Meditation: How Low Can You Go?

In the final phase of my meditation today, I had a sudden vision of myself.

It was not quite a decade ago. I was low, negative, depressed, self-destructive, trapped. I was in what we’d call in south London where I grew up, a right state.

It was such a surprise to see such personal detail in my mind’s eye, that it stopped me there and then. I saw and felt not only my rather precarious, neglected physical state, but the hollow loneliness of my then existence, which was brought right to me, here and now. I gazed at myself through a lens of clarity.

That was all very fascinating, but it wasn’t what I was here to do. After a few attempts to resume, I opened my eyes, let them roam around the sunny room; I realised that I had stopped, and so without completing the meditation as per usual, I smiled, voiced my usual "thank you" to my God for putting me here to meditate, learn, live and love, and went to breakfast.

You may be surprised to know that far from this being a bad thing, I knew that it was a wonderful sign of my current health. You can only return to face yourself at your worst moments when you’re ready, when you’re good and strong. For some reason, I was being told / telling myself, Dean, look, that’s what you used to be, and my friend, look where you are now, by contrast.

It was just a shadow, cast from a time long gone. There are no shadows without light.

I ate and washed. Later, I went back, and finished, without further interruption.