Meditation in Amsterdam first Blog Entry!

Namaste everyone! and welcome to the Meditation in Amsterdam blog.  

Given that meditation is such a wide topic which can branch into the areas of consciousness, presence, concentration and even hypnosis, many of which are all but impossible to capture in a website, I though it would be a good idea to start a separate blog.

For the topic of this article I thought to begin with a small journey into meditation, which begun many years before coming to Amsterdam.

This took place in London during the 2 years in which I lived and worked for a multinational in the cosmetics industry.  Life in London was busy and neurotic and I found myself drawn to activities that would calm my mind.  However all I found after doing some quick googling was some sessions on Saturdays in some local church near my home.

Unfortunately the sessions were guided by a well-intentioned guy that had only marginally more knowledge about meditation than I did at the time. And so not only did they not succeed in calming my mind, but half the time I was struggling not to fall asleep, which added a touch of agony and guilt to the whole experience.

At the risk of sounding cheeky I'll say this is one of the reasons I personally do not attend events that are for free. Quality has a cost even when it comes to "spiritual" matters and meditation is no different.  So avoid the free lunch, it usually comes at a cost and odds are you won't like what it is. Also get in the habit of making fair equitable exchanges, switching from being a taker to being a giver will do more for your life than spending hours sitting in lotus position.

So, I digress, back to the my story. When I came to Amsterdam, meditation became a semi-regular practice together with yoga.  Though the latter is more physical it contains most of the elements that bring the benefits of meditation to the practitioner.  We'll focus on these benefits and the idea of not becoming obsessed with the method in later posts.

Since then I have tried a few different teachers, a few different techniques and also read several books either on the topic of meditation or related subjects. Being a kind of seeker of self improvement and happiness, this is the most profound and effective discipline I've found to date, hence my keen desire to share it with the world.

This doesn't mean I did not stumble across certain techniques or teachers with whom I had a fairly uncomfortable clash. When this happened it usually had to do with their supernatural claims, or their lack of authenticity, trying to pass for some kind of spiritual gurus. For anyone who is attune to their gut feeling, their facade is easily recognizable.

But I also came across kind, humble and generous meditation teachers in Amsterdam, who through their person and their presence showed me more than any technique ever would. They're a living example of how humility is the ultimate elegance. Since it displays a wealth of something that cannot be bought, traded or acquired, only earned by going within.

Namaste
Pablo
www.meditationamsterdam.com