Meditation—Listening to the Universe
Recommended Pre-Read: Prayer — Talking To The Universe
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There is so much noise in this life.
Noise from the outside world, noise from our responsibilities, noise from the anxious tangle of thoughts inside our heads. And that’s what we acknowledge. There is also so much energy noise and dissonance, energy being clouded or sharpened as if to attack. Many people believe meditation is about silencing all of it by quieting the mind completely. And for some, that is true. But the truth is, there are many forms of meditation, which one you choose depends entirely on what you seek.
As an anxious person, I used to believe meditation meant shutting my mind down — flipping a switch into silence. That is a challenge and a devoted practice. My mind is a thought machine. The more I thought about my thoughts, the more I thought. The more I tried to quiet my mind, the louder it became.
At first I became discouraged, then determined. I found myself swimming afloat among thoughts that caught in energetic tides. And I wondered if for someone attuned to energy disturbances like me, maybe it wasn’t silence I needed. So I slowed down not to stillness, but to listen and attune and I found what I actually needed.
It was presence.
With every inhale, I connected to my heart.
With every exhale, I softened into my body.
And then, instead of focusing on the silencing what lay within, I listened outward, beyond the veil of ordinary senses. I sat at the edge of the veil, where silence is illusive and then th veil began to thin and I attuned to the quiet hum of life itself. In that space, I didn’t hear “nothing.” I heard the energy of the trees. I heard the buzz of life-force in the silence.
I heard the heartbeat of the universe.
The Turning Point: My Staring Contest with the Darkness
After my mother passed in 2018, my world unraveled. I fell into deep darkness, and I found myself locked in what I can only describe as a staring contest with the void.
I had once heard the saying: “If you stare into the darkness, the darkness will stare back at you.”
And if the darkness had my mother, I would confront it, so I sat at the edge of darkness staring into the void, challenging it to stare back at me. And it did.
I don’t know why, but I refused to look away. At first, basic fears surfaced: those of the dark, of the unknown, of death itself. Confronting death conjured the monsters of my imagination to crawl into view. I stayed, afraid but unwavered, like I was holding vigil waiting for my mom to be released. Phantoms of evil spirits cloaked in shadow seemed to dance at the edge of my vision. And still, I held my gaze.
It wasn’t courage, not exactly. It was instinct. I knew, somehow, that if I blinked—if I fled—I would lose something essential. I cannot explain to you what happened fully. I don’t have neat answers or words to describe my experience, but when I held my gaze, when I refused to flinch, I crossed into something beyond fear, beyond the imagined monsters, beyond my grief.
It wasn’t a monster waiting for me in the dark, it was the edge of knowing. Not knowledge like reading a book and collecting facts, instead this was the presence of something older, something unnameable, something “alive.” It was what I believe to be the veil.
And then — as if a door had unlocked — my dreams changed. I dreamt of my mother— often. I began to feel her presence while I went about my day, I felt her in the silence between moments. I saw signs and synchronicities. And then, I even heard her voice — and even my uncle’s voice — clear as day, as if they were in the room with me.
I do not fully understand this. I don’t pretend to. Even the skeptic in me is citing my overactive imagination combined with grief hallucinations. But I know this: there is something on the other side of fear, something on the other side of noise, something waiting for us to tune in and deeply listen.
Meditation Is Not Just Quieting the Mind — It’s Listening Beyond
Meditation isn’t just a practice of stillness—it’s a practice of attention. Meditation encompasses many practices, it is not just about wrestling your mind into silence. It is about softening the flood of everyday noise so you can listen to what lies beneath it. Because honestly, when you understand the universe, you know there is no such thing as absolute stillness. Stillness is an illusion, constructed of a falsehood. Meditation is about becoming present enough to hear the quiet hum beneath the clamor.
And when you do — you may begin to hear things you never thought possible:
• The whisper of the trees.
• The subtle signals of the universe.
• The voices of those who have passed, reminding you that you are never alone.
Stillness isn’t the goal. There is wisdom beyond the stillness, because you have attuned yourself to listen beyond the noise. True meditation isn’t empty—it’s full of the quiet hum beneath it all. Because you are not trying to block the world out—you are opening to what moves beneath it.
Gentle Invitations for Your Practice:
There is no rulebook for the perfect mediation. Just see what works for you.
1. Let go of the idea of “perfect” silence: thoughts will arise. Let them pass like clouds.
2. Focus on your body, not just your mind: your breath, your heartbeat, your senses can anchor you.
3. Listen outward: imagine the breath between seconds, pull a part time like a string of tangled yarn. Listen to the energy of the room, the trees outside. Listen beyond what you expect.
4. Welcome what arises: even if fear comes, meet it with steady eyes.
5. Trust the conversation: you may not understand or rationalize everything, but accept the message with grace.
An Attuned Presence
Presence is more than just being in the room. It is the art of inhabiting a moment fully. Attunement is how we drop beneath surface awareness and begin to perceive the world as it truly is—not as we have been made to believe.
When we attune, we begin to notice the subtle shifts in energy—the quiet beneath the noise, the feeling in the room that has no words, the way our body responds before our mind can make sense of it. This awareness is how we come into communion with life around us.
And perhaps most beautifully: when we attune, we remember that we are not separate from the universe, but part of it. We feel the thread that connects our breath to the wind, our grief to the tides of oceans, our joy to the humming of the stars. We begin to sense life not as a series of tasks, but as a symphony—a weaving of frequency, feeling, and flow.
In this space, even in stillness, we are never alone.
We are in conversation—with mystery, with memory, with the more-than-visible.
And that is where meditation becomes more than a practice.
It becomes a portal