When our meditation teacher had something weighty and memorable to say, he would start with:
Write this on the inside of your forehead.
This got our attention. I would also invite you to write this on your forehead, or body part of your choice:
Trust Your Experience.
You may be told that “the mind will try to trick you”.
You may be told that experiences in meditation are just distraction, dullness, ego, mental “garbage” or “magical thinking” — that they “don't mean anything” and you should avoid “clinging”, “expecting” and becoming “too attached”.
You shouldn't want deep, fulfilling meditation because that's “chasing experiences” and “craving” and having “aversions” to your own “suffering”.
You mustn't expect results or benefits from meditation because that would be “grasping”. You should just “be present”.
You didn't perceive a field around yourself and others, because that would be “pseudoscience”.
You can't receive guidance, solutions or reassurance from your own Higher Self, because that would be “supernatural” and you “shouldn't read too much into it”. You probably “just fell asleep”.
You didn't really see a light because that's “just brain noise”, “hypnogogia” or “phosphenes” — and anyway, there “isn't a third eye”.
You didn't experience breath suspension or Tranquil Breath. You should “see a doctor.”
Any inner tones you perceived are “just tinnitus”. You heard symphonies and vocal music while meditating? You must be “hallucinating” and should “get checked out”.
You didn't really leave your body because “that's impossible” - so you should “just ignore it”.
In other words:
It can't be, therefore it isn't.
When you give up basic trust in your own experience, and instead look to what people think, you underestimate yourself.
Will you reach for the comfort of conventional explanations? Will you believe the science delusion that everything is “just your mind”?
Or will you accept reality? Will you think for yourself?
“Don't take truth from the lips of any human being, but know it with unshakable certainty through your own faculty of soul intuition.” - Paramahansa Yogananda
