Meditation

Enjoy, Celebrate and Play Every Day

Enjoy, Celebrate and Play Every Day

Toronto. 2013. Age 25.

I was taking everything so seriously that I stopped getting boners and considered putting a bullet in my brain.

I was working as the vice president of an advertising agency, the co-founder of a startup in the gaming industry, and was training intensely ten or more times each week.

I wanted to serve my clients, launch a successful company and attain financial freedom. I wanted to achieve a one-arm handstand, a one-arm chin-up and a 400-pound squat. I wanted to be at my peak every moment of my life.

I was going to bed early, so that I could wake up early. I had amazing friends, but it became difficult to share quality time with them. After all, I had to rise at 7 a.m to work on my handstand. And, I had to ensure that I had proper nutrition and sleep to get the most out of my training.

If I was tired, I had to push through and work harder. There’s no such thing as overtraining. There’s only undertraining, I thought. Plus, I don’t deserve more rest. I spend eight to ten hours per day at a standing desk. That’s rest enough, I told myself, ignoring the fact that I was orchestrating client advertising strategies and trying to launch a startup during those hours.

While I ate, I listened to educational and self-development podcasts. When I had openings in my schedule, I read books, or I trained strength and mobility for a third time that day. All so that I could do more, accomplish more, and be more.

To Be.

To Be.

Walking near my house, I become fully present. No past, no future. Just now. 

I become totally observant and astounded by everything--seeing myself as all things and everything: as the tree, as the car, as the condo, as the cloud, as the flower, as the pebble on the driveway beside the aluminum trash can. I am all of these things experiencing themselves through the space in consciousness known as Michael Sanders. 

The now. The moment. It's complete: nothing to want for. 

I'm mesmerized by an air conditioner protruding from a 10th story apartment . . .

Third Eye Meditation

Third Eye Meditation

This morning, I sit down cross-legged to meditate. After my first breath, I decide to focus on opening my third eye, something I’ve meditated on only a few times before. First, I make sure the five lower chakras are open before venturing onto the sixth, also known as the third eye chakra, which is often associated with higher levels of consciousness, out-of-body experiences and clairvoyance. When I reach the sixth chakra, I begin having visions of the future, or of a potential future. I see myself as a paraplegic relegated to a wheelchair . . .

Mirrors

Do you ever stare deeply into your own eyes while looking in the mirror? So deeply that the rest of your vision becomes blurred and all that remains is the intensity of your gaze?

I get goosebumps and my eyes swell with tears every time I do it.

I'm staring at all that exists--looking into my soul, into the soul of the universe through my own eyes, periodically wondering which side of the glass I'm on.

Thank You

Thank You

Expressing gratitude is the most reality transforming practice I’ve discovered. For, “it is not happy people who are grateful, but grateful people who are happy.” 

I just had the second most profound meditation of my life (the first being during my third Ayahuasca ceremony in Peru earlier this year). I expressed thanks to all of you: my family, my friends, the shamans I’ve worked with, my colleagues, the people who I don’t necessarily share a strong connection with, all the people of the world who I’ve yet to meet, all the people who have come before me, and all the people who will come after me. I expressed thanks to the animals, plants and other life forms on our planet. I thanked Mother Earth, Mother Ayahuasca, our universe, the multiverse, the beings of different dimensions, and the different dimensions themselves. I thanked space, time, and existence itself. . .

Meditation

Meditation

Unintentionally, I started visualizing microorganisms dividing and spreading, then evolving into grass and other plants. Then, I saw buffalo eating the grass and the slaughter of the bison I have in my freezer. I then saw the bison integrating with my body to help me grow via my digestive tract and other organs. I watched as I ate numerous bison (and other animals) throughout my life before dying and decomposing in the earth, and then my cells redistributed like microorganisms dividing and spreading before they evolved into grass, and a bison started eating them. . .