Knowing who we are and how we’re here is great, but let’s capitalize on that knowledge. Focusing on a fountain is a powerful and refreshing meditation.
For the most impact, first read One Moment in Time.
None of this is medical advice. Always follow the advice of your doctors.
The shape of a fountain
Just to set the stage a little, let’s briefly talk through how fountains even work. We’re not talking about drinking fountains here. The fountains that squirt upward for decoration are the visual we’re going for.
First, water is pressurized and forced through a pipe. As the water rushes through the pipe, the interior walls of the pipe are dictating the shape of the water. Finally, the pipe turns straight upward and ends abruptly. The water continues under its own momentum, but the walls of the pipe are no longer providing a constraint to the water flow or shape. It becomes a free surface.
At first, the water retains the shape of the pipe, but over a short distance, it swells outward. As the upward speed of the gushing water levels off, the outward expansion begins to dominate the motion. Eventually, the verticle component of the motion flips downward while outward expansion continues. Overall, the whole thing traces out a parabola-like shape rotated around a vertical axis.
Lovely smooth surface
For certain fountain types and water pressures, this produces a very smooth surface. Our focus is the topmost surface. While the surface appears smooth and relatively static, the stream of water creating this surface is in constant motion. Constantly replaced. Always refreshed from moment to moment.
This surface could exist perfectly and forever as long as the water keeps flowing. We would need water to keep flowing and for nobody to stick their thumb into the free surface.
Gimpy deformed surface
You know it’s gonna happen. Somebody’s going to walk over and stick their thumb in the fountain. What happens then?
The fountain surface kind of slouches over and maybe looks a little sickly. It becomes asymmetric. Kind of gimpy. Of course, it depends on how far into the water stream the darn kids are restricting the flow. A little resistance gives a very slight deformation, but a significant constriction of the flow destroys the shape of the fountain entirely.
Then what? Regardless of how bad things just got, the moment the resistance goes away, the fountain springs back up to perfect shape again. In a moment, it’s again brand new. It’s always recreated perfectly in every moment in the absence of resistance.
But what if the resistance never goes away? Maybe if the fountain gets so sickly looking for long enough, they might pull the plug on the whole thing from somewhere upstream. I mean, what’s the point if we’re going to restrict the flow this substantially going forward?
You are constantly refreshing
Very analogous to the fountain surface described above, we are recreated over a billion times every second. All of our physical building blocks, over and over. All the time. This was much of the topic of our recent One Moment in Time post.
Just as a water fountain in 3-dimensional space produces a seemingly static 2-dimensional surface, our inner beings in their higher dimensional existence create our 3-dimensional forms. The process of making you is only more complicated because the resulting human structure is also more complicated. The analogy, however, is a powerful one. And it’s much easier for us to visualize!
Not to be a downer, but there’s another useful aspect here. Our negative beliefs will constrict the flow. Perfectly analogous to sticking our thumbs in the water flow, our resistance constricts the projection of our perfectly healthy physical selves into this 3-dimensional world. Resistance will produce deformations of any number of shapes. The permanence of the resistance determines the permanence of the deformation. Unfortunately, once something is seen as deformed in the “real world,” it’s hard for us to know otherwise, and because of this, it tends to stay deformed.
Letting go of unproductive beliefs is a big topic, but let’s take a brief vacation to the destination.
The refreshing meditation
Meditation, as we’ve seen, is useful for many reasons. While yes, it is better to consciously work our way toward the better feeling end of all topics, sometimes, it’s helpful to sit in neutral for a while. When our default thought processes are sufficiently misaligned, clearing the mind is the easiest way to go. Thinking no thoughts is far easier than bucking the trend when the train of thought has gotten too far out of whack.
As a variation of the standard clear-minded meditation, let’s instead quietly visualize a fountain. Not just any fountain; this should be a refreshing meditation after all. Imagine you’re the lovely smooth fountain surface that’s recreated in every moment with no resistance.
Try to feel your cells being refreshed. Imagine the completely free-flowing energy (or water) that creates you. Completely unrestricted. All your limiting beliefs have already been removed. Perfect free flow.
It’s trivial for your inner being to keep this up forever. Refreshed and renewed a billion times every second. Every moment, you are literally recreated according to the perfect image held by your inner being.
After just a few minutes of that, your entire body might feel like it’s vibrating. Are your teeth buzzing a little? This is our refreshing meditation.
More than just a refreshing meditation
This also practices a very refreshing belief. With enough practice, you’ll groove the thought process of constant renewal. As you get used to the idea that you’re recreated over a billion times every second, what will age even mean? Aging in general will start to feel like a silly concept born out of some pretty clueless rules.
The idea of health problems in yourself and others will become equally silly. How can any disease appear in such a short amount of time before the next refresh? Even if does, wouldn’t your inner being leave it out of the next free-flowing refresh?
With this understanding, any health condition, whether desirable or undesirable, is little more than useful information. Deformations show where the thumb got stuck.
If this has been useful for you, consider sharing your refreshing meditation experience in the comments!
