We know.  We are. : Meditation Practices from Death Row

We know.  We are. : Meditation Practices from Death Row

*Steven Nelson is a prisoner on death row in Texas.  The Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood serves as his spiritual advisor.  This piece flows out of a conversation that Dr. Hood had with Nelson on meditation.

We close our eyes.  We breath.  We meditate.  Then…  We discover there is more than what is.  We keep going.  We feel the presence of the all in one.  We know.  We are.

Our prisons don’t have to define us.  Our beings are more powerful than our bars.  We can exist in spaces beyond what is.  We can exist in a space of what might be.  Meditation transforms the meditator not because it is salvific…but rather because it is a vehicle to places that are.  The savagery of our moment is that we remain convinced that meditation is only for the lost.  Yet, only in meditation can one truly be found.  The development of a meditative practice is the key to unlock all our prisons.

When all hell is coming down on your head, one can sit and be burned up or one can figure out how to exist beyond the fire.  Anxiety cripples the soul.  Stress suffocates the brain.  Depression chains the body.  Only when we allow our mind to go to places beyond such hells can we be who we are and become more than we ever thought that we could be.  If one has control over their mind, one can be locked up all day every day and never even know the bars exist.

Inner peace is a strange phrase to most.  We live in a world where there is no peace.  Everyone is just so busy all the time.  Conflicts provide entertainment.  We destroy all that we know.  How can anyone have any peace?  The mind has to be unchained from temporal restraints.

No two meditation practices are the same.  One can read books to figure out a direction, but we all must create our own paths.  Once the eyes are closed, that which is beyond description takes over.  To start one must simply close their eyes.

Why do we fear the darkness?  Life was birthed from the darkness.  We come from the darkness.  We are darkness in our most simple form.  To meditate we must go into the darkness…we must become part of the darkness.

The divine has created us to be one with the divine.  Inner peace exists at the core.  Inner peace rests in the darkness.  Everything else fades away when we meet that which is everything.  When we meditate, we are collapsing into fullness.

Meditation is also a form of prayer.  We are pushing to find the divine that can awaken the divine within.  We present our core so that we might know the creator of the core.

There is a peace that passes all understanding.  The journey of meditation is the path there.  It’s like disappearing so that one might appear more fully than one ever thought possible.

We close our eyes.  We breath.  We meditate.  Then…  We discover there is more than what is.  We keep going.  We feel the presence of the all in one.  We know.  We are.