meditation and self worth

On my last note, Heather commented that she would like to meditate more to experience bliss, but lacks the focus and discipline. Well, I hear that at every meditation class I teach. Heather, you are correct… our past conditioning does become part of the problem. We live in a society that values accomplishment. We are a community that respects hard work and frowns on sloth and unproductive activity. Through the years we have all heard comments such as…"What are you doing? Sitting around gazing at your navel?" “Get going and make your self useful!” It is drilled into our minds that activity is good, sitting around is bad. So now we try to teach a stressed out society to relax, sit still, and think of nothing….And that idea must fight against generations of conditioning.

But the real question is… has our past conditioning brought us happiness and peace? If your answer is no, then there must be a different way. The foundational principal of hard work and being busy, is about proving your worth, yet if you believed in your own worth, and inherent value as a person you would not strive to prove your worth to anyone. So let’s relax, meditate, find our peace and happiness and not even think about how others perceive us. We love us, and we know that we are perfect in the eyes of the Divine, and if the creator is happy why worry about what others think?