I don't know much about transcending, angels, or heavenly visions.

The meditation that I know involves the single minded concentration that is spoken of in the traditional yogic system.

It is the feeling of being fully awake, perceptive, and focused.

Let me reiterate that using the traditional science of yoga, which is categorized by 8 'limbs', or stages of practices and masteries.

Asanas, or the contortionist postures that yoga is commonly known for, and the accompanying breathing exercises, comprise only the third and fourth limbs of yoga.

Meditation, as it it is widely practiced, is only the fifth limb, defined as the withdrawal of the senses inward.

So what are the other three?

Dharana: concentration, Dhyana: the uninterrupted flow of concentration, and Samadhi: union.

This process could be construed in one of two opposite ways. Is Samadhi or union solely an internal process as many seem to think? Is the divine only to be found within? Is the world at large a hindrance to some magical fairy land within, to be shut out and avoided at all costs, resulting in a hermetic life of perpetual bliss, angels, and heavenly visions?

I beg to differ.

As Carlos Castaneda writes in his highly disputed 'Anthropological' writings of the spiritual practices of ancient indigenous Mexico, a warrior approaches knowledge as one approaches war, "Fearful, wide awake, respectful, and fully assured".

After many years of devoting myself to the practices of Yoga in search of some magic utopia, perfecting the physical Asana postures to a very high (pretzel) degree, learning to stand on my head or sit motionless in meditation for an hour at a time, and even going so far as to incorporate the use of marijuana and renouncing worldly life to live a nomadic one - as the Sahdu's of the Himalayas have done, I have come to see just how clueless, self absorbed, and hypocritical our Western community of yogic and meditational practitioners really are.

Needless to say I was not regarded as a spiritual pioneer by them, but rather as a bum, and wasted several years of my life, in search of something that is a misperception of a foreign system of knowledge belonging to a culture that is very different from ours.

So what is my conclusion?

Interaction with the world is the playing field upon which our lives are made possible.

To be at one with our surroundings, to participate fully in our lives, giving it our full attention, concentration, and respect, is the only joy there is.