The Opening
Notes on Meditation and Metaphysics by Elsa Joy Bailey

Spiritual Growth and Meditation

The very first time
I sat down to meditate
it felt like being in a dentist's chair.
Actually for the first
many, many attempts
it felt that way.
My nose itched,
my legs seemed leaden;
I was a squirm hoping to be done with it.

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When the time was over
my body literally raced upright,
like a prisoner released on bail.
Had I been graded on this effort,
the mark would have been F minus.

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Yet I persisted,
because something deep within me
knew it was imperative
that I continue my meditation.
Waking up cannot occur
while our attention is fixed
slavelike on the screen
of the external world;
yet in our normal ego state
that is precisely
where we are staring.
We are in a trance.

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So I came to the dreaded exercise
prodded from within,
and hating it.
--Meditation! Oh, no!
I did not tell anyone
about this agony of resistance,
because I didn't want
to be marked a failure
. But privately I was certain
I was hopelessly backward
as a spiritual apprentice.

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I brought my flawed
and resisting body along
and willed it through the meditation.
Eyes closed, my mind
would jump from thought
to thought to thought like a mad leapfrog.

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Everything in me
wanted the silence to be over;
and somewhere an imaginary eye
kept consulting an imaginary watch.
Week after week, month
after month, I kept trying.
It was a comedy, really:
me fighting off God.
The battle went on like that
for about eight long months.
Far from bringing peace,
each and every meditation
was a lesson in misery.

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Then.
One day, like a feather
cutting through cement,
Something suddenly
took over my meditation.
One second
I was noticing an itch
on my neck, and in the next
-- for no reason whatsoever--
a Presence rose up
and engulfed me
in a huge unearthly smile.
All resistance melted away like vapor
and all there was left
was the Smile.
I was swimming in it.
I floated on its waves,
a cork bobbing up
and down on Love.

Meditation and New Age Thought

When I finally opened my eyes,
a ghost of the Smile still remained.
My mind was incredulous -- I knew full well
I had done nothing to earn this gift!
Yet there it was
-- it had happened.
Following this experience,
I looked on meditation
in an entirely new light.
I now saw becoming still
as an immense luxury,
even though at first I had no idea
if I would ever be revisited by
the Smile.

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To my complete amazement,
I discovered the Smile
would return whenever
I entered the Silence.
To this day, it is still with me
-- it shows up each time I get still,
and sometimes even during the day,
when my eyes are open
and I think of God.

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Meditate.
Meditate even if you dislike it,
and do it daily.
It tells the Presence
you are ready.





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