I went up to Scotland a few weeks ago on a site visit with my colleague. It was a long drive but luckily I wasn’t the one driving, however, with that kind of a drive there can level of anxiety around making small talk…for 3-4 hours. This is my first project with the colleague so I wasn’t familiar with him at all, I had already accepted “kamu” that this was gonna be a long ass drive. 5 mins after meeting him though, I was like okay this might not be bad. He had this vibe/energy…not gra gra energy, I mean an aura that I kinda connected with. It rarely happens.
By the time we got to Scotland the reason I connected with him was apparent. He is a sub conscious stoic. Sub conscious because he doesn’t know a thing about stoicism but we shared life experiences, views and opinions on the world and one story about his life in particular was hard hitting and he was...stoic about it. It was only logical for me to recommend the book that has now become my manual for navigating life: The Practicing Stoic by Ward Farnsworth
Yeah dude, you need to read this book as an introduction to stoicism, you will thank me.
When I saw him last week, he wouldn’t stop going on about the book…
You are welcome.
He gave me a gift too during the drive. He told me about meditating and the effect it has had on him, and because we have been bonding deeply and sincerely and stoically…I decided to give meditating a go.
I will be upfront, this post is not an attempt to sell meditating to anyone. It took a 4 hour drive with a kindred stoic to convince me. And I have also been on a self-actualisation journey over the past 5 years to get to a stage where I can sit still for 20 mins in an attempt to empty my mind. This is more of a journal/sharing my experience out of pure excited because twice now during meditation I have unlocked: Ope the wise.
For real for real, I met Ope the wise.
The type of meditation the guy introduced me to was Transcendence Meditation (TM) (there are various types, I tried a few ones on Youtube, like the word of affirmation one and I was irritated. This babe was telling me I was beautiful in a low calm voice and it had the opposite effect of calming). I read up on TM and this is the best explanation I came across:
Imagine a sea, at the surface of the sea you get waves of different heights and intensity but no matter how high or windy the surface of the sea gets, if you dive to the deep end of that sea it will be still and the disturbance will be isolated to the surface of the sea.
The sea is like your mind, the surface is our day to day thoughts, I gat to do this, I have to do that, this person owes me money, that person is a prick, I need to make a billion dollars by tomorrow…yada yada. The deep end of the sea is the deep part of the mind, it is usually still, regardless of the fuckery going on at the surface.
(I like the analogy, it might not be aquatically accurate but it made sense to me).
The aim of TM is to shift your focus to the deep end of the sea and let the surface do its thing without you paying attention to it. So basically when you are meditating, you are trying to focus on the deep mind rather than the surface fuckery of I have to do this, I have to do that.
I have been meditating for a couple of weeks now with Tiwa and it has been a de-stressing experience that I was quite content with. I didn’t have a benchmark to judge the quality of the meditation until this week. On Monday I decided to meditate before work and that was when it happened. I was visualising the sea and me diving to the deep end to try and escape the surface fuckery and then it happened, it was fucking vivid. I met him when I got to the bottom of the sea. Ope the wise. It was an image of myself that was radiating tranquillity. I had to talk to this motherfucker!
Are...Are you the holy spirit?
No, I am you.
Huh, I am the holy spirit?
No, I am you, without the fuckery
What does that even mean?!
How are you feeling at this very moment?
Erm…oh wow, fuckery free
Well there you go!
Hold on, you mean this is how you feel all the time?
Yup! All the time.
How come I have never met you?
You were addicted to the fuckery
Fuck. Now what?
Now nothing, that is the whole point, just enjoy being fuckery free for 20 mins.
And then we did an avatar. You know those scenes where that blue babe was under the water admiring the CGI while hell was breaking loose in the water village in avatar 2? Yeah basically that for 20 mins with Ope the wise.
I was so reluctant to finish the meditation. When the guided mediation stopped, Ope the wise told me to come and be going.
Well this has been fun…but you actually have to go and attend to the fuckeries at the surface.
NOOOO!
Dude, I am always here, all you need to do is take 20 mins out of your day and come and find me and we can do an avatar again.
Promise?
For sure.
That motherfucker lied.
Over the next couple of days I kept diving and diving looking for Ope the wise, this nigga must have relocated! I couldn’t find him. Which was a good sign. It was basically a proof of concept to show meditating works for me. Ope the wise was not me daydreaming, it kinda happened and I can’t conjure him up willy nilly, I have to go through a meditating process.
3 days and 6 sessions, I still couldn’t find Ope the wise. It was just the boring de-stressing effect of meditating I was experiencing.Then I meditated this morning. And there he was. Ope the wise. I just started laughing while meditating. I was genuinely happy to experience him again.
Dude what the fuck! I have been looking for you for days
Well evidently not, because like I said, I am always here.
Well I am happy to see you.
I am glad you are here.
I wasn’t so reluctant to finish the meditation this time around. It has happened twice now and I have a benchmark. I just need to keep up the habit and get better with the process and I can be one with Ope the wise every time I meditate.
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