“I blame myself for not being able to meditate, not arriving to this peaceful state, having my head full of thoughts. It stresses me. I only sometimes feel bliss and calm but that is overpowered by voices arguing with me in my head. I feel like I am going mad, splitting with the world around me. Crying and going through unexplainable upheaval of emotions. Meditation seems to cause me more pain than I have ever experienced before. Why am I so unhappy despite all my efforts ? despite being financially well off ?

I can’t manage my self-running thoughts. I don’t understand why my mind creates such nonsense stories to which I react ! I felt better before attempting meditation - although I felt the call for it or thirst for spiritual research. It seems to me that meditation, yoga and other spiritual practices involving meditation has turn my life upside down ! I split my relationship, changed job, changed my life view, my priorities. I have shaken my ground from the day of my first meditation. I put so much effort into my practice yet I have this strong feeling of unhappiness crushing me down.”

This was me.

Are you one of those? Any of those words describes your experience?

If yes, I’d like to say you are not the only one in the world. And I’d like to take this step to talk about it, perhaps as the only one, I don’t know, going a little bit against the mainstream. Mainstream opinion talking only about the ‘good side’, about the bliss and positive effects of meditation, which does not prepare you for possible painful experiences.

Painful experiences are coming because meditation is unlearning, purification and detoxification of something ‘dirty’ we try to rid our mind from. It is like fitness is reshaping your body from fat into beautiful muscle. There is often perspiration and muscle soreness on the way.

Inability to withstand this process and lack of proper understanding and preparation is the reason why we drop the practice of meditation even before it starts to work.

Surly the bliss is the final result of meditation!

This is the reason why I decided to design and share this course, from my own experience, to help those of you who feel they don’t go over it, who felt broken and lost and eventually more confused than ever before.

I share this with my full heart and I truly believe it will bring you the tool to own your practice, get friend with your authentic self and take back the full right on living a happy life.

· I was looking for some time to ‘learn’ how to meditate. I need to incorporate my spiritual side with the world around me because I had a feeling I was disconnecting

· I can’t stop thinking during meditation. I am frustrated

· I am aware of some great potential within me but I don’t know how to channelize it. I need some clarity in my life and to know how to make best decisions for myself which are harmless for my surroundings.

· I fear or I feel holding back to realise my deepest dream and to be who I am in my dreams

· Where is my authenticity and power had gone ?

· I want to know why my mind and old, often imaginary, thoughts are having such a power over my mood. What is this self-talk in my head ?

· Why I can’t move on in my life ? I feel helpless and anxious.

· I am interested in yoga and its philosophy, the spirituality in general but I have this anger and resentment in me. I felt into destructive habits.

· My relationships are falling apart. Certain people and situations in life are triggering in me bad reactions.

· My body and mind seem to work separately, I feel in need to tune up or tune in.

                                                     WHAT MAKES IT SO DIFFICULT

Our minds are like vessels filled with water mixed with dirt. And this dirt (samskaras-recorded events or thoughts) resembles our emotions like fear, hate, anger, distrust, frustrations of unfulfilled dreams. Our sufferings. All our past experiences are stored somewhere in our mind.

We don’t see them every day because, most of time unconsciously, we decide that rejecting them is easier. They are overwhelmingly painful. We are too busy with our jobs, or basically everything which we think we should do in this modern world ‘to be’ or busy with having fun.

Often having fun comes to extremes when drinking too much, over eating, taking drugs. Any strategies we find (those things are here) to cover up our sufferings.

Of course our lives are not completely miserable and lacking fun and good times. But there are very deep residues (vasanas) of suffering in our unconscious. And they can come up to the surface unexpectedly. Here is the reason why suddenly one morning we wake up in an awful mood.

Those sufferings come up often during meditation. It is because we have silenced the environment around us and we have decided to watch and listen (meditation). The vessel filled with water (mind) in now in stillness. The dirt in the water is our memories, seeds. And the seeds begin to surface up.

The reason why we are so troubled during meditation is the surfacing of those suppressed seeds/memories. They can be not clear and not specified, blurred and hard to comprehend. But they bring strong reactions like fear or tears (thought always comes with emotion, feeling). The old memories have decomposed and by decomposing they have changed the smell and quality of the water (mind). The more we suppress the stronger the reactions become, especially if done over the course of years.

                                          WHAT IS MY SOLUTION

Congratulations, the fact that you started meditation means you are very courageous! To face our fears needs a lot of bravery and heroism. To become your own hero!

Our mind became like a store house for all the thoughts and memories. Awareness in meditation acts now as a ‘fire’ and it is burning them all, bit by bit, making the mind more clear. The process of clearing starts. But yes, it is often scary and not an easy experience. But it won’t remain like that all the time. This is only initial possibility.

Meditation requires a lot of strength. Plenty of determination and faith.

Faith is the most important virtue you must have. Why? Because along with those bad experiences come moment of bliss, serenity, ease. And these will come with practice and regularity. They often appear right in the beginning and will be overpowering the ‘bad’.

Those joyous moments gives you hope for the better. Yet it is often interwoven by the painful moments and that needs your faith in the practice. Faith arising from self-confidence. And this comes with regular practice of yogic Kriyas (various practices, like pranayama) that I will share with you, along with those that you may already practice. Each practice builds your strength and studying about yoga gives you proper understanding about meditation and our psyche. Yogi Patanjali in “Yoga Sutras” 1:1, a treatise on meditation, is starting with exclamation about discipline.

Discipline is something that often in the beginning is hard but sweet to end with. It needs your regularity despite the odds. It is less pleasant at the beginning but you know you will love the results.

What can give us this strength to continue with discipline to meditate and most of all will give us the power of awareness that is burning our samskaras (thought, memories)? It is pranayama! Absorption of prana. PraAnna. Two words. Pra-that life giving particle which gave birth to the smallest atom. That which existed even before the big bang. Anna-the smallest cell/atom, also translated as food. Prana-the energy that keeps everything together, that builds us and empower us.

Everything is energy, even our thoughts, and those thoughts hidden too, those which we are afraid of during meditation. Pranayama is like building block for our awareness. Awareness is like fire, awareness is necessary to burn the samskaras, thoughts (old recordings). Pranayama is: expanding the pranic energy, which in turn gives rise to awareness. Awareness that has stronger energy than the energy of thought. Pranayama is to ‘overpower’ your thoughts, so you begin to see and understand life more clearly.

Yoga Master Patanjali in the same book mentions pranayama as an important factor in meditation. It comes right after asana in the 8 limb yoga system (Ashtanga yoga). He gives it as a recipe for anyone who struggles to be in the state of Samadhi, the equanimity and harmony with everything, the bliss. In sutra 1:34 he talks about restraining, holding the breath. In sutra 2:49-52 he talks on pranayama practice and its benefits. Especially in 2:52 he gives promise that pranayama removes the vail covering the mind or the process of clearing the water in the vessel mentioned by me earlier, allowing the light (clear vision) to shine through.

The process of meditation slowly allows the light to shine to the deepest corners of our mind, from conscious to subconscious and unconscious mind, burning out what is unnecessary and what was covering that what you really are. It is a journey of self-discovery. Therefore it is often said that ‘you go to India to meditate to find yourself’. Yes, sometimes we have lost ourselves in being busy in the hustle and bustle of the world or were afraid to step up to be our best. But not forever. Because our deepest vasana (desire) is to realize who we really are and to live fully.