Meditation-Introspection

Theory and Practice

Paul J. Dejillas, Ph.D. – April 5, 2021

Insights are of no use if we can't bring them down to the level of action. They are of no value if they stay mainly up there in the level of the mind. You like meditation? You want to be compassionate? You want to balance your masculine and feminine energy? Practice it daily.

Sustaining our Physical, Mental, and Spiritual Health

Paul J. Dejillas, Ph.D. – June 29, 2021

Not so long ago, I was a regular weekend jogger, spending at least an hour a day. Then, I became a cycler, a motor biker, mountain trekker, whale diver, and an ocean snorkeler, having lived by the seashores for so long.

When my little world tilted a bit, the climate changed to winter. I tried snowboarding for fun but not for long. The climate became more insane, extremely hot plus this stupid coronavirus thing that's making even doctors and frontliners crazy, if not dead.

Now, I'm into stationary bike and treadmill. All this, in the name of workout to boost my immune system.

Physically, we get tired as we grew in age. The more we age, the more easily we get tired, no exceptions because our cells, molecules, tendons, muscles, tissues, and organs depreciate with time.

Once our physical body deteriorates, the mind suffers. Sooner or later, arthritis sets it. So with back pains, shoulder and neck pains, clogged arteries, diabetes, hypertension, you name it.

Mental illnesses begin to set in: depression, panic attacks, disorientation, amnesia, seizures, Parkinson's disease, atrophy, paralysis, even insanity.

And this deteriorating mental condition can have their tolling effects, that can be fatal on our physical body, aggravating in return our already poor mental condition. This goes on and on ad infinitum, until we finally expire and drop dead.

The average world life expectancy in 2020 was 72.63 years, a 0.24% increase from 2019. It differs depending on race, gender, culture.

Yet, let's be reminded that there are also many who are octogenarians, nonagenarians, centenarians, competing with each other for the oldest. In 2020, the oldest living human on record was 122 years old.

The simple rule, they say, is have more birthdays. The more birthdays you have, the younger, prettier, and handsomer you become.

With exercises, age can be reversed and organ failures prolonged. This is because physical exercises enhance our immune system. My exercise procedure is designed to balance my physical, mental, and spiritual energies, done in combination with meditation and yoga.

I'm doing all this light. I'm not a regular gym goer, lifting heavy weights, and other strenuous exercises. I only do stationary bike or treadmill for 15 mins. @ two times a week, while meditation and yoga are done daily.

Diet also helps. Your nutritionist should be able to provide you with a healthy regimen. My simple rule is that as long as you're not eating yourself, everything is fine. Maintain, at least, your ideal weight range. Don't go overboard. You'll trip down.

Keep tab of what you're eating. What we eat is what makes us. All the foods and drinks we take become our cells, tissues and organs. This is true with the air we breathe, the sounds we hear, the things we see, the objects we touch, the heat that goes into our body, as well as the thoughts and feelings that play in our mind.

That's why relaxation also helps. I find swimming, communing with the trees and plants, getting fresh air so relaxing. One most relaxing moment I had, pre-covid, was on a yacht, enjoying the scenery, at times trying my hands steering on its wheel.

Doing it in the high seas is no sweat, almost boring but exciting every moment as the ship plows the waves. Yet, swaying with the waves is like lulling myself to sleep in a hammock.

In these trying times, let's all keep some forms of exercise daily for our physical, mental, and spiritual health.

Remember that any sickness affects the entire person. It's a disease of the body, a disease of the mind, a disease that affects our morale and life that in turn degenerates the vitality of our spirit.

Today's conventional doctors cannot address this disease in a holistic way. They treat the effect, not the cause. They treat the symptoms as these are felt in the body and mind.

They prescribe medicines for the body, and another prescription for the mind, with the patient ending up swallowing tons of medicines into its body.

A genuine, holistic doctor should go to the pharmaceuticals tell them either to stop producing these conventional medicines or shift their approach by going naturopathic. But do pharmaceuticals really want to heal our ailments?

And yes, a mountain trekker. In one occasion, I was with the Faculty members of San Beda University-College of Arts and Sciences headed by Dom Clement, OSB, on the way to Puerto Princesa Underground River in Palawan.

Silence and Solitude

Paul J. Dejillas, Ph.D. – December 9, 2021

I'm not totally into it yet. But small doses of inexplicable and ineffable experiences are slowly making me realize that it's in silence and solitude that the unrevealed are revealed, the unborn born, the uncreated created, the unknown known, the unliberated liberated, the potentialities realized, the weary and burdened given rest. The more time I spend in silence and solitude, the less I become concerned about socializing and fraternizing, campaigning and pontificating, proselytizing and evangelizing.

Alone But Not Lonely

Paul J. Dejillas, Ph.D. – July 4, 2021

Lonely But No Longer Boring. The meaning of "loneliness" has greatly changed. Yes, it still means being alone feeling bored doing the same monotonous tasks daily like cooking, washing dishes, or doing laundry. But today we have a cellphone on hand. We use them even during meals and gatherings. But many of us have not managed the use of our cell phones wisely, triggering fatal effects.

Meditation

Paul J. Dejillas, Ph.D. – July 30, 2021

I know pretty well that you're doing your meditation religiously. I used to tell my students that the purpose is simply to balance our physical, mental, and spiritual energies. Students are especially strong in their mental energy, highly motivated and passionate as they are to fulfill whatever career and profession they wish to pursue in life.

In the process, it could happen that the time given to the physical body becomes lesser--lesser or no time at all allotted for regular exercises and preparing for a nutritious diet, or even much lesser time devoted to our religious and spiritual activities.

Remember that we have only 24 hours a day and 8 hrs of it is supposed to be devoted to sleep, according to our doctors. We have 16 hrs left that becomes even lesser when we consider travel, socializing, unnecessary gossips, and our daily rituals after rising.

Yes, life is so tight and is getting tighter and tighter as months go by. But that's the only time and space allotted to each one of us, 10 hrs or so, no exceptions. Let's make the best out of it. We're all expert in doing time and motion studies for others. Now, let's manage and discipline ourselves.

Balancing means that the three energy centers--physical, mental, and spiritual--must be given equal opportunity to shape who or what we are every moment of our life. The proportional allocation may vary from one individual to another.

Stilling the Mind Through Meditation

Paul J. Dejillas, Ph.D. – December 4, 2021

"Only in silent meditation will you see the truth beyond the mental matrix." ~ Nathan DoBucki

I was exposed to several practices of meditation: Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Sufi, Chinese. I immersed myself for days and weeks into their daily activities and rituals.

For three years, meditation was the center of my daily activities. But three years after, everything began to change. My mind began to wander and rationalize. Laziness started to set in. The law of diminishing returns started to take its effect, until the time came that I was no longer doing my meditation for months and years.

I broke so many rules and the more I ignore my moral and ethical norms, the more I was feeling guilty and remorseful. The only rational thing to do for me was to pause and reflect in silence and solitude, trying to find ways and means to put myself back in my proper place.

I went back to conscious readings of various spiritual books, video presentations, and materials. I trained myself to be always conscious of what I was doing daily. Gradually, everything I did became an experience of Consciousness to the point that there was little need anymore of scriptural guidance.

Everything I did was an act of awareness and consciousness. There were no contents, no biblical verses, no mantras, no rituals, simply awareness of my own presence.

Either I was conscious or not. Or, I'm not sure whether I am conscious or not. Even then, these acts of questioning are manifestations of the presence of my Consciousness, emerging through solitude, self reflection, and meditation. In meditation, everything is Consciousness. Meditation is Consciousness and Consciousness is meditation.

Today, awareness of what I'm doing daily from moment to moment has become my utmost concern anywhere I go as well as awareness of what I'm projecting to the outside world.

On Meditation (repost)

Paul J. Dejillas, Ph.D. – September 22, 2021

I've always been asked about meditation - what is it, how is it done, and what benefits can one expect from it. I always tell them I am not an authority on this subject. I simply advised them to attend meditation groups in their area, for example, the ones practiced by Christians, Brahma Kumaris, Vipassana, Zen, Hindu, Buddhists, Sufis, Theosophists, Rosicrucians, yogis, Masters, and mystics. Many meditations are now conducted live online for free. Others are serialized in the YouTube.

Frankly, I don't know what answers to give them. I myself have a long trial-and-error experience of participating several modes of meditation that started three-and-a-half scores ago.

Below are some of the queries I received from my FB friends that landed in my cell phones, Inbox, Messenger, FB, classes, and private talks. To ignore them is not so conducive to the principles of dialogue and communion, which I advocate in our class on Applied Cosmic Anthropology. As best I can, I tried to answer them based on my own personal experience.

Q: "l've been meditating for sometime now, yet I still can't decipher the progress I've achieved. I feel I am still the same as when I started."

A: Meditation is simply stilling the mind. Stilling the mind is not allowing the mind to wander. If you need a yardstick to measure your progress, then, try to clip your mind for one minute without any thoughts, emotions, and uncomfortableness. If you are able to increase the time of your uninterrupted stillness, then, your progressing.

Q: "I wonder if I am doing my meditation right or wrong? That's why I always falter. I became suddenly tired even before I start to meditate that I have to stop meditating for weeks and months. And go back only once I have mustered enough courage and inspiration from the outside."

A: There's no such thing as right or wrong in meditation. Essentially, meditation is staying aware and conscious of the present moment, from moment to moment. It's either you're meditating or not. During your long breaks, you must not have been able to recall that there were moments you were conscious and aware of what was going on within you and outside.

Q: "I do not know why I started meditation. I do not know what kind of knowledge I expect. I don't know what experience I wanted. I was just drawn into it."

A: In meditation, you simply sit (or any position you're comfortable) doing nothing, thinking nothing, feeling, judging nothing. One does not expect anything at all. But it's in this state that something magical or mysterious are likely to happen. You will feel it only when it comes to you.

Q: "In the past, I practiced several types of meditation - Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Sufi. But I felt no change in me."

A: Learn only from the methods of others. But in the end you may have to construct your own method or approach that suits your personality.

Q: "I am wondering whether I should continue or not? If I continue, for what?"

A: Meditation is simply living a conscious life while doing whatever it is you're doing like eating, washing the dishes, talking to people, etc. Ceasing to be conscious and aware of what is within and around you means your mind is preoccupied with so many things either in the past or in the future, but never in the present moment.

Q: "Experienced meditators say that the purpose of meditation is to attain enlightenment. I don't know if I'm enlightened already. What is enlightenment?

A: In my experience, I take this to mean as a broadening of my consciousness in every aspect of my life--physical, biological, psychosocial, psychic, and spiritual, where I was not even aware of before.

I become more aware of what it means to be an individual and to be a social being. Awareness has led me to know my rights and the responsibilities that go with it. Maybe this is the reason why others equate enlightenment with Self-Realization.

Q: "Whenever I start my meditation, my mind is very active and restless, thinking about the past and the future, and feeling either guilty or happy."

A: This is normal in the beginning. But try to persevere. When I'm about to meditate, I remind myself that this is my only moment, a valuable reminder I learned from my Master. Then, I try to settle myself for some moments (could last from one to five minutes).

Before I know it, I become already one with myself and my surroundings, expanding unrestricted by time and space, without leaving my awareness on ground zero. That's why this can be done even if I'm cleaning my house or tilling my little garden.

Q: "I'm always awake at 1:00-2:00 a.m. Is this part of progress?"

A: Meditation has no fixed rule on when and where you should meditate. But as you progress you will experience which time or space you're most productive.

The time after midnight is usually best suited for it -- less disturbance, less noise, and as if everything is on a stand still. Nobody is hurrying. Everybody is asleep.

Mastering the Magic Art of Yoga

Paul J. Dejillas, Ph.D. – July 19, 2021

Yoga is simply bending, expanding, stretching, and twisting (BEST) our body to flex our physical, mental, and spiritual muscles. The objective is to get rid of the rigidity and toxicities that clogged our muscles, veins, arteries, tendons, tissues, and organs.

There are no rigid procedures required as long as you're comfortable in what you're doing. In 10-15 minutes, you may:

1. Sit on a chair. Lotus position is not necessary, although it helps if you can try it every now and then.

2. Lie down on a hard floor with your yoga mat, not on a soft or sleeprite mattress.

3. Still your mind...no thoughts, feelings, judgements.

4. Be conscious of your breathing, exhale, inhale at your own tempo. The longer you do it, the deeper is your breathing, no longer shallow, which hardly reaches your innermost lungs. You're oxygenating your blood, carrying this throughout your entire body.

5. While staying in the state of conscious breathing, you may do two or more of the yoga positions in the photos below.

Balancing the Body, Mind, and Spirit

Paul J. Dejillas, Ph.D. – November 29, 2021

Daily, we observe tensions and conflicts within us. For example, our body maybe in pain because of some discomforts that may have to be attended to right away. Our left and right brain may be holding conflicting beliefs that may affect the prescriptions needed by our ailing body.

Our gut-feeling maybe telling us to seek for solutions out there in the other dimension by contacting our deceased ancestors or spirits to heal us. Or perhaps, we feel something wrong with our quest for spiritual growth and development.

There is something terribly wrong with the individual experiencing this dismal condition. He or she has to address the following issues:

1. Attend to the physical ailments soonest by visiting the nearest clinic;

2. Resolve the conflicting issues pestering the mind by visiting a confessor or psychiatrist;

3. Invoke or not the assistance of the spirit world by consulting a medium or hypnotherapist;

4. Reexamine the real state of his or her spiritual life

Unless resolved, this individual's life is in great turmoil. It's greatly imbalanced and can be on the verge of collapse. A miracle is needed to keep him or her sound and intact.

The idea is to balance the body, mind, psyche, and spirit in such a way that wherever the body is, the mind, psyche, and spirit are also here and now together from moment to moment. Let no-one dominate.

How so?

By always being conscious and aware of the dynamics of these four integral elements, namely, physical, mental, psychical, and spiritual.