Quo Ego Vado?

Where am I going?

The reality is that none of really us know.

But I want to write about my experiences with meditation, in the hope of helping anyone who seeks relief from suffering. And release from the need to seek an answer to that question.

To express in clear, unornamented terms what I have thus far achieved in an uncluttered and simple meditative practice.

I first studied Buddhism many years ago.

Buddhism originated in a simple effort to avoid suffering and to attain a state of inner peace. The prescribed cure for misery is to meditate and to lead life in the “right” manner. A meditative practice then, and a code for right living. A course which follows a middle way, avoiding both harsh ascetism on the one hand and wanton self indulgence at the other extreme.

What began in utmost simplicity around 2,500 years ago became a confused tangle of many different branches, a multiplicity of different teachings. And as to “enlightenment”, who had ever achieved this rarefied and seemingly unachievable state I wondered? From stringent clarity great confusion arose in Buddhism, along with exaggerated claims as to its benefits.

At the same time, I studied Christianity and again found myself similarly nonplussed. Prophets ascending into the skies on chariots of fire, people turned into pillars of salt, burning bushes. Can it all have happened and if so, how is that of any benefit to me in the here and now? I never found the answer to the last question, and had a healthy scepticism regarding the former.

As I looked at yet more faiths, the curious case of Carlill vs the Carbolic Smoke Ball Company (1891) came to mind. I had been a lawyer once upon a time and the case has always come to mind whenever presented with extravagant declarations and inexplicable professions of the miraculous.

Deadly influenza was wiping out millions and the Carbolic Smoke Ball Company sold a “cure”. The company offered a very substantial £100 to anyone who used the Smoke Ball correctly and still caught Russian Flu. Mrs Carlill did so use it, still caught flu and claimed her reward. The company refused to pay up. They claimed that the offer was mere “advertiser’s puff” and was not contractually binding. They lost, and misleading advertising eventually became a criminal offense.

And so when you read all the religious puffery (and they are still writing it) please don’t believe that Tibetan monks can literally levitate or that dead bodies of particularly saintly individuals don’t rot.

Religious writing is sugar coated to boost sales. Especially in the hands of today’s less scrupulous gurus; but it has always been so.

And so back to meditation. In strong contrast to the immoderate promises of many other faiths, root Buddhism claimed a simple but profound benefit in the here and now. The avoidance of suffering. Today, here on earth. Not in some theoretical afterlife.

And hence I developed a strong liking for basic Buddhism. Call it a faith if you must, but in my understanding it offers a practical remedy for misery.

In early days, perhaps some small corner of my mind was expecting supernatural results. Wishful thinking and a hankering after magical realms and other worlds. Disappearance into some manifestation of nirvana. A desire to levitate.

I only half joke but the hyperbole of some of the Buddhist scriptures is no more absurd than that of its competitors.

But here is the rub – it does actually work. Not the promise of the supernatural, but the rather more down to earth claim of a relief from suffering.

For the past two years I have followed a daily meditation routine with unswerving devotion. I will sit three times a day for periods varying from 20 minutes upwards.

I have read much in the past about the power of positive thought. But then again I have read much hogwash from Freud to Mesmer and beyond.

Except that I have now discovered a kernel of truth to it all. That, call it what you will, the “subconscious” can be trained. That rumination and damaging thought patterns do become entrenched, laid down in the mind like well worn tracks through a forest. And that they can be replaced by more beneficent patterns.

With help from my favourite secular priest, I crafted a blueprint for the person I wanted to become. And distilled that plan into a few key words. Or mantras.

The trance state is something few beginners grasp, and some years ago I too found it puzzling. To know whether I had got there or not.

The trick is to relax and not worry about it. It’s nothing so very out of the ordinary – to begin with just a state of mild relaxation, which deepens as the meditation gets underway. For some, the repetition of a mantra is enough to induce trance. I prefer to use a hypnotic technique which begins with a bit of pretence but which, after much practice, becomes a reality.

After relaxing for a short while, you tell yourself you are so relaxed your eyes won’t open. And the pretence is to keep them shut. Even that ceases to be a pretence after you have been through the process often enough.

And then counting backwards, telling yourself you are becoming more and more relaxed until the numbers disappear. In the beginning you have to make an effort, a further pretence if you like, that the numbers have indeed disappeared. But again with practice they just do disappear, leaving you in a state of pleasant, rather hazy relaxation.

Which is when I begin to repeat the mantras. Which over time become ingrained into the subconscious and become you, a part of what you are.

After a time, I find the state of trance deepens and the repetition of mantras stops, seemingly of its own accord. It usually takes up to 20 minutes, in my case, to reach this stage.

By this time, I am usually far away. In a place where the pure light of consciousness can shine through. A state of awareness without the distraction of thought.

Any thoughts, day dreams or visions which do arise are unusual ones and, in my case at least, invariably pleasant. Instructive even. The brain seems to operate in a different way under these conditions and the effect is not unlike a mild psychedelic “trip”.

The effects of meditation spill over into my waking life. I find myself slipping back into that mind state as I am out walking, stuck in traffic or indeed at virtually any time or place.

Equally, and remarkably, I have found that I have become (at least to some extent) what I set out to become. That the terrible blackness which has plagued my entire life has more or less disappeared. And if it does make an appearance it is less desperate and certainly of short duration.

I also find that I am more accepting and less impatient and irritable. More tolerant of others and less inclined to venture my own opinions. More retired, more resigned to the way things are, the way I am.

Of course, in extremis the blackness may return but if it does, at least I seem to have found a way out.

I also find I am more accepting of myself. That I am not who I thought I was, not as capable, resilient, bright, ambitious. And I am fine with that. It’s just the way things are.

I don’t think my habits have changed very much, although I am increasingly reluctant to spend my days hunched over a computer. But I live healthily, more so perhaps than at any time in the past. Largely vegetarian, I take at least a couple of hours exercise each day. I play the piano a lot and these days enjoy it more than singing.

Above all I live quietly. No social whirl, no dinner parties or grand friends. No aimless, frivolous small talk. No news programs, no social media.

I still “think” quite a bit. Mostly about the meaning of reality. I am far more likely these days to rely on my own contemplation than to read yet another philosopher or scientist with his speculative and incomplete theorems and opinions.

I have noticed, without any shade or shadow or rag of doubt, great change in my inner self. And for that I am enormously grateful.

Perhaps that change has come about as a result of a number of factors, but my meditative practice has, I feel certain, played a large part in the much needed metamorphosis.

Listen to me, or don’t. Take my claims as extravagant or reckon that they contain a grain of truth.

Quo Ego Vado?

I don’t know but I’m really not too concerned any more. Perhaps, after all, things are just as they should be.

Illustration: Sunlit Path – By William de Leftwich Dodge