This is a transcript from our podcast episode with Jesper Westmark about meditation, consciousness and healing.

Axel Wennhall
Hi and welcome to the podcast Meditera Mera, which in direct translation means meditate more with me, Axel Wennhall, and Gustav Nord. This is a podcast made by the Swedish meditation app, Mindfully. Right now, we are on the Swedish countryside outside Lammhult at a place called Sjövik to meet our next guest, the Danish meditation teacher Jesper Westmark. Jesper Westmark has been working with meditation and trauma therapy for more than 20 years. At his country house Sjövik in Sweden, he’s facilitating a lot of retreats focused on meditation, nature, calmness, community, and on getting back home to yourself. His philosophy is that meditation is all about awakening yourself, and everybody can learn to do it, according to him. In his retreats, his main focus is helping participants getting connected to who they really are. And meditation and consciousness is exactly what we will explore with Jesper. What different facets has consciousness? How can we explore that we’re not our faults, but at the same time being just that? How can trauma hinder us from being ourselves? And how can also meditation help us feel? And what advice do Jesper have for all of us who wants to meditate more and truly be who we are?

Okänd
Everything good.

Jesper Westmark
Everything good. What a. Yeah, my God, we should have more. We should have had more.

Axel Wennhall
Hi, Jesper.

Jesper Westmark
Hello, my friend.

Axel Wennhall
Thank you for welcoming us.

Jesper Westmark
Nice to have you here.

Axel Wennhall
Right now, we’re sitting in your new built yurt.

Jesper Westmark
It’s true. Yeah, we just put up a yurt here. It’s a beautiful round space with the sunroof and sitting here enjoying nature at the same time we’re inside. Yeah. It’s beautiful. Yeah. Very nice.

Axel Wennhall
And this is the first time we meet, but I got introduced to you by our common friends, Julie Moltke, and also by Klas Eriksson. That’s true. Which we had as a previous guest. Yeah. So it’s really nice finally meeting you.

Jesper Westmark
Yeah. Thank you for letting me be on your podcast. It’s a. I feel then that is very nice that you inviting me in and coming here on Sjövik to do this together with me. So thank you for that.

Axel Wennhall
So we will explore meditation as we usually do in the podcast.

Jesper Westmark
Yeah. Yeah.

Axel Wennhall
And in the beginning of our conversations, we usually have a short landing meditation. Yeah. So would you mind just joining for a short landing meditation?

Jesper Westmark
I’d love to. Yeah.

Axel Wennhall
So for you who’s listening, if you have the possibility to just stop and be still, you can take that time. But also in this short guided meditation, there might be a possibility for you that is walking or moving around to also participate. And first just notice where your awareness is at the moment. And usually we feel our awareness up in the head, behind our eyes. And then just bring your awareness to the sounds and just listen. And then bring awareness to the back of your head. Just feel the sensations here. And then bring down your awareness through your neck and throat. Down to the upper body. And then see if you can land with your awareness in the middle of your chest. In this heart space, heart presence. just let everything be as it is. And just curiously see if your awareness has gone up to the head again. Like an elevator. Pulled up to different thoughts. If this happened, there’s no big surprise. Just gently bring it back down to the heart and the heart space. Feel the sensations and the space around this area. And if you’re sitting down, being still, you can gently close the meditation by perhaps moving a little bit. Opening your eyes if you had them closed. And just bring back your awareness to wherever you are. And to this conversation that’s just about to start. Hi.

Jesper Westmark
Thank you. What a pleasant thing to discover that just sitting listening to your voice is so beautiful. Normally it would be me guiding and it’s just really nice to be there, hold by your voice, leaning into that space you’re talking about in the heart. Beautiful. Thank you.

Axel Wennhall
Thank you. So I’m curious, where were you in your life when you discovered meditation?

Jesper Westmark
So meditation has been part of my life since I was a little child. I just didn’t know it was meditation at that time. See that I discovered many years later. But I had that ability to lean into that space you were just talking about in the heart. And that will be present in my body. Just discovering those emotions coming up, looking at thoughts, learning how to work with energy. And I did actually that by breathwork that I was just having an inner connection to, which was totally normal for me. So to realize that it was just very easy and a very easy part of me to be a child, being in that common space. And most of people probably know how it is when you’re just a child. And everything is just okay. And you don’t know about time. You don’t know what day it is. And you just allow everything to be as it is. And that thing really stayed with me all the way up until I was starting in school. So I was a little bit shocked that the introduction to time and to learning something like days and labeling. And of course then leaning into that, of having that knowledge, the mind is awakened. So I’ll put it this way around, that the mind and time is one and the same. So the mind is working with the good and the bad, opposites, and it’s working with time, and it’s working with the past and the future, and don’t really want to get into the present. And for me, it was a shock that there was something called time. So, it came in really fast and was, What is this? So, I didn’t know what the time was at that point. So, I kind of learned that.

Axel Wennhall
How old were you then?

Jesper Westmark
It’s seven years old now. Because I started in the first class, first year. And then learning about time and learning I have to do something to gain something. And that was beautiful right also, but all the time I was having this sense of who I am because I’ve been training that for so many years when I was a child. So, it was very rich for me. After that, it was more like I was using it more once in a while, knowing how to go into an emotion, stay with it, and breathe into it. It was quite normal for me to do that. And at one point when I was 17, I had what you would call an out-of-body experience, probably. For that time of me experiencing, I thought I died. It could be like that also. I would say otherwise. I woke up and I was absorbed into that sense of time is not existent. There was nowhere to go. I was just one with the whole universe. And that experience took me quite a while to digest. Took me nearly 20 years. And it means those 20 years was sometimes where I really want to escape it. And I did that. In work, in alcohol, in drugs. At one point, it was like I couldn’t escape anymore. I lost myself completely. And looking back to that, I know why I should try it because I’m working so much with people that will have lost themselves into time, to the mind, to past and future. Forgot totally who we are. So I know most of the people are living these kind of lives, but it’s possible to wake up from it. And like I’m saying, there’s a reason why it’s called wake up. Waking up because the other state is actually a sleeping state. So you can wake up from time knowing it’s not real. It’s something reinvented. And knowing it’s all the time now. So I kind of went into knowing who we are as consciousness, lost completely, and came back again. And I was born like it was more intuitive, like in that state, and then to lose it completely and then getting the knowledge, how am I getting myself back? How am I getting the knowledge back into who we are as consciousness, but not in an instinct, but in a, how should we say it, like there’s a knowledge to it. And this is the teaching of meditation for me.

Axel Wennhall
Was there any difference in that awakening you had when you were 17 and that experience as a child, or was it more of an expansion of the feeling or experience of being as a child?

Jesper Westmark
It was definitely a new layer because at that point I had my ego developed as a teenager. So they’re living this teenage life and then having this knowledge and it happened just like I was just laying myself down for a rest. And in that rest, instead of just falling asleep, I just woke up outside of my body. It was like, you know where you fall sometimes when you sleep and that it gives like the little, your body goes like this, like it jumps a little. But in that jump, I woke up outside of my body. And from there, I just saw a very foggy place. And then I moved to the fox. And then there was like a big sun that I could beam after or that then was just searching for that light and then just moving to those landscapes I went through, like mountains and then the sun at the back. And then I went to the sun, to the light, and then it became pitch dark and there was nowhere to go. There was no time. There was just space. And there was just present moment. And in there, I got taught so much. And the thing is, this is all about who we not are as minds. So in mind, we only know what time is. But knowing who we are as no time, it’s a totally different experience. And I guess I had to be rooted so much in that ego, as you are as a teenager, to have that experience of what that nothingness is. You can put it in that way that it’s really nothing. And the whole ego is about there is something. It’s discovering. It will also call it emptiness. And if you call it emptiness, it’s like there should be something there. But there’s not. And this is the whole mind game here, because the mind is never going to discover who we are. It cannot read into it, because it’s not made from it. And here’s a challenge then, because if we are absorbed in that space, in that darkness, where there’s nowhere to go, we are all equal as one universe. And then how do I put that into something that’s only understanding something is starting and then letting go again? Because this has never started. And that’s the whole thing about it. It has never started. It has never started to be dark. It has never started to be now. It has never started to be a space. And it’s never started to be silence. And it’s all over the place when you reach into that. So how do you understand something that has never started, where the mind, where everything is about something starts, and then it ends at one point? That was a challenge. It was a huge challenge.

Axel Wennhall
It’s a huge challenge.

Jesper Westmark
It’s a huge challenge.

Axel Wennhall
It’s understandable. It’s not understandable, I mean.

Jesper Westmark
Exactly. It’s like quantum physics. You’re never going to understand it. But we can lean into it. So we can lean into that it’s all the time going to be a present moment here. But you’re never going to understand it. You can probably say, yes, I do understand it, but you really don’t. Because it has never started to be now.

Axel Wennhall
That insight of not starting, was that an experience you had during that awakening? Yes.

Jesper Westmark
That was the teaching.

Axel Wennhall
That was teaching, yeah.

Jesper Westmark
That was teaching. And then you’re trying to grasp it with your mind. And the more you’re trying to grasp that, the more confused you’re going to get. You can put it that way around. Because you’re never going to grasp it. So it’s all about surrendering into what has never started, what is actually real. And then there’s somebody observing that real present moment, this real silence, this all over darkness and all over space. And that was for me very easy, actually, because I remember it was not so many years ago since I was in that space all the time. But then again, there was some challenge to it. Like I said, it took me at least 20 years to get into where I was more, how should we say, surrendered into it in time. But then again, the mind wanted to understand all the time in these 20 years. Because it’s the biggest experience I ever had in my whole life. There’s nothing compared to it. Nothing. So, of course, my mind wanted to understand it. And the more I tried to do that, the more I lost the surrendering into that’s what it is. It’s just there. So I will put it this way around. It took me 20 years to surrender to the mind that’s never going to understand it. But I’m already there. I’m already whole. As soon as I tried to understand it, I lost that wholeness. And that was my surrender.

Axel Wennhall
So the kind of impulse to understand, Did it also kind of make you identify with that kind of mind movement to understand, which in that terms got split? Yeah.

Jesper Westmark
So you can look into a certain, I was looking in all kind of direction, religions, I worked with nature people a lot and really places where they tried to grasp it to understand it. And it helps. I will put it that way around. It helps you to surrender where the mind actually can get a little anxious. And this is what I would say. This is what it’s all about when we’re trying to reach into understand it with the mind. It’s like putting the mind in the position where it’s easier to surrender towards something it’s never going to understand. And it is a challenge for the mind to do it. So I heard somebody said that meditation is the biggest challenge for the ego, for the mind, because there’s absolutely nothing you can use for mind and ego to understand who we are. It will all the time pull you in another direction. Yeah.

Axel Wennhall
So for people listening, they might not have had such experience.

Jesper Westmark
No.

Axel Wennhall
But they are at least have had a strong experience of being in the present moment. Yeah. Being in the now. Yeah. So that is a kind of a state of being. It is. We could call it a pure being in lack of better words, that kind of experience where as you also explained where the kind of mind drops away, where you look at the mind. Yeah, exactly. You can observe the mind.

Jesper Westmark
You observe the mind.

Axel Wennhall
You can observe the mind, but it can also be pure being as right now we’re in the nature. I think many people, they forget about their mind when they are doing activity they love or whatever. Just that kind of presence and aliveness in that moment. So that’s kind of one experience we can have in terms of being, but it also seems that as a human experience, we are always becoming as well. So how do you see that kind of paradox of always being and that’s the kind of essence of who we are, but at the same time having the human experience. Yeah. People listening to this now. Like I’m here.

Jesper Westmark
Yeah, I hear you.

Axel Wennhall
I’m moving in space and time as well.

Jesper Westmark
True. True.

Axel Wennhall
So how do you see, how do you view those kind of seemingly paradoxes?

Jesper Westmark
Yeah, it’s beautiful. So I have retreats where we work with this. It’s called the inner marriage. So this is to understand how important these thoughts are or this ego, the motion or entity and physical body. So we will all the time be like a breath. We will involve ourselves in stuff, in matter, become matter, and then we will draw ourselves out of matter again. So this is like breathing. So you inhale and becoming the body and then you are pushing that air out again. And this is so much about what’s going on all the time. So you have this plus and you have the minus and you are having this experience of something coming and going all the time. And so you can say sometimes you are awake to the mind and sometimes you’re not. So sometimes the thought will take you and sometimes you’ll be the one looking at the thought. And this is just knowing this is a merit. So those two are working together. It becomes, how should we put it, a little bit unpleasant. If you only think your mind and the mind only took you over.

Axel Wennhall
I would say it’s very unpleasant. That’s for me, that’s the definition of suffering.

Jesper Westmark
That’s suffering.

Axel Wennhall
That’s suffering.

Jesper Westmark
Because right after the mind took you over, it will have emotion going on in the body. And you’ll probably try to run away from that. What’s wrong? What’s wrong? And then you try to fix it in time. It’s going to be better. And this is a disaster. This is normal what we will do. And it’s actually creating an accident. So that’s why I’m saying when we start to do meditation, we need to stop the accident. So the accident, you will stop by looking at the thoughts. No, you’re not that, but the one observing it. And then you go from there, you lean into these emotion, which has probably been activating through the thoughts and they can activate programs and traumas and they are the same. I can talk a little bit about that later if you want to. And if that is activated, it will take you on the whole program. And at one point it will let go, but it can take months, sometimes, sometimes weeks, sometimes it can only take a day, or sometimes it takes a minute. And in that period, it will actually take you through the recording of that trauma. And this is a long talk. We can talk about that later. But you can look at the thought and then you can stop the program, which is the thought that is creating it, together with that recorded program from the subconsciousness. And now it’s getting a little tricky, but you can stop that by watching it, knowing you’re not that thought. And then looking at these emotion, they will all the time be in the body. So you look at where are they in the body. So, but emotion and nearly matter. It means that you feel them quite easy on your body. And the same with energy and feel the energy going with it. And then you take that space with this, the body. You just lean into it. And from there, you keep on awakening you into the observing part of you. And when you’re in that observing part of you, you need something that’s coming and going in order to keep on looking at it. And then you look at the breath. It’s very reliable. And you just look at the body, the way it’s breathing. And this is now having you on a balance point. This is like driving a bicycle. And you can drive a bicycle without pedaling. And then you know it’s very hard to hold the balance. And else you can like pedal these pedals and then you will have a speed going on. And it’s much easier to have the balance. And this is then what you do. You just stay with the breath, look at that, and then you have the balance for the meditation. And you just keep on breathing. So you know you’re not the breath, but you’re the one looking at the breath. So you have the breath. And you are, yeah, confirming it, how beautiful it is. But in the same time, you know you’re the one observing it. And this is the inner merits. This is what it’s all about. So now they’re working together. It’s not like that the ego is not welcome. These thoughts are not welcome. They’re not bad or anything. They are just there. They are just nature, actually. They’re chemistry. And this is when you start to lean into the nature of the body. And you can ask yourself this question. So is nature good or is it bad? And I will help you a little bit. It is.

Axel Wennhall
It is. It is. It is. Exactly.

Jesper Westmark
Yeah, it is. And this is the same. This is actually what we are reaching for. And this is where we are surrendering in towards it is. So the mind will all the time go for good and bad and time and trying to reach into that to fix something. And every time it tries to fix something, it will actually tell your body and your ego, the mind, that there’s something wrong here. You need to fix something. But the whole idea now is for meditation to know that you’re already perfect. I mean, Mother Earth, she has spent a million of years on these bodies. And they are just perfect. And now we not just need the mind to stop fixing them.

Axel Wennhall
I think you’re addressing a really interesting topic here because one thing that happens when you start meditating is you’re starting to become more aware of your thoughts and your feelings. And in those moments of clarity or moments of peace or moments of happiness, our thoughts seem not to be that intrusive in one way. So, of course, there’s easy to have that feeling with our thoughts that they become our enemy. And I think one of the best things I’ve heard is, I think it was Adyashanthi, the American meditation teacher, his teacher told him that if you go to war with your mind, you will be at war forever. True. And what I noticed in myself is this can become quite unconscious in a way. It is. To see that, okay, what’s, and it’s a really good inquiry and a really good question to ask yourself, what’s the relationship I have right now towards my experience?

Jesper Westmark
Nature.

Axel Wennhall
And towards my thoughts and feelings? Exactly. Is there any resistance to it? And resistance can take different shapes and forms, obviously. So true. And that’s why I felt, always felt, I completely felt so at peace with the instruction to let everything be as it is.

Jesper Westmark
Yes, so true.

Axel Wennhall
Because in that space, there’s no problem.

Jesper Westmark
No.

Axel Wennhall
There’s nothing to fix.

Jesper Westmark
No.

Axel Wennhall
If I’m actually allowing everything to be as it is, there’s no movement for grasping, no movement for resisting. But that’s meditation, right?

Jesper Westmark
That’s the practice.

Axel Wennhall
That is what it is. Yeah.

Jesper Westmark
Yeah. That’s the whole idea about it. So, it’s so true because the, if you go to, let’s just put it war with the mind, it will take you. And if we try to fix something with the mind, you will never know who you are. I think it was Einstein saying you can’t solve the problem with the problem. He said, then mind, I will go a little bit further. I would say, yeah, then you can’t fix the problem with the problem. And then he’s saying something beautiful. You need to put something new into the solving, and this is not solving at this and surrendering. And the sooner we can surrender and call in the universe or whatever you call it, love, God, I don’t care. The sooner we can do that, that surrendering is going to heal everything around you and this body. And for me, I use this, I use it like this. I say that it takes something whole to heal. So if something coming and going, it can’t actually heal anything. So you need something that has all the time been here, never started, in order to heal something. So if that’s not awakened, the whole part of you, it means the present moment, the silence, now, space itself, and you don’t know who you are, then it’s just going to. reboot in the mind itself and to stop that accident, because that’s what it is. You can stop doing that and surrendering into something which is much bigger, which are you as the one observing, not the mind and looking at the mind. And this is why every time you do that, you are awakening something that will be able to heal. Yeah. Yeah. So this is the way it works, the healing and why meditation is going to heal everything, because that’s actually what it’s going to do, because it’s already whole.

Axel Wennhall
Do you want to explore a bit on that?

Jesper Westmark
Yeah. So this is about environments. So if you’re creating an environment where you’re telling the body it’s wrong all the time, I need to fix you in the future. And the thing with the future is that nobody has ever tasted it or smelled it and felt a little bit of it.

Axel Wennhall
That’s something the spiritual world needs more of.

Jesper Westmark
Yeah, it’s a phantom. It’s a phantom. It’s not really there. It’s mind made.

Axel Wennhall
Yeah, that’s for sure. A lot of people seem to forget that.

Jesper Westmark
Yeah. So when you’re actually working with something that’s not there and trying to fix something, it’s never going to work. It will just create new problems. So when we are creating that kind of environment for the body where you’re trying to fix it in future, which is not existing, you are all the time telling the body you’re wrong. Now, this is the environment this body has to live in. That’s why it’s co-creating all the time that experience. This is about environments. So then to make this environment that I’m already whole, I’m already love. Now, this is the environment for the body to rise up in, to become. And from here, you’re just having that experience that no matter what emotion that’s coming up, then it’s okay. It’s just brought into the wholeness. Every thought coming up, it’s okay. It’s just nature. It’s just chemistry. It’s just brought into, yeah, you’re right. I can easily be that. And then it’s so easy to just, if the mind is saying something to you, you know, it attacks sometimes. And then you’re just saying, yeah, I’m also that. And then you just keep on breathing. And then it will tell you are also childish or something like that. Yes, I’m also that. And then I’ll say, yes, I’m many things. But this is, of course, still using the mind. This is why I’m saying these are the things that I was talking about in the start. Instead of fighting the mind, these kind of experiencing how do I have a language where I’m much more leaning into what consciousness is. Where it’s an allowingness. It’s like being equal with everything. And the mind doesn’t want to be equal with anything.

Okänd
No.

Jesper Westmark
No. It wants to be the best.

Axel Wennhall
Yeah, well, you can’t survive being equal, right?

Jesper Westmark
It’s true. So this is what’s going on. So you are coming into a very equal place, a very allowing place. I can easily be that no matter what the ego, but everybody’s talking about you saying you are like this and this. And you say, yes, I’m also that. Where the mind will say, no, I’m not that. You see? So this is now creating an environment. An environment where you’re already whole and understanding there’s a lot of chemistry passing by in that wholeness. Let’s just take silence. So there’s a lot of sounds, waves passing by in silence. But the silence is never complaining of any sound passing by in its silence. It’s just there for it. And just being there for it as it is, it’s making every sound very quiet. It doesn’t have a long, frequent time in silence. It will just be absorbed. And the same, when we can do that as consciousness, we will just absorb every thought coming by. Every emotion passing by and all the energy is passing by. And the body, we’re just present with it as it is, knowing it’s perfect. And there’s a thank you here. And then the more you’re coming into this thank you for letting me borrowing this body, because that’s what it is. We are forgetting who we are a lot of the time. We think we are an animal body. And then the consciousness is coming in once in a while and say, Whoa, what was that? So it’s opposites. We are actually a spirit, a soul, a consciousness which has never started, that’s having an animal body experience for a very short time. So it’s so different. So in that sentence to understand that all healing starts with you knowing who you are as that consciousness. Because everything else is passing by. And when you can go into that passing by part, you’re just allowing everything to pass by in its presence. But the thing is, if you have a program saying you’re childless and there’s a trauma right there, and then somebody is telling you you’re childless, then you will react and the trauma will jump up and trying to defend itself, saying I’m not that. And the moment you’ve done this, the mind has you. And then you start a fight. You’re wrong, I’m right. And from here, it’s just a disaster.

Axel Wennhall
I also see in that kind of getting reactive. It’s also, there’s another, how to say it, here’s another pitfall in the meditation. Because when we talk about this and when you explain about being who you are as your true nature and being able to observe everything, but also the human experience for almost all of us, if not all of us at some point, is to get hooked by old traumas, by reactions and stuff. And I think for a lot of us, that can also become a pitfall in terms of feeling that we failed.

Jesper Westmark
True.

Axel Wennhall
What do you say about that and how can we allow ourselves to fail as well? Because that’s what we do in meditation. Yeah.

Jesper Westmark
So you can put it this way around that. So in order to fail, you have to have an idea that it should be like this. Yeah. Okay. So you have probably been working with a coach or something like that and say, no, I want this. And then it’s not really what’s coming up out of it. And then it’s a failure. But you see, life will overrule reality.

Axel Wennhall
It’s too insane.

Jesper Westmark
Yeah. What your idea of the mind is, what you think will make you happy. So it wants to equalize things. It wants you to put in a state of mind where you actually know who you are. So the mind created, it should be like this. And this is not the result. So now I’m a failure. Yeah. This is how it works because this is part of the fixing. It will redraw that emotion towards you. So in order to do that, it’s like I’m also a failure. So you need to be able to be friends with that. So if I can’t fail, how am I ever going to be taught anything in life? And for me, my biggest practice is to be a student. I’m a student. I know it teach a lot of people, but for me, it’s to be a student for all, from everything. It’s nature. It’s the animals in nature. It’s the people I meet. It’s every situation I’m in. I am taught something from my surroundings. And if I forget to be that student, it seems like I already know. And if I already know, I’m locked up. So I can’t really be taught what is there in this present moment to show me. So I’m kind of stucked. And the whole idea about many things I’m surrendering to me is to see the whole universe in all its life forms. And in these life forms, discovering how is you now having an experience of being in an animal body, having this what you call your life. And I can tell that every each one of us is having a different experience of what life is and having a different experience of what is real and what is not real. And like I’m saying, nobody is having the same, even experience in the same room we are sitting. We all are going to have a different approach to what is going on. And then if I just too stuck in my experience of just being in this body, I missed all the other experiences in that room. So for me, it’s like having space. So I have an education called Space Holder. And this is so much about leaning into that space to becoming one with the room, with everybody there’s in the room and having, how should I put it, knowing they are all right. They all have this life experience and that is right for them. And then the ego is so funny because it’s kind of, it’s asking, do you understand me? But you’re never going to understand another person. It’s never going to happen because they have their own experience. But we can say it, yes, yes, I do understand you, but you don’t. No, this is just the way it is. So it’s just so, I mean, we have our own fingerprint and that fingerprint, this is the way you’re approaching life. And this is your glasses. This is what you’re going to see life through. And this is then becoming your experience. And then we all have different subconsciousness that are so much in, should I say this way around, letting you experiencing life again and again. And then it’s becoming its own truth because it has the program and then it’s drawing that towards that body because they are like magnets, these programs we have in the subconsciousness. And then they will draw life into you as you have your own consciousness. And so it means really that you can only see what’s inside of you, but then you’re missing all the others. And in order to know who we are as consciousness, we need to lean into that they are all right. But the mind will never do that. It will try to argue with somebody saying, no, this is right. And the other one will say, no, this is right. Or even if you can, you have probably been in situation where you have been in the same room, but somebody will say, no, this happened. And you will say, no, no, it has never happened like that. It happened like this. And then you can argue about that. So it’s really just leaning into this person is right and this person is right. And this is just beautiful as it is. So there’s nobody there that’s having more right. And then the ego part is now awakened. And in that ego experience, love can actually grow for each other.

Axel Wennhall
What comes up to me when you explain this kind of equalness and being right is the experience without thoughts is an equal experience. And the experience without labeling, perhaps I don’t know if it resonates with you, perhaps even would put it like right or wrong doesn’t really exist. It’s just different perspectives. And I think that’s the really difficult part to understand that labeling and thoughts and etiquettes, they in one way, we can agree upon them as we do in the world a lot about having certain things that is mind made.

Jesper Westmark
It is.

Axel Wennhall
Whether it’s how much money is worth or owning a land, for example. It’s not real in that. It’s not tangible real, but since we come up with an idea and we can agree upon that, it becomes in one way relative real. But the experience without thoughts, and I think that this is also quite of an insight to have and see that thoughts don’t have any kind of reality except the relative reality we give to them. Like they are, in one way, they are out of, yeah, the best way I can put it is that they’re not real.

Jesper Westmark
Yeah, they are. They are chemistry and they are. They are made from. Lots of them are made from traumas and these traumas are something we are trying to escape. That’s why they are pushed down to the subconscious. And this is why they feel so real. And it feels so real because we are believing in time. Together with mind. And we have very easy to trick. And this is part of why we believe so much in the mind. So, if you’re dreaming, you are believing in that dream when you’re dreaming it. It means that if somebody is hunting you in the dream, you think you’re running away from that thing. But you’re still in the bed, sleeping. But you’re believing it. And it seems very real as it happens. And then we can just put it into being moving you into a movie theater and looking at the movie screen and you see James Bond. And at one point, you’re getting so much into the movie that you actually can think you’re James Bond and you’re hunting the bad guys. And when you see the bad guys getting punished against you, a very nice person, oh, he got him. I got him. And the mind is there just traveling whatever it sees or whatever it thinks it’s real. And then you can wake up in the movie, in the theater and say, wow, I’m just the one sitting looking at the screen. I’m not James Bond trying to hunt the bad guy. But if you look at the mind and see in the movie, it’s like you’re really in it, becoming it nearly. And it’s the same with the dream. And then the trauma is very real. And every time they are exposed and they are awakened, it becomes much more real than you are dreaming or you’re sitting in a movie theater. You are so much in it. You are believing it so much. And it’s very hard to wake up like you can wake up in a dream or you can wake up in a movie theater because they are in what we call reality. So they will take you. And they’re not even a belief. They are more than that. I mean, we know how big placebo is. You’re just believing in something. And then it can cure you. And this is like beliefs on steroids, these traumas. So they will just take you.

Axel Wennhall
So how do you work with trauma? Because there seems to be a kind of a paradox there that we, in one way to heal, we need to be the one observing those programs and those trauma and those reactions. But at the same time, those traumas are so strong that we become unconscious and reactive. Yes. So how do you work with meditation? How do you do?

Jesper Westmark
The fixing part is awakened. Yeah. First of all, we stop fixing. First of all, we just look at it. It’s there. And when we look at it, it’s there. This is maybe you have tried it like 10 times or something like that. It’s the same output. Same thing is coming up. Let’s take something very easy. You’re afraid of a dog. And the dog is really getting angry around you. And every time you are getting next to a dog, you get very afraid and they try to bite you and stuff. It’s just, it isn’t phobia. You can put it like that. They’re much easier to understand than the other one where you are messing around and playing with other people. So just have that focus that it’s more likely like a phobia. So the other traumas is the same. They’re built up in the same way. So first of all, in the situation where the dog is there barking at you, you are so reactive that you will just think, let’s get away. I have experience in here. They will bite me and they do. And so this is more in the life where it’s suddenly coming up. But then you can sit in a meditation and I put them like this. We have a part where I call it premeditation and there’s to be meditated. And to be meditated is like being slept. So it’s not you sleeping your body. It’s something you’re surrendering towards. And then it will sleep you. I know the language is a little funny now. For amount of hours and then you have rested and then you will come back. So the same can happen with meditation. You just need to know how to come down in hertz. You have to reach a low hertz. So the deeper we move into the sleep, the lower the hertz will get. State four, one hertz. This is when you get healed. This is when the body is healing. That’s a long story. I can talk about that later if it is. So let me just move on here. So normal people, normal living, believing in the good and bad, thoughts coming in, having a work and a future where we’re going to be successful. For average, it’s 40 hertz for the person to live there. This is what we consider normal. When we start to reach into meditation, we need to go below 14 hertz. And the perfect state of mind is 7 hertz. So it means that you are not your thoughts and you are not sleeping yet. But you’re right in the middle of that space. It’s sort of in between sleeping and awake.

Axel Wennhall
And, I’m sorry, hertz, is that the brainwaves?

Jesper Westmark
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So hertz, brainwave. Yeah. Exactly. So this is where we are in the meditation. This is also where you’re being ready to be taken into what I call being meditating. Until then, it’s reaching into that area. And there we have a lot of techniques to use. Picture this. You have a mountain. You have a lake. That lake, you need to have it becoming like a mirror. Or else you can’t reflect on your own ego. Being on the mountain, 40 hertz, it means you’re nearly at the very top of that mountain, running around trying to find yourself. It’s not this side of the mountain. I need to go to the other side and then I will be happy. Something like that. Future. Actually, what you need to do is the surrendering, knowing how to come down that mountain. It means that you look at the thoughts every time they’re there and they are like the wind. And now the wind start to be low. The emotions are like a river floating by, and you look at these emotions knowing you’re not them, coming at ease, healing them because they are the inner child and they just need to be taken care of. And when we talk about emotions and thoughts, you have to understand they are your inner child, and you will have to lean into them like you will do to a little child, because that’s actually what they are. They cannot grow older than three years old. Every ground emotion is settled when you are three, and everything is coming from there. So every emotion, and they are connected with the thoughts, they cannot grow older. And this is what you want to look at. And as soon as you look at that inner child, that’s why they are the inner child, you are nurturing them. So you are not pushing them away, you are welcoming them. And you’re just sitting with them. You’re not trying to say to the little child, so who are you going to be when you grow older? Or something like that. How are you going to fix this? No, you’re just sitting with the child, holding it, if it’s sad. This is what we need to do with these emotions. The sooner we can just surrender into that and holding that inner child, then the river becomes silent and it becomes like a mirror. The wind, these are the thoughts, are now looked at, so the wind is not pushing on the surface of the lake, so it becomes quiet. And now it’s the energy. This is more like a geisha in the middle of the lake. And every time the energy comes up, it blows up, and wow, a lot of energy. And you can now actually just look at the energy and the energy will become at ease. And it has a lot to do with your breath. Because breath and energy works together. So you need to become into that easy state of breath, like you do when you’re sleeping. So you have a certain breath when you’re sleeping and this will appear like that. It will be very, very easy calm breath. In order to have that energy to be silent. So now you have looked at the thoughts, knowing you’re not that, it means you are taking the energy out of the wind. You look at the river, knowing you’re not this emotion, you’re the one holding them like a inner child. Now they become at ease. And you look at the energy, knowing you’re not that, but the one holding it. And this is all about the breath. There could be a lot of energy you need to move through right here when you’re discovering energy. That’s a different story. Just have that understanding that. You look at it and it becomes silence. And then at that point you have moved yourself down from the mountain. You’re sitting by the lake at the beach. You’re in the lake. And this is when you need to be at very, very ease, pleasant sitting still in the lake. Because if you start swimming around in that lake and thinking it should be another beach I should be at, then you’re just making that surface wavy. So you sit still and not even moving. And this is really where you’re leaning into the meditation. So you’re not moving before you fall asleep either. You’re laying totally quiet where you can relax. So now you need to sit up in a meditation position or else you’ll fall asleep. Because this is the way the body knows how to do it. It knows, everybody knows how to meditate and reach into this layer. Because else you won’t be able to fall asleep. And now we’re just making the knowledge about how to reach into these layers. They’re not instinct anymore. They are now becoming a talent where you know exactly how to move in certain states of minds and sliding right through them. When it’s becoming like a mirror, it means every time there’s a thought, you look at that motion, you just hold it. Same with energy and you sit still. It will be like a mirror looking into the lake. And this point is where meditation can start. This will be seven hertz. This will be in the middle. You will not be in the water totally. You will be in between. You will be sitting in the water but still at the land. This is when meditation can start to open up. Now you are moving from premeditation, it means something you can do, in towards surrendering completely. When you look in the mirror and saying, wow, I’m not this body either. You will start to look through that and now you can start looking in the lake. What’s in there? So you stop looking at the mirror. This is the challenge when you sit and knowing, wow, I’m not this body. I’m something very, very much deeper down here. And from there, the mind is just traveling in towards that lake. And from here, you are now going to discover subconsciousness. Everything which is in there. The lake is the subconsciousness. And this is now where you are surrendering towards. And every time you meet a program, you will be taught by it. So every program has this idea that it’s protecting you. In order for that protection to stop, you need to show the trauma that you can actually stay present. As soon as you can stay present, the program will say, but you don’t need me anymore. Because you are actually here the most of the time. So we can actually cancel this program of the dog that is hunting you. You know how to take care of you. This is just pushing you away every time. And it seems like you know how to deal with this now. You know how to deal with this emotion, this being afraid of dogs and whatever. It can be many things. And now you are going to discover why you got afraid of the dog. That moment where you couldn’t handle what happened when you were a child properly. And now all this emotion is coming up from being in a situation where you couldn’t handle the situation. Most of the time, it will be like, but I can’t handle this emotion. I can’t handle this energy which is here. And you’re now taking some beliefs coming from your own subconsciousness or your own idea of what life is. Or you’re having beliefs coming from others. Yelling, That dog is very dangerous! Run away! Or yourself discovering, Oh, it’s biting me! Dogs are dangerous! So these are now beliefs that you need to neutralize, to be equal with. You can only do that in order that you know how to become at ease with these emotions and embrace them, be equal with them. And let them show up in your body as the chemistry they are. Until then, they are suppressed chemistry that you are not allowed to be next to because the program is built up like that to protect you from that. Now you are releasing it. And that is happening in the being meditation state which is in the lake. And it comes to surrendering. And every time you move to a trauma, it just opens up and it’s beautiful. And this is where you need to have the talent of how to surrender. I’m also that. I can easily be this. And at this point you’re having these emotions that you’re so afraid of. And this is what we talked about. So how do I do it when I’m unconscious? And this is actually what it is. This is the training now. So it’s about having this talent of knowing how to do when you are in that situation. And you can only do that by doing it again and again and again. So you need to have this focus. You can focus into the trauma. And when you have the focus, you need to be able to know how to surrender and how to be responsible. So responsibility is so important. And then you have to do it again and again and again to know how to surrender to the consciousness you are. Or else you will just be so afraid when you meet the trauma and you’ll just run away. So you need to be brave. And this is a lot of what my practice is. Is to know who we are, being brave at the same time. And awakening you to who we are as consciousness, knowing who we are as this whole environment. And to keep that balance, it goes through the breath. And to be at ease with it. The more energy that’s going on inside of my body, the more relaxed, the more at ease I’ll become with my breath. Because either you do it once, I will go like this, or it will hold, hold the breath. And this, normally, it’s like holding and then I’m pushing through. And this is the only way you don’t want to do it. You want to keep on breathing slowly when you move through that trauma. And as soon as you can do that, you are just releasing it. But this takes talent. And this is why we have to sit down and work with meditation. And this is why meditation is the tool where you can be free from all suffering. And this is how it’s done. You just awaken it, you allow it, look at it, slide into it. I’m also that. And then at one point, you are coming back to the body. And why I’m calling it coming back to the body is because that’s actually what’s going to happen. So the trauma pushed you out as consciousness. And now you’re bringing that part of you that was pushed out back into the body. So it’s like coming back to the body and you can actually feel it when it happens. It’s like having an arm that’s been sleeping and suddenly you remove it from that sleeping position where it was locked and now suddenly the energy start running freely again in the body. And this is how the sensation will be in the body when it’s not so locked anymore. And now you got your soul back. And it’s a very, very old technique. It’s called soul retrieval. So this has been used for all time, as long as we know, from all the native people. They will never go into fixing anything, but they will say, so when you are having this unbalanced thing in your body going on, then we need to find your soul. Which is causing these problems right now. So this is, it has been here forever. We just call it other things now.

Axel Wennhall
There’s always this thing with language describing these things.

Jesper Westmark
It’s true.

Axel Wennhall
I think one of the experience that many meditators have dealing with both big and small traumas, but also painful emotions, memories, things that might come up, is that the kind of observing can. And when we use the language, we say, you’re not your thoughts, you’re not your feelings, you’re not the river, you’re not the lake, you’re the one observing it. And that gives in one way the power to observe, but it can also detach us from the experience. And in that observing, it becomes sometimes a bit dry. It also can become a bit not fully alive in terms of that. And I think one key thing you also said was, I’m also that. It’s true. And that paradox because without the leaning in, without the closeness, without the also being that which we experience. In my experience, it can’t really, we can’t slide through it without it. We have to in one way dive into it, being with it, and at the same time also understanding I’m not this, but I’m also that.

Jesper Westmark
So that’s why I’m saying all the time I’m also that. This is the equalness. So at first you look at it and then you will discover. So when people are using it like that, I’m not that. That will be pointing directly into you’re the one observing it. This is state one. So at that state, that will still be on the mountain. That will be premeditation. When you do that. Yeah. Yeah. So this is to create the separation. Or else you think it’s like together. It’s way too much together. So you need to be. You need to first create a push so you can look at it. Or else you think you are that. You will be in it.

Axel Wennhall
You’ll be trapped, right?

Jesper Westmark
Yeah, you’ll be trapped in it. And we need to understand these minds are created so we can get stucked. This is why they are so big. So you can actually get stucked in these minds, believing in time or dualities. Okay? So this is how they are created. So they are created so big that we can get so trapped into them. And the trauma is the one trapping us, saying, I’m not that, but you’re that. And I’m the good one. You see, the ego is all the time the good one. That’s beautiful, isn’t it? So let’s just do the pull. So now I’m actually on the mountain, premeditated and saying, I’m not that. I’m the one looking at thoughts. Now I know who I am. And then you’re sliding in. The more you’re sliding in towards the lake, it’s like, I’m also that. You see, I’m using that term all the time. And these are the ones that are going to heal you. This is when you awaken to the healing part. But first you need to stop the accident. You need to be the one looking at it. And from there, you’re just sliding in. And the more you slide into the lake, the more you are becoming it. And as soon as you’re becoming it, it doesn’t matter anymore. It’s just part of you. So a lot of the time I see people, they are doing what you’re describing there. So I’m not that. Now I want to get rid of it. And then you’re stuck. Yeah. You see, then the prison really have become awakened. So now we actually think you’re sitting and meditating. And I’m now looking at the thought because it should go away. You see, this is never going to work. So it will work this way around. You will look at the thought, the inner child, and then you will hold it. And you will now learn the tool, how to open that and hold that inner child for eternity. And then it becomes out of, how should we put it? No mind. It doesn’t matter anymore because you have become it. But we need to have this separation first. And then, because else you can’t look at it. You still think you’re that. So it’s both are true. It depends where you are on the mapping. And mapping is very important. So you need, when I’m talking about mapping, you need to know where you are. So you need to bring up the right map of where you are. And this is where you need to be very honest. I’m having exactly this emotion. I’m having exactly these thoughts. This energy and this body. And I’m right here. And when I can do this, the mapping starts. So now I know where I am. And from here it’s just surrendering into I’m also that. But in order to map, so I have like four satellites to do that. The one is thought. The other one is emotion. The third is energy. And then you have the physical body. This is the fourth. So these working together, you know where you are on the mountain. So the ego will all the time be on the mountain. This is for sure. It will believe in time. It will be believing itself when it’s there on the mountain and it’s trying to gain something or solve something or having some experience in coming by. That it thinks it is. So this is very important to understand that the mind is all the way traveling for the new thing. That it can experience. But as soon as it’s not the object, but it’s the one looking at the object. Then you start to awaken. And this is the part where you’re saying, wow, I’m looking at the fort. It means I’m not that. You see? And then this is part of sliding down the mountain. And now you’re becoming part of the mountain. And still, I would say, in the first layers where the sun is still reaching towards the lake, you will have this experience that you have to look at it knowing you’re not that. But at one point you become it. So it’s like breathing in and out all the time. Until you’re reaching into these layers where the sun is not reaching down in the lake anymore. And then you’re home. Because it’s the light that’s creating duality. That is the light that’s doing that. Without the light, there’s just one here.

Axel Wennhall
I think that’s a good way to end it. Think about that.

Jesper Westmark
Yeah, that’s what it is. There’s only one in darkness. And a lot of experience to have in the light. And that’s beautiful.

Axel Wennhall
So I’m going to hand over the microphone to you soon. And you’ve been so kind enough to guide the meditation. But before that, we have part of the podcast called five quick questions. Wow. Are you ready?

Jesper Westmark
Yes, I am.

Axel Wennhall
What external factors helps you be present?

Jesper Westmark
My son and my girlfriend.

Axel Wennhall
Who would you invite for a dinner party? They could be either alive or dead.

Jesper Westmark
But I don’t do dinner.

Axel Wennhall
If you had to recommend one book or a documentary?

Jesper Westmark
That would be my own book. That’s called Real Magic.

Axel Wennhall
Real Magic. What are you grateful for right now?

Jesper Westmark
Being able to observe. Being present. Being equal.

Axel Wennhall
What’s the best advice you got?

Jesper Westmark
Close your eyes and listen.

Axel Wennhall
Thank you, Jesper.

Jesper Westmark
Thank you.

Axel Wennhall
So I’m handing it over to you now.

Jesper Westmark
Thank you. Okay. So just there to be present and hearing all these sounds passing by from these voices from this podcast. And just allowing that sound to be as it is right now from this voice passing by. As we talked about, just being the one listening. But knowing you’re not that sound. And right there, this space is opening up. Of you are the one listening. And from here, you can just look at the mind passing by. These thoughts. Just allowing thoughts to be thoughts. Like you’re allowing sounds to be sounds. From here, I invite you to surrender into your body. It means taking a deep breath and move that. Focus all the way down to your feet. Feeling out the space of your lower legs and upper legs, the hip area. Being present there in the stomach and the way the stomach is moving a little bit. When the body is breathing, the same for the chest, shoulder. Just that slight little movement there when the body is breathing. Upper arm, lower arm, hands all the way out to the fingertips. Just being present here with your hands. From here to the bottom of the spine, gravity. Up the spine, lower back, shoulders, neck, throat, jaws, cheeks, eyes, forehead, top of the head and just lean down there, back of the head. And from here you just move straight forward into observing the breath. Cold wind coming in the nose from the inhale. Much warmer. And the breath is letting go again. You can just stay here with the breath. Observing cold wind coming in the nose. Warm air letting go again. Just feel that body movement when the body is breathing, means shoulder, chest, stomach. I’m really there to be in that breath. And maybe you can feel the skin and the clothes you’re wearing. It’s just moving a little bit. There’s this little tension from the skin and the clothes you’re wearing. Movement. Cold air coming in, warm air letting go again. And gravity. You feel relaxed there at the bottom of the spine. Just there being in that space which is what you’re borrowing from Mother Earth, this body. Looking at the chemistry, the emotion, the thoughts, the energy passing by. Being there in that present moment. In that space, filling out this body. In this silence. Really stay present here. Cold wind coming in. Or is it more warm air letting go again? You as the observer. Just letting go. So it’s more, much more like a surrendering right now into this body. Just observing the breath. And I would like to invite you to be present about and Seeing how much trust you have to this breath. It’s just that trust that is here already. I’m pointing it. Looking at that trust that is there in that breath. It will just come and go. Just leaning into trust. And it’s already there. The same with all the other organs. It’s this trust that the mind will think. That organ is just doing what it’s supposed to do. And you can observe it. It’s trust through the organ called heart. And you can just observe it. Maybe you can even feel it, hear it right now. Just doing what it’s supposed to do. So the breath there coming and going. This duality of inhaling and exhaling. And I invite you to lean into that you exist behind that duality. Because you’re the one observing. And leaning into that is knowing. Awaking you to something that is whole. So you are the same observer observing the inhale. And the exhale. So the part of you. Who is out of duality is the one. That’s here when you are inhaling and exhaling. And that is the same. Two very different experiences but you are the same. There is a knowing to this that you have all the time been here out of duality. Looking at all the things passing by. And right here this internal space is opening up in your heart. Knowing who you are. Equal with everything. And from here consciousness is awakened. And this is where you can tell the body. I love you. I’m here for you. I got you. Thank you. Just stay here with this thank you. Eternal space. Looking at things passing by. I love you. So it’s not really words. It’s just you know. I know I’m loved. Just take a couple of these breaths here. Where you take the breath over. And just let go. Open your eyes slowly. Look at the world outside. Just sitting here. Observing that. Thank you. Thank you for letting me guide this meditation. Thank you for letting me in this podcast. I love you.

Axel Wennhall
Thank you for welcoming us. It’s been a pleasure.

Jesper Westmark
Thank you. Get all high from this.

Axel Wennhall
High, low, I don’t know.

Jesper Westmark
Yeah, it’s both at the same time. Yeah, it’s very powerful. Meditation.

Axel Wennhall
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Swedish podcast, Meditera Mera. We hope you have been inspired by our conversation and by Jesper’s meditation. This is a podcast from the Swedish meditation at Mindfully. And our purpose is to help people live an awake and meaningful life. And if you enjoyed this episode, please share it to your friends so we can inspire even more people to meditate and awaken to their true nature. And if there’s something that we will bring with us from our conversation with Jesper, is it to stop trying to fix stuff and instead trusting everything to be as it is. Thanks for listening. Take care and be well.