Interruption or Opportunity?

Meditation means different things to different people. It can be done sitting, lying down or walking. Some try to still their mind, others focus on one thing or one mantra. Some focus only on the breath. All are in the act of achieving some kind of mental state, or manifesting some particular item or healing. I have used all of the above methods of meditation at different stages of my life and benefitted from all of them.

Yesterday I was meditating with a group of friends with the intent of starting my day off in peace. During the meditation, one of my friends decided to get up and go upstairs to make a phone call. The call took up most of the hour we were there meditating and we could hear the conversation. I observed my judgements on her. Stories such as, how could she do this during our meditation? How could she choose a phone call over God? How could she have no respect for us?

In the past I would spend the rest of the meditation trying to still my mind from these thoughts, fighting the feelings and working hard to replace them with loving thoughts. This time it was different. I remembered there was no her, that she was an actor in my play, and that I actually placed her there in order to reflect something back to me that needed healing. It was easy to see that I did the same thing I was accusing her of every day. Every moment that I chose pain and suffering to replace the peace of God. Was that not disrespecting myself and God?

I then noticed that the actual moments of observation were the peace I had been looking for. Not unlike the actual moment of observing a pencil before naming it a pencil. That observation can only occur in a place of stillness. That the very act I had judged in the past as a distraction, was now the key to meditation. Meditation was no longer an act of stilling my mind, but was indeed the means to observe that which was preventing me from my natural state of being which is love, joy and peace.

These little annoyances now became the gifts of the meditation, the reason for meditating. I came out of the meditation buzzing. Every cell of my being was dancing with my new awareness. And, the icing on the cake so to speak, was that I wasn't angry at my friend. I was thankful I had placed her in my dream to make me more aware in my day, a beautiful day indeed.