Meditation. Best cake ever. by Gabriela Binello

Many people come to classes asking for "meditation". In some cases, they are moved by their own personal interest. In some others, they just follow their therapist´s suggestion.

Meditation could be one of the most nurturing experience in life. However, neither a place, nor a teacher, a special course or magic practice can ever guarantee me the achievement of this goal: meditation in itself. Even when it is a pre-requisite to find a good teacher (particularly at the beginning) it is important to make a difference between the practice (for example a meditation class) and the experience of meditation in itself.

Firstly, the only thing that a good teacher can do is to combine the tools efficiently so as to provide a good guidance to the meditation-seeker. For this goal, the teacher needs to know very well his student. This means that the teacher needs to observe accurately. This means the teacher should practice meditation himself (not being a good lecturer on meditation, not a good reader of meditation books but a meditation practioner). 

Meditation as an experience is when the cake smells and tastes really good All I could have done before (as a teacher) is choosing the best ingredients, adjusting the quantities, blending the mixture in the correct moment, providing the correct temperature... and then just wait till it is cooked. The integration and result of all those steps will no more depend on my intervention.

This is important to remind because only then I can differentiate clearly between practising meditation and really achieving meditation. Both walk very close together but they need to be separated to understand them. Most probably I would achieve meditation after practising (the correct practise)  for a long time. And surely, that glimpse of that experience of meditation would be enough to hold my practice forever.

Meditation is the expansion of our consciousness. It implies the capacity of holding a focus. It is connecting with our real Truth. It is the reencounter with our "Observer". It is reaching a place of calm and fulfilment. The place where our endless talkative mind stays silent. A state where I feel grateful for nothing in particular; just being.

All these are nice and enchanting words. They could be true but they are only words if I do not practice.

 I do not achieve meditation because someone says "all the cells in your body are grateful". I do not achieve it through an external voice that suggests me to see a world full of love and peace (specially if I am  not even being  able to sit down properly on a chair without having backpain). I do not reach meditation when someone -even with the best intention- asks me to listen to my inner silence. Understanding the great difference between theory and practice (between what it should happen and what is REALLY happening) is one of the first things we need to clean if we really want to experience meditation. This could be discouraging for many seekers of instant results. But, then, our house would have started to smell as the best cake ever...