During meditation, the very same thought or memory can bubble up from your unconscious
again and again.
If it keeps popping up like that, it's probably driven by a powerful inner force or pressure.
The source of that pressure could very likely be some kind of conflict or difficult situation
in your life that remains unresolved.
Everyone goes through periods of difficulty in life, so for those who practice meditation,
this is not an uncommon problem.
Meditation can certainly reduce the stress and anxiety that accompany difficult situations,
but meditation itself is no substitute for directly addressing the problems underlying
those situations.
As we discussed in the introduction, meditation is not a way to escape the problems of life.
I'd like to share with you an anecdote that shows how I learned a sobering lesson about
trying to use meditation as an escape.
Long ago, I lived in my guru s ashram along with sixty other students while we were attending
a three-year long residential course in Vedanta and Sanskrit.
We lived, worked, and studied together, so there was a lot of camaraderie among us.
But not surprisingly, conflicts between students would come up now and again.
On one occasion, I got into a huge argument with a fellow student and exchanged harsh
words with him.
Later, I returned to my room feeling overwhelmed by anger, hurt, and frustration.
My meditation practice had grown quite strong by then, so I chose to meditate to get rid
of the horrible feelings that burned inside me.
I sat and began to recite my mantra.
At first, painful memories of the argument bubbled up almost continuously, but I used
my mantra to push them away.
Gradually, those memories came up less often, and after a lot of time and effort, I finally
felt free from all that anger, hurt, and frustration.
Because my emotions were so intense, I had to meditate for a full three hours to push
them away, much longer than my usual half-hour sessions.
But I finally felt refreshed and relieved, and I returned to my usual activities.
Later, while walking across the ashram campus, I happened to come across the student with
whom I had argued.
Even though we didn't say a word to each other, all the anger, hurt, and frustration I felt
earlier in the day immediately returned with the same burning intensity.
In just a moment, the results of three hours of meditation were totally wiped out.
Meditation did nothing to resolve my conflict with the other student.
It merely provided me with a short-lived escape by temporarily blocking my painful feelings.
Returning to the soda bottle analogy from the previous lesson, using meditation as an
escape is like putting a bottle of soda in a refrigerator.
When soda is cold, the gas dissolved in it exerts less pressure.
But as soon as the soda warms up, all the pressure returns.
In the same way, meditation helped me cool off, to chill, so to speak.
But after encountering my fellow student again, all the emotional pressure within me quickly
returned to its full force.
Using meditation to escape from problems, like I tried to do back then, is both unwise
and a waste of time.
On the other hand, meditation can be extremely effective in helping you cope with the challenges
of life by empowering you to respond to them more effectively.
If you respond frantically and impulsively to difficult situations, you can make things
a lot worse.
But if you respond calmly and deliberately, you can resolve the problems more effectively.
Daily meditation can fill you with an abiding sense of peace, centeredness, and detachment
that help you remain clear and composed even in the midst of a major crisis.
But, as my anecdote shows, daily meditation alone won't magically transform you into a
perfect, saintly person.
There's a lot more to a life of spiritual growth than just meditation.
Yet, my practice of meditation did seem to help me in other ways.
When I encountered that same student again, I wasn't at all inclined to resume our argument.
My response was to remain silent.
That painful event also led me to undertake lots of self-reflection, and I later came
to understand how I unintentionally contributed to the conflict with him.
Eventually, we resolved our differences, and we remain friends to this day.
Meditation can not only help you deal more gracefully with difficult situations, but
it can also help you discover solutions to complicated problems.
In a surprising way, meditation can help in problem solving.
Let me explain.
Imagine an unfortunate woman who's trapped inside a room and struggling furiously to
break open a locked door.
If she's so narrowly focused on opening the door, she might not notice an unlocked window
nearby, through which she could easily escape.
Obviously, she'd be wise to stop banging on the door for a few moments and consider other
solutions to being trapped in the room.
When dealing with complicated problems, it's easy to jump to conclusions about what needs
to be done.
But hasty conclusions can lead you to overlook other approaches that might much more effective.
For this reason, it's often helpful to step away from a problem for a while and ponder
it calmly.
Meditation is well suited for this purpose.
In the stillness of meditation, you can empty your mind of any prior assumptions and conclusions
you might have made.
And when your mind has been opened in this way, you can freely consider a much wider
range of possible solutions.
Meditation can help you gain a completely new perspective on a complex situation.
Even in the midst of a terrible crisis, it can be enormously helpful to resist the urge
to act immediately, and instead, stop for a few moments of quiet reflection.
Those few moments can make a huge difference in how effectively you respond.
At times of crisis, it's often said, "Don t just sit there, do something!"
But based on these observations, you might say instead, "Don't just do something, sit
there," just for a few moments, until you come up with a really good plan of action.
Now, here's some practical advice for how you can use meditation to help find better
solutions for complicated problems you face.
Start by defining the problem clearly.
It might even be helpful to write out the problem, because the act of writing usually
makes things more clear.
Then, practice one of the meditation techniques taught in earlier lessons, any technique that
you find especially effective in quieting your mind.
Good choices include mantra meditation, pranayama techniques, and concentrating your attention
on an object of meditation.
The sakshi bhava techniques taught in the previous chapter are not particularly suitable
for this purpose, because they don't specifically help you to quiet your mind.
Be sure to start with a sankalpa and progressive relaxation exercise.
Use your chosen technique to make your mind as quiet as possible.
That mental silence will empty your mind of any prior assumptions and conclusions you
might have made concerning the problem.
Then immediately after you finish meditating, reflect on the problem you want to solve and
give yourself the opportunity to see the situation with a fresh mind.
You might discover new approaches to the problem that you hadn't considered before.