Dear Julia:

I want to meditate because I want to find spiritual peace. However, I always get distracted, and meditation isn't making me feel one bit better. Should I give it up? I seem to be lost in this life!
-Anu

Dear Anu:

Like many Westerners, it sounds like you've been misled, my friend. We've been given the idea that meditation will help us to find inner peace and happiness, when instead, at first meditation can drive you crazy and make it seem like you're regressing. This is because things shift when you begin to look and listen within, and all sorts of issues you've been unaware of rise up into your conscious awareness.

As soon as we attach some goal or outcome to meditation, it is no longer really meditation, because instead of truly relaxing into each moment, we are watching anxiously for peace or enlightenment to arrive. Further, when we don't get what we hope or expect, we feel disappointed, inadequate, ripped off, etc. Then instead of making us feel better, meditation just makes us feel worse. It's therefore counter-productive to attach any particular outcome to meditation practice.

In fact, the power of meditation lies in its ability to lift us out of our attachments. When we spend just a few minutes completely immersed in a state that is beyond the endless fears and desires we wrestle with each day, we learn that we are more than how we feel in any given moment: we are in essence beyond happiness and unhappiness. We learn how to step outside of ourselves, where we can see how we are not how we feel emotionally at any given time. We notice how our thoughts create our feelings, which teaches us that it's not our circumstances that determine how we feel, but rather what we think about our circumstances that gives birth to our emotions.

This allows us to not get so hung up on what's happening in our outer experience, or even how we may feel in any moment. As we witness how every experience is fleeting and everything is always changing, instead of trying to break free of life's endless hassles and problems, we learn to just observe them. We then come to accept that sometimes we may feel happy, and sometimes we may not. By rising above our attachment to feeling happy all the time, we find peace.

Now, this philosophy may seem to conflict with the notion that we can create whatever we want in our lives. Working with the law of attraction is about fulfilling our desires, while meditation is about freeing ourselves from desire. The path of desire comes first, and then once people know they can manifest anything they want, believe it or not, eventually it gets boring and they begin to seek freedom from desire. (To want to be free of desire is also a desire, of course!)

On the other hand, I don't believe we have to choose one or the other: we can both meditate and embrace working with the law of attraction, and doing so is quite powerful, for when we can both desire something and be at peace with not getting it, it's pretty easy to manifest it in our experience. Think about it: if we are constantly creating our own realities with our minds, then in studying our minds, we should be able to learn how to better consciously create our own realities. So if you can both desire happiness through meditation and not be attached to getting it, it will be yours. If, however, you pursue anything in order to be free of unhappiness, you will fail because whatever we resist, persists. Meditation is not the problem, here - the problem is resistance to feeling unhappy.

Meditation is a great tool for letting go of attachments and resistance. All we have to do is dispassionately study what happens within us. If happy feelings arise, we just observe them, and if discomfort, resistance, anger or boredom rise up, we just observe them. So we don't meditate to get happy - we meditate to see what's happening beneath our everyday conscious awareness, and by paying deeper attention to what is really going on, we empower ourselves to create what we want in our lives.

Let's use parenting as a metaphor, and divide most parents into two camps: those who want to know the truth about everything their kids are doing, and those who want to remain blissfully ignorant of their childrenĘs faults.

When the school calls the first sort of parent and says that Johnny committed some unacceptable act, they will assume Johnny is guilty of the crime, and unless they are convinced otherwise, they will set about teaching him whatever he needs to learn and making things right for all involved. These parents will go through a lot more emotional pain in the short term than the other sort of parent because they are consciously facing some difficult truths. At the same time, however, this sort of parenting tends to yield far better results in the long term, so overall, their experience ends up being much LESS painful. I think we'd all agree that these sorts of parents tend to be wiser, more loving and more effective than parents who don't want to know or deal with any problems.

The other sort of parent doesn't want to be hassled because they don't want any pain. They like their illusions, and even when they are somewhat aware that they may be trading a little comfort today for big pain later, they choose immediate gratification. They are attached to seeing their children a certain way because it makes them feel better about themselves. When called into school, these parents will either assume Johnny is innocent and is being persecuted, or let Johnny convince them that this is the case whether it's true or not. They will get angry at the school and try to get their kid off the hook or just ignore the problem so they can go back to their happy little dream world.

When it comes to spiritual growth and facing our ego issues, most people are like the dreamy parent. They're caught up in all sorts of delusions because it seems less emotionally painful than facing the truth. Because they lack the discipline and courage to deal with the truth about themselves, they remain stuck in the same patterns and issues, and unconsciously manifest all sorts of difficult experiences.

By contrast, when people begin to wake up, they discover there are more problems and issues to face than they ever realized, but their awareness empowers them to consciously begin dealing with them. While this can be stressful and unsettling if we fear or resist it, it also leads to new personal growth and wisdom. Further, people who pay attention naturally gain more conscious control over both what they manifest and how they choose to interpret and handle their experiences.

Finally, even when it seems like your meditation practice isn't really doing anything for you, you can trust that something is happening - it's just not what you're attached to experiencing. Also, like so many things in life, it can be hard to see our progress while in the midst of it; it's only over time that changes become apparent.

You are free to choose whether or not you want to keep meditating, of course, and I encourage you to trust your own inner guidance above all. However, I believe if you stick with it, you'll find it very rewarding.

- Julia