Imagine you are an architect, who has struggled with some details of a particular design project for many months. The right shapes, contours and alignment of elements are proving elusive. Suddenly, it comes to you: the perfect, elegant solution. You feel compelled to draw your design this moment, or else you fear the inspiration may fly away and not return.
As it happens, you are riding in the back seat of a car, so you will have to draw your design the old-fashioned way – on paper, with pen and pencil. Fortunately, you have with you a flat drawing board, paper, pens, ruler, setsquare and compass. You are set to start, but you cannot draw a single line.
Why? You are driving on a winding, bumpy road, and the careening car is causing your drawing board to slide erratically on your bouncing knee. You request the driver to slow down but it makes no difference: the slightest movement of the board ruins your attempt.
For the still workspace you need, the car must be brought to a complete stop.
The car is our roaming mind, which habitually interrupts and distracts us whenever we try to receive, hold or express inspiration. So much creative potential is lost like water down the drain because our mind, which should be our ally in our creative efforts, stymies our endeavour due to its restlessness and incapacity to hold itself still for even a moment. Stop the car of your mind. Completely. Then, in focused stillness, record your inspiration.
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Meditation is an eternal moment, beyond time and space. Time and space are products of our mind, spun from perceptions and concepts. Only when our mind is still and silent, can we step beyond time and space, into meditation.