My Testimony of the Power of Meditation

I am Awake

My life hasn't always been a bed of roses. I had times of struggle and pain.

But also epochs of peace and happiness.

I worked in industrial technical sales, rose to management positions, and even a few executive positions.

I started businesses and engaged in commerce.

I met a good woman, married her, had children, and unfortunately we divorced.

Cheap emotions and fast love came.

Then God put in my path the great woman with whom I have shared the best third of my life.

The Blinding Blow: Shock and Denial

One of those incurable diseases entered my life and I discovered with surprise how quickly and deeply everything can change.

After entering the carousel of emotions, a time later I descended prepared to give the good fight, to last.

It was a friend and doctor suffering from the same illness, who suggested I meditate to relax, to sleep better.

I've always loved to read.

I take this opportunity to recommend Gabriel García Márquez and Julio Cortázar novels.

But the classic Greek philosophers, Descartes, and other more modern authors that I had enjoyed in a disorderly manner, here and there, little by little, were the ones who had been preparing me to fight the battle of my life, the prize at stake is my health.

The Storm Within: Anger, Sadness, and Fear

Everything I thought, the events that happened to me, my emotions, feelings, and passions took the form of an immense nebula swirling in the space of my mind.

My firmament transformed into doubts and certainties, almost without anything in between.

The love of my lover is something that I could describe to you as the rope tied to my toe that held me to sanity, or that helped me on the way back home. And that continues to be so.

I started meditating, really without many pretensions.

To sleep better and be less tense. That's all.

I didn't do very well with the blank mind thing, my back hurt during meditation and it was a bit boring.

But I started sleeping better, and being calm.

One good day, while I was taking my daily walk, prescribed by the doctor, I decided to be efficient, and meditate while the one-hour walk was consumed. And I started doing it constantly.

The nebula turned into a point of energy.

A mantra emerged: "Everything comes to be for good."

I imagined a great cumulus of complex and concatenated ideas about life, before life and after life.

About God, faith, the origin of everything.

Bargaining in the Tempest: A Desperate Plea

I begin to believe about the power of healing, grace, and the will of God.

And my first doubt about what I had started writing arose: I have a great imagination, but all this doesn't go beyond that. It's just a pretty and well-crafted imaginary fantasy.

Then, soon after, I began to feel the burden of sin on my conscience.

I am Catholic, and I thought that some of my ideas were not entirely compatible with Catholicism. That was my second big doubt.

I set myself the task of combining meditation with faith: what if I meditate to go to God, to listen to him, to be in his love?

I meditated on it, but the doubt remained.

Sinking into the Depths: The Weight of Despair

But while i was trying to cope with this issue using meditation and faith, the feeling of hopelessness and loss of motivation during the waves of depressive stages were almost too high to survive, but somehow I was able to reach the top of them, and breathe into the will to survive.

Two facts cleared up my doubts:

I almost never watch TV, however one day I insisted, for the first time in many years, on adding a free content app to my TV. And after doing it, I went almost directly to watch a documentary about a priest named Thomas Keating.

I present to you a very brief summary on one of the topics that this man promotes in the service of God, developed by a free AI:

The Catholic priest Thomas Keating defines contemplative prayer as "a form of prayer that allows us to enter a state of deep inner peace and silence, where we can experience the presence of God."

A Glimmer of Light: Facing Reality's Shores

For Keating, this is a prayer of presence, in which the prayerful person focuses on the presence of God within them. It is not about thinking about God, but about experiencing his presence directly.

It is usually practiced in silence, with the eyes closed. The prayer focuses on their breath or a simple word or phrase, such as "Jesus" or "peace." As the prayer focuses on their breath or the word or phrase, they begin to experience a sense of peace and inner silence.

It is said to have many benefits, such as:

Increased inner peace

Reduced stress and anxiety

Improved concentration and focus

Deepened relationship with God

This is a practice that requires time and patience to develop. However, the benefits it can bring are considerable.

Some tips for practicing contemplative prayer:

Find a quiet place where you can practice without distractions.

Sit in a comfortable position, with your back straight.

Close your eyes and focus on your breath.

When your mind begins to wander, gently return to your breath.

If you want to start practicing contemplative prayer, you can follow these tips. With patience and consistency, you will be able to experience the benefits it can bring you.

The Long, Hard Swim: Processing and Adjusting

My faith in God and daily meditation practice became the foundation for accepting my situation, no matter how daunting.

Well, for me, contemplative prayer and meditation are exactly the same thing. That dispelled my idea that I was straying from my faith in God by meditating. In fact, I no longer distinguish between meditating and praying contemplatively.

What do you think?

The second doubt, that all my theories were pure fantasy, was also dispelled by chance.

One night, my partner asked me to watch a movie together on cable. We watched it, but I was drawn to a new release being promoted by the cable operator: "Going Home" by Ram Dass. I watched it a few days later.

Let's once again let the free AI enlighten us:

Ram Dass (born Richard Alpert; April 6, 1931 – December 22, 2019) was an American spiritual teacher, modern yoga guru, psychologist, and writer.

He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and graduated from Harvard University in 1953. He then studied psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, where he became an assistant professor.

Guilt's Undertow and Shame's Currents

During this stage, I focused on the ongoing process of coming to terms with my bad news and adapting to my new reality, avoiding self-pity.

In 1962, Alpert participated in the Good Friday Experiment, a scientific study of the effects of psilocybin, a psychedelic drug. The experiment, led by Walter Pahnke, was a success and Alpert was deeply impressed by the effects of the drug.

In 1967, he traveled to India, where he met Neem Karoli Baba, a Hindu guru. Alpert became Baba's disciple and adopted the name Ram Dass, which means "servant of God."

Ram Dass returned to the United States in 1968 and began teaching about Eastern spirituality. His 1971 book, Be Here Now, was a bestseller and helped to popularize Eastern philosophy in the Western world.

He continued teaching and writing for the rest of his life. His work focused on the importance of awareness, love, and compassion.

He died on December 22, 2019, in Maui, Hawaii, at the age of 88.

Some of Ram Dass's major contributions to Western spirituality include:

His emphasis on the importance of mindfulness, also known as mindfulness.

His promotion of spirituality as a path to personal and social transformation.

His advocacy of compassion and love as fundamental values.

Finding the Buoy: Seeking Support & Moving Forward

Ram Dass was an influential figure in the world of Western spirituality. His work has inspired millions of people to seek a spiritual path.

I am one of the many inspired by Ram Dass's work. He helped me awaken to my own spiritual path, a path that seeks well-being and a deeper truth.

Now, I would be quite happy to tell you how this documentary changed my life, and how I delved deeper into the teachings of Ram Dass, but something much, much less expected happened:

My fantasies, written earlier, were very similar to some of Ram Dass's teachings.

So, either they are not fantasies, or at least two very different people in time and space imagined similar things about a few topics, seen roughly.

Then I understood that more than imagining or discovering the verb to use is: remember.

We are part of God, his will individualizes us and creates an individual compound that is released into the world with its first breath, and then will be released from the world with its last breath, and will return to be part of God.

But in the process of being born, his will disposes that we forget our origin.

Embracing the New Horizon: A Life Transformed

When we are born, we come from a unique creative essence and a natural way of vibrating at a subatomic level. Sadly, we often forget this connection as we grow older.

Am I crazy? I would be right.

But I like to rejoice in the idea that I was asleep and that recently I remembered just enough to wake up.

What do you think?

Well, I set out to write a book with my ideas, but something did not spark my excitement.

When I worked in sales, a good part of the day was visiting clients and potential clients.

And almost always it was necessary to wait to be attended to at the meeting.

A free newspaper was distributed on the avenue near my place of work, I started to receive it, really because it was free.

On its last page there were several games: ‘Word search’, ‘Find the difference’, ‘Sudoku’.

I started filling in the Sudoku. I liked them and visited websites.

Initially I solved the easy ones, then the medium, difficult and the ‘samurai’.

One day, I congratulated myself on having solved one in record time, and I thought: I wish I could make money solving Sudoku.

The Journey Continues: Growth and Resilience

I meditated on it, and in an incredible way, the answer was to study free Python courses and then some Django, HTM, CSS, Javascript.

Back to the topic, I decided that it would be more pleasant and motivating to create a website with my meditations. The challenge was great, and I saw it as a mega Sudoku.

Awake was born and now he was starting to create its first position in this world: Into Meditations.

I hope that the grace that God brought into my life will reach you too, I hope that this is his will, and that you will know how to find it, because it is within your reach.

And about meditation, I dare to give you a shy piece of advice: Never accept that anyone teach you how to meditate. Just try to remember.

At a moment of frustration due to problems with the CSS rules, while creating Into Meditations, I considered abandoning the project. But the face of Ram Dass came clearly to my mind, while I was walking meditation, and he said a phrase to me while smiling, then he disappeared.

I am convinced that it was him, and not my imagination.

And I know that someone else will someday receive something about this topic while he or she meditate or sleep.

That's why I ask this: if any of you, who are reading this, feel that you know what Ram Dass said to me while I was walking, please write it in the Contact Us section of Into Meditations.

A Shared Path: Invitation to Hope

I am trying to highlight the universality of facing challenges and the power of hope. It acknowledges that we all experience difficult news, but we don't have to walk that path alone. By sharing our stories and seeking support, we can find strength and move towards a brighter future.

Finally, I thank you for taking the time to read my story, I invite you to dive in Into Meditations, and I affirm that I am sure that each and every one of us will awaken to a higher state of being at some point.

Peace.

"The darkest night is always followed by the dawn." Victor Hugo