Movement
by Bob Fergeson

"I'd come to realize that if a man is ever going to grasp anything it won't be by learning. His being has to change. You are what you do, not what you know. A man never learns, he becomes. To become, you must find ways and means to change your entire state-of-mind. This in turn will lead to a change of being." – Richard Rose

Take meditation into the world of action, rather than just imagination. It will then lead to a change of being, rather than just new patterns of isolated thoughts. For meditation to help us, to bring about a change in being, we need more than just thought. We need to put our lives on the line. We need energy as well as concept, transmutation as much as conviction.

Does this scare you? It should. Do you still feel a longing? Good, you're not just in your head.

If a fear of death, and a longing/remembrance for something better are within you, you're heading in the right direction. If not, for you think you've solved the problem and are at Heaven's doorstep, you've become too clever. Are you heading farther into the head and the imagination, playing it safe, sleeping in the superior position of your dream?

On the other hand, are you wallowing in your fear and self-pity? The inferior position of the dreaming ego isn't the right direction either, is it? Sensitivity and cleverness can become enablers to our self-love, just as much as laziness and self-complacency. This can happen when we ignore our guts, not realizing that transmutation, and the resultant change in being, depends on generating and saving energy. Meditation shouldn't happen just in the imagination. We transmute energy through exercise, from doing what we say, not being afraid to sweat and be uncomfortable, from facing our faults and mistakes: going against ourselves. Action as well as thought. This can't happen if we remain soft and secure, yet collapse like a house of cards when push comes to shove. If every time things get rough, we copout to distraction and escape instead of standing tall and clear, we'll never generate and save enough energy for real change.

Transmutation through meditation also needs a vector, a direction. It needs applied wisdom, a will, to direct the saved energy. Saving and directing our generated energy can transmute our cleverness into insight, our sensitivity into self-awareness, our self-indulgence into strength. This is the result of a change in the direction of our love, from love of self to a new found love for our higher potential. A faith in things unseen but felt, insight and intuition: allowed, carefully reasoned, and acted upon.

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Bob wrote this essay for the participants in a 6-week meditation practice discussion project. See Bob's Mystic Missal, Nostalgia West, and Listening Attention websites.