Blake / USA
From a young age, I always heard, “Do well in school, so that you can go to a good college. Then you can get a good job. Then you can find a good wife, have kids, work until you retire and then when you die give your inheritance to your kids”. I always had trouble accepting and following this blindly. There was always this feeling inside me that there was something completely off about these strong, societal beliefs.
I always wondered what the point of living life like this was. I vividly remember in preschool trying to recall back to before I was born to see where I came from. I thought maybe there was a “me” that existed before “I” was born, because I was curious about creation. When I was six and my mother was pregnant with my younger brother, I was absolutely blown away that there was actually another human inside her. In elementary school, I remember watching the television show “Bill Nye The Science Guy.” He explained how small the earth was compared to the sun and that the sun is the exact distance it needs to be from the earth in order for there to be existing life on earth. I also remember learning that the universe is never ending and everlasting. This was all extremely fascinating to me.
Growing up, my parents fought a lot and divorced when I was young. When I was 6 years old my mother remarried to a man I now call “my father (I realize now that my step-father was a true hero in my life and a blessing, but that’s a different story).” When I was 8 My biological father was incarcerated. He was was incarcerated for several years. He became a chronic drug addict after he was released. Also when I was eight years old my friend had accidentally choked and passed away. I remember watching commercials on television of young kids starving in Africa. “How can we let this exist?” That’s the question I asked myself. My parents would watch the news and there were always stories of murders over love and over money. There were also frequent stories of kidnappings and child abuse. “What’s wrong with humans? This can’t be right.” I always wondered about this. The reason why I mention all of the above is simply because they all had a big impact on my life and I often felt sad, and empty from a very young age. When seeing my mother cry (because she was so hurt emotionally) or seeing my father on drugs, I constantly thought “Why do people suffer?” “Why is life so painful?” “What is the point in living if we are to live it in this way?” “What happens when we die?” I wondered how I could live in the right way.
By the time I was in my early 20’s I went to a good college, had an amazing girlfriend, and was not lacking money. Despite being successful in those areas, I wasn’t even close to being fulfilled. I would save money to go on vacation and come back feeling the same way after a few days had passed. I wasn’t excited to live the rest of my life being empty inside.
Due to the fact that I questioned a lot of things from a young age, over the years I read and watched a lot of things that tried to explain life. I graduated from business school but ironically almost every elective course I took was about religion and philosophy. I got to read the Bible, Quran, Buddhist Sutras, and the Bhagavad Gita amongst many others. Furthermore, on my own I started intensely watching, listening closely, and carefully reading self help material such as The Secret and Tony Robbins. I started hearing a lot about meditation, so I started exploring it. My girlfriend and I would go to yoga studios that offered meditation and I started practicing it through YouTube as well.
Around this time, my girlfriend started practicing a meditation method at her university that was focused on ‘Finding your True Self’. She also starting going to a meditation center close by that was practicing the same kind of meditation. I saw a huge change in her. She was not complaining as much as she had in the past and overall she looked much happier! Because of her changes, I decided to give it a try and have been practicing for 9 years now.
All of the books I read talked about how all the answers lie within you. It made sense but I never knew how I could find those answers. When I visited the meditation center they also told me that the answers were inside of me. I was told that God, Buddha, Allah and the Universe (which all ultimately mean the same thing) also exist within me. The difference with between this meditation method and others was this one that I finally found had an actual method that allows one to become one with the universe. The method involved throwing away the “false self” and the “false world” that was inside me. It made so much sense!!
As much as I meditated and cleared my mind, that much joy and wisdom was revealed within me. For all of the questions that I had about my life, I now had answers that became clearer the more I meditated. It wasn’t quick and easy but the method was very simple and concrete. It just takes a little patience and perseverance. The staff members who guided me at the center and all of the meditators were such beautiful people and incredibly helpful. The biggest difference with this place was for sure the method. I had always heard that one should find Truth, but this was a place where people were actually becoming it! The founders who introduced the method to the world weren’t just saying that they achieved the Truth. They were actually providing a road map for anyone to get there.
After completing all of the levels and finding my true self, it feels like an unimaginable dreamlike story. I wake up happy and fulfilled and go to sleep that way also. I found the answers to all of my lifelong questions by just cleaning up my mind. Anyone can find paradise within him or herself now! When the proper technology exists for something, it can be utilized, right? This place has the “technology,” meaning the meditation method, for finding your true self. You can actually find God, Buddha, Allah, and the universe within yourself now. You will also get to know how to truly live happily and with the best health. I hope that everyone will find their true self and true happiness. We came to this world to live, truly.
