Today I’ve had an epiphany. A fellow member of a forum I participate on recently wrote a wonderful post on meditation. The point was that meditation is not somethin you do; it is something that happens when you are simply observing, rather than controlling, your experience. The mind will object that it wants a “technique” to make itself feel useful, but there IS no technique. That’s the point.
This is one of those times where I’ve probably heard or read this concept dozens of times, put many different ways, but today something finally clicked. I know my mind has certainly taken to violent protest against this concept of “not-doing.” It occurs to me that while I’ve never had a need or desire to control other people, for various reasons the need to be in control of me at all times has been almost militant. In many ways its been a good thing. With all the medical stuff I had going on when I was younger, not being in control of what happened to me became an ingrained subconscious pattern. Follow that up with a string of controlling and manipulative people in my life, more run-ins with negative entities than I like to think about, and even the typical societal influences that want to tell us who to be, what to think and how to live… and I’ve had to go through a long process of figuring out how to take back control of all aspects of myself. All told, I’m very pleased with my progress.
Unfortunately, psychologically speaking there’s a very human tendency to take a coping mechanism that works well in some situations, and apply it to ALL situations. My tendency is to feel that if I’m not in full control and taking direct action, I’m not accomplishing anything. On an intellectual level I know this is false, since many of the best things in my life seemed to come to me in ways that were seemingly unrelated (or even in spite of) any effort on my part. Obviously there are times when it’s beneficial to “get myself out of the way” and allow things to take their course without trying to micromanage. All the same, for me this mentality of iron fisted self-control has extended to areas where it’s not so productive, like meditation and manifestation. I’ve realized that what I do when I meditate is a lot like what I do when I shield — I found out that I could hold up a sort of mental barrier against straying thoughts, and set part of myself to maintain it while the rest blanks out. And sure, I can maintain a blank mind for a long time now, but it’s not very relaxed, and it’s very difficult for me to reach any deeper trance states required for more specialized exploration.
So it would seem now that I’ve learned how to be in control, the next step is to learn how to deliberately relinquish the need for control when it’s beneficial to do so. Something tells me this has been the biggest sticking point in my efforts to meditate, astral project, deliberately manifest good people and circumstances in my life, as well as recent efforts to establish a more reliable connection with my higher self (or any other source of higher help and guidance that’s interested, really). I’m sure whatever comes of this will find its way into future posts, but hopefully this one has brought some insight to anyone with similar struggles. 
–Palehorse
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