One of the most used phrases in 2020 was “social distancing”. Not only did it become popular, but it brought upon the world’s population quite a bit of misery.

With newer mutations of the virus and many months to go before any significant part of the population can be vaccinated, social distancing continues to be part of our lives in varying degrees. We yearn to go back to our pre-pandemic lives, where we never had to think about getting together with people or attending an event of any size. 

Also, pandemic fatigue is setting in. Most people are getting to a point where it doesn’t seem worthwhile to make such a big sacrifice to their lives’ quality just to prevent getting infected by the virus.

But can there be a silver lining to the forced distancing and significantly less active social life? Are there ways in which we can convert this problem into an opportunity for ourselves? What if our lives could be made richer during this time?

Let’s see how.

By Charles Steck, New Orleans, Louisiana

Subscriber at Sahaja Online and avid meditator

Monday morning, its raining, and traffic is backed up on the interstate. I am running late, and the boss is not going to be pleased.

I hated my job, yet it paid well.

I reached for the Nicotine and the Red Bull next to me. The combination induced a simultaneous release of adrenaline and dopamine, which provided some short term relief from the fearful thought of getting fired. After arriving 10 minutes late, it turned out that the boss was not in yet, and a large contract that I had been working on arrived!

Life was great, yet…..

The 2020s are coming soon upon us. We wish everyone a successful entry into a new decade. 

But let’s take a step back to introspect.

Where were we in our lives at the start of the last decade, the 2010s?

What was the quality of our life then, and how is it now?

What are the good things and not so good things that transpired in the past decade?

Another ten years hence, we will all be in a different stage in our lives and ten years older. The years we have left and the time available for accomplishments are all ticking clocks. Unstoppable and decreasing all the time.

What should be our priorities for the next decade so that we can reflect again in 10 years and ensure that our life is fulfilling and successful?

Virtually, every meditation sign and poster today says one thing – Feeling Stressed? Try our meditation. Or something similar. But did you know that meditation’s very simple, yet most powerful benefit can be to give you a complete detailed insight about yourself?

What if you knew every bit about your strengths, drawbacks, emotions and feelings, reactions and more importantly, the root causes of these? Or if you were able to trace your health problems back to deeper problems at the core of your being? Best of all, even get advance warning of problems in your life?

And what if you had instantaneous, day-to-day feedback about this – an inbuilt power and intricate sensory perception deep inside your being that relayed everything to you with startling accuracy? Revelations that you know in your heart of hearts are true and cannot run away from?

Welcome to the high definition view of yourself, that is accessible by powerful meditation constructs and techniques provided by Sahaja meditation.

In the last part of this article, we wrote about how Sahaja meditation is all about developing precision skills with your attentional control and using it for effective meditation experiences. The most interesting part of how this works in Sahaja is that it is part cognitive and part spiritual, primarily because of the elevation of our attention to a unique, higher state of consciousness.

This higher realm is entirely spiritual but not completely unknown to researchers and psychologists. Carl Jung spoke about it relatively vaguely and from a theoretical perspective, for instance, and called it the Collective UnConscious. However, Sahaja is a one of a kind practice of meditation that helps materialize and experience this higher state in a tangible manner to unleash a host of powerful benefits. And it gives us living and real proof of this higher realm in a much nuanced manner.