On the second day of my 3-day silent meditation retreat at the quirky Hridaya Yoga Centre in Mazunte, Mexico, my inner adventures took a turn for the surreal. First of all, I finally caught the “glowing football” in my mind that is my consciousness, only to accidentally dissolve it in a fountain of love. Then I faced-off against the most pleasantly sadistic torturer, our yoga teacher, who metaphorically stabbed me in the gut and then asked me to appreciate how it felt. After lunch, I almost ended my vow of silence prematurely in a fit of uncontrollable laughter when I learned that it’s apparently possible to have an orgasm in your heart.
Finally, I decided that the Hridaya Yoga philosophy is basically an entire religion founded on worshipping a feeling in your chest. I thought that was pretty absurd until I remembered that feelings are everything! When you think about it, emotions are the best part of life. They are what give our lives meaning and enjoyment, so worshipping them like a religion kind of makes sense.
Then I had an epiphany: God is a feeling! What we call God is probably just an instinctual emotion of awe, mystery, and universal connection that we all have the natural capacity to feel. But there’s a catch! Since our feelings are mostly rooted in beliefs, what if you can only feel the profound feeling that is God if you actually believe that there really is a God? That must be what they call faith, the ideological leap you need to make in order to feel something transcendent that actually just originates in your own chest.
My adventures in silence continue on Day 3.
