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My very first experience with meditation was when I younger….and surprisingly enough, I have a pretty vivid memory of it. We were at camp in the summer, and like any other day in August in Maryland, it was extremely hot that day. We had just finished ’sports time’, had showered and changed, and come back into the main hall for the Evening Divaan. I remember sitting in the sangat all hot and sweaty, sticky, darker than ever, and overall just extremely uncomfortable. Then Bhai Sahib got on the microphone and began to speak… Even though the room was filled with kids ranging from 7 years old to 17 years old, his voice demanded attention in such a manner that within seconds the room was silenced. The only thing filling the room now was the noise of a dozen or more plug-in fans and his voice over the sound system. I remember his words like they were yesterday….”we’ve spent a lot of time out in the sun playing and having fun, now it’s time to settle down and calm our minds” (paraphrasing from here onwards).

Sit up straight in chokdree (legs crossed), stop moving, don’t itch or scratch, don’t talk, don’t chew, don’t think, just stop everything and close your eyes……..this was all new to me.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been THAT kid. Constantly talking, laughing, joking, smirking, acting silly, playing any and every sport I could learn, and just filled with an endless amount of energy. For me to not do any of that seemed next to impossible. He asked us to clear our mind of EVERYTHING, create a blank slate in our heads and just focus on one word… WAHEGURU. I still remember sitting in that divaan seeing nothing in front of my eyes but that word pop up as we repeated it after him collectively. That was the first time I meditated unknowingly.

As I walked in to class today (a little late) things seemed calm…then again, there weren’t that many kids there either. As the kids started trickling into the classroom, things started to get a bit more chaotic. By the time the clock struck 11am and it was time to start class, the kids had gone bananas (some literally).

At that point I remembered the camp day from years ago…and unnoticeably, the roles had changed. We spent about 10 minutes in complete silence with our eyes closed, and another 15 minutes reciting the mool mantar collectively.

Recently I saw (dontjudge) the movie “Eat, Pray, Love”…and if there was one thing that really resonated with me from that movie, it was the lesson that meditation doesn’t always have to be practiced in a single certain manner or at a single specific place or time.

I see meditation as a conversation with my soul. A time for me to stop thinking about everything that stresses me, worries me, engulfs me and just take a moment to connect with my inner being. In previous classes we talked about ‘Mat’ and ‘Budh’. Our Mat is what we use to make our day to day decisions, sort of like our operating system. Whereas, our Budh is comprised of all the decisions we’ve ever made, and becomes our intellect, our whole being.

For me, when I can put my Mat to rest and finally shut it down for a few minutes, I can finally make a connection with my Budh. Having a connection with my Budh means my consciousness can finally have a say in what my Mat does. Since our Mat works constantly, even when in our sleep, trying to silence it is one of the most difficult tasks mankind is faced with. I hope I can make this a more regular routine, not just with the class, but within my own life on a daily basis.

Our class today was briefly about Conviction. Today was the class full class of the semester and my goal with the class has been to not just ‘Inspire’ but to help myself and others find ‘Conviction’. Rubinpaul Veerji introduced me to something really spectacular and for some reason everything just fell in place beautifully.

NPR has been doing, and still does, this amazing segment/section called the “This is Believe” segment. I printed a couple essays from their archives last night and had the kids read them in class. Some of the kids were really touched by the essays and really liked them, while others thought the ones they read were stupid (lawl). Their final assessment now is to write an essay for “This is Believe” based on any one of the topics we have covered in class this semester. I look forward to reading this essays

For more info on NPR’s “This I Believe” : http://www.npr.org/series/4538138/this-i-believe

bhul chuk maaf.

- diwana singh