Two Benefits of Meditation in Public Spaces

Christopher Lowman
Moving Towards Peace

I. This is most important. Your need for approval gets put in the crosshairs.

And it needs to be if you are serious about mastery, which is to say, serious about entering into a state of fearlessness or easiness—however you want to look at it—where there is zero hesitation about externalizing the inner movement you feel to do or say something, often in the presence of others.

Most of the time your split-second calculation about how others will react if you act on your impulse will dilute or alter the movement or the words.

This is self censoring.

You’re trying to manage how others will react to you and doing so is a survival (literally) mechanism to keep from losing face and favor with your tribe. The irony though is that it’s self defeating.

When we hesitate, even for a millisecond, in front of others, we lose face—they can sense our fear. When we speak or act with 100% congruence and fearlessness that is when we truly have the power to gain approval (which we are not seeking anyway if we are acting in this fashion).

So you are meditating in a public space, maybe on a beach, and you are aware of people passing by. Probably even whispering about you, maybe even thinking judgmental thoughts like, “what a weirdo” or “who does he think he is?”

Who cares?

Question that literally. Who is this who that cares? Is it the real you? Or is it the personality that cares?

It’s the personality, the dancing clown that needs approval from the audience to validate that what it’s doing is OK.

It’s the personality that has to die for you to step into mastery.

As you sit there, letting those watching eyes scan you, make judgements, and so on, you let it be and don’t react. You move through any tension you might feel, any awkwardness or embarrassment. You’re in a public space. You have every right to be there. You aren’t breaking any laws.

Then you see that just like your thoughts, those people come, stay for a bit, then leave.

You’re still alive.

All the while you stayed centered, still, and unreactive.

You will carry this victory with you after rising from your seated position.

II. You will inspire others.

People will see you there sitting like a master, unmoved, unchanged in her environment, perfectly at ease and content and be reminded of something.

They will be reminded that they have gotten too entrenched in the world. They are spending too much time on nonsense. They have forgotten who they are.

Your vibration will be like a wake up call, your meditation will be an act of service.

As it is regardless.

Read more informative and inspiring articles by Christopher Lowman at his website MovingTowardsPeace.com