Defining yoga, meditation, spirituality, and how it changed my life.
So, I started a blog. I can’t believe I started a blog (lol). This is one of the scariest things I’ve ever done.
One of the oldest beliefs I used to hold on to was that a private life is a happy life, which I’m sure we’ve all heard at some point. And blogging is essentially the sharing of “private” thoughts and feelings.
Now of course, that sharing sometimes stems from an extreme need to be validated and that was my biggest problem with blogging and, subsequently, bloggers. I found most bloggers to be “fake” and shallow. I was convinced that blogging was yet another way for deeply insecure people to get some likes and followers–to get famous.
And though that could be true for some people, I came to the realization that blogging can be a tool to connect with people who, you, otherwise wouldn’t be able to reach.
Why am I blogging?
My need to blog came to me one Sunday morning while I was meditating, and I had what we refer to in meditation as an “aha” moment.” An aha moment is what we call the perfect meditation. This is contradictory because there is no perfect meditation, but sometimes we can achieve moments of pure clarity, sudden realization and, occasionally, visions.
My aha moment was that I needed to share this practice, and it would be almost selfish not to do it. Meditation has changed my life beyond my wildest expectations.
I, at that moment, sitting in silence in the perfect asana, in my living room floor, I knew there are thousands, if not millions, of people like me who can use the practice of meditation. And if I can help change the life of just one person, who can in turn change the life of one other person and so on, then my mission will be accomplished.
That’s when blogging came to mind, and I decided right then that I was going to blog.
It took me a few months after this realization to actually start typing these words. I was still struggling with the idea of exposing myself. The thought of sharing my private life has always irked me, and the constant thought of “what are my friends going to think about this” is still pretty much present.
But as the saying goes, “the only way to avoid criticism is by doing nothing,” I care too much about what I believe to be part of my dharma (purpose) on earth to back down now.
What will this blog be about?
The simple answer to that question is yoga, although the name of the blog is “Meditation for Cool People”. I’ll explain why later.
1. I’m going to use very easy and simple language to describe what yoga is.
I’ve been meditating regularly for quite some time now. Early in my practice, I noticed the avalanche of available information on meditation and yoga in general. One could easily be overwhelmed and getlost in the language used by the many meditation teachers and resources.
2. This will be a free resource.
You’ll often need to spend money (most of the time a significant amount of money) in access information to meditation and to start/maintaining your spiritual journey. I believe yoga as a discipline should be free for those who really want it, and that’s why I promise to never use this blog as a source of any type of income. I understand the people who do, I just choose not to.
3. I will be 100% honest and truthful about everything that I write here.
I will give full transparency in the hope that this blog will be useful to you and you’ll want to give this practice a try.
Before we embark on this journey though, together, I want to offer a few definitions for some words that may come up in my posts or posts from other yogis.
What is spirituality?
The basic answer to that question is in the dictionary.
Google defines spirituality as the quality of being concerned with the spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things.
Merriam-Webster says it is the quality or state of being concerned with religion or religious matters.
On dictionary.com, it is the incorporeal or immaterial nature.
The common word here is material, matter. This is important because when I started looking into spirituality, I couldn’t find a satisfactory answer to what it was.
All the definitions that I found were either vague or too religious, so I came up with my own definition. For that, I needed to understand what matter is, because you can’t understand the immaterial world if you don’t understand what matters means. That’s where it got interesting.
In school, we’re taught that the universe is made of energy, which can be calculated using E=mc2. However, the truth is that scientists don’t really know what comprises the universe.
60% of the universe is still unknown. And it is, an entity called: the dark energy.
Despite its name, dark energy is not actually an energy, at least not a mass energy like the kind we can solve for. All we know about dark energy is that it is constantly expanding at the speed of light, and in fact it’s currently expanding our universe as you read this.
Another roughly 36% of the universe is called dark matter, which is also mysterious. We don’t know much about it, except that it’s not made of atoms like you and me and everything else on Earth.
The atom-based world that we know, makes up 4% of the universe in which, 99.99% is invisible interstellar dust and the visible part 0.01% is atomic and contains 2 trillion galaxies, 760 trillion stars and uncountable trillions of planets. We’re part of that 0.01%.
Spirituality is, then, IMO, the practice of figuring out what all the unknown and invisible parts of the universe are, the parts that we can’t look for in this physical or materialistic world.
The explanation is long-winded, but I like it because it takes away religion and embraces science, so I hope everyone can get on board with it without feeling like they’re being recruited into a cult or that their religion is being attacked.
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Now, that we know what spirituality is, what’s yoga? What’s meditation? And where do they all come together?
Many people are familiar with the physical poses of yoga(the asanas), which are designed to purify the body and provide the physical strength and stamina needed for long periods of meditation. But yoga is so much more.
The word yoga literally means bringing the mind to yoke – to come together out of the past and the future to right here with the body and the breath, which are always in the present moment – and one way to come to the present moment is through meditation.
And why would you want to come back to present moment, again and again, which is what meditation helps you to accomplish?
Every quality that are known to be “good” in our world, lives in the present, efficiency, clarity, optimism, acceptance, kindness, compassion etc ... these exist only to the degree that the mind comes into the present moment.
Chapter 2, verse 48 of the ancient Indian text Bhagavad Gita, the ancient Indian reads, “Yogastha kuru karmani,” meaning establish yourself in the present moment then perform or act, or come to the present and be brilliant. And who doesn’t want to be brilliant?
Many scientific studies show that young people who meditate (thus practice yoga) are more compassionate, more loving, more efficient at work, more successful and happier.
If you want to know what the immaterial world is, you need to shut off the noise of the past and/or the future. After all, how can you discover such entities if you don’t know yourself first? Who you are? Where do you come from? And what are you doing here? Remember, the part of the universe, thus ourselves (since we are part of that universe) that we’re studying is invisible to the world. In order to study it, we need to shut the noise of that same world.
How is mediation not a religion?
Simply put, anyone can practice meditation or yoga (if you like the challenge). All the known prophets have practiced meditation, and you don’t need to believe in it for it to work. Meditation is a science. Science has no religion or gods.
How does meditation work?
To answer to that question, reflect on your life, then consider how you did so. If you looked for evidence that your life is in shambles, you’ll find it, but the same is true when you look for your blessings. That’s where meditation comes in. Meditation helps you see things for what they truly are, and to see the good in “evils.”
I like to say that “we can find enjoyment in, even, the coldest days.” I came up with this phrase during one of the very cold winter in NYC, where I live. I went out, in this horrible weather to meet a date for a production of Swan Lake at the Lincoln Center. In my attempt to look nice for my date, I didn’t dress warmly enough for the weather. When the show ended, it began to rain. This was pre-Uber, so we ran across the street to the bus stop and hailed a cab.
That’s when I saw it. I was freezing, trembling and very hungry (I’d only had a light breakfast), but I was happy. I found the beauty in living the stereotypical New York life that, I’d seen, countless times in movies prior to moving to NYC. That night, I had an aha moment.
Take the fact that you’re are alive and reading this for example. The way that you are here, breathing, and your friends and/ or family members are well is a blessing. We tend to take, just being alive, in this time and space for granted, and believe me, it is not a guarantee.
If you’ve ever suffered the sudden loss of a friend or family member, you’ll know what I mean. In fact, I’m going to push this a little further. Even if your friends and family are not ok, if you look closely, you can see the blessings in that too.
I lost a friend this year. It was not only the most difficult thing I’ve experienced this year, but I believe it was the source of my rapid transformation and awakening to the real world, or spirituality.
It wasn’t that I wasn’t spiritual before. A (for his privacy and his family’s, we’ll call my friend A) passed on to the next phase of his life, and it took that for me to begin to see life for what it really is. A was a wonderful human being and probably one of the most beautiful people I’ve met.
One thing that I deeply regret is that I never told him that, nor did I tell him, that I actually considered him a very good friend, and I never told him either that I in love with his voice. He had the most amazing voice you’ve ever heard, and I was really looking forward to having him being part of the rest of my life. Well, that didn’t happen.
I was in the early stages of planning a camping trip for us when he passed away, but I was busy. We’re always busy, at least that’s what we say and we actually believe those lies we tell ourselves. I believe that if, A hadn’t died, I wouldn’t have come to this realization, and I wouldn’t have learned to cherish my many other friends who are still alive, the ones whom I had fallen out of touch with.
The death of my friend made me appreciate my other friends more, forgive the silly fights, discard the “I won’t text you if you don’t text me” mentality. As horrible as this experience was, it made me a better friend, and an overall better person. A, if you’re reading this (and I know you are) I miss you, your voice and your funny stories. Brooklyn will never be the same without you, I love you man!
Another example is this pandemic. As surreal as it still is, it didn’t just bring the virus. If you look closely, it also shed light on to who, our real heroes are, to social-economic and racial disparities, to our health care system’s flaws, etc...
It brought some of us together. We’re able to spend more time with our families, to get in touch with old friends, to care for each other. It solidified relationships, broke toxic relationships, or revealed toxicity in others, toxicity that wouldn’t have been seen otherwise. It’s made some of us realize that behind the facade of “I’m ok with being alone,” we don’t really want to be alone, and creatively, it’s waking us up.
It’s bringing us back to who we really are, what make us happy, what we’re actually good at . If you look even closer, it’s brought us back to our inner child, which is the topic of my third next post(hope you check it out): how in order to be happy, we need to become, again, the child that we actually are.
I know, this sounds like cuckoo wacko stuff, trust me, I would’ve thought so too if I wasn’t actually living this. You don’t have to believe it or even try it but during the “course” of this blog, check out what I talk about, my tips, try it out for yourself and see how you feel. The way I see it, before spirituality, or yoga, I was a pretty shitty person. In fact, I still am shitty in a lot of ways, but I’m getting better every day.
Yesterday alone, I was reminded of how much I’ve changed, and little “testimonies” like that make it all worth it. You have the option to stay the same and let life teach you lessons the “hard” way, because it will, and It doesn’t matter what you do really to try to prevent this, it will happen, life is forever changing, the only constant thing about it is that it is a succession of pain and suffering with little breaks here and there for “happiness”. That won’t change, whether or not you like it – that’s why it’s called: duhkha (suffering), and that’s the reality of life. You can decide whether you want to move with it or let it happen to you. It’s your choice.
Why Meditation for Cool People?
Despite my nerdy attempt to explain what spirituality is, and liking ballet or loving Seinfeld, I consider myself a pretty cool guy. I think, there’s a stereotype about yogis(practitioners of yoga) and I’m hoping that this blog and stories that I share can to break that stereotype. Hopefully through the weeks, months and maybe years to come, you’ll get to experience what it is to be a yogi in these modern days. I still have my regular Brooklynite (not really) life.
Who knows? Maybe you too will become a pretty cool meditator. And before I leave you, I’m inviting you to really check out my blog, it has some pretty cool stuff. Don’t just read this and leave. Check out the menus, the other posts, subscribe etc... I’ll try my best to make this a cool entertaining stuff, and not boring at all. For instance, if you like comedy, here's a sketch that I wrote for SNL.
It was originally pre-covid-19 and inspired by something that actually happened to me. I tried to update it and make it covid-19 “appropriate” but I wasn’t able to get it to the cast of the show since everything is currently closed, or they just rejected it. But the truth is, it doesn’t really matter, my goal was to bring a little bit of joy and laughter to people while we are going through this pandemic together and if I can make you laugh directly through this blog, I say why not? So check it out and let me know what you think.
There’s also a pretty cool book that I recently read and I’m recommending on the hom epage. Check it out, If you have the time, it can be entertaining. We all need new stuff to do, as this thing seem to not wanting to go away soon. I’ll add some songs, videos and a bunch of other stuff as the blog “lives its life”.
Thank you and have an excellent week.
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