As many of us know, if a computer or one of our electronic gadgets is slowing down or stalling, the easiest and oftentimes most effective way to get things working is to turn the darn thing off, then start it again; it’s called a reboot. Computer problems can stem from software stuck in a loop it can’t get out of, or the hardware interface is malfunctioning—so, restart the computer and voila, more times than not it fixes the problem!
The “software of your mind” can also get stuck in a continuous loop. Thinking, thinking, thinking, always thinking on some topic, some obsession, some object of desire or fear or simply an endless loop of a commercial jingle you heard (if you have ever been on Disneyland’s ride “It’s a Small World, ” then you will have been subjected to this kind of diabolical jingle/abuse programming! Anytime such a tune gets going in my head I sing Ram Nam to the tune to be deprogrammed. It almost always breaks the cyclic nature of the tune, and even if it doesn’t, I am still continuously singing the Name of God).
The body’s hardware can also get stuck in repeating cycles; tense muscles in the neck, jaw, eyes, back—well, anywhere you have muscles they can become tense and remain that way. Your blood pressure gets higher, digestive secretions secrete way too much—so many ways for the body-hardware to malfunction resulting in power drains, bloatware clogging and inflaming the operating systems, and even leading to catastrophic body failures.
A realignment of the body, mind and Spirit can reboot your system that makes for maximized operations. One of the simplest ways for doing this is your bi-daily meditation. You may begin your meditation with your thinking-software wasting mental computing power by looping certain thoughts, and your body-hardware being tense and out of sorts. Now, if you spend your entire meditation time simply stuck in these loops or thinking about what is going wrong in your body or your life, that is not meditation at all, and it will definitely not reboot your system.
To properly reboot your body and mind they must be turned off—you must have a significant shift during your meditation. In Kriya your life-force moves in a circuit through your spine and brain, in Hong-Sau and Ram Nam your mind is focused on the mantra. The result: your breathing is significantly slowed, you feel a release of tension from your body, and you enter into a quiet zone that not only slows your breathing, but your thinking transforms into pure witness awareness—you become the observer of all that is. A deeper breath, an even bigger release of tension and you enjoy surpassingly beautiful peace, the joy of Spirit bubbles up from a deep Source in you and you feel expansive—your system is now being rebooted.
Sometimes a computer problem can be solved with a quick restart, in meditation terms you take a few minutes during the day to reset your body-mind-Spirit system. Other times the computer needs a whole system shut down, then wait for some time for a cold restart—meditationally this means going deeper, soaring higher until you have the solution and freedom you are looking for. Reverend Jill is taking some months in silence now—when God gives you the opportunity and the prompting this can be a wonderfully deep reboot for your entire system.
It is not that simply spending more time in meditation results in progress, but there is something about extended meditations being required for going deeper. With increased time internal operating flaws are met and new downloaded code allows for higher planes of consciousness. It may not always be the fact that something “incredible” occurs, rather it may be a deepening of awareness and a groundedness in Spirit that is being established. During my year of silence and solitude an inner stillness was established in my heart-center that has stayed with me continuously, no matter the outer circumstances. Of course, with stillness there is no fear—there is only perfect trust and reliance upon God alone.
Now, to a computer engineer the circuitry of a mother board may look beautiful. However, that does not compare in the least with the beauty of the lotus-brain streaming with Light, a manifestation of the Divine Mother-board, and with inner-vision you also see the life-force flowing throughout the subtle body system. What elegance of design, with speeds surpassing that of electrons or even light—complete downloads at the rate of perfectly synced thought-transference.
So, whether it is a shorter meditational restart or a deeper complete shutdown, look for the signs that make you know you have had a successful reboot. Then you will maximize your body-mind workstation, wonderfully synchronized with God’s Mainframe Divine Consciousness.