Still whatever little energy is left - it does help to invest it into a steady kriya and meditation practice that I do every day after the little one has been put to sleep. At first I thought I could never do 11 minutes and the meditation that we are doing is challenging in that it contains a focus on the tip of your nose. I never thought about it before but it is much more challenging to meditate with your eyes open versus closed eyes. Additionally, you are supposed to pump your navel which first of requires some strong stomach muscles and secondly is close to impossible after eating... The instructions ask for 16 pumps but our teacher told us to start with 3 (times three and thinking of the words 'wahe guru') and slowly increase the amount. I am now on 5 pumps and am not sure if I could ever get to 16 - by the way, Yogi Bajan apparently asked teachers to practice this meditation up to 2.5 hours long - crazy!
So what happens and how does meditation help clear the mind? I have yet to fully understand the concept but I think it's mainly clearing our gateways and cutting through the clutter. Even though thoughts are bound to come up, by consciously working on not following them, we allow our brains to take a 'breather' - and this is what I am trying to tell myself - not seeing my daily practice as work and something that I do out of dedication but rather something that I look forward to because it is a gift that I give myself. After I read that meditation not only prolongs your life but also helps substitute a lack of sleep, I decided that I need to meditate as much as I can, given that sleep deprivation is our constant companion these days.
Even though I try to not follow my thoughts too much, I do have quite a few ideas and think of new things when meditating - sometimes to the extent that I cannot remember them when I come out of the practice. And I have had some very vivid dreams lately - I wonder if dreams and meditation are related? In fact I had some dreams that were almost scary- such as dreaming of a sable-toothed tiger when I found my son's first tooth the day after. But let's see how this develops - am determined to finish the kris and meditation for at least 40 days and then observe the effects. Give it a shot some time, after all we spend 11 minutes on so many other (less useful) things every day. Including writing and reading blogs - so I'm off to catch a few minutes of precious sleep ;-)
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