Stillpoint Meditations – The Beginning

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In january 2016 i posted a blog on how to find the ”Stillpoint” within. In it I posted a little basic meditation/centering technique that can be done by everyone at anytime and is very similar to the popular ”mindfulness” techniques that so many people are learning these days.

I did not know at that time that the idea and experience of
”Stillpoint” would lead me to establish a ”career choice”, so to say. So for months the stillpoint idea lay dormant.

Then everything got triggered by the death of my most favourite doctor, Juha.

Juha was one of those rare doctors that really cared for his patients. Juha would look me in the eye and talk, not just doctor/patient talk but about things that matter in life.

I met a lot with Juha when I was in the Helsinki eye hospital to deal with an amoeba infection in my right eye, which was potentially fatal and ultimately left me blind in my eye. I remember Juha encouraging me to keep working until I was about 80. He said work gives life meaning. I told him I’d do what I can.

As it so happened, I made it through alive but Juha did not.

Juha was a professor of ophthalmology. He was forty-four, had three children, a wife and justabout everbody loved him. Juha’s body died on stomach cancer six weeks ago. I dedicate this blog to Juha.

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The death of somebody who is very close in spirit always triggers energetic processes in those who love them.

That process in me was the realization that the time for compromise it up.

Compromise with what?

Well, every compromise that love makes to cope in this evolving world.

There are many obvious examples that spring to mind immediately :

• working in a job that does not feel right
• living with a partner that is unloving or has become indifferent
• communication that goes barely past the most superficial level
• compromising with emotions or negative thinking that I erroneously identify with
• being only partially alive because of a false perception of reality
• being pushed around by circumstances without realizing that I create my circumstances

in short anything that compromises real living love.

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As for me, I have always lived my life in a very uncompromising way and because of that I have received my share of reaction because of who I am and what I do. Although certainly not enjoyable, that is ok by me as I am not here to please the personal expectations of others. I am here only for love and life and it is love and life itself that guide me. Therefore my life is not personal.

So after Juha’s death I did a re-evaluation of my life, ie. my life circumstances, where I live, what i do for money, my relationships, thought patterns and just about everything else that matters.

Around that time was when the “stillpoint of life” really started to communicate to me.

What do I mean by that?

It means that the spirit of life started to talk to me at any time of the day.

How do I know it is the spirit? Because in the spirit everything that arises is original, it carries the energy of love and is concerned only with the growth of consciousness.

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The first insight that arose in me was that the interaction between meditation and action has to become more clear.

Currently, my wife Marjo and I are running Yogasource Finland, one of the best yoga teacher training institutions in Finland and because of the commitment to yoga (meaning union) we are always very close to the source of life and love, which is a requirement for this type of work.

One of my roles in our trainings is to teach meditation. And this was where the stillpoint within me pointed first.

Meditation as it is taught in the world is often associated with tradition. It may be Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Zoroastrian, Inca, Dogo or whatever. All of these religions/traditions have their validity and are hugely important to those that believe and follow those traditions. And I well respect that, because everything that exists has its validity in life and many people will give their lives to uphold those traditions.

However, nowadays we also live in a time where old traditionally based concepts are being increasingly dismantled and the recent success and popularity of mindfulness is one example of this.

We live in a time of engineering – so meditation has to be practical so far so that everybody who meditates can do so easily and gets results.

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What then is meditation?

There is one simply observable fact in meditation – it happens in the NOW, this moment. You cannot meditate in the past or the future. If you do, you start thinking and then are simply not in the NOW anymore. So meditation is being in the the NOW or more correctly approaching the NOW.

Here is an exercise:

  • When you have time observe your body, body sensations, your senses, the feeling of gravity, your own body electricity, your heartbeat, your breath.
  • Suspend your thinking for a moment. If you do this you need to be aware and conscious NOW.
  • Now add one single thought – maybe tonight’s TV show – and observe how this one thought will take you away from your senses.
  • It is as simple as that. You cannot be fully NOW and think. You only think you can.

(In fact, you cannot even be in this moment 100%, you can only approach it – something I will talk about at a later stage – but for now, the closer you are to NOW the better.)

So obviously in real meditation (NOW) there can be no reliance on mantra, sounds, visualization or similar things because all of these activities take place in time and therefore fall somewhat short of being NOW. Entertaining, – definitely, relaxing, – yes, stress reducing – yes (scientifically proven), ancient and holy, – yes, mysterious – yes, but not NOW. Only NOW is the NOW which is always new and has never ever been before.

OK. So there is no time in NOW. It follows that there is no tradition, no thought, no emotion, no history; it is a waking up to this moment (which is eternal but out of time). It is also the perfect cosmic equilibrium in which everything disappears.

Meditation then is the process that gets you to the NOW. In that process you are being emptied.

Emptied of what? Emptied of all old thought, attitudes, beliefs, old emotions, behaviour patterns and past. Everything that throws the equilibrium of life out of balance.

As you are gradually emptied, your “mind” somewhat disappears – what’s left is nothing, nothing that your senses can pick or describe. It is a strange place in a which you are truly “mindless”. Mindfulness people, please pardon the pun, I highly respect your work.

Once you are completely emptied you are truly in the NOW, a state that cannot be described with words (they are in time) but which yogis tend to call “Samadhi”.

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Meditation is neither trance. nor a hypnotic state. I do not stare into a candle and gradually get carried away into a blissful dreamlike state. Meditation is the opposite: it is so incredibly fast and awake that its speed of consciousness becomes stillness. In this mysterious moment, time stops, thought disappears. Senses disappear. The meditator consciously enters the other side of the coin – the timeless unknowable source of life.

You already know a similar state from being in deep dreamless sleep. Deep dreamless sleep is good. In deep dreamless sleep your brain waves get very close to zero. You exist, but only in stillness. No experience. After you wake up you feel great. Now if you add awareness to that state of deep dreamless sleep, you get an idea of what I mean. You are aware of nothing but your being is refreshed by the very source of life.

However this state of NOW (stillness) is not nothing. It is everything.

It is in fact the true state of love, an eternal type of love that is so powerful and in such a perfect state of equilibrium that it has the power to create everything there is. This is who you are, who I am.

It is important here to state that this love is not an emotion. It is a state of being. It is not personal. You had it already when you where a baby.

Emotional love on the other hand happens in time, it is very much part of our culture, it is personal, has lots of ups and downs, attaches itself to people or things and tends to create confusion and suffer because of that. This type of love is entertaining but unfortunately not real. It is temporarily real.

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Life always has two aspects to it; meditation and action.

Like two sides of a coin life fluctuates between the deep inner non-moving stillness (love) which is reachable through meditation and then brings this stillness into the world of action – our external life.

Meditation and action are the two sides of that coin.

To be more clear: The inward-going aspect of life (meditation) gets me into contact with pure life (love). Always.

* This process takes time because on a personal level (the level you call “your Self”), every being will have to work through many levels of emotional patterns and mental structures that are in the way to reaching the equilibrium of love. You can call this “realizing your “personal” karma”.

The outward going aspect (action) means that whatever insights I receive from my meditation has to be lived in action responsibly and consciously within this external world. This you can call “working through your karma”.

It is the concept of yin and yang applied.

Unless meditation and action are in balance there will be no real peace, no equilibrium and life and love will have its ups and downs. We’ll have wars and peace, poverty and prosperity.

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Now, to finish this blog….

Getting into the process of meditation will affect your life – All aspects of it… Work life, Family life, Love life, all relationships, communication, emotions, mentality, spirituality as well as the food I eat, my health, exercise and ultimately all life on earth and beyond.

And finally – Meditation is not always easy because it makes you face yourself.

However, there are many practical steps that can be learned to make this process easier.

And how to do that is what I teach.

So this mysterious stillpoint that is the absolute unknowable centre of life in the cosmos has become my source, my life, my love and my business.

Thank you Juha for everything I have received from you!

Michael