The 3.30am Blog

Nature’s call at 3.20am, woke me up from a pretty peaceful sleep. Coming back to bed I thought I would dive straight back into my serene slumber. But, after a 10 minute intense tussle between my mind and my body, I realised I was rather done with my sleep for the night. My body felt well rested and my mind pretty fresh. Awake and fresh at 3.30am, I decided not to fight my way back to sleep and rather do something better with this time.

At 3.30am, if you decide not to sleep, what do you really do? I know you may have so many options cross your mind right now. But in the moment, I could only think about this interesting article I had once heard, ‘significance of meditating at 3.30am’.

Yes! You read that right. From a very limited pool of knowledge that I have gathered on this topic so far, I can tell you why I find it so intriguing and why this was the first thought that crossed my mind.

But, before I dive in, here’s something about me that might help you relate, to this post and to the future posts in this series – I’m a believer in making! I believe in many things that possibly exist in this universe, spirituality being one of them. I believe in a higher power, and I strongly believe in the power within. I believe we all can understand the reason for our existence a little better. I believe, if we try a little harder, we can probably learn to harness the energy that lies within us and create something bigger and better from our existence. But, all of it for now is ‘in making’. Because, all of it right now is only a theory in my head. I have never actually realised any of it. I have never actually experienced any of what I just said. So what do I know what any of it really means. But, I have a very deep rooted curiosity about this topic and a very strong drive to one day understand it. So consciously, or sub consciously, I feel my mind keeps bringing me to these thoughts, prompting me to explore the unknown that I am so vastly interested in.

Now that you know what I somewhat feel about our lives in general, I think you’ll better understand why I felt ‘meditating at 3.30am’ was the best way to utilise this time!

Now let me give you some more facts about it.

My very limited reading on this topic told me a few things that I find super intriguing:

1. 3.30am to 5.30am is a very auspicious time from a cosmic point of view. Don’t ask me what that is. I’ll read more about it and get back to you. But, for now, just know that it’s supposed to be a very powerful moment. It’s called Brahma-muhurta! Brahma is the creator according to Hindu mythology. So, at least the name suggests, this time slot should do something on the lines of creation, like support creation, or enhance creation, may be. And this creation can be of anything. Even yourself!

2. Brahma-muhurta starts from 3.30am and goes on till 5.30am. And if I remember what I read correctly, during this time our body usually connects with the higher energies or cosmic energies (energies from the universe) and is believed to be most benefitted by this energy transfer, that happens during this time. Interestingly, from what I recollect, it does not matter if you are awake or sleeping, it does not matter whether or not we are aware of it, it still happens!

3. So, if this time slot is so significant for your personal growth, why wouldn’t you consciously utilize it to create yourself! That I believe is the whole point of ‘meditating during Brahma-muhurta’. I’ve heard this a couple of times now that if you find a way to meditate between this 3.30am and 4.30am, you are bound to have some blissful experiences. What kind now, I have no clue. But, I’m surely excited to find out. So kindly, ignore my ignorance. It’s only my first time meditating at 3.30am.

Keeping all of the above in mind, I decided to utilise my waking at this very hour and my body’s surprising contentment with sleep, for the coveted experience – meditation!

Here goes my meditation experience from day 1.

For starters, I simply decided to sit in a comfortable position (right there on my bed), close my eyes and try to stay physically still!

I once read, your mind is very mischievous. It loves to wander. While you may want to feel you are the Master of it, it is usually the one controlling you. So, objective one of my meditation journey naturally felt like mastering this art. I know it sounds too perfect, too far-fetched and pretty unreal. But, honestly, (forget controlling) even if I can somehow begin to become aware of my mind and its many mischeives, I may be able to tap into the possibility of one day controlling it. Believe me when I say this, understanding of time, space and our existence may be a huge feat. But, Awareness is a low lying fruit that we must all aspire for. (Intense! If you understand it!)

For all those who are still wondering what am I talking about… Have you not watched the movie Lucy or Dr Strange yet? C’mon.. give me a break. Let’s do this!

To begin, instead of setting an alarm for 30 minutes or an hour (like I usually do), I started the stopwatch, just to see how far I can go without moving. Easy! Baby steps! Wonderous how little things can make a big difference! I didn’t want to make it a 30 minute exercise. Instead, I wanted to make it an experience, for however long it lasts.

So I did that! Next, Sat there on my bed covered up in the warmth of my fuzzy blanket, with a pillow supporting my back, my eyes closed, palms open, resting on my lap, no specific finger posture (or mudra). Just an easy, cozy and very comfortable position.

For the first few minutes/seconds (?) I was very aware about my posture. Did nothing but feel how still I was. In no time, I drifted into some random thoughts that my mind so swiftly swayed me into. How amazing am I going to feel when this is over! Am I really not sleepy? Will I feel sleepy later in the day? I must really be onto something here. How awesome am I doing right now… so on and so forth. Realising the distraction, I quickly got myself to focus back and concentrate on nothing. Just stay there and ensure I was not moving. Few more minutes of blank passed by before I got another thought. Why don’t I write about this? Why don’t i write about my meditation experiences. Should I make a diary of it? This is such a slow process. Why don’t i take daily notes. I may feel things that I may not remember later. Diary is a good way to capture these moments. Wait, don’t i already have a blog. This can really become a wonderful series on my blog. Woah.. something to look forward to! Ahem… Distraction alert! Soon as I realised it, I came back. Back to thinking nothing. Just sitting there staring at the black blank that was clearly visible behind my closed eyes. This continued for a while.

My mind would so effortlessly sway me to a random thought and I would flow with it like a twig in the river. No particular direction, not much resistance. But, through the whole time i was very proud of not moving myself a single bit. The only tiny movements that I registered were, everytime i had different thoughts, my facial muscles would move. I felt a certain stressed frown on my forehead everytime I came back from a series of random thoughts. And it took quite an effort to relax all the facial muscles and then not move them. That was my only physical struggle from today. I didn’t know how much time has passed. But, the way I planned it was, I’ll sit for as long as I can and only move when there was a very strong reason or urge to do so.

Funny what made me move. An uncontrollable urge to scratch my nose. It felt like there was a tiny fibre on it that was causing a massive urge to itch. God knows I tried so hard not to give in. But, few seconds max and I had to move. How happy I was to finally scratch my nose. And that’s when I opened my eyes and stopped the timer. For the record, I went on for 37 minutes 48 seconds. Here’s the screenshot of the stopwatch. Amazing, really! I didn’t think so much time has gone by. I honestly felt I would not have gone a second beyond 20 minutes. But to last for almost double the time gave me a humongous rush of positivity. Day 1, well done!

Quickly captured this and posting it out as a start my day!

Good morning y’all! Hope you all have a great day ahead!

I strongly feel, you must always start any new journey with the least resistance path. Do what comes naturally to you and not what people before you may have done. Just do what feels right for you, and do it with utmost ease. The more you ease yourself into the process, the farther you will go. And the more you create your own path, the more novel your results will be.

~suchita@mylifediariez~

I’ll definitely continue to meditate and share with you anything that’s worth capturing. I would also love to hear about any of your experiences in the comments below. Do try it if you haven’t ever. It’s a pretty calming experience!