Holidays aren't just for "the holidays"

Don’t get me wrong…. holidays are awesome. 

As I write this, I’m at the airport in Bali having played a gig here last night. It’s the morning of Christmas Eve, smack bang in the middle of what the Americans call “the holidays” and what the Aussies call the “Chrissy break” and it got me thinking….what is a holiday? *

Is it a trip to a magical, far off land full of wonder and surprise? Or a day on the couch full of sport and take away food, free of emails and work? Or a little trip up the coast, a favourite place you go every year? 

In all cases, I imagine it to be a break from the ever repeating known that might otherwise charchaterise everyday life.

But here’s the dilemma.

Whatever you do and wherever you go for your holidays, one thing you can’t do is take a break from your state of consciousness. 

Whether you go to the Maldives or Manly, your state of consciousness follows you everywhere. 

As Milton once said,

“The mind is its own place and in itself, may make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven, what matter where if I be the same.”

So if you have a state of consciousness governed by stress, soon enough, that state of being will appear, even on holidays.

Of course, you could try a few drinks or drugs, as a way of altering your state, but that will only be temporary, and  as anyone who’s tried this will know, there are repercussions for going places you don’t have the proper accreditation for.

So how do we get the accreditation, the badge of rank that allows us to make a heaven of hell, that enables us to break the monotony of the ever repeating known, even when we’re not going anywhere?

The answer is simple.

Vedic meditation is a twice daily break from our everyday thoughts that leads to a daily upgrade of our entire thought making process and therefore, how we see the world. A little trip, every morning, a little trip every afternoon, ensuring that even if we haven’t travelled for months, every day is a holiday.

*As I now press send on this, it’s the morning of Dec 27, that time of the year when you have no idea what day it is….tho as a meditator, I know there’ll be a couple of holidays today (well… I actually just had one already this morning).

Below - nothing like flying back into Sydney after a trip.