Meditation Secrets Revealed

Everyone knows that people are strange, but sometimes that strangeness comes out in such beautiful and unique ways that it inspires one to want to share it with others. While passing an intersection one day I saw a man standing on the corner holding up a big sign. The sign read, “You Are Perfect” and the man holding the sign had a big smile on his face. He was clearly enjoying himself and unlike many people I see with signs wanting a handout or advertising something, he wanted nothing at all. He was simply there to spread this message and make people feel good. Passing him by, I could not help but smile. I would not be surprised if that sign made many people slow down just a bit, think just a little deeper, and perhaps even smile.

Like a gardener planting seeds to eventually sprout into plants, this man is planting a thought seed that we are all perfect and that so much of the stress in our lives comes from self- induced desire to compare, strive, and fight to achieve something better. If only we could take a little time each day to contemplate the meaning of, “You Are Perfect”. But who is this you that is perfect? Is the body perfect? No certainly not, there are aches and pains, things break and despite our best efforts the body is bound to change, grow older and eventually decay. So is the personality perfect? We all have our insecurities, our weaknesses, our faults and all those strange quirky things that we do that make each person so unique and individual.

What is left of the “You” then? If we look at the above statement through the eyes of Yoga, we can talk about the you that is perfect as something that is ever constant – the unchanging self which is within all of us. After all, the full aim of Yoga – from the root word to yoke or join – can be interpreted as the joining the individual “you” with the cosmic “YOU”. The individual “you” is compromised of memories, feelings, sensory perceptions. On a conscious and sub-conscious level it manifests in our habits and our character.

The big “YOU” is the spirit within, it is the real you and it is changeless and timeless, always present in the now. Maybe, that man standing on the corner was simply reminding us that it is the big “YOU” that is perfect. Since it is a part of you and within you, it is available always for you to experience. To remember that truth and look within for it is spiritual practice. This is meditation, this is Yoga. To touch that truth within is to experience bliss, event if only for a moment. Once that stillness and peace is felt, we begin to yearn and desire for another taste. Having tasted an intoxicating fruit, we hunger for another bite. This desire is the drive and the fire which propels us towards a spiritual life.

May we all one day remember and dwell in the experience of this bliss. To know this is to truly know that “You Are Perfect.” May we all reach perfection not through striving, not through struggling, but through discrimination, dispassion, non-attachment, and a keen mental sharpness. Ask yourself these words, “What am I becoming, and what is the world asking me to become?”

A short video about the man with the sign. His name is Benjamin Smythe and you can find his website here!

Just as it is easy to see the purity in a newborn, so it is easy to see the goodness in a smile.

Farm more difficult is the gift to look upon a dark face filled with contempt, fear, or suffering and see the purity deep within.

Yes it is there.

Yes it is hidden.

Yes, there is always the infinite potential to reach it.

Take people as they are, but show them what they can truly become.

When I look upon a child I can see the old body they will inevitably inhabit.

When I see the old, I see the child that once was.

Yet through their form may differ, I can look past it and see spirit within.

It is to this spirit that I offer my smile, that I offer my helping hand, that I offer my love.