Blog 260 – Using Meditation to Leave The Pit, Part 1 – 24 May 2025

In Blog 259 I talked about the physical aspects of meditating – how I do it and what things I find useful in helping me slow down the river of thoughts racing through my brain.

In this Blog, I will talk about yoga and why I started yoga

You probably see yoga as an exercise regime, but although yoga is indeed in a practical sense, an exercise regime, yoga is not really an exercise regime.

Yoga is a set of physical exercises designed to help you meditate.

The principal aim of yoga is to provide people with a set of physical exercises that will help them to slow down the river of thoughts that races through their brains.

The most important aspect of yoga is not the physical fitness that you can derive from yoga, although yoga will certainly improve your physical fitness.

The most important aspect of yoga is that it provides a set of exercises which strengthen your ability to focus on the yoga exercises.  By focusing on the yoga exercises, you discover that a great many of the other chaotic thoughts generated by the river of thoughts, disappear.

When you control the river of chaotic thoughts rushing through your brain, you are meditating. 

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Drink this purpose deeply inside you.

My purpose is to give hope to those who have lost hope. Without hope, we remain lost in the Shadow Lands.

When I set out my purpose, I am trying to tell you something important about me.

I am not trying to sell you anything.  Selling can wait.

This is the 260^th Blog I have written and I have not tried to sell you anything in any of the previous 259 Blogs.

I am giving you information I have put together over a lifetime and I have done this for zero price.

I have done this because I want to give you hope.

I want you to know there is hope and that there is no padlock on what you think is the cell you are locked up in.

There is no padlock and there is no cell.

All you need to do is walk away … and I am trying to show you how to do that.  Follow my steps and walk away.

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Ten years before she cancelled me, Ann was one of my favourite people.  On 7 March 2011 in Western Australia, she was wearing my hat.  Perhaps one day, Ann will stop being frightened by the existence of deadly diseases like cancer, learn how to meditate and walk out of the Pit of Depression.  When she does, she might stop disliking herself and remind those around her of the woman they used to know.

Walk out of the Pit, Ann.  Do it for your sake and for Margaret’s sake.  Stop hating yourself and stop being so frightened.

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This character liked the environment of the Pemberton Tree.  He stayed still long enough for me to take many photos.  This one was taken only a few metres from the Pemberton Tree.

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This is a photo of Preston Beach.  It is adjacent to Yalgorup National Park, to the south of Perth in Western Australia; I took this photo on 12 March 2011

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Another photo of Preston Beach, south of Perth.  The coast of Western Australia has many, many miles of beaches that are all just as unspoiled as this one.

I took this photo on 12 March 2011.

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I had open heart surgery on 20 November 2018.  My surgeon was James Edwards.  After he had used a chain saw to cut through the ribs of my chest and gain access to my heart, Dr Edwards fitted my heart with something called an Annuloplasty Ring.  The ring repaired my heart valve.  My heart valve was leaking and blood that was supposed to be circulating through my body, kept flooding backwards instead of going forward to give me the oxygen I needed to stay alive in the long term.  While he was having a close up look at my heart, Dr Edwards noticed that three of my arteries – pipes that feed blood around the body, had become too narrow, so he also gave me three arterial bypasses.

What is the relevance of my Chain Saw Operation to yoga?

I had my very first yoga class on the first Monday in February 2019 - 4 February 2019.  the class was precisely 10 weeks after I had my open heart surgery.

I was still very sore all over my body.

I had this long wound running down the front of my body and if I sneezed too vigorously – which I did a lot – I was in danger of having bits of me explode all over the inside of my shirt.

I did gentle yoga at that stage because I was barely able to do anything.

I did yoga because someone had told me that it would help me with my meditation.

Why did I so badly want help with my meditation? 

When I was in the Intensive Care Unit for the three nights after the heart surgery, I was in horrendous pain that the pain killers had little impact on.  The only thing that helped me stay alive in ICU was meditation.  I would struggle my way through the very long hours of darkness by meditating.

No one can feel your pain except you.  I was so very alone.

Only you have the ability to make the pain recede into a bottomless drain hole leading into the next universe.

I had to make the pain disappear down the drain hole into the next universe.

If I did not succeed in making the pain go down the drain, I was going to die.

And I definitely did not want to die.

I had been offered the option of dying during the operation but rejected it.  I somehow knew a semi-trailer load of awfulness was heading straight down the highway right at Margaret and I could not let her face it alone. 

So I meditated the pain down the drain hole to stay alive.

I stayed alive because Margaret was going to need me very, very soon.

When I got the chance to learn yoga and meditate better, I grabbed it.

Yoga meant I could get better quicker, and be stronger faster.

I had to get better fast, because when I was being offered an easy death during the operation, I was given some hints about what was in store for Margaret.

She was going to REALLY need me soon.

Very soon after I started yoga, I became grateful that I had started.

The sh*t sandwiches soon started flying everywhere.

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I will tell you more tomorrow, mostly about yoga and meditation.