When we meditate it is extremely easy to get off the path. This is due to several reasons, and one of the most common is resistance. Resistance divides us into aggressor and victim. The aggressor is our unconscious resistance, and the victim is the intention, or purpose, with which we identify.

Resistance consists of standing up and saying that you can't move, acting as if there really isn't anything to do about the situation in question, as if you are faced with an immovable obstacle, almost beyond human control. When you travel like this, you don't get very far.

If these exercises are so easy and so good, one may wonder why not everyone does them.

The reason is because they work. They bring us closer to the person with whom we find it most difficult to face, with us, and they change us.

Yes, but all those changes are just the observable things we've mentioned. They induce, in turn, deeper changes in the way we unconsciously think about ourselves and others, and in the way we pursue our goals. There may even be changes in our unconscious ideas about the nature of reality. In those cases it is much more than mere changes, it is transformations.

Once they have decided to meditate, many people are surprised at how difficult it is to pay attention to the practice. Although we are used to changing ideas quite freely, on rare occasions we change our underlying beliefs about ourselves or about the nature of reality. With those beliefs we often incur an ego inversion, are things that we accept without question and that we have always assumed to be true.

When we change them, the foundations of our world are shaken. Then our life takes on another meaning, we can have different desires and be virtually different people. These unconscious beliefs are also rooted in our convictions about what we must do to survive in this world. There is no doubt that we resist that process.

Resistance only has power over us to the extent that we are unaware of the fact that we do not resist and believe that we have a reasonable explanation for our behavior. To resist working we must be unaware of our true motivation. Once we understand that we don't do what we want because a small part of us is afraid, then we are ready to move on. Resistance, which, after all, requires intelligent elaboration, disguises itself in many ways.

We have at hand a fabulous variety of resistance techniques. If one tactic doesn't work, the unconscious can try another. The first step in resistance to meditation is usually taken even before we sit down. We hear each other with excuses like these:

I don't have time. Don't tell me you don't have ten minutes for yourself all day. If you really do, you shouldn't have your schedule well planned, but, above all, there is something wrong with your attitude towards yourself.

I don't think you know how to do it, in the same way that I don't think it will do me any good. The result is that I hadn't even tried to do it because I knew I could. I suggest you try it first and don't give up before you try it, I'm sure the result will be satisfactory.

The children may need me. It's possible, it's also possible that the phone rings or the world ends. And they may not need it, or at least enough to interrupt you. Unless you have an unconscious program that requires children to need you all the time, that idea that you don't have ten minutes for yourself throughout the day is certainly not reasonable or very realistic.

I'm too tired to meditate. Meditation can be given higher priority. Many people get up a little early to practice before doing anything else. They do so because they know that they will do everything else more lightly and effectively after they have meditated.

During the first days of meditation we can return to the resistances of the first level again and again. In fact, we can even hear some of the following in the mouths of people who have been practicing for a long time.

I can't keep my mind calm. Of course, we can't keep the mind quiet. If we could, we wouldn't need to meditate.

The purpose of the exercises is to learn to be calm and centered. If we could do it without having countless thoughts in our mind, we would live in a state of meditation and would not need to practice the exercises, except perhaps not to forget what we are supposed to be doing.

I have meditated for three days and I have not noticed any change. Here the key word is patience. There are few exercises or practices that produce noticeable changes in a few days, nor in a matter of weeks. There will also be those who say: I have been meditating for three and a half years and I have not noticed anything. It's practically impossible, nobody meditates for three years if they don't get anything useful. It is usually an excuse to quit, and it is likely that the reason to quit at that moment is the imminence of transformation.

We must also bear in mind that it is difficult to notice a gradual change in us. We can notice that, in a period of weeks or months, we begin to sleep better, to feel better, to have more energy, to see things more clearly, to be less tense. Sometimes others notice our changes before ourselves.

I'm too lazy or I'm not self-disciplined to do it. Self-discipline doesn't have to be developed. If we exercise it, it strengthens, like a muscle. The lack of self-discipline is not an excuse, it is a specification of a temporary and correctable condition.

This type of resistance only works if we believe that we are logical and reasonable. As soon as we admit that it is simply resistance, it crumbles, although it is possible that we then trigger the second level of resistance.

For almost all of us, the next line of defense is physical. The chair is uncomfortable, it is too hot or too cold in the room, we are sitting in an uncomfortable posture. Once again it is simply to recognize that it is a form of resistance. Then we can consider things for what they are, treat any real discomfort and continue with our meditation. Resistance can pass here or pass to the third level.

The third level is. I don't know if I've turned off the kitchen gas. I don't remember disconnecting the phone, etc.

The degree of resistance we experience depends largely on how close we are to the inner transformation.

The closer we are to recognizing and changing one of these inner guidelines, the more tenacious the resistance that the unconscious and pre-programmed parts of us can be. This explains why we experience such great variations in the strength of resistance, and also, in contrast, why it is so important to persist in practice despite that resistance.

The real key to recognizing resistance lies in being aware that any reason not to meditate is resistance, however reasonable it may seem. If one has decided to do so and does not do so, a part of whether one resists. It is up to each one to follow or not.

A lot of Hugs..