In This Episode…

“As we get deeper into it, we begin to realize that the real benefits of meditation ultimately transcend any of our personal wants, needs, and desires and we’re really awakening and evolving as part of a greater process that’s happening in consciousness and in life and in the cosmos. The real benefits are for the whole.” –Craig Hamilton

In this episode, Craig dives into the heart of this apparent paradox, inviting us to discover for ourselves what it means to meditate without any agenda whatsoever. During this 20-minute guided inquiry and meditation, he asks us to consider, “why does wanting something become an obstacle in meditation, and what would it be like to give ourselves to the meditation for its own sake, wanting nothing in return?” Then, he guides us into an experience of the freedom and fullness that comes from not needing anything at all.  

If you haven’t already, we also encourage you to tune in to our previous episode, The Life-Changing Power of Letting Go: Part One, in which Craig creates a powerful, evolutionary context for this practice, illuminating how letting go of wanting can connect us to a deeper imperative to evolve for the greatest good.

If you’re interested in exploring more of Craig’s meditation experiments, you’re invited to tune in to a 90-minute online workshop Craig will be hosting called Meditation 2.0 – The Miracle of Direct Awakening. Register for free at FreeMeditationWorkshop.com.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Craig Hamilton: I want to invite you here at the beginning of the meditation to let go of wanting or needing anything from the meditation itself. And what I mean specifically is wanting to have any kind of special experience of the meditation, wanting to feel some result from the meditation personally. 

We often, if not always, come to meditation with some expectation of some benefit we’re going to get from it. And although meditation does bring us tremendous benefits, it’s often not in the way we expect, or on the timeline that we’ve set for it. 

As we get deeper into it, we begin to realize that the real benefits of meditation ultimately transcend any of our personal wants, needs, and desires and we’re really awakening and evolving as part of a greater process that’s happening in consciousness and in life and in the cosmos. The real benefits are for the whole.

We sort of receive personal benefits almost as unintended consequence, or a sort of side benefit. It’s not really the main event. 

So coming to meditation, wanting something, trying to have a certain experience or experience a certain benefit, it really just gets in the way of the true possibility of awakening, beyond all that.

Throughout this meditation, I invite you to relinquish wanting anything from the meditation. Needing anything from the meditation, having any expectation that meditation will bring you something, some prize to keep.

Allow yourself to come to the meditation empty handed here, metaphorically, with your hands open, your palms up, not trying to grasp anything or get anything.

Feel right now the simple openness and innocence of this posture of wanting nothing from the meditation, and let’s allow that to be our first step into meditation. 

I’m just sitting here with no expectation, no demands being placed. Bringing my full presence and attention, my full heart, my whole being to this moment, but wanting nothing in return, demanding nothing back.

Notice how this posture of not wanting anything from your meditation frees you to simply be here without holding on, without grasping on to experiences that arise.  

This posture of not wanting or needing anything therefore means we don’t need our experience to be any different than it is right now. If our experience seems very ordinary, boring or unpleasant, we don’t need that to change. We’re fine with it.

We’re not demanding life make us happy right now or life make us feel peaceful.

And yet if we are feeling peaceful and we are feeling happy, we’re having a very positive experience of the meditation, because we’re not wanting anything from it, we’re not trying to hold on to those positive states that come and go. We’re just available to be happy or available to be unhappy on the surface. We’re available for whatever arises. But we’re not grasping on and we’re not pushing anything away, we’re not trying to force anything to happen to give us what we want. 

We are letting life flow from one thing to the next. Letting it flow through us, letting our experience flow through our hands like sand running through our fingers, not holding on to any of it.

Wanting nothing means allowing yourself to rest in a place that is already content, that already is complete. There is a part of you that wants or needs nothing from this world to be whole, to be full, to be at peace. This fundamental wholeness, this fullness, this completeness is who you already are, it’s what’s already true. 

We are simply practicing, abiding, in this wholeness that wants nothing.

If we want nothing, we’re already free.

We’re already full, already whole.

Allow yourself the freedom of needing nothing other than what is.

I now want to invite you to gently let go of the meditation.

Notice the quality of your consciousness, the gift of embodiment, and allow this meditation to flow into your life in whatever way it does naturally. 

Thank you.