What is life's purpose? Is meditation going off into a cave in the mountains? I know from personal experience that by incorporating it into your life you will allow yourself to access a more profound and reverent part of life. It's a part worthy of your involvement, expenditure of energy and time. You'll receive answers to your questions, such as why am I here? You'll awaken to who you are and what you are about, what you’re here to learn, do and create with this marvelous experience of being human.
What do you need to be happy? A better job, more money, more leisure time, bigger house, car, and material things? On the surface, these seem to be the most important things in our lives but they are also temporary. That's the problem with the physical stuff and possesions is that they don't and won't last.
Have you experienced periods of restlessness, very active sexually, frustration, highs & lows in your life? Do you know why? Many of us are like the epic tale of Rip Van Winkle waking up from a long sleep. You're waking up to embracing life and getting on with it. That's your soul's way of shaking you and getting you to experience new things so that you can learn and evolve.
Is life really and bitch and then you die? Most see life's problems from two viewpoints - suppress them or vent them. If we subvert them what happens? If we vent them what happens? What's left? Use the experiences to learn and grow with and not to react.
Solving problems requires compassion. Often that's why most of us can provide expert advice that we don't or won't use ourselves. Where does this advice come from, why don’t we listen to it? Do we believe it applies to others and not us? Or is it because we are not objective with ourselves or place enough belief in our Self to provide the correct answers. Perhaps it's the compassion we show others when they cry out for help that is also something that we must learn ourselves.
Placing problems at the center of our attention and concentration and meditating on them causes them to become "lighter". Then in this area we can become "enlightened" or "illuminated". Meditation doesn't make things disappear, it allows us to take control and transform them so that solutions can appear. These solutions were always there; we just weren't able to see them because of scattered attention.
Take the example of something that you fear say spiders or snakes, flying, or public speaking. There are two approaches 1) fight or flight or 2) learn from the experience. The latter is often the more difficult. Take for example cobra venom. One person may kill the snake, another capture it to put it on display or still another use the snake to make anti-venom.
What kind of attitude does this require? Using reason (attention, memory and imagination) instead of running away allows us to create a different outcome. In meditation this spirit (attitude) is fundamental.
Ask yourself whether your in the act of doing things or being? Which is more important? Take workaholics for example. What's at the center of their attitudes? Security, afraid of being alone, insecure, lack of love, wanting to be loved, some of each? I believe the problem is a lack of balance and a lack of harmony in their lives and especially their spiritual lives.
We are mental, emotional and spiritual beings; spiritual entities having a physical experience. We learn through our emotions and our physical experiences by applying reason to evolve or change and grow. If you take away the workaholics work, what's left? It's by recognizing and working with our weaknesses as well as our strengths we can develop more self-confidence and realize a quicker more balanced growth in the process.
By choosing to undertake learning in the areas we haven't previously done that well we can and will make the most rapid progress physically and spiritually. In the places where we struggle, strain or are vulnerable, (i.e. - love, compassion, getting along with a difficult person) we can find diamonds of growth potential. These places require admission of shortcomings because we're expressing the desire to learn more. To do this we must "BE HERE NOW". When we are vulnerable we find our areas of strength that we haven't tapped into. By using these new resources we discover a greater sense of what life and we are all about.
Meditation can make us face these personal poisons and create the anti-venom. It does require desire, willingness to change, persistence and the will power required to make it happen. When we are open and accept who we are, 1/3 of the challenge has been won (one - Me, myself and I).
You can find anti-venom in anger and fear if you choose to look within for them, for the value of justice and integrity. What happens when these are transformed? Similarly denial, resentment and procrastination serve to produce more of the same in our lives. "Thought is cause - and everything else is sub-cause". We become what we think about…
Recognition and acceptance of our limitations, working with and through them are powerful techniques for personal change and spiritual growth. Are you up to it? The seeds of our peace, contentment and enlightenment are inside each of us. We must plant these seeds in the fertile existence of our subconscious minds so they can bear fruit.
A student asked his teacher whether the butterfly he held in his hand was alive or dead. The teacher sensing the deception replied, "It's up to you - you decide." So it's up to you. You can read this, and think, hey there's a lot of truth here, then continue on your way. Alternatively, you can choose to do something extraordinary with the information - "apply it in your life." The saddest fact of all is that most won't.
So for those of you who do, here's an exercise: For the next week, every day, examine everything in life that comes your way as something that is here to help you change and grow physically, mentally and spiritually. Life isn't out to get you - it's here to help you.
Namaste
Jim
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Nature's opus
Nature’s Opus
The van’s tires crunched along the dusty gravel road and slowly stopped announcing we’d arrived. Around the horseshoe bay, sunlight softly kissed the shimmering waters encrusting its surface with millions of sparkling faceted pinpoints twinkling and dancing on each ripple. I remember thinking, “What a privilege to experience and enjoy this day!” “How could anyone deny that there is a master architect, a structure, an intrinsic order in this universe”? Yet the crowning jewel of the day was still to come…
Like squadrons of fighters returning from a night mission, hugging the Bay of Fundy coastline, flying low across sapphire blue waters, suddenly appearing en masse in a cacophony of peeps and whirring of wings. In serpentine fashion, writhing, rising and falling, in flashes of silver, white and muted browns and grays, they moved as a single entity. Wheeling and turning they hurtled forward as though commanded by an invisible conductor in exquisite celestial symphony. It was a display of flying brilliance that even the most accomplished pilots can only dream of achieving.
Scanning the ocher rocky shoreline with binoculars, more Sanderlings magically materialized amidst the crowded confusion on the high tide line to rest and replenish for their marathon non-stop flight to South America. Estimated at 100 per square meter, there were easily 100,000 or more birds. “How do they find their way here to this same spot year after year”? “How do they navigate to the same feeding grounds and then onward to their winter home South America”? “How do they fly clustered together and not collide with each other”? With a brain no larger than a quarter of the size of a human thumb, they and succeeding generations of offspring accomplish this journey twice a year. “What consciousness lies behind this”? “Who orchestrates nature’s opus”? “Who is the composer writing these magnificent scores that we enjoy if we stop, watch and listen”?
Spending quiet time in nature, one becomes surely more aware of a natural intelligence veiled in the apparent chaos of our universe. Silently observing the rhythm and majesty of creation, we enjoy the “ah-ah” experience providing proof we are bound eternally with everyone and everything in it. Nature becomes euphoric when we awaken to her majesty and opens a door offering so much more. It opens naturally to us because it is our birth right; we are a part of it. Like a garden flower’s first bloom, quietly without fanfare, with clear definite purpose, a miracle unfolds before our eyes. We begin to glimpse what is possible within us as well. We share the same planet, molecules and atoms. The same intellect lies dormant around and within us; we are a part of that same universal fabric and intelligence.
Each of us is a tiny imperfect example of creation charged with the same prime directive – “Create”. It’s our respective duty to discover what our life’s purpose is and how to fulfill that very special reason we came here this lifetime to perform. Karma, that’s possible? Dharma - that’s certain! Further consider, it’s also why we chose to be here and who we are with this lifetime. By spending time each day in meditation we too can tap into this universal intelligence. Each of us is gifted with a set of unique abilities and skills that no-one else has. Developing them promises to re-focus our energies on what we are here to do and what is important for us to do with our lives. The answers are found only within the silent gaps between our thoughts during meditation. Who is the author of your opus, your life’s work? Who writes the musical score and directs the orchestra? Can you hear the music – your music?
Namaste
Jim
The van’s tires crunched along the dusty gravel road and slowly stopped announcing we’d arrived. Around the horseshoe bay, sunlight softly kissed the shimmering waters encrusting its surface with millions of sparkling faceted pinpoints twinkling and dancing on each ripple. I remember thinking, “What a privilege to experience and enjoy this day!” “How could anyone deny that there is a master architect, a structure, an intrinsic order in this universe”? Yet the crowning jewel of the day was still to come…
Like squadrons of fighters returning from a night mission, hugging the Bay of Fundy coastline, flying low across sapphire blue waters, suddenly appearing en masse in a cacophony of peeps and whirring of wings. In serpentine fashion, writhing, rising and falling, in flashes of silver, white and muted browns and grays, they moved as a single entity. Wheeling and turning they hurtled forward as though commanded by an invisible conductor in exquisite celestial symphony. It was a display of flying brilliance that even the most accomplished pilots can only dream of achieving.
Scanning the ocher rocky shoreline with binoculars, more Sanderlings magically materialized amidst the crowded confusion on the high tide line to rest and replenish for their marathon non-stop flight to South America. Estimated at 100 per square meter, there were easily 100,000 or more birds. “How do they find their way here to this same spot year after year”? “How do they navigate to the same feeding grounds and then onward to their winter home South America”? “How do they fly clustered together and not collide with each other”? With a brain no larger than a quarter of the size of a human thumb, they and succeeding generations of offspring accomplish this journey twice a year. “What consciousness lies behind this”? “Who orchestrates nature’s opus”? “Who is the composer writing these magnificent scores that we enjoy if we stop, watch and listen”?
Spending quiet time in nature, one becomes surely more aware of a natural intelligence veiled in the apparent chaos of our universe. Silently observing the rhythm and majesty of creation, we enjoy the “ah-ah” experience providing proof we are bound eternally with everyone and everything in it. Nature becomes euphoric when we awaken to her majesty and opens a door offering so much more. It opens naturally to us because it is our birth right; we are a part of it. Like a garden flower’s first bloom, quietly without fanfare, with clear definite purpose, a miracle unfolds before our eyes. We begin to glimpse what is possible within us as well. We share the same planet, molecules and atoms. The same intellect lies dormant around and within us; we are a part of that same universal fabric and intelligence.
Each of us is a tiny imperfect example of creation charged with the same prime directive – “Create”. It’s our respective duty to discover what our life’s purpose is and how to fulfill that very special reason we came here this lifetime to perform. Karma, that’s possible? Dharma - that’s certain! Further consider, it’s also why we chose to be here and who we are with this lifetime. By spending time each day in meditation we too can tap into this universal intelligence. Each of us is gifted with a set of unique abilities and skills that no-one else has. Developing them promises to re-focus our energies on what we are here to do and what is important for us to do with our lives. The answers are found only within the silent gaps between our thoughts during meditation. Who is the author of your opus, your life’s work? Who writes the musical score and directs the orchestra? Can you hear the music – your music?
Namaste
Jim
Sunday, October 7, 2007
A Spiritual Deficit
A Spiritual Deficit
When viewed against the breadth and abyss of space, astronauts have offered that our planet resembles a blue marble. This incredible oasis we know as earth suspended in the void is our home. It is a living, breathing, thinking organism. It and we as a human species are experiencing an astonishing transformation, mutating before our very eyes. Some of the more graphic examples with humankind’s fingerprints on them are global warming and the ancillary consequences. Viewed from space we witness the devastation of our respiratory system, the decimation of the rain forests. The direct consequence is silting of the river deltas, choking and poisoning the marine habitats where life breeds, feeds and exists. A few short years ago, where lush jungle teeming with life stood, today there are expanses of the planet's skin cracked, sun-burnt, literally raped and destitute as a direct result of our heartless indifference. Beyond the soul’s comprehension is the distress, misery and suffering inflicted on our fellow humankind the product of thoughtless, senseless acts of violence and war in every country.
Sadly and more astounding are the invisible changes that we seem to ignore and stubbornly remain unconscious of. With the same inevitable consequences of the effects of the Chernobyl and Bhopal disasters, we’re becoming contaminated. We’re experiencing and ignore the abrasion and grinding down of our own Spirit, flirting with the unspeakable. With all the fury and devastation of Dean - a Category 5 hurricane, the carnage is numbing. We believe it when we see it - by then it’s far too late. Most of us are matter-of-factly living lives that are Spiritually bankrupt, what I know as “A Spiritual Deficit". We're not listening to what "Spirit" is telling us.
You and I become what we think about all day long. Everything that occurs on our world has thought as its antecedent. We are responsible for what we create and co-create in this world and we do so with our thoughts. If we think war - we see war; if we think peace - we see peace; if we think hate - we see hate; if we think love - we see love. Individually and collectively, we are either moving towards love and peace or away from it...
Thinking and focusing on “I want bigger and better” believing we never have enough of anything in our lives is a scarcity mentality which attracts more of the same. Each of us can think of moments in our lives when we were touched by the plight of another person and extended a thought and (perhaps) a hand in kindness. Each opportunity when we've done this, we've listened to our "Spirit" and added to our Spiritual surplus as it were. This is a very real notion. There is an absolute accurate accounting system in the Universe - we get back what we give. Focusing on the abundance you already have in your life and being truly grateful for everything you experience, attracts in kind. This thought perspective attracts more for everyone else as well. Why and how you may wonder? The Universe operates from the perspective of abundance not a deficit. If there's a deficit in our live, it's because we've attracted it there with our thinking.
To begin and replenish a Spiritual Deficit, one needs to make time and take a few moments each day to reconnect with their Source in the mind of the Creator. Some of you who read this may not be ready or comfortable with the notion of a traditional approach to this union as experienced and enjoyed through meditation. My desire and trust is that if you read just this far, something magical will begin to happen. You will begin the process of healing and replenishing your own and humanities Spiritual Deficit. As this begins to happen you will become happier, less agitated by the apparent chaos of daily life and more joyful. You’ll actually begin to experience first hand that living your life is actually part of your dharma and consequently part of your purpose in this lifetime. You'll also begin to see the effects of the changes in you manifest in the lives of those around you. Moments of anger become less and less as you chose instead to witness what is happening around you in the illusion we call our lives.
In a small yet very important way, if each of us chooses to contribute and participate doing what we can to move human kind forward we’ll see the earth restored. Most importantly and graphically we’ll see humankind transform evolving as a more intelligent species that takes responsibility for all of its actions and we'll experience a peace that surpasses all our current understanding. When you light a candle in a darkened room, you never diminish your own light when you share that light with another candle…
Namaste
Jim
When viewed against the breadth and abyss of space, astronauts have offered that our planet resembles a blue marble. This incredible oasis we know as earth suspended in the void is our home. It is a living, breathing, thinking organism. It and we as a human species are experiencing an astonishing transformation, mutating before our very eyes. Some of the more graphic examples with humankind’s fingerprints on them are global warming and the ancillary consequences. Viewed from space we witness the devastation of our respiratory system, the decimation of the rain forests. The direct consequence is silting of the river deltas, choking and poisoning the marine habitats where life breeds, feeds and exists. A few short years ago, where lush jungle teeming with life stood, today there are expanses of the planet's skin cracked, sun-burnt, literally raped and destitute as a direct result of our heartless indifference. Beyond the soul’s comprehension is the distress, misery and suffering inflicted on our fellow humankind the product of thoughtless, senseless acts of violence and war in every country.
Sadly and more astounding are the invisible changes that we seem to ignore and stubbornly remain unconscious of. With the same inevitable consequences of the effects of the Chernobyl and Bhopal disasters, we’re becoming contaminated. We’re experiencing and ignore the abrasion and grinding down of our own Spirit, flirting with the unspeakable. With all the fury and devastation of Dean - a Category 5 hurricane, the carnage is numbing. We believe it when we see it - by then it’s far too late. Most of us are matter-of-factly living lives that are Spiritually bankrupt, what I know as “A Spiritual Deficit". We're not listening to what "Spirit" is telling us.
You and I become what we think about all day long. Everything that occurs on our world has thought as its antecedent. We are responsible for what we create and co-create in this world and we do so with our thoughts. If we think war - we see war; if we think peace - we see peace; if we think hate - we see hate; if we think love - we see love. Individually and collectively, we are either moving towards love and peace or away from it...
Thinking and focusing on “I want bigger and better” believing we never have enough of anything in our lives is a scarcity mentality which attracts more of the same. Each of us can think of moments in our lives when we were touched by the plight of another person and extended a thought and (perhaps) a hand in kindness. Each opportunity when we've done this, we've listened to our "Spirit" and added to our Spiritual surplus as it were. This is a very real notion. There is an absolute accurate accounting system in the Universe - we get back what we give. Focusing on the abundance you already have in your life and being truly grateful for everything you experience, attracts in kind. This thought perspective attracts more for everyone else as well. Why and how you may wonder? The Universe operates from the perspective of abundance not a deficit. If there's a deficit in our live, it's because we've attracted it there with our thinking.
To begin and replenish a Spiritual Deficit, one needs to make time and take a few moments each day to reconnect with their Source in the mind of the Creator. Some of you who read this may not be ready or comfortable with the notion of a traditional approach to this union as experienced and enjoyed through meditation. My desire and trust is that if you read just this far, something magical will begin to happen. You will begin the process of healing and replenishing your own and humanities Spiritual Deficit. As this begins to happen you will become happier, less agitated by the apparent chaos of daily life and more joyful. You’ll actually begin to experience first hand that living your life is actually part of your dharma and consequently part of your purpose in this lifetime. You'll also begin to see the effects of the changes in you manifest in the lives of those around you. Moments of anger become less and less as you chose instead to witness what is happening around you in the illusion we call our lives.
In a small yet very important way, if each of us chooses to contribute and participate doing what we can to move human kind forward we’ll see the earth restored. Most importantly and graphically we’ll see humankind transform evolving as a more intelligent species that takes responsibility for all of its actions and we'll experience a peace that surpasses all our current understanding. When you light a candle in a darkened room, you never diminish your own light when you share that light with another candle…
Namaste
Jim
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
