Meditation Matters
A weekly journal and podcast published each Thursday, exploring the many worlds of meditation.
Meditation matters
A weekly journal and podcast published each Thursday, exploring the many worlds of meditation
186: Group Meditation (3)
As one candle can ignite many, so the presence of just one person meditating well, may inspire others to a wonderful meditation.
Some days we are up and some we are down. Sometimes we are the candle lighting many, other times we are in need of igniting. For both roles, the only essential need is our presence.
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185: Group Meditation (2)
The discipline of attending a meeting at a set time and place creates momentum, which is essential to our progress. It takes more effort to attend a session on the other side of town than simply meditating at home. Each time we make that effort we recommit to our purpose, we place more store in the value of our meditation and hence, the more likely we are to give our all to the meditation itself. The more we give, we more we invariably receive.
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184: Group Meditation (1)
Meditation is self-discovery. Hence the experience of meditation is always inner, and personal. Meditation itself is not a social activity. Nevertheless our inner experience, and our overall spiritual wellbeing, can benefit greatly from meditating with others who are following the same spiritual Path or have the same focus and goals.
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183: Patience
Patience is our goal in disguise. The more we develop patience, the closer our goal approaches. Surrender of our own timeline immediately hastens our progress, whereas impatience always slows us down or grinds us to a halt.
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182: Dry Spells (8) – Devotion
Devotion is the golden link. If one has devotion, constant devotion, sleepless and breathless devotion, then one will never lose the sweetness in life.
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181: Dry Spells (7) – A Spiritual Journal
On holidays we take photos of scenes and events we want to remember, and store these photos in albums. When the holiday is long over, looking through the photos we revive the memories, feelings and sensations of those scenes and events. The photos keep the memories of the holiday fresh and alive in our consciousness whenever we turn to them.
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180: Dry Spells (6) – Practise and Persist
If we could meditate well under all circumstances and conditions, then we wouldn’t need to meditate – we’d already be perfect! Once we are fully illumined, then meditation without effort is our natural and spontaneous state, our default setting. Until then, practise – and persistence – makes perfect.
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179: Dry Spells (5) – Most Delicious Food
We cannot eat most delicious food every day – yet we still have to eat every day to sustain ourselves on earth. Some days we may be fortunate to dine at the finest restaurant; while on others we have to subsist on dry crackers. If that’s all there is, we’ll eat those dry crackers and be sustained by them, and see what tomorrow brings.
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178: Dry Spells (4) – The Spiral of Progress
Nature knows no straight line, nor does our heart. The flow of life is never straight, nor our spiritual progress. Nature is all waves, circles, ellipses, curves and spirals – and so is our natural growth.
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177: Dry Spells (3) – Spiritual Progress and the Illusory Straight Line
An underlying issue with dry spells in meditation is our feeling – our expectation – that the trajectory of spiritual progress ought to proceed upward at a steady, consistent rate, more or less in a straight line.
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176: Dry Spells (2) – Abandon Expectation
Dry spells arise when our experience does not match our expectation.
We can only do what is within our control. Frustratingly, we cannot control our experience, hence our dry spell … but we can control our expectation.
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175: Dry Spells (1) – How to Respond
Every meditator endures dry spells.
Like writer’s block or an athlete’s form slump, these spells arrive without warning, with no apparent cause and no clear remedy. Like the weather, a dry spell might last a day, a week or months on end.
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174: Two Simple, Powerful Mantras
The mantra “I am the Heart” is simple, adaptable and supremely powerful. This mantra can be employed during meditation or any other activity, in silence or aloud, anywhere and anytime for any duration.
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173: Ready for Enlightenment
A spiritual Master lived in an ashram with his disciples. One disciple, who had been with the Guru for several years, was quite convinced that he was doing very well in his meditation, spiritual discipline and service to the community.
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172: Music and Meditation (16) – Sri Chinmoy’s Pipe Organ Improvisations
Music is God’s thinnest disguise, inviting us, even luring us into the spiritual realm. When we follow music to its source we discover ourselves in the silence, the undisguised God.
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171: Music and Meditation (15) – Sound and Silence
Music arises out of, and leads back to silence.Silence is the canvas on which music is painted, the stage on which music is performed, the backdrop against which music poses, the air which music breathes. Silence sends forth music as its emissary, to reveal its secrets – love, sweetness, joy, harmony, perfection. Silence is the sun’s power, music the moon-beauty.
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170: Music and Meditation (14) – Meditation as Music
“If we pay adequate attention to each action, then inside the very depth of that action we are bound to hear music. Unless we hear music inside each action, the action is lifeless.”
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169: Music and Meditation (13) – Soulful Singing
Singing occupies a central role in the practise and ritual of most spiritual paths and traditions, for good reason.Spirituality lies beyond the realm of the rational, of reason, description and even understanding – as does music, and so is music a natural language of spirituality.
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168: Music and Meditation (12) – Usha Bala Elo (b)
“Slowly, very slowly,The virgin dawn appears / In the very depths of my aspiration-heart.”
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167: Music and Meditation (11) – Usha Bala Elo (a)
The dawn is one of nature’s most glorious mysteries and life’s most magical, auspicious moments. The transformation of night into day, darkness into light, despair into hope and promise, one state of being into its polar opposite, is at once exquisitely beautiful, thrillingly wondrous and utterly exhilarating.
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166: Music and Meditation (10) – Love as Song
Every spiritual quality can be felt, nurtured, enlarged and intensified by singing: sweetness, tenderness, sympathy, love, aspiration, longing, joy, ecstasy, courage, determination, devotion, valour, vigour, enthusiasm, self-offering – all respond to the right song as a sunflower to the sun.
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165: Music and Meditation (9) – “My Own Gratitude-Heart”
All spiritual qualities reside inside our heart – indeed our heart is comprised of all the spiritual qualities.To invoke or call forth any of the spiritual qualities is to open our heart. When our heart is open it is much easier to enter into meditation.
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164: Music and Meditation (8) – Our Brother-Sister-Teacher-Lover-Friends
Springing from the same source, the same parents, spiritual songs are our brothers and sisters, our intimate family, children of the same love, light and joy. They are also our closest friends, playmates, lovers, confidants, tutors, mentors and guides.
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163: Music and Meditation (7) – The Power of Song
A song can directly connect us to the experience and realisations of others, and reveal mirrored feelings and realities within us which otherwise might have remained hidden, or beyond our lived experience.
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162: Music and Meditation (6) – Sri Chinmoy’s Piano Improvisations
The quest to quieten or bypass the mind is one of mankind’s most difficult and intractable challenges; an epic and historical struggle continuing to unfold each time each one of us sits to meditate.
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161: Music and Meditation (5) – Music as Spiritual Teaching
For a spiritual Master, music offers a vast realm of opportunity for spiritual teaching. Where lectures, discourses, questions and answers must navigate the perilous pathways of doubt, fear, prejudice and misunderstanding in the seeker’s mind, music has an access card directly to the listener’s heart and soul, carrying with it inspiration, aspiration and ever-unfolding realisation.
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160: Music and Meditation (4) – Angels of Peace
Peace is the most urgent, desperate need in the world – peace between nations; between religions, cultures and ideologies; peace within society; within classrooms, workplaces and organisations; peace in the family; above all peace within ourselves, between the various needs and demands of our own body, vital, mind, heart and soul.
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159: Music and Meditation (3) – Sri Chinmoy’s “Flute Music Meditation”
Music is imbued with consciousness. In spiritual music, the consciousness of both performer and listener are of utmost importance. Music composed and performed from a state of deep meditation will be saturated with a meditative consciousness the way fragrance pervades a rose garden in full bloom. The more open and aspiring the listener, the more of that consciousness can be received and assimilated.
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158: Music and Meditation (2) – Levels of Consciousness
Orpheus, the Sirens, the Magic Flute, the Pied Piper: myth and folklore abound with tales of music mesmerising and leading us to other realms – some good, some not so. Music seemingly has the power of a drug or talisman: it charms our mind into quietude, rouses our will to action, calls forth our emotions, touches our heart and might even reveal our soul.
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157: Music and Meditation (1) – Music as Meditation
Music is a true divine miracle, an angel, emissary and ambassador of the Beyond.Music can be immediate and profound meditation. Music announces the inner worlds, opens a portal to the spiritual realm and paves a direct pathway to our Source.
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156: Not Mine, but Thine
If we are meditating, we acknowledge the existence of a higher force or consciousness within us. If a higher being or potential were not within us, meditation would be a pointless pursuit. We meditate to discover this deeper self, to access and utilise this greater power, to become this fuller reality.
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155: Spiritual Wisdom and Meditation
Sound cannot exist in a vacuum. It might be formulated, but cannot be heard. Atmosphere is needed to carry the vibrations or waves and in effect, give life to sound.
Imagine the full expressive range of a cello: rich, resonant, yearning, commanding, desolate, playful, soaring, sumptuous and satisfying. Now remove the body of the cello so only the strings, fingerboard and tailpiece remain, and imagine the same music being played – there is just a thin sound with no depth, warmth or soul.
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154: Eagerness (b) – Every Moment Your Last
Another way to nurture and maintain eagerness is to imagine this is our final day on earth. Whatever we were meant to experience, achieve and offer and have not yet done so, must be experienced, achieved and offered today, here and now.
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153: Eagerness (a) – Each Moment Your First
Eagerness is a universal currency of the inner realms: an executive force of love, commander of immediate action, impelling current of progress, dancing partner of newness and identical twin of delight.
Eagerness is always fresh and enlivening. Eagerness keeps us always positive, open and receptive. Eagerness is always creating, elevating, expanding and enlightening.
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152: Gratitude versus Aspiration
We are told that gratitude is a miracle, essential for fastest spiritual progress. Surely we shall be most grateful for what we have and what we are when we have achieved perfection, so the fullest expression of gratitude will blossom once we are perfect.
We are also told that aspiration is a spiritual miracle, indispensable for fastest spiritual progress. Aspiration is an intensified longing for as-yet unachieved perfection.
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151: Keinen Bequemen Stuhl
The source and only source of all peace, love, joy, wisdom, light, satisfaction and fulfilment is our soul. Our soul is more than ready and eager to offer all these qualities to us in infinite measure – as long as we show that we need them and value them. All happiness can be ours – for the asking.
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150: Freedom from Attachments
Persistent thoughts, desires and emotions are huge impediments to our progress in meditation, and we would like to be rid of them – but how?
“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” If we would have our attachments release us so we can finally enjoy peace and freedom, we must first release our attachments so they too can fly free.
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149: Your Visitor-Child
Right in front of you is the most beautiful child, more beautiful, more perfect than you have ever seen in this world or could ever have imagined.
This child is an emissary from a far-away realm and will be here on earth for just 15 minutes, in transit to another even further-away realm.
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148: The Eternal, Ever-New
Our minds are preoccupied with dividing, ordering, controlling and possessing our environment, including our own lives. The concept of time is a mental phenomenon: we focus much on the past and the future, to the detriment of our enjoyment of the present.
Through meditation we learn detachment from our minds’ preoccupations, including our obsession with past and future: as we enter deeper into our hearts, we become more centred in the moment, in the Eternal Now.
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147: The Eternal Beginner
In the outer world, at a certain point knowledge of a subject might be considered complete. Not so in the infinite spiritual realms, for here where all is ever growing and transcending, nothing can ever be complete.
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146: A New Goal, New Vocation, New “I”
Meditation redefines our very being.
There are many reasons for starting to meditate – seeking to reduce the stress in our lives, sharpen our concentration, improve our physical and mental health – yet all who continue with meditation, soon find that it beckons us far, far beyond anywhere we could possibly have hoped or imagined.
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145: Roots and Fruits
Our life-fruit and our soul-root need each other.
Roots are the source, fruits the goal. Roots represent raw materials, fruits the finished product. Roots are the inner world, fruits the outer world.
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144: Pursue and Realise Your Dreams
We are urged to pursue and to realise our dreams.
Yet how do we even know what our dreams are? How can we know what we ought to pursue?
Read and listen more143: An Empty Mind (3) – No Compromise!
To enter into a silent mind, we must summon all our hearts’ eagerness, intensity, determination and unwavering faith in our soul’s almighty power.
Read and listen more142: An Empty Mind (2) – The Goal
If our daily meditation practise is an endless train of thoughts because we have surrendered to them as to an oncoming illness or to old age, then we might as well as be chatting or watching television. To compromise in this way is to accept weakness and admit defeat.
Read and listen more141: An Empty Mind (1) – The Challenge
To constantly progress in meditation we must always strive for a silent, empty mind. Only in a thoughtless mind can we experience the true peace, beauty, vastness, clarity, light and joy of our inner being; otherwise though we may have glimpses of our deeper reality, we are selling ourselves short and will never realise our potential.
Read and listen more140: Selfish and Selfless
In meditation I sit alone, avoiding others and eschewing all involvement and even thoughts of the outside world, my focus directed exclusively within myself with the avowed goal of my own self-improvement, personal benefit and greater happiness. Meditation would appear the epitome of an anti-social, selfish behaviour.
Read and listen more139: The Frog in the Well
A little frog had lived his whole life at the bottom of a well. He knew no other environment and yet was content with his life. He had abundant food from the various insects that flew into the well and small water creatures that bred there, so in time he grew quite plump and fancied himself an authority on the world.
Read and listen more138: Heart-Garden
Our spiritual heart is a vast, beautiful, wonderful, delightful, sun-flooded garden we can never tire of exploring and enjoying. In the heart-garden all are welcome and all find perfect happiness.
Read and listen more137: Beyond Fear of Death (2) – The Soul-Bird
On a sunny day, if we build a mud hut and close in all the windows and the doors, then inside that hut it will be dark. Remove the walls and all is light. Fear is the darkness resulting from our mind-built walls of division and ego. As aspiration and meditation gradually dissolve these walls, the darkness of fear simply disappears.
Read and listen more136: Beyond Fear of Death (1) – Physical and Spiritual Death
It is an irony of human existence, that life can be miserable for the fear of losing our miserable life. Absent the fear of losing it, our life might be worthy of the fear of being lost. Fear, misery and death feed off and promote each other – all while we are alive.
Read and listen more135: Time, Energy and Sleep
Energy comes in many forms: physical energy, emotional energy, mental energy, psychic energy. We derive energy from our food and drink, from air and water, from sunlight, colour, music, art and beauty, from action, interaction, inspiration, ideals and emotions. We also expend energy in many ways: physically, vitally, mentally and psychically.
Read and listen more134: Stressed for Time?
Time and stress are intimately related. The pressure of time is the oxygen of stress. Without time and beyond time, there can be no stress; stress evaporates. So the surest way to alleviate and remove stress is to go beyond time.
Read and listen more133: Which Technique is Best?
The question is often asked: which technique is best for meditation? Should I practise mantra, breathing and counting, concentration on a candle, creative visualisation, singing or gazing at the sky?
Read and listen more132: Who Wants to be a Millionaire?
The pathway to the greatest treasures of the universe is absolutely free.
Meditation affords us the richest of riches – peace, love and happiness.
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131: Samurai
When we concentrate and meditate, outwardly we are statues of the Buddha: all calm, poise and serenity.
Yet inwardly we must be samurai warriors: all focus, vigilance and intensity.
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130: Having and Being
The goal of our outer quest is to have; the fulfilment of our inner search is to be.
What we have is material, which is immaterial; what we are is spiritual, which is real.
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129: A Drop in Search of Its Ocean (4) – God-Realisation
Though the drops may have forgotten their source, they retain always an innate and compelling urge. Their urge is ultimately to return to the ocean from whence they came. Yet because they have forgotten the ocean, initially the urge presents itself simply as a yearning to transcend their drop-limitations, to grow, learn and explore, to join and become an ever-larger entity.
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128: A Drop in Search of Its Ocean (3) – God-Oneness
Within its tasks and adventures, each drop is fully occupied. There is no apparent connection between the drop and the ocean. The drop’s provenance from the ocean is a remote, ancient occurrence, now obscured and lost in the all-consuming necessity of the moment.
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127: A Drop in Search of Its Ocean (2) – Reincarnation
A drop is like a soul. All souls originate in the ocean of infinite consciousness – God – and at some point find themselves magically, mysteriously or miraculously evaporated from their ocean-source. They are still one in essence with the God-ocean, yet seem now to be separate, on their own.
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126: A Drop in Search of Its Ocean (1) – Water and Consciousness
Every drop originates in the ocean; and to the ocean, every drop yearns to return.
The ocean is comprised of countless drops. Yet we don’t perceive the ocean as innumerable entities: we perceive the ocean as one.
When the sun shines on the surface of the ocean, some of its surface water is evaporated. It changes its form from liquid to gas, and so apparently disappears.
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125: How Would You Like Your Potatoes?
I was once fortunate to stay for about 10 days at a fine hotel in Phnom Penh, which incorporated an international school for chefs. The student chef’s training included preparing meals for our large group of vegetarians. It seemed that at least one dish at each meal had to be prepared from potatoes, and that no dish could be repeated over the course of our stay. Alongside a superb array of other courses, we marveled at the inexhaustible panoply of potato presentations.
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124: Who is Not God?
A seeker once came to a spiritual Master, eager to ask one burning question: “Who is God?”
The Master smilingly responded: “Who is not God?”
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123: What About God?
Talking or writing about God is pointless, fruitless frittering.
Whoever or whatever God is, lies beyond the realms of thought, analysis and even description.
God can only be felt, experienced and realised.
Whenever we try to describe, define or confine God, God eludes us.
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122: Breath of the Heart
Choose a quiet, uncluttered place. Sit so that the spine is straight, yet relaxed. Close your eyes and focus all attention on your breath.
Imagine the outside world has dissolved. Nothing exists beyond your controlled breathing.
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121: Without Meditation…
Without meditation I am incomplete. With meditation I am whole.
Without meditation I have no idea who I am. With meditation I inhabit my true self.
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120: From One Candle
As we grow through our meditation and spiritual practise in peace, poise, clarity, creativity, purpose, joy, inspiration and aspiration, it is inevitable that we will want others to enjoy these same benefits. The practise of meditation is so simple and its effects so overwhelmingly positive, how can we not wish our friends and loved ones – indeed all of suffering humanity – to share in our miraculous discovery?
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119: Folded Hands in Meditation (8) – Devotion
Folded hands are the symbol and expression of devotion. Devotion is the fast lane of spiritual progress. Devotion and meditation help each other like two arms, left and right. Devotion deepens, sweetens, purifies, clarifies and intensifies our meditation practise.
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118: Folded Hands in Meditation (7) – Depth and Height
We talk about going deep in meditation, and we also talk about going high in meditation. Ultimately, a deep and a high meditation lead to the same reality-goal. Depth and height are both relative concepts, which pertain in the realm of the finite.
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117: Folded Hands in Meditation (6) – A Lightning Rod
When we sincerely aspire for a goal, we will take help from any quarter and explore any means to reach our goal. We will listen to advice, read books, attend classes, practise techniques, make sacrifices, travel to far places, we will adjust our diet, daily schedule, exercise regime and sleep patterns – anything to help us reach our goal sooner.
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116: Folded Hands in Meditation (5) – Thy Will
Meditation is the withdrawal of our mind’s engagement with the outer world, to enter into our heart’s realm of peace, light and delight. Our hands are the executors of our will in the world. When we fold our hands, we both practically and symbolically withdraw our means of action from the outer world.
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115: Folded Hands in Meditation (4) – A Sympathetic Hearing
Closing the palms together in front of one’s heart is known in hatha yoga as the “Anjali Mudra”, “mudra” meaning “sign” referring to a posture or positioning of the hands; “anjali” meaning to offer, salute or revere.
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114: Folded Hands in Meditation (3) – Proof of the Pudding
Everything in meditation and spirituality has to be practical. While theories may be fascinating and sometimes inspiring, only experience is real. Practical also means personal. We are all unique. Just because something works for someone else doesn’t mean it will work for me at this time.
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113: Folded Hands in Meditation (2) – Energy and Aspiration
Our energy meridians end in our fingertips; our hands form the left and right “poles” of our bodies’ energy fields. These fields are sometimes expressed as representing left brain/right brain, male/female, ida/pingala or sun/moon energies.
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112: Folded Hands in Meditation (1) – Body Language
What should we do with our hands during meditation? We do not meditate with our hands: yet our hands are extremely significant parts of our being – practically, energetically and symbolically – and what we do with them can tremendously influence our consciousness, actions and environment.
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111: To Dispel Unhappiness
Meditation and unhappiness are incompatible. If you can dispel unhappiness from your system before you sit down to meditate, your meditation will be freer, easier and more effective.
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110: Chasing Shadows
https://www.radiosrichinmoy.org/wp-content/uploads/meditation-matters-copy/110-chasing-shadows.mp3 Desire is a yearning to possess the unpossessable. It juggles chimeras and grasps at thin air while feasting on reflections in its castle in the sky. The world we sense...
109: Frustrated and Empty
When we do not get what we desire, we are left feeling frustrated and empty: if only our desire had been fulfilled, surely happiness would be ours and all would be well. Yet when we get what we desire, we are again left feeling frustrated and empty: somehow the fulfilment of our desire has not given us the happiness and satisfaction we had hoped for.
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108: The Ocean of Grace
Each life is a river flowing to the sea. From the perspective of the river, its current appears to be its own doing, its own driving force. Yet when we step back and view from a larger perspective, we see it is actually the ocean that is drawing the river towards it.
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107: The Swift-Flowing Current of Grace
Each life is a river flowing to the sea. The current of a river flows always strongest in its depths. This underling current is the guarantee that the river will reach its destination. When you look at the surface of a river, you may see little eddies and swirls flowing in many different directions. Rocks and snags initiate all manner of disturbances, convolutions and conflicts in the surface flow.
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106: The Tadpole and the Frog
A tadpole and a frog appear completely different creatures. Yet they are one and the same. A tadpole can live only in water. Like a fish, it uses its tail to swim around. A frog can live both in water and on land. For the tadpole to become the frog, it must first develop legs.
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105: Where are we Heading? (4)
You live the richest, most varied and fruitful life that any human could imagine. And yet … and yet … after all, you are still no closer to answering: Who am I? Why am I here? Where have I come from and where am I heading?
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104: Where are we Heading? (3)
In addition to the senses you had as an animal, you now have that most marvellous instrument of awareness – the mind. It is as though your world has just exploded in scope, variety and possibilities. The power of the mind to perceive, to analyse, organise, classify, quantify and control is dazzling and unparalleled.
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103: Where are we Heading? (2)
Eventually you become a huge tree, with magnificent strong branches and countless fluttering leaves, offering shade and protection to all and sundry, great and small. You bear flowers and fruits. You are admired by the world. You live a long, full and fulfilling life as a tree.
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102: Where are we Heading? (1)
To answer this question, let us embark on an imaginary journey. Immerse yourself, allowing no outside thought or distraction to enter. Sit somewhere where you can be quiet and alone. Assume your meditation pose, breathe calmly and close your eyes.
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101: The Red and the Green Lollies
Two little boys were extremely fond of a particular red lolly. Every day they would visit the corner store and purchase their supply, served in a white paper packet. They were agreed: nothing could equal these red lollies. They loved everything about them: their unsurpassable taste, texture, colour and shape.
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100: Tour Guide, Teacher, Lover, Playmate, Doctor, Banker, Insurer, Friend
Meditation is self-discovery, the purpose and meaning of life. Tour Guide: everything is within. Meditation takes us by the hand and leads us from our floundering fixation on the outer, step by step into the fathomless depths and wondrous vastness of our limitless inner realms.
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99: Evolution (2)
Up to now, our evolution has been unconscious, determined by some unseen force of nature. As long as our journey is unconscious it is bound to be fraught and haphazard, with many false starts, wrong turns and missed opportunities.
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98: Evolution (1)
In school we learn about evolution. We learn about how we humans have evolved from animals, most recently from apes and chimpanzees. We learn about Charles Darwin, his theory of the Evolution of the Species and of Natural Selection. When I was in school I readily accepted and subscribed to these theories as fact.
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97: The Six Blind Men
This is a traditional story… Six blind men lived together in a forest. They had heard rumours of the elephant, which they were not able to verify since none of them had seen the elephant. They agreed one of them should find the elephant and report back.
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96: You Want a Revolution?
Order reigns even in chaos; within order, chaos lurks. All outer phenomena bear the signature of hidden forces. If you want to achieve, influence or become anything, go to its source. We regard the landscape around us as a fixed anchor of our existence. Yet even solid rock is a veneer, a thin crust floating atop a slowly seething sea of molten magma.
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95: Bird in a Cage (3) – Return
Lost in your flight, your song and the thrill of freedom, you are now drawn not by what is below, but rather what is above. Tilting your neck upward, a radiant sky beckons as you bend your being up into its heart of infinite blue. The higher you fly, the brighter and fuller the hue until even its blue is dissipated into pure light as the all-real.
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94: Bird in a Cage (2) – Flight and Freedom
In a rush of light and air, instinctively your wings engage to keep you aloft. Dazzled, your world spins in a hurtling rush of colours, shapes, scents and sounds. You are in another realm. Around the garden you fly, drinking in the array of vivid colours and sweet fragrances. Giddy you rise beyond your own backyard to discover more gardens, vibrant and abuzz with the joy and industry of life.
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93: Bird in a Cage (1) – The Cage
This is a creative visualisation exercise. Sit in a quiet place, alone, where you will not be disturbed. Close your eyes and focus on your breathing for a few minutes, carefully regulating your breath to relax your whole body while calming your thoughts and emotions.
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92: Everything in a New Light
The world is a white wall. Shine a red light on the wall and it appears red. Shine a green light: it appears green. Like the wall, we perceive the world according to the light of our own consciousness. When we are sad, the world appears ugly: when we are happy, the world is beautiful. We shine our own light on the world, and so the world appears.
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91: Ten-Armed Goddess
Many of the Hindu cosmic gods and goddesses are depicted with multiple arms, each arm performing a different task, revealing a particular capacity or bestowing a gift or boon. We too can develop multiple arms. We too can become the 10-armed god or goddess. Our arms represent our capacities, manifest our talents and convey our gifts in the outer world; through our arms we build, create, reveal and offer.
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90: No Standing Still
Everything is in constant motion. Nothing ever stands still. Even the so-called laws of the universe are in constant flux. We are either jumping up, or falling down. We are breathing in, or breathing out; gaining, or losing fitness; growing, or decaying; learning, or forgetting. So it is with spiritual progress. There is no standing still: we are either moving forward or we are falling backwards.
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89: Expectation
“Peace begins when expectation ends.”
– Sri Chinmoy
Expectation hobbles our meditation. We are used to always expecting some result from any activity we engage in. Otherwise, what’s the point of the activity? Yet meditation is an activity like no other. Meditation is much more effective when it is practised with no expectation of any result whatsoever.
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88: Your Heartbeat
Your heartbeat is the constant of your life on earth. Whether you are awake or asleep, healthy or unwell, your heart beats within. No matter how you look or what you wear, your heart beats on. No matter what you are thinking or feeling, what you have been, what you are or will become, your heart beats. In happiness and despair, in victory and defeat, in glory and shame alike – your heart beats on regardless.
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87: Everything Takes Time
Meditation transforms us from within. This process is completely natural and normal. If you bring forth divine qualities – peace, light, wisdom, love and compassion – your outer life has to change for the better. Being a natural process, spiritual growth takes time.
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86: Brick by Brick
Every day we cannot enjoy a sumptuous feast. Some days we might have all the ingredients on hand for a full banquet, while at other times we might go to the pantry only to find dry bread. If that is all that is available, then on that day we won’t starve: we get by on dry bread.
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85: Surfing
Meditation is like surfing. A good surfer practises techniques and hones skills. Preparation is essential; preparing the board, preparing oneself, finding the right break at the right beach.
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84: Sunbathing
Meditation is self-discovery. Pure meditation is not something we do, it is what we are: not an action, but a state of being.
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83: The Piano Strings (3)
Like the piano, our heart has many strings, each tuned to a spiritual quality. Whereas the piano has strings for various notes, our heart has a “Love” string, a “Beauty” string, a “Peace” string and so forth.
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82: The Piano Strings (2) – Sympathetic Resonance
For this experiment you will need a piano and a trumpet. In our previous episode we explored the mechanics of a piano, and how its strings produce various notes according to the frequency to which they are tuned.
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81: The Piano Strings (1)
Recently I was driving along the freeway, my mind a tangled knot of problems, anxieties and stresses of the day. Suddenly, with the distant mountain range for its stage, was an unutterably glorious sunset. Spontaneously I let out an “Ah!”, my mind’s petty preoccupations arrested and banished in a panoply of glory, beauty and serenity.
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80: Two Thieves
Swami Vivekananda often told this story… In ancient times, there was a most rare and precious jewel, renowned throughout all the lands. It had many owners over the years: it was traded for great riches; bestowed as a highest reward; even battles were fought over its possession. In time, this jewel came universally to be regarded as the most precious object in all existence.
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79: Aspiration
Aspiration is the single secret of meditation. Aspiration is the inner cry, inner yearning for something truer, higher, vaster, deeper, freer, ever more perfect and divine.
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78: Two Engines
We all feel there is something missing in our lives; something subtle, indefinable, somehow always beyond our reach. This sense of missing something makes us feel incomplete. This sense of incompleteness drives us, motivates us to fill this void, either temporarily, or once and for all…
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77: Birds in the Sky
Imagine thoughts during meditation are birds in the sky. You are not the birds. You are the sky. Perhaps the biggest hurdle we encounter in meditation, is the very first hurdle: the stream of thoughts flowing through our minds. What to do with these thoughts?
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76: Am I a Failure?
We know that the goal of meditation is to enter into a completely vacant, still and silent mind. Yet even after years of practise, I am still being bothered by thoughts and distractions. Does this mean I am a useless meditator, wasting my time? Not at all! To be able to silence the mind at will is a monumental achievement requiring an enormous effort of will, practise and persistence.
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75: All These Thoughts!
We are so used to our mind’s constant clutter, that we become inured to its incessant activity. The only time we notice so many thoughts is when we sit down and try to meditate. It’s as though all of a sudden there are all these thoughts at the precise moment we don’t want any! Of course the thoughts have been there the whole time…
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74: Morning Meditation – To Serve the World
If we are inspired to feed the hungry, we must first grow and harvest some crops. If we are inspired to give money to the poor, we must first earn the money. The same applies to inner wealth: peace, love, happiness and satisfaction. We must first find and cultivate these qualities before we can offer and share them with the world at large. Many feel a calling to save the world. There is so much suffering, unhappiness, ignorance, anger, fear, stress and despair.
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73: Morning Meditation – Instructions for the Day
All of us have a sense that there is something or someone superior in wisdom and capacity – whether part of our own being or beyond us – to which or to whom we would ideally turn for guidance, instruction and inspiration. Be it a family member, friend or counsellor, a scripture, our spiritual heart, soul, God or some other deity, we all feel the need to turn to some source greater, deeper and more illumined than our own minds and emotions.
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72: Morning Meditation – Gliding from a Height
There is a widely held view that we are all either “morning people” or “NOT morning people”. Those who regard themselves as NOT morning people tend to find it more difficult to meditate successfully in the morning, and report better quality meditations in the evening.
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71: Morning Meditation – Your Identity Card
Next time you are angry, stressed, confused or depressed, look at yourself in the mirror. What do you feel from this face? Do you find it attractive – or otherwise? One time after you have had a good meditation, do the same: look at yourself in the mirror. What do you feel from this face?
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70: Morning Meditation – Tuning our Instrument
Every day is a new game, a new song, a new journey, a new examination. Our instrument is our consciousness. Just as an athlete prepares with stretching and warm-up exercises, a musician carefully tunes their instrument, a traveller packs their bags and a student studies for an exam, so our morning meditation prepares our consciousness so we are in shape for our daily game, song, journey and examination.
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69: Morning Meditation – Money in the Bank
Meditating first thing in the morning is like putting money in the bank.
When we have money in the bank, we can withdraw it to spend whenever the need arises. It is said: “Morning shows the day.” When we wake up we are relatively unconscious. What we do first thing after waking can hugely influence our state of consciousness for the remainder of the day.
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68: The Musk Deer
The original source of musk fragrance is the male musk deer, which produces the famous scent from a gland in its body. The story goes, that when the deer first becomes aware of this fragrance, it becomes enchanted, and starts to follow it, seeking its source. The deer walks around in search of this alluring wonder. No matter which way it turns, the fragrance remains always slightly out of reach. It cannot locate the source. Obsessed, the deer starts to run and run, madly pursuing the elusive unattainable.
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67: The Tiny Infinite
There is an infinite universe around us … and an infinite within. To embrace the infinite, it is customary to identify with something vast, like the ocean or the sky. You can instead choose something very small. The finite realm we inhabit, which dominates our present awareness, is a fine, flimsy gauze covering the infinite reality within and all around. Just as height and depth in meditation are ultimately the same; so the same truth is embodied within the vast, as in the tiny. Vast and tiny are conceptions of our mind; beyond the mind’s domain, vast and tiny alike dissolve in the One.
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66: A Thumbnail, a Black Dot
To meditate, we must focus the mind. Our tool is concentration. The better our concentration, the easier it is to enter into meditation. As a chef cannot work with a blunt knife, so one cannot meditate with a scattered and wandering concentration.
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65: Vaster than the Universe
Sit alone, somewhere quiet. Dive deep into your heart. We feel our spiritual heart in the region of our physical heart, in the centre of our chest, but deeper within. Imagine you are not your body, mind or emotions but only your heart of peace, love, light, joy and gratitude blossoming and spreading with the sweetest fragrance. You are all heart from top to bottom, within and without.
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64: Turning the Light On
When you go into a dark room, if you want light, you turn on the light switch. This is exactly how meditation works to dispel our inner darkness – our problems, worries, doubts, fears and anxieties. If you want light in a dark room, you don’t blunder about in the darkness, exploring all the dark corners in the expectation that somehow the room will miraculously become illumined.
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63: The Mountaintop
Sit alone, somewhere quiet. Focus on your breathing, bringing it under your conscious control, calming, slowing and making your breath one steady flow – in and out, in and out, through your nostrils. Breathe with your diaphragm, your upper body remaining perfectly still.
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62: The Power of Imagination
The present mind and heart are two entire ways of being, each seeing and feeling the world and ourselves differently. The mind craves control; the heart seeks love. We can only control what is fixed and certain; hence the mind’s mission to define, delimit and detain. The mind wants to reduce the universe so it can be possessed, known and dominated.
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61: The Mind and the Heart (7) – Sound and Silence
The present mind and heart are two entire ways of being, each seeing and feeling the world and ourselves differently. The mind craves control; the heart seeks love. We can only control what is fixed and certain; hence the mind’s mission to define, delimit and detain. The mind wants to reduce the universe so it can be possessed, known and dominated.
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60: The Mind and the Heart (6) – The Licensed Driver
It’s not that we don’t like the mind. The mind is not bad. It is potentially extremely good. It has just headed in a wrong direction. The mind is like an adorable little boy of the family who thinks it great fun to splash paint over everyone’s food – at every meal. At some point, his ways need to change, before we all starve.
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59: The Mind and the Heart (5) – The Ruler and the Sky
The mind and the heart perceive and comprehend reality differently. The mind’s modus operandi proceeds on the understanding that it is observing something separate from itself. The mind constructs models of reality based on evidence it receives from the senses and other sources. These models are constantly changing as new evidence comes to light, just as the mind itself is subject to constant change.
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58: The Mind and the Heart (4) – The Smallest Dog
Why does the smallest dog always bark the loudest? He knows he is small, so feels he has to project an impression of greatness and power to impress the world and hide his weakness. It is all front, all a bluff.
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57: The Mind and the Heart (3) – Unity and Division
The mind divides; the heart unites. Yesterday I was poring over some accounts; George was studying calculus – we were both much in our minds. We met and started a conversation. It happens that George and I like different colours, different kinds of music, different foods, movies and sporting teams. After 5 minutes, we made a long list – of all our differences.
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56: The Mind and the Heart (2) – A Coup d’Etat
Our mind is the servant that has become the master. Fire can be used to cook, to warm us and give light: or it can destroy. The mind is meant to be an instrument for our use, processing information from the senses, and applying its intellect for our own and the greater good. The mind is a wondrous power, an indispensable tool to aid us to live and operate in the world.
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55: The Mind and the Heart (1) – The Coalface of Progress
We have seen that of the five levels of our being, the lower three levels – body, vital and mind – are finite, while the higher two levels – our spiritual heart and soul – are infinite. The qualities we seek: peace, love, joy and satisfaction, all are infinite. All abide in our heart and soul. Yet our present consciousness is most dominated by our finite parts: in particular, our mind.
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54: A Unique and Dramatic Tension
At the heart of the human condition lies a contradiction which gives rise to a unique and dramatic tension. This contradiction is in the very character and attributes of the various levels of our being: body, vital, mind, heart and soul.
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53: Our Five Levels of Being (5) – The Soul
The soul is our source, the only part of us which is eternal – yet we have of the soul, only a vague awareness. We have become estranged from our own true self.If you ask people if they have a soul, most will immediately answer, “Yes”. But ask them to prove it; you will likely get a blank stare of bewilderment.
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52: Our Five Levels of Being (4) – The Spiritual Heart
Make a list of all the qualities you most treasure; the qualities you, and the world, need most urgently. Your list might include peace, love, oneness, joy, fulfilment, compassion, forgiveness, gratitude, wisdom, courage, strength, belonging, kindness, tolerance, patience, beauty, sweetness, perfection, satisfaction.
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51: Our Five Levels of Being (3) – The Mind
Level three is where most of us spend most of our time, energy and focus, the locus for most of the conscious awareness of present-day humanity, the level which rules the world – for better and for worse. We are speaking of the Mind.
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50: Our Five Levels of Being (2) – The Vital
There are two convenient ways to represent a model of our five levels of being. One way is as a 5-story building, where the body is the ground floor and each succeeding level is the next floor above. This model is useful to understand some aspects of the relations between the various levels.
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49: Our Five Levels of Being (1) – The Body
We are complex beings… infinitely more complex than the physical Universe around us. While no model can ever adequately represent the multifarious levels of our consciousness, nevertheless for our purposes it is helpful to envision ourselves as comprising five essential levels of being.
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48: The Ultimate of Everything
The highest moments in our lives, the pinnacle experiences, are but glimpses of our deeper selves, our true nature. When we are swept off our feet with happiness; when we gasp at the sheer beauty of a sunset; when our heart melts in the smile of an innocent child; when we are lost in wonder at the towering majesty of mighty mountains or the twinkling mystery of far galaxies; when we thrill to pure poetic perfection; glow with the flame of inspiration or soar on the wings of song; when we are seized with the revelation of a new truth; when we exult in silent speechless bliss of rapt meditation – these moments are signposts to the Beyond, the eternal reality within.
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47: Just a Moment
Stop. Clear your mind and recall any most inspiring incident, experience or feeling from your past… Fully immerse yourself in and treasure this memory for a while. You will notice that what you have recalled, is just a single moment.
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46: A Hole in the Ground
When you walk past the building site of a new large building in the city, and peer through the window of the siding walls protecting the site, for months on end all you will see is a hole in the ground.
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45: Mantra in Practise (3)
Mantra is a most effective form of meditation practise because it simultaneously involves many levels of our being. The body is involved in creating the sound; we feel the vibration, resonance and cadence of the mantra in our very limbs.
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44: Mantra in Practise (2)
After chanting all the words on your list in turn, each for a minute or two, conclude with the mantra “AUM” for a while. Feel that the sound is emanating spontaneously from the depths of your spiritual heart.
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43: Mantra in Practise (1)
A mantra is the repetition of a phrase, word or syllable. The mantra is the focus of our meditation and the meditation itself. The mantra, its meaning, sound and resonance are at once an anchor for the mind and an invocation of a spiritual force, power or quality.
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42: The Manifold Munificent Mystery of Mantra
Human beings have a deep, mystic relationship with words. Words connect us with meaning, sound, vibration, and with Being itself. They are a means to communicate, to illustrate, to educate, to elevate and to liberate. Words link silence with sound, bridge Heaven and earth, marry the human with the Divine.
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41: An Anchor for the Mind
If a boat is left by itself on the ocean, it will be in constant motion: moving this way with the tides, that way with the wind, another way with a current. The boat itself has no say in where it goes, helpless before the forces of sea, sky and moon.
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40: Gratitude
Gratitude is a magical force in our lives. Just as light and dark cannot coexist in the same space, so gratitude and negative feelings cannot co-inhabit our consciousness. To dispel darkness, turn the light on: to relinquish negative thoughts and feelings, invoke gratitude.
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39: A Most Beautiful Child
If you have attained ultimate perfection, you do not need to change. If you are completely happy, you do not need to change. If you are already fulfilling your potential and your life’s highest purpose, you do not need to change. Yet who can say that he or she is already utterly perfect, happy and fulfilled? No-one.
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38: Change
If you have attained ultimate perfection, you do not need to change. If you are completely happy, you do not need to change. If you are already fulfilling your potential and your life’s highest purpose, you do not need to change. Yet who can say that he or she is already utterly perfect, happy and fulfilled? No-one.
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37: A Creative Visualisation
Close your eyes and imagine that you are sitting on a beach. You are alone. It is a perfect day. The beach stretches as far as your eye can see in either direction. Feel the sun’s warmth on your skin, the faint sea breeze on your cheek, taste a little salt in the air.
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36: The Ego: Dinosaur of the Era
As the dinosaurs of yore, our ego now proudly roams and rules the world… and as the dinosaurs found their days were numbered, so the time of the ego’s reign is now well and truly up. Consciousness is constantly evolving, within us and around us.
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35: The Problem of Problems
Meditation solves all our problems, inner and outer. Ultimately, meditation solves the Problem of problems – the Problem of existence itself.
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34: Our Heart Flame (3)
You have become the flame. You are inundated with the flame’s light, purity, simplicity, beauty and delight. Because you have become the flame, and a flame has no mind, therefore you have no mind. Because you have no mind, thoughts and distractions find no foothold in you.
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33: Our Heart Flame (2)
Imagine your breath forms a bridge between your heart and the flame. Across this bridge, you and the flame offer yourselves unreservedly to each other. The flame is offering you its light, simplicity, purity and delight: you are breathing in and absorbing all these qualities as you inhale.
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32: Our Heart Flame (1)
Sit somewhere quiet where you can be alone and undisturbed. Place a candle in front of you, at eye level. Light the candle. We shall use the candle flame as the focal point for our concentration and meditation.
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31: Meditation as Magic
Magic tricks often rely on distraction: the magician will set up a scenario, then draw our attention away to something else. While we are watching what his left hand is doing, his right hand completes the “trick”, so that when we return our attention to the original scene, the “magic” is complete and we are duly amazed.
So is it with meditation.
Read and listen more30: A Flower-Heart
For this exercise you will need a fresh flower.
Sit somewhere quiet where you can be alone and undisturbed. Either place the flower in a vase or hold the flower by its stem in front of you.
Gaze at the flower with your eyes half-open, half-closed, so that there is little else in your peripheral vision.
29: Breathe and Become Joy
Sit somewhere quiet where you can be alone and undisturbed. This exercise can be done either with your eyes closed or else open and resting on a simple object such as a flower or candle flame. Sit somewhere quiet where you can be alone and undisturbed. Focus exclusively on your breathing. Slow your breath and make the flow of breath through your nostrils as calm and controlled as possible.
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28: Breathe and Become Power
Sit somewhere quiet where you can be alone and undisturbed. Focus exclusively on your breathing. Slow your breath and make the flow of breath through your nostrils as calm and controlled as possible.
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27: Our Treasure is Within
Imagine peace is now spilling over from the inner vessel in your heart, flowing into your mind, quieting your thoughts, so that your mind is now the smooth surface of a still lake; from there it flows into your feelings, calming and soothing your nerves and emotions;
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26. Breathe and Become Peace (2)
Imagine peace is now spilling over from the inner vessel in your heart, flowing into your mind, quieting your thoughts, so that your mind is now the smooth surface of a still lake; from there it flows into your feelings, calming and soothing your nerves and emotions;
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25: Breathe and Become Peace (1)
Sit somewhere quiet where you can be alone and undisturbed. This exercise can be done either with your eyes closed or else open and resting on a simple object such as a flower or candle flame.
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24: A Secret Paradise
The ideal of a secret paradise is woven through fairytales, myths, legends and religions of every race and culture. This paradise might take the form of a garden, a bodiless realm of light, a heaven beyond the stars. We catch glimpses of such a realm in our sleeping dreams and in our inspired imaginations.
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23: Naked and Alone
It has been often remarked, that we come into this world naked and alone – and we depart, naked and alone. To enter into pure meditation, we must also be prepared to stand naked – that is to say, naked of ego; and alone – without human company.
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22: Intimations of Immortality
Saints, mystics, poets, seers and seekers in every culture have sought the secret of life eternal. The ever-growing annals of Near-Death Experiences and the findings of quantum physics offer present-day support to the notion that at least a part of us lives on beyond death. If so, what part? Are we immortal?
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21: To Change the World
There is so much wrong with the world – but what can I, just one small person, do about it? Anything? Nothing? How about … everything! There is no such thing as “the world.” There is only what we perceive it to be – and what we perceive is a reflection of our own consciousness – which itself changes from day to day and even from moment to moment.
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20: We are the Source of Love
We are used to dealing with specific expressions or feelings of love: we speak of being in love with someone, of loving a hobby or a song or the way reflected moonlight dances on the water on a September evening.
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19: A Cry for Freedom
How many of us are truly free? Not free = not happy. Freedom has been the guiding light, the catch-cry, the struggle of humanity for aeons. “Give me liberty or give me death!” cried American revolutionary, Patrick Henry.
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18: Detox for your Mind
Detoxes are nowadays common practise. Daily meditation is the most effective detox for the mind.
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17: Breath of Life
Our breath represents our very life. Without our breath we can’t exist on earth. Yet how often do we focus on this most essential component of our existence? Do we ever pause to offer even a moment’s gratitude to our breath?
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16: Purity
For our health, we value purity in our food, water and air: even more essential is the role of purity in our thoughts, intentions and actions.
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15: All You Need is Love
Love is not an action, not something we “do”. It is the matrix of our being, the power grid of the universe. It is a force within us which we can invoke, enter into and bring to the fore.
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14: Every Breath Counts (2)
This is one of the simplest and best concentration exercises which anyone can practise anywhere, anytime.
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13: Every Breath Counts (1)
The essence of this exercise is simplicity.
Only two things are required of us: to breathe and to count.
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12: Loving the Source
The secret of meditation is love. The secret of love is meditation. Meditation and love are inseparable. It is through love that we meditate most effectively, and through meditation that we access ever deeper, vaster and sweeter love.
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11: Simply Breathing
According to martial arts lore: “He who controls his breath, controls his destiny.” Doesn’t this sound a bit far-fetched? First gain complete mastery of your own breath – under all circumstances. Then survey your destiny, and you will have your answer…
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10: Never Give Up!
The first few weeks and months of a beginner’s meditation practice are the time we are most likely to give up. Sitting still and attempting to quieten the mind can be a frustrating and seemingly fruitless task, and it is easy to imagine that one is deriving no benefit from it. One hasn’t yet developed the momentum of habit, nor the powerful motivation of deeper fulfilling experiences.
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9: Revelation of Love
We tend to imagine that love is something we will find outside of ourselves. Yet there is only place we will ever find love: within our own hearts. While we may find things or people outside us to whom we respond with love, the love they inspire is not created magically out of the ether – it comes forth from our own hearts.
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8: The Heart of the Matter
When we point to ourselves, we point to our hearts – not our heads. We’re not consciously pointing to the organ located in the centre of our chest which pumps blood through our bodies. So what ARE we pointing to? What sense of self resides in this vicinity?
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7: What About Posture?
For meditation we must be relaxed yet fully alert and vigilant – otherwise it is impossible to control wandering thoughts. Just as we need a quiet place to meditate, our posture must be conducive to alertness and vigilance.
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6: Where to Meditate?
There is a strong awareness nowadays of the value of meditation and many have tried it – or at least thought about trying it. Yet still relatively few are actually practising every day, despite all meditation’s myriad benefits. The main reason for this lack of persistence is the challenge of incorporating meditation into our already-busy daily routines. The irony is our busy lives are crying out for meditation – yet we are too busy to meditate. Catch 22.
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5: When to Meditate?
Because we are all time-poor, constantly busy and incessantly distracted, the most difficult part of establishing a meditation practice is – establishing a meditation practice. The actual meditation is not the hard part. It is the discipline, making the time and space in our lives. So this commitment must come first: once the commitment is made, everything else will flow easily and naturally in time.
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4: Concentrate!
From time to time, we have glimpses of an expanded, elevated awareness: a moment flooded with love, peace or joy; a flash of insight; a state of pure being beyond cares and stress, beyond our little selves, beyond even time and space. Such moments – which are rarely under our control and often appear “out of the blue” – awaken us to a sense that we are much more than we are aware of.
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3: We All Meditate Already
Have you ever felt that sense of being part of something much vaster than yourself? … listening to your favourite music, feeling swept up to another realm of harmony, beauty and perfection … witnessing giant ocean waves crash over rocks, feeling this stupendous power surge through you … gazing into the night sky, feeling at once the inconceivable distance and intimate closeness of each star to your own heartbeat … running through the forest, feeling you could run forever effortlessly, your feet turned to wings soaring …
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2: How Meditation Works
Everything grows from within. As a flower blossoms from the bud and the tree grows from a seed, so all our perceptions, thoughts, feelings and actions flow from our inner awareness. Meditation dives into our inner awareness, the root of our consciousness. It can therefore benefit everything that is determined by our inner awareness – which is virtually every aspect and activity of our outer life.
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