When I first went to learn meditation, I had so many expectations about how special it was going to be. I was already on the spiritual path and was already doing meditation on my own. It was not at all what I expected. I didn’t know it at the time but I was about to change my whole opinion about what it means to have a spiritual experience.
I had never seen a meditation teacher and had never been to a meditation center, but I had a definite idea about what it was going to be like. When I first walked into the meditation center, there was a feeling of serenity that made me feel that this was the right place. I was very excited to meet the teacher who I thought was going to be from India wearing a robe with long hair and a beard. Instead, my teacher was dressed in a business suit and looked like a normal person. I was so shocked that I began to doubt that this was a man who could be my teacher.
Then he started to sing the ceremony. His voice was amazing (I found out later that he was a singer in the New York Metropolitan Opera) and the melody made me feel like I had come home. This was just an ordinary guy but what he was doing moved me very deeply.
When he gave me the mantra, he told me to just sit with it and let it go. I didn’t feel anything. I sat there with him for about ten minutes and still nothing happened. Now I know that it was working but I was trying too hard and couldn’t relax and let the meditation work by itself.
Finally he told me to go into another room where I would meditate by myself. It was summer in NYC and very hot, so I was told to sit in a chair that was right beside an open window. The traffic noise was intense and I thought that I was not going to be able to meditate at all. I was feeling very disappointed, but I did as I was told and sat by the window and closed my eyes. Nothing happened. There was just too much noise and I was frustrated, but I continued.
After another ten minutes I felt so relaxed that I couldn’t move. It was working. But I had meditated on my own and felt this before so it wasn’t anything special. After another five minutes I realized that I was hearing celestial music! I had never experienced this before. It was happening so naturally that I didn’t expect it. Then I was told to come out of meditation and wait to talk to the teacher. As I was coming out I realized that the “music” that I was hearing was not from heaven, but in fact was the sound of the traffic outside the window. My consciousness had taken this crude sound of the traffic and made it sound heavenly. Amazing!
Looking back now I realize how normal and natural meditation is. I thought nothing was happening, but the meditation had already started to work. It was only when I gave up and stopped trying, that I began to have a deeper experience. The teacher didn’t have to be some great guru from India. Just a normal teacher would do. Meditation is something that anyone can do. We don’t have to be special and the teacher doesn’t have to be special. The entire process is so normal that we might underestimate it in the beginning. I am so happy that I continued. I could have stopped and continued my search for the right teacher. But instead I just did it every day as part of my normal routine. What looked like an ordinary experience turned out to be the best thing I ever did. It changed my life forever.
In a few weeks Natural Spirit will release my latest book to all the bookstores in Japan. It is a story about my life. I hope you have a chance to read it. I will post the details on this blog as soon as I have them.
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