The Responsibility of the Meditator
As meditators we have a practice that facilitates what we call ‘unstressing’. As our practice takes us into a deep state of rest we unravel and start to release a lifetime's accumulation of energy that has been trapped within us. Over time we process and let go of the long-term negative effects of this conditioning. We practice this twice a day.
I received this from Jeff Kober, a meditation teacher based in LA in his incredibly insightful daily newsletter last week.
“As a human being, stress is a fact of life. Even after learning to meditate, we can still become stressed; but by meditating, we no longer will store these stress responses. The stress reaction will be there, then it will be gone. Like a knife through water. The knife makes a mark, but the mark disappears almost immediately.
Most of the population, however, does not meditate. Most don't have a practice that allows them to let their stresses go.
When anyone in the collective experiences stress, everyone in the collective experiences stress. We may not know it, but it is there. And when stresses in the collective need to be released, it can be through meditators that this happens.The holidays are stressful. For some more than others. Wherever we may fall on the spectrum, we all can feel it."
Holidays can be an intense time and any time where we are experiencing things as a group can enhance this intensity. Any frequency we feel can radiate out into our relationship, family, community dynamic and be either amplified or contained. However, as we become more aware of the nature of our unconscious conditioning we have the power to be the ones who contain rather than project and amplify certain unhelpful emotion (energy in motion = emotion). Self-awareness can also help us cultivate compassion for those around us – as we recognize ourselves in others. Being compassionate doesn't mean acquiescing or being meek, but rather taking Right Action (more often than not it’s non-action) from a place of understanding and empathy. Choosing to do what is best for the greater good, rather than just ourselves.
As meditators we also experience daily how we are part of The Collective, and that collective is consciousness. Ergo we have a responsibility when we practice to "launder the stresses of the collective" as Jeff eloquently wrote further into his newsletter.
Eventually in our practice we don’t do so just for ourselves but for everyone. When we sit, it’s for all.