Journal Entry - 18th August

Deep peace today. I feel permeable, as though life is a stream flowing through me and out of me. All the time there’s this vast activity, I’m in Manhattan, surrounded by a cacophony of sirens and horns, frenetic activity, but it’s all taking place within a vast ocean of silence. If you can imagine taking a television to the most remote mountain region in the world, covered in a blanket of snow, silent for thousands of miles, and turning on the television in this silence. That is the perspective. I am the silence within which this activity occurs.


The past few weeks have been interesting. Almost all forms of meditation (breath-watching, AYP etc) soon followed by depression, and an inability to do anything constructive. In fact, since late December 2010, continuous periods of meditation for more than a week or so would turn me into a complete mess. There’s just a mournful melancholy, which can be beautiful. This is termed ‘overload’ by AYP – too much meditation causing excessive purification, too much for you to integrate. However, as soon as I desist meditation, there is great joy, vast peacefulness and silence. I am reborn each time. Undoubtedly meditation is causing this effect (in combination with much talking to God, praying and bhakti).

I’m learning what uniquely works for me in terms of self-pacing. I find having ‘days off’ from meditation – once or twice a week, is remarkably useful (in fact it is the only way I can continue to meditate without suffering states of intense confusion and despair). During these days off, I become very grounded and highly effective at work again. I also get to experience the fruits of my labour: I feel like I’ve been cleaned out from the inside, and as light and happy as air.