The sun is an incredible source of bountiful energy. But very few organisms are able to convert sunlight into a reliable source of energy.
Bacteria, algae, and plants all take in sunlight and through photosynthesis convert it into oxygen and sugar. They use the sugar as food and release the oxygen as a by-product.
This gift of oxygen is a boon for many organisms including one of our favorites: human beings. Without the generosity of the oxygen making bacteria and plants, we oxygen addicted humans wouldn’t exist.
So thanks plants.
It would be great if we humans could get all our energy directly from the sun. Imagine spending all day luxuriating in the sun and feeling refreshed and energized without eating anything else? Imagine doing this not just on a beach holiday but every single day of our lives. Alas, we’re more likely to get sun stroke or skin cancer doing too much sun bathing. We’re not made of chlorophyll so getting energy from the sun is a no go.
Or is it?
Here’s the thing, by applying our scientific ingenuity and persistence we chlorophyll lacking humans have gotten energy from the sun. We’ve done this by using solar panels which are sunlight converting energy cells. The sun sends earthward thousands of times the energy humanity needs on any particular day. We’ve barely dipped our toes into this ocean of energy but we did the seemingly impossible. We used our imagination and intelligence in the form of science to do something that we couldn’t do biologically.
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Ideally that’s what meditation should do.
We have to apply all our ingenuity and our persistence and our imagination to our meditation practice. It’s a long, hard road. But the destination is worth it.
By learning the science behind ancient meditation techniques we can learn to convert the hardship of exisitence, the stress of responsibiities, the demands of our day to day living into something useful – energy to improve our own lives and perhaps make the world a little better.
