Over the past two decades, I have had the opportunity to meet thousands of people with whom I have shared the benefits of meditation. Among them, many have decided to go through a radical life change by changing their eating habits, relationships, sexual habits, jobs and dealing with life challenges. Thirty years ago I myself went through the same transformative process, which resulted in giving up my career at the college and rejecting many job offers.

Today in Italy there are millions of people going through this experience, so much so that it has given rise not only to the so-called “Yolo Economy,” but also to the “Passion Economy,” the tendency to take up a job no longer just for career or money, but to follow one’s passions. And knowing oneself is a foundational element.

So what drives such a profound choice and what can happen to follow it? Roberto Pagani, among the people I work with most often and who has studied and practiced meditation with me for about nine years, has been a business executive and strategic consultant to multinational corporations for more than 30 years. It was a rewarding, highly successful career, including travel, recognition and a life in the beating heart of London. However, the more his salary, awards and titles increased, the more the feeling of emptiness grew within him. Until a major bereavement led him to stop and look inside himself. From there he totally changed his life: he approached meditation and, thanks to it, was able to recognize the real direction to take.

More and more people are experiencing a feeling of deep disconnection from themselves and natural rhythms. Doctors, nurses, teachers, architects, office workers, managers, journalists … people who reach a certain point in their journey and simply become aware that that way of life no longer belongs to them. Lately it is happening more and more frequently among young people in their early twenties. Why?

Underlying the transformation process is an awareness of the level of disconnection in which one lives. Disconnected from oneself, from one’s real needs and desires, from nature and its cycles. Most of the desires we experience do not really belong to us and do not satisfy our deepest needs, but are the expression of market demands or family expectations, or even patterns created within society. We constantly want to escape from ourselves, and while we try to sustain the role we have created, the need to be loved, accepted and to be able to fit in the system, we also try to anesthetise ourselves, avoiding our wounds, insecurities, imperfections and frailties. But this is not life. It is a distorted idea of what it should be.

Thinking about it, there is an underlying distortion common to how human beings exploit animals in factory farms and how society enslaves people in a system devoted to profit and consumption. Lives entirely spent working inhumanely to produce things that others, working inhumanely, will buy. At this point I think it may be normal for someone to become aware from time to time that their life and the proposed models do not belong to them. It is not a matter of rejecting a system and boycotting it, but simply living consistently with what one feels one is deep down, with one’s vocation and uniqueness. This is why some people feel like stopping and starting to listen to themselves, rediscovering the values that give deep meaning to life, feeling connected with nature, in tune with the rhythms of life cycles and in deep contact with themselves and others in a more authentic, empathetic and compassionate way. This has happened to me on several occasions since the first major transformation.

Recently, then, I was asked this question, “If I devote time to myself and meditation, I feel like I am denying time to my family and feel guilty, how can I do that?” My answer brought attention to how meditative practice generates in us lucidity, well-being, listening, empathy, compassion, clarity and, most importantly, quality of our lives. We feel guilty creating a space of personal well-being because we do not reflect on how, instead, the resulting benefits are invaluable legacies to give to our loved ones. After a few months of practice, one may reconsider. We are, however, so addicted and dependent on unhealthy habits and toxic lifestyles, anger and frustration, that it seems impossible for us to change. That is why sometimes a radical transformation is necessary. Changing lives. The root of that desire is our true nature claiming its place in life. Will we have the courage to answer the call?

Daniel Lumera
From ilfattoquotidiano.it