Sun energy by yogialessandra
Oh! Such a rush! In an explosion of ecstasy, I experienced something like the sun’s rays shining through my mind.
For a few mornings, I found a way to repeatedly experience a rush of happiness. A happy mental “boom” and a tingling rush of energy throughout.
How?
How I got there is summed up like this:
- Used the 10% Happier iPhone app and listened to one of the meditations. (But which one?)
- When done, I switched over to YouTube and started playing a “This is Water – David Foster Wallace” video.
In the video, I gave special attention to the words: “sacred” and “on fire.” I played until he says “Love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.” It’s a great video, but for this purpose I stopped the video.
Why?
Why did this happen? Many possibilities. Most importantly, how one holds the world in her or his mind matters. As said in the video:
If you really learn how to think, how to pay attention then you will know you have other options.
Learning how to pay attention is what mental focus exercises like mindfulness meditation is all about. Through such mental exercises, you can recognize that we’re all in this together. We’re all experiencing life and it is life which binds us all together. We’re all on fire with the same forces. As he said in the video, we can experience a situation as:
…not only meaningful, but sacred. On fire with the same force that lit the stars. Love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.
Note: I broke the above quote up to give the concepts separate emphasis. They are: “Sacred”, “On fire”, “Love”, “Fellowship”, and “Oneness.”
These aren’t just nice words. They are universal truths that tap into how we’re wired as social interconnected beings. It’s because of these truths that I experienced the happy mental rush and more importantly why we might survive together. Like all things though, the series of mental rushes have faded into the past.
If I searched long enough through the 10% Happier iPhone app, I could probably find the specific meditation that helps trigger this experience for me. It’s probably a Sharon Salzberg’s Loving Kindness meditation. Even now, if I do a five minute Loving Kindness meditation and do the video as described above, I get the energetic buzzing in the face. It’s fun, but it’s not all there is to life.
What It’s All About
For me, life is about love, fellowship, and oneness. A connection with the whole human family and all of life. A connection that is to be continuously explored and deepened.
For the curious, I’ve blogged about how great the 10% Happier is since the year 2015. Feel free to explore the blog posts and then if you wish checkout the iPhone app that you can download for free at http://www.10percenthappier.com.
Update: Removed a broken link to a “This is Water – David Foster Wallace” video.
