Response Ability

How someone behaves is simply a sign of their state of consciousness. How you respond is a sign of your own.

Response Ability

That's how I began to see the word "responsibility" after years of meditating.

When we stress, we react. The nervous system gets hijacked by a very primal and protective defense mechanism. When we're bereft of the energy needed to adapt, we have no choice when it comes to how we respond. A demand comes, the hijacking occurs, and we react.

Vedic Meditation is simply a way to give the body access to deep, efficient rest. The more well-rested we become, the more we find that we have options. With a steady supply of energy needed to adapt, we find that we have the power to choose how we respond.

And there's so much freedom in that, especially when it comes to interacting with others. The more grounded and adaptive we become through meditation, we find that we have an arsenal of relevant responses to any given situation. And as we move out of that reactive mode, the more we can spot it in others and simply understand where they're at; rather than getting caught up in their own reactivity. We no longer need to react to reaction. We're able to respond intelligently, creatively, and gracefully.

By becoming experts at responding, we are no longer victims of other people's behavior. How someone is behaving is a sign of where they're at. We show where we're at by being able to choose the most evolutionary response at any given moment.

There's so much freedom and power in being able to respond. Our practice is the best way to enhance our ability to do so.