gratitude

I hope you’ve all had a wonderful World Cup! Good luck in dealing with normality again, it might seem a little strange in the beginning, yet fresh and exciting all over again!

Begin with a sense of gratitude. Gratitude sends ripples of well-being throughout your body and into the Whole of your life. Gratitude is a powerful positive emotion that can affect your biology by creating biochemical events that nourish your body and mind: heart rhythms shift, blood pressure normalizes, stress hormone levels drop, and your immune system becomes stronger.

Sit for a moment and connect to your heart centre by imagining that your breath is going straight to your heart, and breathe a little deeper. If you don’t feel the energy at first, imagine that your do, or visualize it in the form of a lotus flower or your personal guru sitting in your heart. When you breathe out, direct the energy to the object of your gratitude. Start with something really obvious to you, your healthy body, your lover, your family and friends, your guru, a beautiful sunshiny day, rain… each day try think of something new to appreciate, then eventually move onto the things that cause stress in your life and be grateful for the lessons they present.

Let gratitude intrude into your daily conversations and facebook updates.

Allow gratitude to become your new habit, and experience a newfound joy in your life.

thoughts

The intent to meditate is a beautiful thing, yet when we first start to sit silently it ain’t pretty for long. Thoughts fly from the farthest curve of the inner universe to disturb the peace. Thoughts are the weapons of the mind; meta-thoughts (thoughts about thoughts and meditating) are its counter-intelligence brilliance.

Having two approaches to meditation, there are two approaches to dealing with thoughts generated by the monkey mind. The first is in the method: take one of those thoughts (a divine word or sound) and turn it into the ultimate thought, your japa/focus, a weapon turned against the mind. When the mind is occupied with one higher focus, all else will fade away. Any time the focus is lost, on remembrance simply return to the focus without judgment or commentary (counter-intelligence agents).

When attempting to meditate without a focus, label thoughts when they arise without getting involved in them. This is a wonderful way to get to know yourself. You will quickly realize that the thoughts your habitually entertain create the world in which you live. Label your thoughts in broad categories, like fear, low self-esteem, self-righteous or envy. Your thoughts will lose power and disintegrate, and you will realize that with or without your thoughts you are still there and peaceful in the calmness of your inner being.

Be patience and kind to yourself above all. Love the mind, enjoy it, but be the master.

prayer & meditation

The journey within, the attempt to still the mind from its tree to tree routine, requires discipline and a constant reminder of what you are trying to achieve. Keep yourself inspired by keeping spiritual literature on your bedside table and in the place you have reserved for meditation. Reading a few paragraphs here and there lifts the quality of thoughts, connects you to your higher self and makes meditation seem easier.

Even if you don’t have any lofty ideals of spiritual enlightenment, setting your intention to still your mind before you begin the task will do wonders for your concentration. Spend a few moments being clear about your intention to keep your focus, let go of intruding thoughts and to sit for the entire time you have set aside. Let it become a little ritual. You might also want to start with just five minutes of pranayama to help you get into the mood.

If you are spiritually-minded, start with a silent prayer, dedicating your practice. Remind yourself of your purpose for sitting and who’s Presence you are really seeking. Meditation becomes easier when you sit and realize that you are not alone.

a Buddhist prayer -

By the truth and power of this practice, may all beings have happiness and the causes of happiness,
May all be free from sorrow and the causes of sorrow,
May all never be separated from the sacred happiness which is sorrowless,
And may all live in equanimity, without too much attachment and without too much aversion,
And live believing in the equality of all that lives.

two approaches to meditation

There are two approaches to meditation: one with a focus, one without.

Meditating with a focus is much easier. If you thought your mind was too busy to meditate, wait until you start, it’s even busier, and sneaky as it analyses itself, talking about your meditating. It is your mind’s undisciplined nature to grab onto thoughts and sensory information and run away with your attention. So give it one thing to grab onto, something positive and meaningful: a word, an image, a sound, and keep it there.

Japa is a wonderful technique, it is the repetition of a word or phrase. The three most common are:

• Om – the sound of Creation, the original sound that contains all sounds
• Sat Nam – ‘Truth is my identity’
• So Hum – ‘I am That’
• or any phrase that is particularly meaningful to you, suitable to your belief system

Once you have chosen your focus, stick to it. It becomes a haven for your restless mind. The initial battle is too keep bringing your awareness back to your focus, letting all other thoughts fade into nothingness.

Meditating without a focus is pure mindfulness. Being aware of passing thoughts, sensory information, concepts, but not being absorbed in them. Watching the mind’s activity as a silent witness, one develops a sense of self that is detached from the mind, that is calm and peaceful.

Both techniques require dedication and stamina. It is difficult to meditate, but the rewards are out of this world: less prone to worry, a sharper mind, clarity, peacefulness, creativity and a deep connection to Everything and Nothing, Something beyond words.

meditation

What is meditation?

Meditation (‘dhyana’ in sanskrit) is a state of mind in which the observer and object become one. The observer is you, the object is the focus you have chosen as your meditation practice. The focus can be a number of things: your breathing, repeating sacred words (japa), visualizing a mandala or picture of your guru, walking and even eating.

Once you have chosen a focus, make a daily date with yourself; a time when you are least likely to be disturbed by phones, noises in your house or housemates. Early morning, before anyone rises, is best, although your daily schedule might only permit later in the day or late evening. Sit comfortably, with your spine straight, as in pranayama and bring your awareness to your chosen focus. It is a wonderful idea to dedicate your meditation with a prayer or statement of intent.

Many people avoid meditation, because their minds are too restless or they can’t sit still. This is like saying ‘I can’t run a marathon’, and not start training by running one or two kilometres every day to build up your fitness. Start with five minutes for the first couple of weeks, and when you feel comfortable sit for ten or fifteen minutes always bringing your awareness back to your focus.

The first thing you will notice when you attempt to meditate, is just how busy your mind really is. It is constantly jumping around planning ahead, reminiscing about the past, judging yourself and others, and even analysing your meditation practice. Be patience with yourself and when you become aware of your mind’s activity bring your awareness back to your focus, the object of your meditation, realizing that each time you bring your awareness back you’ve won a skirmish in the battle against your mind.

Benefits of meditation:

• mental clarity
• inner harmony
• self knowledge
• creativity
• insight
• siddhis
• bliss
• union with the Divine

reincarnation

Again, like karma, it is a word/sound to which we attach meaning. It either adds meaning to our lives or is of no consequence. Reincarnation is a yogic idea shared by many religions. It is the belief that we have lived previous lives in different times and what keeps us being incarnated is our karma that still has to be acted out, debts that we owe to other conscious beings.

Ever wondered how three siblings can turn out so differently while been brought up with the same parents? Or heard stories of children who have been able to identify families, toys and houses where they lived previously, with absolute conviction?

When we act we create karma which is either added to our warehouse of karma in the causal plane, or is added to our present life. We will always be reincarnated until the storehouse of karma (sanchita karma) is exhausted, which is quite a dilemma as we are constantly creating new karma every day. The mystics say that the only way to eliminate karma is through meditation, or acting without motivation from the ego, in other words, acting purely on behalf of the Divine, being selfless in all actions and not being swayed by the extremes of opposites.

Reincarnation can be glamourised into us thinking we were a shaman, priestess or king in a previous life. We love to explain our current lives, to give excuses for our actions in this life by imagining what previous lives could’ve been. But what would reality be like if we remembered everything that happened to us in thousands of incarnations, and how relatives, friends and lovers have shared so many different roles to each other. I think it is a blessing. The mystics say that previous incarnations are revealed in meditation only when we are ready to understand their implications.

So, why worry about reincarnation, be entertained by its philosophy, but always bring your awareness to the present moment and do the best you can with your present state of awareness. All the lessons you need to empower your self and to grow will come to you in divine timing.

karma

‘karma’, as said in the Matrix, is a word, it’s importance is given by the meaning we attribute to the word or sound. In contemporary usage, it means bad luck, something happened to us and it was just bad luck, out of our control.

if we go back to its Sanskrit meaning, simply ‘action’ or more to the point, consequence of an action in the form of another action, it gives us power over our bad luck in the form of responsibility. This is not a foreign concept to us: ‘what goes around, comes around’ and ‘do to others what you would like them to do to you’.

‘action’ is more encompassing than we would like to think, it’s deeper than the karma indriyas (organs of action: mouth, hands, feet, anus & genitals), it includes our thoughts, attitudes and feelings

if we become more conscious of our subtle actions and take responsibility for them, we can no longer blame anyone for our circumstances. we gain the power to create harmony around us by letting go of the thoughts and attitudes that only bring strife and ugliness. use your yoga techniques of letting go (vairagya) of those thoughts that don’t bring you happiness and replace them with ones that do, even if you have to fake it in the beginning; let go of the thoughts of others, most of the thoughts we entertain don’t even belong to us, but advertising and those who want to manipulate for their own self-esteem and empowerment.

we can create our own health and happiness, just think it and it becomes contagious to those around us