“Peace, peace, peace,” I said in my mind, “break me off a piece of that universal peace.” While under the direction of a meditation teacher, who encouraged the use of a manta, I chanted this to myself. Although I may have imagined “peace,” it still did not seem like “universal peace” was even a thing. To me, meditation often meant chaos, with mine too closely revolving around a hyperactive mind. While still trying to summon it, I thought it sounded so nice. However, I was far too complicated to feel peace.
This is why: In my mind, and in the grand scheme of things, the massive universal macrocosm makes the scale of human existence seem more like a micro-reality of intense chemical reactions. Depending on how one views it, it can be just as chaotic as the large-scale Universe, while also functioning on a chaotic molecular level. Obviously, this sounds complicated. There is just so much to think about when it comes to reality. On all scales, matter, which is a subtle form of consciousness, is just another quantum chaotic system, like my mind clearly also was, and is. It felt like a sweater being unraveled, there was no stopping it once it started.
Although being more on a meso-scale, when compared to quantum mechanics, my reality still ceased to silence itself during that meditation, like a hurricane, which I know so many people have felt, even while trying to sit peacefully, and to be in the eye of the storm. I considered it to be just like focusing on the chaos of the universe, not just the quanta. All this chaos prevented the realization of its stillness, even though the chaos was just as much of a reality as the emptiness. Clearly, the cup was half chaotic for me, but regardless of the complications, every day I still practice.
The chaos on all levels is seemingly a reality for a vibrational dance not just across space, but also the metaphysical consciousness. Consciousness is a made up of matter’s building blocks, as the quantum world gone molecular. These chemical reactions shape our mind. Mind is shaped by electrical distributions of energy; just as the elements shape our world.
For most meditators, meditations involve being locked into some form or another of an obsessive reality, as a real reality to meditate on. This may not mean thinking so mystically as my analogies, but what matters is an affixation on thoughts that can also be viewed from many angles — thus, the scales of consciousness.
Sucking It Up
Universal stillness on a macro, cosmological sense of space actually exists in a vacuum. This makes up most of outer space’s reality. Although the thought of vacuuming my thoughts on a human level seems appealing while meditating, in actuality, the chaos exists with a sense of purpose, and the goal should be to embrace it, to find peace with the chaos. After all, the chaos should be appreciated as consciousness, as a sort of mind-whole-ness!
The reason people quit meditating, or neglect to start, is because they get bored of trying to achieve something few even can, not realizing that they are not necessarily supposed to. That is why mindfulness should be more widely understood as an observation, not just a re-focusing of the mind. Just like there are many ways to practice mindfulness, there are also many destinations with it, as potentials for many mind-states. Those destinations all still result from experiencing physical stillness and silence. That is why, if people still try, they will find that it comes to life on them during the outward peace.
Although outer space is big and empty, there is still a lot of unpredictable things “out there,” as well as laws that come from patterns. Just like the Universe, we, too, have patterns that can either be determined or are unpredicted.
Like the creation of stars, supernovas and asteroids, modalities on all levels exist for a reason. Even though thoughts can seem like those things on a more intense day, sucking it up, and meditating even when you do not want to, can be a part of the equation for a healthy practice. By doing this, one will find that their thoughts tune into that mindful vacuum, like the emptiness of space. That way, one can make room for free space, just like in the vacuum of outer space.
With that being said, on all scales, fractals define the nature of our reality. They help us to understand the pattern of one image encompassing a similar, yet seemingly new image, which in turn defines all of reality. The point of meditation is to recognize one’s own patterns, as well as to emanate your mind outward in accordance with small focuses. After all, the breath gives life to even your energy field, which is outside of yourself, as also a part of your consciousness.
A Dance Across Space-Time
The human experience may have a paradoxical vacuum-like potential when thought gets managed, but it is still rather just an electric one. While meditating, I sometimes see myself as a plasma ball. The people and places that I am surrounded by are like fingers poking the outside of the spherical glass, causing electricity to formulate attention to the stimuli that I am surrounded by.
That is why what meditators put in your subconscious matters; it affects the meditation, in both space and time.
Thought electricity, like a star, is hard to contain. The more you try, the more you risk being zapped, with it backfiring (or severely burned). That might even make someone want to quit. That is why it is best to observe your thoughts instead of interact with them. The more attention you give them, the more your synapses form around them. Intention matters, as does people and environments, which fills a mindfulness practice with mental content.
A Matter of Mind
“Perfecting” the mind is spiritual rocket science. Few can do it, but many can try. More like, many can observe. That’s the point: not everyone needs to “perfect” the mind. What is encouraged for meditators is to observe the mind without judgment, without expectations of whether or not they are going to spiritually rocket into the cosmos — or blissfulness. Meditators should focus on the small steps first, which includes the breath as a recipe for a good experience — as drinks of air, as my yoga teacher says, to quench a spiritual thirst.
Chaos into Consciousness
Mindfulness is not graded on a scale, even though I am using one to describe consciousness. Macro vs. micro is the only scale that is used. While not being graded, it’s the effort points that count.
In the grand scheme of things, most of the thoughts that have come into my own practice were incredibly small on a macro scale — a perspective that has helped me to personally move past trivial obsessions. My thoughts really are not that big of a deal on a large scale, but please don’t invalidate yours! It just helps to put things in perspective, because it changes them. Refocusing shrinks the thoughts, when thought of as scales. Think of it like “catch and release” while fishing. The aim is freedom of thought, to let all those preoccupations go.
Think of mindfulness as a mental alchemic pursuit that still turns chaos into peace, peace, peace. As an attempt to master an object, alchemy — despite not actually having turned lead into gold — still sought to master objects. In turn, it gave birth to the field of chemistry. That is why intention matters, even if the results are not what one can expect.
Just like the mind can be attempted to master, it is the process of attempts and effort that change people. Still, meditation turns chaos into consciousness, as neurological chemical alterations, instead of stubborn metals, which the mind can sometimes seem like.
For a lot of people, meditation can feel like running in place, like alchemy was as an esoteric pursuit. The real result, however, was the strengthening of will power, imagination and visualization, just like mindfulness does.
Similar to the way meditation shapes the mind, and how chemical compound changes influence metals, slow cosmological changes affect the universe. While on our micro level, stress-reducing chemicals are produced from meditation, which affects the mind, slowly but surely, like a star coming into existence, or as an old way of thinking reforming into something new and better.
Meditation produces results that affect not just your brain, but even the way you view the universe, as your mind’s version of it. On that macro-scale, looking from a micro-position, there are many different ways of viewing mundane perspectives. Truly, there is magic to be seen. That magic is called consciousness. With a recipe that calls for chaos, I urge you to take the time to watch it cook, even if it gets a bit uncomfortable.
