Meditation

Writing my PhD was an intense experience in which I meditated on how some things worked and how they did not. I meditated on what was intended and what was being achieved - what the gaps were, and what were their causes. And a cause is key to a solution. 

At times, I could not sleep for days at end, finding nothing. And when, out of sheer exhaustion, my consciousness slipped away,
a certain other consciousness let me dream with such clarity that I remembered the dreams ever so clearly that I could reproduce them. 

Those were the times when consciousness permeated the walls between sleep and being awake, the only difference between the two being their physical manifestations. And those were empowering, moments in which my being could no longer be taken hostage by the base desires of physical pleasures. In those moments, food, drink, shelter and clothing - all of which I enjoyed - were but mere means to an intangible end of being alive in every moment - which i enjoyed much more.

Meditation is no ritual - rituals do not make you alive.