After finishing my second meditation, I am completely refreshed and ready to face the second part of my day. I feel prepared, motivated, and above all, ready for whatever comes! I am a meditator. I am also a disabled veteran who was wounded in the Iraq war during Operation Iraqi Freedom. To put it simply, I am a veteran who meditates, but meditation has not always been a part of my daily routine. For the past 16 years, I have battled with symptoms of PTSD and the effects it has had on my overall life. PTSD has impacted me physically, mentally, spiritually, and even more in my role as father and husband. Today I can tell you that never again will it rule me!
Transcendental Meditation is not a religion;
it is more a mental exercise that will enrich your life regardless of whether
you are a physicist, chemist, astrologer, war veteran, or religious person. At
every stage of life, when stress is relieved, life becomes better. Transcendental Meditation practice offers a
very real transformation of the mind over the body.
To start practicing this type of meditation, one must have an intrinsic desire to improve their quality of life, and that is what happened within the depths of my being. However, I first had to hit rock bottom in a brutal and painful way. I want to make it clear that the invisible wounds of war are definitively much more lethal than the physical injuries that can be seen on me.
On August 1, 2019, I lost control in
such a brutal way that my wife confessed that she was afraid. That day I had a
big disagreement with a customer service representative, who, during a phone
call trying to resolve a situation, I felt made fun of me and simply did not
want to assume the responsibility that she had in the matter due to an error of
her part. This person only made fun of me and did not answer my calls anymore
which caused me to lose control and destroyed my entire office in a violent and
aggressive way. My wife witnessed this episode, and although it was not the
first time, she had no choice but to
leave home to prevent our daughters from seeing this tremendous outburst. This behavior is considered abuse, plain and
simple. By the time the waters reached its channel, I was alone, extremely
ashamed, and disappointed in myself. Once again, it is not easy to love a
warrior...
After the intervention of my doctors
in the mental health department at the VA, my doctors at the PTSD clinic helped
me to reunify with my family. At this time, I felt that I had to make a
markable change in my life and decided to take up something new. It was time to
learn to meditate and practice some yoga postures so that whatever was trying
to steal my tranquility could no longer. I would do whatever I needed to quiet
this silent hunter who constantly haunted me by besieging my daily life in such
an aggressive and painful way.
Thus, I began to conquer my life on
the back porch of our home. There I practiced meditations guided by videos that
I found on the Internet, and decidedly and let's say very disciplined I found
myself meditating three times a day. Every time I understood how much I needed
it. Many times, when I checked the timer, an hour or more had elapsed without
noticing it. I continued to go deeper into techniques that varied from
Mindfulness to Kundalini, to some Buddhist teachings. I learned about chakras
and the energies that govern our bodies. Everything I learned was self-taught,
and due to my visual impairment, it was difficult for me to achieve some
postures in yoga.
This change in my life was really
working for me, I felt much calmer, structured and meaningful, but if I wanted
to continue on this path, I understood that I had to look for some kind of
guide. I needed to get involved with a meditation center or yoga facility where
I could relate to people who were more advanced than me on their way to enlightenment.
I devoted myself to doing an Internet search about meditation teachers, and the
results I found led me to information about Transcendental Meditation. How was
it that there was another type of meditation called Transcendental Meditation
that I knew nothing about? By the time I realized it, I was already in a
conversation with someone trying to pair me with a local teacher. It was a
relatively organic and direct process. I did not have much to decide about what
I wanted; I just didn't have in my hands.
My teacher taught me that
Transcendental Meditation (TM) was first introduced into the United States in
1959 by the Indian teacher Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and transcendental means going
beyond my reach. Maharishi chose this term to indicate that TM will spontaneously
take one beyond their familiar level of being fully awake to a state of deep
rest coupled with heightened alertness. Maharishi's technique for achieving
this status effortlessly can be learned in four days and then practiced for
only 15 to 20 minutes each morning and evening. The specific method of allowing
the activity of the mind to settle down requires you to sit down comfortably
with your eyes closed. This mental process automatically triggers a
physiological response conducive to both depressed and increased wakefulness.
Learning to meditate does not involve cultivating news you know but instead
simply allowing an innate ability of the nervous system to relax. It requires no particular attitude, preparatory
ritual, setting or unusual postures. I normally practice this technique at
home, but the reality is that it may be done in any place where I could sit
comfortably without being disturbed. I have meditated on planes and in waiting
rooms.
During Transcendental Meditation, I
have been able to allow my mind to experience a relaxed and enjoyable stage,
which draws my attention inward. I realized that in the Bible it says knock and
the door will be open, and it is true! If you want to know anything in this
life, you just have to knock on the door, whether that be physically on
someone's door and ask that question or try something new and be as lucky as I
was to find healing in meditation.
In TM, I have experienced a state in
which my mind becomes very quiet yet extraordinary alert even though the sense
of feelings or thoughts may be present. I have also experienced brief or
sometimes extended periods of blank awareness where I am fully awake, yet
nothing runs through my mind. This
feeling of not being asleep but also not being aware of anything in particular
happens when our wakeful attention is generally engaged by the objects of our
experience.
In the case of veterans like myself
who also have PTSD, our experiences cause an unending cascade of thoughts,
emotions, sensations, and perceptions of the tragedy of war, the pestilence,
and nightmares we have to relive every day. For me, to have an opportunity for
two brief daily periods of effortless disengagement from these continuous
thoughts is when I am able to allow my attention to shift inward. This is when I get the opportunity to
experience quiet levels in the mind where I become increasingly aware of the
unbounded nature of my awareness in the absence of objects. My teacher told me
that this stage, termed as pure awareness, consists of nothing more than being
wide awake inside without being aware of anything except awareness itself.
With this method, you transcend with a
sound that is is more like a vibration. My teacher gave me a mantra that brings
the body to rest and calms everything down. It brings harmony and union between
all the senses, so thoughts become less and less until you can arrive at the
point, which is transcendental- beyond the senses, beyond intellect.
This has worked for me, and today I
simply cannot conceive a single day without meditating because of how easy this
technique is, it is possible to complete with minimal effort. Therefore, I
could not imagine how I would deprive myself of those 20 minutes in my day to
simply be silent. The physiological benefits are so abundant and well
documented that it seems incredible to me that it has not been implemented more
in our Veterans Hospitals. Since it is available, but I feel that it has not
been given the importance it deserves... the hard proof is me. Within every
person, there exists an infinite reservoir of energy and intelligence, which
Maharishi has termed the source of creative intelligence.
The quality of the functioning of your
brain determines the quality of the function of the mind. It is time for us to
appreciate our mind as an essential element in our physical functioning because
the mind depends on the body as much as the body depends on our mind for
optimal functioning. If not, we will exist, but we could call ourselves much
less than human since the wonderful creature that we are is limited when we
neglect one or the other. Healthy mind, healthy body- we have heard it
repeatedly, but we do not seem to understand.
I am convinced that every thought, word, and action I commit is setting forth influence in my surroundings, and that influence is not restricted to any boundaries; it goes on and on and reaches every level of creation. Consider the impact my daily meditation is having on my wife, daughters, and the general environment in our home. I feel closer to God; in the church, I can understand the message much clearer since my mind and body are relaxed. Through meditation, I have been able to quiet the tensions and traumas that I have had, possibly since childhood counting the traumas acquired in the war. We all retain stresses and traumas in our daily living, but through Transcendental Meditation, we have the opportunity to clear the way for our thoughts, so that our thoughts can emerge from our pure consciousness directly into our minds. By meditating with the TM technique, we can access the unified field of pure consciousness, which is a place that contains unbound creativity and infinite energy when our brain enters a state that neurologists call coherence. With the abundance of creativity, you feel much happier that suddenly everything becomes possible; what was impossible before, you find a creative solution. Thus, there is no place for sadness and depression. This abundance of happiness is what our mind is drawn back to again and again with the help of the mantra.
Transcendental Meditation is much more than what I have shared here. I encourage you to look for more information on your own, and we will overcome this plague that afflicts us called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Our families deserve you to be the best you can be.
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