Some background context before the story: I was in my first year of college, my family had been evicted for the first time, and I was in a rocky relationship. It was a time of a lot of stress and isolation.
Every evening, there was a meditation session from 9pm to 10pm at my college. I saw the flyer for the meditation session when I left a business club meeting and decided to give it a try. I was exhausted, feeling hungry and dragging my feet. I was surprised when I found the room for meditation.
The corridor looked dark and felt similar to walking into a fortune teller's shop. Past the corridor, there was a sleek floor made out of bamboo, the room was dimly lit by warm light that bounced off of green glass along the wall. There was only four people in this session. Our instructor welcomed us and asked us to each get a mat to start. The instructor explained that we were about to do three Mantras and he took out an instrument to play during the session.
The first Mantra, was about letting all of our thoughts just flow as if you were standing in the middle of a street and just letting cars pass by. After the first Mantra we were given a white sheet of paper to dump almost every thought we payed attention to.
In the Second Mantra we focused on all of the thoughts we wrote down. I noticed myself thinking mostly about how "Successful" I wanted to be and didn't know the root of that thought at the time. I guess I was young and didn't really know how to reflect about things yet.
Lastly, the third Mantra was about what we were grateful for.
After the session the instructor looked at me, asked for my name, and then said "when I snap my fingers I want you to quickly answer me who you are."
snap
I was paralyzed. I didn't know what to say. I felt this deep sense of confusion, emptiness, and sadness.
The instructor proceeded and said "your soul knows exactly who you are. It is our ego that fogs up our soul. The ego is that sheet of white paper. It is how you want to perceive yourself and how you want others to perceive you."
The instructor was right, I did know myself but let myself go for the "successful Brian". It was strange letting go of all my accomplishments to follow my path of film and to live a life I am proud of. Always try to kill the ego and give yourself time to learn more about yourself. That is what I learned from this experience.
After that day I got an idea of a film about meditation that I will share bellow.
