Can You Meditate While Driving? Awareness in Motion | 360° View from Inside the Car

AVAlexander Volchek

To add to the video I made about meditation and what it is, I want to discuss an interesting point that brings its essence into sharp focus. What is meditation? Can you drive while in a state of very deep immersion, meditative immersion? When we say meditation is a state of expanded perception, can you be in that state in a very particular setting, a very particular place: a car? People ask, “What happens if I lie down or sit in meditation? What if I move or run? Do I need to stay still?” How do you reach that expanded perception? What if you are driving? When I am driving, I still need to remain attentive to the road. One incident comes to mind. Last week I was driving back from San Francisco, and my car detected a state that required an immediate stop. Even though it was on autopilot, it began displaying messages saying I had supposedly become inattentive. It registered this inattention because another person and I were in a fairly deep meditative state.

The car has sensors that recognize things such as your eyes and face, and somehow it appeared to the car that I had become inattentive. Of course, I was fully attentive. I remember that moment very clearly. I felt much better than on the drive to San Francisco, when I had needed the bathroom and there had been a lot of noise. Here, we were sitting in a state of deep immersion, really seeing. But seeing what? At that moment, we had immersed ourselves in perceiving different spaces around us and other worlds. Again, I was driving at the same time. One of the key things to understand when considering meditation is that it is not tied to a separate exercise you perform. Entering a meditative state means awareness, your awareness at that moment. For example, as I record this video, I am in a very particular state of awareness. On one level, I am driving and aware of driving. On another, I am broadly perceiving different worlds and states, my system of soul and spirit, and my spiritual being. On yet another, I am communicating this content, so I need to express it very clearly and purely.

When I communicate something, there are interruptions. Why are there interruptions? How can you notice them? How can you tell there are interruptions? This is a very interesting point, because I can see very clearly that I am experiencing interruptions right now. The very fact that I see them is a meditative state. I am naturally aware of what is really happening: there really is an interruption, a certain imprecision in consciousness. Why? Because I decided to record this video spontaneously. Some of the words I choose have to be found somewhere. This is not a stream of information that arrived fully formed from the outset. I have to find these words somewhere. But it is still a meditative state. It is still a meditative state. Why? Because, at the same time, I am looking into an enormous number of worlds, constantly looking into an enormous number of worlds. I want to tell you about observing yourself, particularly your ability to enter different states in different spaces. Not just sitting at a concert, immersed in some space where people talk and energies are at work. When you sit in a meeting, you have entered a particular space.

When you watch television at home, you enter a particular space. When you talk to your husband or wife, you enter a particular space. When you are at work with colleagues, you suddenly enter a particular space. Learn to see and perceive it. When I was young, for quite a long time—from around fourteen, perhaps, into my twenties—I would enter a state I called “disappearing.” I remember my mother's response very clearly. When I said, “Mom, I disappear,” she said, “Whatever you do, do not mention that when you get your driver's license.” That was essentially the only answer. What did “disappearing” mean? While talking to someone, I would feel for a moment as though I had vanished somewhere. It was as if I were not present in reality. I was somewhere, but not here, for a moment. The time of that moment differed from the time here. Notice: the time that passed here and the absence I experienced were different. It is very hard to convey, but they were different. From the standpoint of spiritual perception and vision, it is not difficult to explain: time differs in different spaces.

More than that, there are spaces where the concept of time does not exist, and spaces that are clearly, distinctly perceived as timeless. Each of your spiritual beings is present, guaranteed to be present, in a timeless space. At least, if it is a being incarnated as a human, there is always a timeless space. Of course, there may be exceptions. But that is a topic for another lecture, perhaps on another of my channels. In those meditations of disappearance, I disappeared. For a moment, I entered a very deep meditative state. Many people search for these states, travel to caves, sit through a huge number of meditations, and are incredibly happy when the state arrives. For someone else, it may trigger fear. In my case, that is what people imposed on me: that it was a state to be afraid of, rather than one to enter more deeply. The only advice I would give myself in that state is, “Go deeper.” The only thing: go deeper. Register it consciously and go deeper. You can work on this quite well in relation to death: remember what I will do when I am dying.

Remember it and keep experiencing it. For this to happen, you need, among other things, to accept death. To accept death, you need to remain with that energy and feel it. But people are afraid. They are afraid of a black cat crossing their path. Or if something happens, they immediately run to church to light a candle, without understanding how it works or what is involved. They perform rites or rituals. People are afraid to discuss death, afraid they will attract it and attach it to themselves, but it is already beside you. For people of the current generation—and by generation, I certainly do not mean the last five or ten years, but a generation in planetary terms—

In planetary terms, death is beside people, and they need to become aware of it. They need to recognize its presence. Rudolf Steiner said back in 1924 that, in the coming centuries, more and more people would feel death present beside them, that death is there with them. Many people, including those in Eastern culture, strive for this: to approach the transition properly. To do that, first you need to recognize the importance of sensing life after death, of understanding and believing that it exists. But again, I am discussing all of this within the context of meditation and understanding what a meditative state is. That is the context in which I am explaining it: a normal, calm perception of what a meditative state is. Why did I give the example of disappearing, or of someone feeling that they are dying? To immerse yourself in what is needed, what is required, rather than in your various psychophysical or psychosomatic problems, worries, and fears. To become very aware at that moment.

This is well described in accounts of encounters with animals. They say that if you see a wild animal, the first thing to do is stay calm and aware, and remember what you need to do when you see a wild animal. Act consciously, rather than spontaneously. Acting consciously is the first action. To enter a meditative state, you need to realize that you will have to be aware within those meditative states and immersions. A person cannot enter a real, very powerful meditative state without being aware inside it. Not aware from outside, but aware within those meditative states. That is an entirely separate energy, a different experience of energy. It is surprising, but it is a different experience of energy: your spiritual being's awareness within the spiritual world. People who begin spiritual development think the physical body is stopping or obstructing it. But you need to understand that each of you has, at the very least, an undeveloped etheric body, an undeveloped astral body, and an undeveloped I, which block different processes of perception.

For example, a person cries because their I compresses the astral body, and laughs when their I releases it. For example. How is this connected? A person fights it at the level of the physical body. Many people simply regard the spiritual world as separate from the material and physical worlds, as something entirely distinct and unconnected, something completely different. Or they place the blame and responsibility on the physical world. We have discussed this before: if we read about meditation on Wikipedia or elsewhere online, we see that a great many descriptions approach it as a matter of calming the mind. Questions then arise about calming the mind specifically by denying the physical body and its processes. That is a very misguided approach. There are meditative states in which you are in silence and your whole system is very calm. And there are meditative states in which you simultaneously experience perceiving ten or fifteen spaces.

Believe me, you have quite a substantial flow of thoughts. The question is whether that flow is alive. What do people want to calm? They want to calm dead thoughts. But to do that, you need to become aware of it, to understand that there is such a thing as dead thoughts. What does that mean? Become aware of it and learn to distinguish it for yourself. We will talk much more about meditation. There are dozens of meditations on my channel, each with a different meaning and a different way of accessing different worlds. Some bring your entire system together very strongly. Some let you experience something and look into it, including allowing your system of spirit and soul to look more deeply into particular spaces. Many meditations will not even touch on your current life as such. That is a very interesting point. Is that what the person wants? What do they really want? Are they interested only in what concerns them? You can ask yourself this question: are you also interested in what concerns your spiritual being? The people close to you will not be interested in what concerns your spiritual being. Everyone wants attention for themselves. Ego, the space of ego, is everywhere.

Right now, you can enter the spiritual world and see this swarm of darkness, this swarm of darkness. The darkness is there, and you can go into it endlessly. It is not just a bottomless barrel; it is a bottomless multiverse, where even finding the way out is a question. But there is always a way out. And now, having entered a space of silence outside time, a white, bright space, move from there into each new moment of our lives.