When is the Best Time to Meditate?

Any time that you have available to you within which you are moved to meditate is always the best time!

Oftentimes, people pigeon hold themselves into a paradigm where they must be exacting about their practice, thinking that if they are not getting up at 5am and meditating for a full hour, then it just isn’t worth it. Quite the contrary, my friends!

MOST of the people I work with who consistently meditate realize that we must arrange our lives in a way that MAKES ROOM for meditation. Each day brings with it its own unique challenges and events, and no two days are exactly the same.

Therefore, the timing of our meditation practice must be FLEXIBLE in order to flow with the natural rhythm of our lives.

Creating structure around a given “target time” is very beneficial as it allows one to become habituated to a routine within which meditation is an easy part of the day. We can actually rewire our brains to cue a desire to meditate when we start to really incorporate it into our daily habits. Whether it is 5 minutes or a full hour, the more consistent we become the better.

Yet, if we cannot make our “target time” we will still feel the urge to include it as a part of our day once we get familiar with it.

When are you MOVED to meditate? If it is not a part of your day, it is hard to create any real consistency with the art. Out of sight, out of mind is quite true even with this non-tangible. Yet once we connect with our DESIRE to meditate, structuring it into our lives as a priority for our greatest vitality and zest for life, it becomes a joy to include in our daily activities.

Meditation is an art that is best done AS IT FITS INTO YOUR LIFE HARMONIOUSLY. It is not an art of pushing; it is an art of ALLOWING.

So when is the best time to meditate? When you ALLOW yourself to become AVAILABLE for any duration of time within which you are MOVED to be in a space of HARMONY.

Who is Meditation For?

Many people think, “I’m not the ‘meditating type’” when they think about taking time out of the day to slow down, tune in and recharge. The way the world is run today, we are taught to work as hard as possible, as long as possible, doing as much as we can with as little as possible. It is as if we are being taught to accomplish the closest we can come to pleasing all of the people all of the time.

Take the average Joe Blue Collar. Let’s say that Joe Blue Collar is working 40 hours per week at a Walmart, gets a 15 minute break every 4 hours, and makes minimum wage. Joe Blue Collar is told that he is supposed to make ends meet for his wife and two children in today’s economy on this income. He comes home to endless tasks around the house, constant maintenance on the car and endless demands emotionally in managing the needs of his loved ones. His friends have similar situations, and when they all get together the group spends their time trying to vent the frustrations of their lives, or simply trying to forget.

Then we go to our regular Jen White Collar. Jen White Collar is trying to make a career work. She went to school for business and is living in a fairly large metropolitan area. Her student loans outweigh her income five times over. At work, Jen White Collar is constantly being scrutinized by her ‘higher ups’. She is asked to complete 80 hours worth of work in 60 hours each week, being told to ‘learn how to multi-task’ and ‘prioritize.’ The dilemma is that everything she is doing requires clear focus and attention and is a priority.

Our world is filled with endless examples of individuals with lifestyles that seem to operate on the maxim, “I need to get it all done with as little as possible.” This means little time, little money, little rest, little energy, and we want BIG RESULTS, BIG REWARDS, BIG RETURNS and BIG PLEASURES.

NONE of the above people are who we might consider to be the spokes-model for meditation. Yet these are the people for whom meditation can be of the greatest value. In Part I of this series, we defined meditation as, “…any act that connects the conscious mind of the experiencing individual to that life energy that supports us. This life energy can be found within the individual, in other people in our lives, between one another and in the world at large. It is everywhere. It is always accessible.”

The act of connecting with an endless supply of life energy, an energy that is here to support us and is available at any time, connecting us to ourselves and one another, is an INCREDIBLE GIFT for those who are constantly met with the demands of the day. Taking even a few moments to breath deeply and tune in to ourselves can actually increase our productivity, decrease our stress, allow greater focus and concentration on the tasks at hand, increase feelings of positive affect and tune us in to the best ways to move forward in the moment.

So who is meditation for?

It is for everyone. Joe Blue Collar, Jen White Collar, Jim the Senior Executive, Gina the housewife, Eileen the Entertainer, Adrian the Artist, Mohammad the Monk and Steve the Surgeon. If you are working to live your life fully, enjoying your time while managing the demands of our world, meditation can be an incredible tool to allow you to find your best self in each and every moment.

What is Meditation?

We all know that Meditation can be a huge help to us as we learn how to increase happiness, decrease stress, connect more fully to ourselves and loved ones and find a sense of peacefulness in this crazy world of ours. The tricky thing is, if you are like most people I know, you have heard hundreds, maybe even thousands of interpretations as to what Meditation is “supposed” to be.

Meditation is often thought to be about quieting the mind, losing the sense of self and becoming one with the unity of “all that is”. This may be the end result of a disciplined practitioner. This type of experience is similar to the grace one feels during a moment of epiphany. The light bulb goes off and we get a sense of warmth and light throughout our body, head to toe. However, for the average Joe or Jane, this is not what happens when we first close our eyes and breathe.

So many people resist trying meditation in their lives because they don’t want to “do it wrong.” They think, “I’m not the kind of person who can get anywhere just by sitting quietly. What’s the point?” This type of limiting thinking gets in the way of a skill that is a great tool in our lives. We can decrease anxiety, increase self love and learn how to slow down even when our lives seem to be full steam ahead, allowing for better decision making and more productive days.

So let’s address What Meditation Is, shall we?

My take on meditation is easy. It is really any act that connects the conscious mind of the experiencing individual to that life energy that supports us. This life energy can be found within the individual, in other people in our lives, between one another and in the world at large. It is everywhere. It is always accessible. It is, as Eckhart Tolle says, as non-discriminatory as the light of the Sun.

I wrote something once, and then I burned it. And people scattered to pick up the ashes of that which had transformed, but that was not the way to find the words. The words had transformed and could not come in that old way of theirs. They transformed, so that we might transform. Becoming that which can find the words another way.

So where is home? Home is where we make it. Home is here. It always has been and always will be. We lose ourselves to our own thinking selves and forget that which lies beneath, above, within and beyond. Can we find our way back to the connection between homes of here and here and here? Einstein dreamed of the realms of all possible space and time uniting in the single mind of one man. He sacrificed his own comfort for the expansion of dreams upon dreamers within thoughts of what could be. He sacrificed his effort to be seen in that way that most were acclaimed for up to his time. He then honored his truth. And in history will be honored by those who have learned from what he bravely displayed to the masses. He roused the consciousness of his time and times to come. In his life, he transcended death. In his death, he lives here now. We see so often how understanding clings to the physical explanation of these recent sentences. Yet how many realms of possible truth can we honor in our conversation? Do we ask science to purport to know all that can be from here to the eternity of evolution? Can we ask ourselves to pretend to know everything?

I would hope there would come a time where no one claims to know all that is and will be. Yet we live in a time of present, where our now, our constructed world of our co-creation, has within it some who might claim the highest of thrones and ask others to bow. I hope for a world where those who reach the thrown of their own essence can ask all others to join them. No one must bow to another, none is above or beyond, as we all learn our own infinitesimal boundary-less-ness.

Can we live in a world that builds up and does not tear down? Can we find the love to sustain our earth? Can we create together the open awareness to guide our futures towards the revitalization of life?

Yes. We can.

But if we can rest here, rest in this place, we might just be able to see how comfortable our soul was all along, that the discomfort of this room was only the misplaced perception focused upon mundane emotional cognitive responding. We are larger beings than the size of our brains, and we encapsulate this knowledge of the Greater Process when we are able to sit in these rooms without a care in the world, knowing it is all part of our experience in this lifetime.

So how do we remember this when we sit in these rooms of concern and despair? How do we remind ourselves of that which we always have known? That all of the challenges and troubles of this world are as transient as all that is in this world, and that we are here for the joy and discovery of the process of being human! Yes, of being human in every way that there is to explore in this life!

How do we remember this?

We tell others. We tell others often and without hesitation. If we simply get into the habit of sharing this wisdom openly, sharing in the education of our brothers and sisters here in this place, we are always and in every way reliving our truth as we share it. The highest vibration is not a dot, it is a wavelength within and between the all-that-is. We live in a universe where the dots that resonate with one another are given the bounty of energetic blissfulness encapsulated in the motion of a wave. The crystals of light sparkle dazzlingly across the horizon as particles, people, perceptions, phenomenology of here and now come together in a unity of love on parade.

We are here to hold one-anothers’ hands. We are here to learn how to forgive ourselves and our brothers and sisters as we dance back into the knowing of knowings from which we all sprang. We are here together, so we are here to do this, together.

Knowledge is not a zero sum game. It is not a limited resource where if one gains access, there will be a negative repercussion for another. We All Win This Game When We Join Together. We are harmony embodied, and as we look for the song of life moving smoothly, we fill in the gap of the caverns between us.

Watch carefully as your eyes scan over the words that sit upon the page before you. Watch carefully as you no longer care what the words say in the way that we know them to speak to us. Watch carefully as you become able to ponder the questions which have been arising for you for as long as you can not remember. We remember what we are meant to remember in each moment as we freely choose to continue to become who we want to become. We are given the freedom and supports and necessary energy to complete the work before us as we choose who it is we are becoming.

I asked an old man once what it was that I was meant to ask him. His gaze graced upon me softly, knowing there was nothing he was meant to say. When people ask questions coming from a space of the sort from which this question came, a question that can only be answered by a gifting of knowledge that helps us to move along our evolutionary path in conscious awareness, the answers are never the same in our remembering of them as they are in the moment. The answer is a process of gifting in knowledge that comes from the most high as we become who we want to be in this lifetime. In this world. In this manifestation of life in the here and now of this place in this way.

There are those of you who are drawn to this reading from the source on this page for the fact that there is a part of you that knows all of this already. For those of you for whom this is true, you will find what you need is already with you in all of the ways that you need it. This work is here to help you to connect consciously to that which has always remained present to support you.

There is a community arising. It is a community that has always been here, it has always existed. The time has come for a consciousness to grow up around this group of gifted individuals. There are many who live here now who are the images of the future in manifest form. There is confusion for many people who have this awareness, these openings of a new kind in a new way. There is very little information available to those for whom this is a reality.

And what is this?

This is an experience. An experience that can only be had by the individual, but in such a way that it is so true to the purest essence of that person, that it connects the vibrancy of our life flow to those with whom we share this life’s energy.

There is much help here for you. There is Light to guide you. There is help for you to find your way. We are all here together. We need not do this alone. There are ways to talk about all that is happening that you do not know how to describe.

Take solace in the Knowing that all of this, the here and now, is here to teach you. We learn by doing, by seeing, by questioning, by experiencing, by being in a state of awareness from which we are able to learn in all the different ways that we are able to learn. Our known sensory input is not a limit of our innate human condition.

Once upon a time I had an alphabet. It was a beautiful long line of well intentioned symbols. They all had their own style in expressing the truths of the reality that we are all experiencing. But they knew they were an incomplete system. They were bound by the space of form. The form can only bring full and complete knowledge to the wavelength that operates with form. How many of the vast and infinite universes in all of space and time must use the wavelength of form? One would never know the answer to a question that is always tied to the dynamic ebb and flow of the all-of-everything.

Take a moment to sit and think about where these words have brought you. Where did your soul go when you read them? Where is it that you want to be? Where would you like to go?

There is help for you here. We need not do this alone.

That is all.