I’m not so good at meditating, and not so sure I’m all that great as a Western version of a Hindu. See, I have no desire to renounce. No, this is, quite annoyingly, the first time I have ever been comfortable in the Material World, sensually content. I am not ready to let go of my ego.

See, this is why I don’t meditate much and why I wonder about my so-called Hinduism. But tonight I decided to meditate and not try and be good at it. Meditation is not as quiet as it should be for me, my ego chatters away, endlessly wanting things or being frustrated by things I wanted before but didn’t get… which makes me bitter. Want. Want. Want.

As I meditated, with no expectation that I be good at it, I realized that if I could stop wanting things I could be at peace. Now, of course, this concept is no revelation, and is in fact quite tired, right? Sure is, at least as words, but it’s not so tired when the light fills you and you actually get it, when you actually suddenly know and feel what it means. What is trite then become profound in a moment of clarity.

Clarity is divine, I always say. See, that’s what I get out of meditation. I don’t get silence, I get a single truth ringing clear, uncluttered by the noise of my ego, my wants, my Western thinking. Yes, clarity is divine, and THAT seems to be the gift I get from meditation, not silence, but silence around a single truth, as for me, truths are usually lost in a jumble of conflicting thoughts and feelings. Not so when the truth is shown through divine clarity.

I began to think about all the things I want, wanted, and will yet want, and I started to let them go, Poof… piff… like that they evaporated in my consciousness and I was free.

That was when I saw Shiva’s smile.

How I wish I could carry this clarity on to tomorrow…