|
|
"If you wish to travel far and fast,
travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, un forgiveness,
selfishness, and fears." _____Glenn Clark
In lesson 2 we will:
- Discover the meaning of life
- Learn more about focusing your mind through heart-concentration
- Continue your regular, daily meditation practice
For half a century now, a new consciousness has been entering the human
world, a new awareness that can only be called transcendent, spiritual.
It begins with a heightened perception of the way our lives move forward. We
notice those chance events that occur at just the right moment, and bring
forth just the right individuals, to suddenly send our lives in a new and
import
We know that life is really about a spiritual unfolding that is personal
and enchanting and magical – an unfolding that no science or philosophy or
religion has yet fully clarified. And we know something else as well: we
know that once we do understand what is happening, how to engage this
allusive process and maximize its occurrence in our lives, human society
will take a quantum leap into a whole new way of life – one that realizes
the best of our tradition – and creates a culture that has been the goal of
history all along…
"I think our new awareness of the spiritual is expanding in exactly
this way, no longer through neither hype nor fad, but personally, through a
kind of positive psychological contagion among people. All that any of us
have to do is suspend our doubts and distractions just long enough... and,
miraculously, this reality can be our own.”
____James Redfield
"You have to unlearn all the things you have learned to truly flow
with the force.” ____YODA- Return of the Jedi
Wisdom is simple; it is knowledge that craves complexity.
One of the main sources of stress is not having clear life directions or
goals. So often we are caught by the urgent things in our lives – our
material responsibilities and day-to-day struggles – that they create their
own vicious cycle within our minds. This is what we may know as the 'tension
loop’.
The 'tension loop' confuses meaning with movement.
Just like a computer, the mind processes data from many sources. The more
programs you run in a computer, the less time it can spend on each program
before having to go and process a little more of the next. The time the
computer spends switching from program to program makes the computer run
slower and slower until it may break down or stop.
The mind works in the same way. Only our programs that run around in
circles using up the minds resources are our fears, anxieties, doubts and
worries. As we run out of resources, the mind (unlike a computer) speeds up.
It becomes so involved by the number of things that it has to do that it
spends more and more of its time switching from one to the other, drawing us
further into the superficial and further away from the analytical and
obviously the intuitive or meditative levels. We find that we can’t
concentrate for very long, we’re flighty and scattered and it is
self-compounding. This 'tension loop' can be permanently transformed only
through calming the mind and allowing a deepening of our awareness. We need
to identify the negative thought patterns in our lives and transform them
into positives. For example, worries are perhaps the most insidious of all
negative thought patterns as within the mind they are like a program that
loops or is never completed. They use resources, create stress, and are
happiest when nothing is ever resolved or an ‘end-point’ reached.
In the end, however, the real problem is not so much that we may be
stressed or sick or having a nervous breakdown, the real problem is that we
have confused ‘busy-ness’ with our life meaning. Meaningful goals become
less and less clearly identified.
Every moment can be an opportunity to reach your real self - to meditate -
no matter where you are, or what is going on around you. It is all a matter
of where your consciousness is.
- The Meaning of Life
"We have to become again as children to enter the kingdom of heaven"
_____JESUS CHRIST
How many times in your life have you wondered about the meaning of life:
Who am I? Why am I here?
Most people have stopped asking these questions, as if there is perhaps no
answer; or if there is, it must not be necessary to know.
Can you see how absurd this is? How are we supposed to have clear life goals
if we do not know why we are here?
We have all listened to speakers who were very complex in their
arguments; you probably thought ‘I don’t know what he is saying but it
sounds important.’ We have learned to value complexity because in our
society it meant increased prestige.
So the natural progression of this is, that the most important of all
questions must have the most extremely complex answers. Gladly, for us, the
opposite is true.
Have you ever said - ‘I know this is right and it doesn’t matter what
anyone says, I know this is something I’ve got to do’. Perhaps you touched
your heart and continued; ‘because I felt it right here.’ Or perhaps you
were reading a particular book or listening to a person speak and suddenly
something they said struck a chord and you found yourself saying ‘Yes,
that’s right’. Sometimes these feelings might have even defied logic but you
knew they were true as grass growing for you. These are the 'Aah' moments of
real wisdom.
Wisdom requires not thought but experience, It always feels very simple as
it is a revelation of our real self. It is a meditation experience.
What we need to experience wisdom is meditation. To know the meaning of
life, we need it in abundance.
"Your own sincere search for yourself will become a synonym for
perfection-happiness."
Imagine for a moment that you were the creator of the earth. Would you
have made it so difficult for us to know the meaning of life, that we would
have to renounce all other attachments and travel on a sacred pilgrimage for
years and years until finally arriving at some Himalayan cave, where a holy
teacher in a dim, dark cave would proclaim that the meaning of life was 42?
- Or would you make it so simple that it would be sitting right in front of
us, waiting for the child in us to see? And perhaps we, in valuing
complexity are looking for the most complex of all answers to the biggest of
all questions, and continually missing the simplest of truths.
It often seems much easier not to know the meaning of life because in
not knowing we do not have to change anything. Some of us are subconsciously
afraid that knowing the answer might mean a change to our present
life-style. Many of us are not happy with our present state but fear
changing might make it worse.
So ask yourself if you really want to know. Take a moment if you need to,
because once you know it is impossible not to be transformed by knowing.
(Wonderful isn’t it?)
Now try this... Instead of asking what is the meaning of life, simply
ask yourself what puts meaning into your life? What moments would you like
to increase? Take a break to think this over, write some of them down if
you’d like, and read on...
Of the thousands of people to whom we have taught meditation, most describe
very similar moments that are meaningful: Relationships, traveling,
laughing, children, birth, death, experiencing and growing, nature and the
like. Virtually no one ever disagrees. All of these can be reduced to three
words - loving, learning (wisdom) and being happy. (They are always 'Aah'
moments)
That’s it. If it sounds simple, that’s because it is.
Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of heaven was coming, he
answered them,
"The kingdom of heaven is not coming with signs to be observed; nor
will they say, ‘Lo, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of
heaven is within you."-Jesus Christ
All three qualities mostly arrive now when fate decides. Meditation
shows us, however, that once we start to focus on these important,
meaningful qualities we can begin to invoke them when we decide.
Now look at all those meaningful moments in your life. You will see that
there are moments where you have experienced the love, wisdom and happiness,
that is your real nature. The kingdom of heaven that is within you, within
all of us, in this moment right now. The reason loving, learning and being
happy are meaningful is because they are the qualities of the heart.
This is important: All moments of meaning in our lives are moments of
the heart.
"You gotta dance like nobody's watching, dream like you will live
forever, live like you're going to die tomorrow and love like it's never
going to hurt". _____ Meme Grifsters
The funny thing is these three words - loving, learning and being happy
are so misunderstood in our world.
We think of each of them in mostly 'outer' ways.
Love - Our world says to us that we will be happy when we find the
perfect partner. We will 'find love' outside of ourselves in terms of our
human relationships. Our world says that there is more or less only one
perfect person for us and if we do not find them we will not find love. So
we need to go outside and find love.
This is an extremely narrow version of love and nigh impossible to find, but
most of us are convinced that we will not know love unless we are riding off
into the sunset with our perfect mate.
From the point of view of meditation and spirituality the reality is
almost the opposite. It says to us that love is vast and huge, that it
connects us to every single atom and it starts right now inside of us. That
our relationships do not solely define our experience of love, that we can
know love anywhere and at any time in infinite measure, watching a sunrise,
walking through a forest, sitting on a train - and that our doorway to this
infinite love is our own soul, our own heart, so that we must begin by
loving ourselves and opening up and developing the muscle that experiences
this infinite love. If we don't accept and love ourselves how will it be
possible to experience anything.
In short the highest love is defined by the sheer number of atoms we can
reach with our love, with intensity and connection. This is the experience
of the great masters, the ability to be connected by unconditional love to
everyone and everything. By limiting ourselves to one person, we will never
know real love.
Learning - our world says that we need to go outside to learn. Go to
school, to university or college, go outside and have lots of experiences,
travel and learn. Again, meditation says to us almost the opposite. It says
go within and find wisdom. You can get lots of intellectual knowledge
outside of yourself but real wisdom comes from within. Many very wise people
have had very little intellectual knowledge, but have been extremely happy
and calm. Conversely many extremely intellectual people are not happy, calm
or wise. Meditation says that the experience of wisdom is another 'Aah'
moment where we touch the wisdom that is inside us at every moment.
"When the solution is simple, God is answering."
_____EINSTEIN
Knowledge from science is constantly changing and evolving, over even
the last 100 years our view of the world has changed immensely, but for over
6000 years the same essential truths derived from meditation that lie at the
heart of all religions, that we all have an eternal soul within us that
possesses infinite love, wisdom and joy has remained unchanged.
"Real wisdom is always simple."
Happiness - our world takes us outside again and says we will be happy
when we have financial security, a career, a house, a nice family, a strong
social life or even a paradise to live in. It paints a picture of happiness
always being at another space and time, 'you will be happy when... - you
have that Porsche, that girlfriend, that party, win lotto ' but meditation
says happiness is not at another place or time - it is now. Within us now
there is infinite joy, there is infinite bliss, but we simply do not know
how to experience the kingdom of heaven within us. We glimpse it from time
to time in our accidental 'Aah' moments but it is time for us to realize the
infinite bliss that is our real nature. This is why we meditate
Exercise: 2 The Drop, Visualization
Prepare for your meditation as usual
Try to feel that in these few minutes you have entered a sacred space, a
heart-haven where the worries of life can’t enter.
Read the following exercise then choose aspects of it that you
immediately identify with. Gently close your eyes and expand the feeling
inside your heart.
Imagine a time before time itself existed. The universe is a symphony of
planets, stars and suns but no life. The earth is just a mass of water and
rock. You are a tiny drop hurtling through the heavens.
Feel your form drifting upon the winds as you descend to the earth.
Clear, pure, simple, you ride the skies. Way off in the distance you see our
precious, beautiful, blue planet. Our earth. It tugs somehow at your heart,
attracting you like a magnet towards it, and letting go. You allow yourself
to be drawn to it. As you accelerate towards it you see it’s heavenly beauty
rising from beneath you, your vision filling with the vastness of an ocean
below. For a moment you feel a little trepidation for you fear that you
might lose your identity in this vast ocean. A moment later, however, a
feeling reassures you; that this is an experience you will treasure forever
if only you could let go of your fear. So, focusing only on the ocean, you
relax and splash down into the middle of that vast expanse.
Calm and still, you realize that you now have a sense of expanded feeling.
Not only do you still feel conscious of yourself as the drop, but also your
awareness has enlarged to the experience of the whole ocean. Fascinated, you
notice that you can feel the waves on top as well as the dark stillness of
the depths of the ocean, and again you can feel yourself lapping up against
the shores of a distant country. A sense of silent power fills you as you
see what you have become. You are the ocean.
Gradually days pass, time flows; your physical being begins to change.
Some parts of your larger self, the ocean; form plants and organisms and
even small fish. Your awareness of the whole ocean expands. Now it is not
only the water of the ocean, but also the perceptions of the plants and
animals therein. You are able to feel what every animal, every plant is
feeling, and as time goes on in this way, so too does your expanded sense of
awareness continue to grow. You realize that everything is a part of you and
you, a part of everything.
You realize that this ocean is nothing other than the love in all things
and the love inside of you. And it is this love that makes you much more
than just a drop in the ocean. So you explore that love, expanding your
awareness into the evolving perceptions of all within the ocean. And you
watch as all life within the ocean grows and progresses within your larger,
divine self.
Spend some time exploring this expansion of your consciousness - it is your
real self that you are becoming. When you are ready to finish your
meditation, spend some time in silence assimilating what you have felt and
use this experience as the starting point for your next meditation.
"When intuition presents imagination with the Truth, imagination
successfully expands the Truth."
Summary
During this second class you will have;
- Practiced the recommended meditation exercises for at least ten minutes
daily - preferably the same time each day.
- Discovered the meaning of life, (or perhaps what is meaningful in your
life) and begun to put these important qualities in front of the ever
present ‘urgent’ things in our lives.
Source : The Meditation Society of Australia
|
|
