach.

Drop everything. Go back to what you know to be true. Start over. It is like going home: you never forget the way.

And if you are in balance, it is no longer tightrope. It is a garden path.