tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14442991137717377672024-03-13T22:25:42.365+02:00robynsheldonRobynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137802723113889365noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1444299113771737767.post-91723648267389304682011-08-14T10:35:00.002+02:002011-08-14T10:40:51.454+02:00Recognising the Sacred.<style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Arial;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073711037 9 0 511 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-font-charset:78;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:1 134676480 16 0 131072 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-font-charset:78;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:1 134676480 16 0 131072 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Cambria;
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073743103 0 0 415 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0cm;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US;}
@page WordSection1
{size:595.0pt 842.0pt;
margin:70.85pt 3.0cm 70.85pt 3.0cm;
mso-header-margin:35.4pt;
mso-footer-margin:35.4pt;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
-->
</style><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Lwrp0_0knUE/TipZOIP1a3I/AAAAAAAAACs/kArqDTMw93s/s1600/DSC_0326_edited-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Lwrp0_0knUE/TipZOIP1a3I/AAAAAAAAACs/kArqDTMw93s/s320/DSC_0326_edited-2.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Our world is scared of sacred. Naming it is unacceptable. Imagine taking ‘sacred’ into the vocabulary of a corporate business meeting, into brokering a major financial deal, into a discussion of medical diagnoses with a team of Harvard physicians, or into a pub with members of a rugby team.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">As a planet, we are sad and heavy, filled with fear and rage. We easily speak of violence, retribution, war, famine, sexual abuse, corruption, factory farming, pesticides, crime, inequality, judgment, shame, swindling and greed. So we should. It must all be named, there is no turning away from the truth of what we have created.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Yet when a pink and white rosebud peaks out at the start of spring, can we find a small space in our hearts to stop and recognize its delicacy?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">We have such a need for protection that it has become difficult to let in tenderness and sweetness. To do so means to also feel the pain that is overwhelming us all. But if we don’t, we die. Probably physically, since we’ve been on a careless, adrenaline-filled roller coaster ride of destruction for so long. Certainly we die emotionally and spiritually though. It takes such intensity to access our emotions these days; only passionate love affairs, traumatic world events, and personal tragedy will do. The intensity of life inures us to the fragile appreciation of silence, to the scent of wild sage, to the touch of a toddler’s soft hand on our cheeks.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Sacred is quiet. It takes stillness to connect with it. It requires patience, slow breathing and watchfulness. We catch the sacred the way a lynx catches a bird; softly, with focus and perseverance. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Bringing the sacred back into our hearts through recognizing one tiny moment of it at a time is the start of shifting our trajectory from destruction and chaos back to peace, love, joy and equanimity. And we can only do it for ourselves, by ourselves, bit by bit. Yet each moment that we do so is transformative.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Sometimes it takes real horror to awaken us to our need for a change of consciousness. Turning our attention towards sweetness nourishes our hearts enough that we can find space within them to care for one another.</span></div>Robynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137802723113889365noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1444299113771737767.post-87373107864311624002011-06-24T15:50:00.005+02:002011-07-23T18:55:01.162+02:00Meditations for transformation.<style>
</style><br />
<style>
</style><br />
<style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Arial;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073711037 9 0 511 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"Courier New";
panose-1:2 7 3 9 2 2 5 2 4 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073711037 9 0 511 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Times;
panose-1:2 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Wingdings;
panose-1:5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0;
mso-font-charset:2;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:0 268435456 0 0 -2147483648 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-font-charset:78;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1791491579 18 0 131231 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Cambria;
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073743103 0 0 415 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0cm;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US;}
p.MsoFootnoteText, li.MsoFootnoteText, div.MsoFootnoteText
{mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-link:"Texto nota pie Car";
margin:0cm;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US;}
span.MsoFootnoteReference
{mso-style-priority:99;
vertical-align:super;}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;
text-underline:single;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
color:purple;
mso-themecolor:followedhyperlink;
text-decoration:underline;
text-underline:single;}
p
{mso-style-priority:99;
mso-margin-top-alt:auto;
margin-right:0cm;
mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
margin-left:0cm;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Times;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";}
p.MsoListParagraph, li.MsoListParagraph, div.MsoListParagraph
{mso-style-priority:34;
mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
margin-top:0cm;
margin-right:0cm;
margin-bottom:0cm;
margin-left:36.0pt;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-add-space:auto;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US;}
p.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst
{mso-style-priority:34;
mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-type:export-only;
margin-top:0cm;
margin-right:0cm;
margin-bottom:0cm;
margin-left:36.0pt;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-add-space:auto;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US;}
p.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle
{mso-style-priority:34;
mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-type:export-only;
margin-top:0cm;
margin-right:0cm;
margin-bottom:0cm;
margin-left:36.0pt;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-add-space:auto;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US;}
p.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast
{mso-style-priority:34;
mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-type:export-only;
margin-top:0cm;
margin-right:0cm;
margin-bottom:0cm;
margin-left:36.0pt;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-add-space:auto;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US;}
span.TextonotapieCar
{mso-style-name:"Texto nota pie Car";
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-locked:yes;
mso-style-link:"Texto nota pie";}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US;}
/* Page Definitions */
@page
{mso-footnote-separator:url("Macintosh HD:Users:robynsheldon:Library:Caches:TemporaryItems:msoclip:0:clip_header.htm") fs;
mso-footnote-continuation-separator:url("Macintosh HD:Users:robynsheldon:Library:Caches:TemporaryItems:msoclip:0:clip_header.htm") fcs;
mso-endnote-separator:url("Macintosh HD:Users:robynsheldon:Library:Caches:TemporaryItems:msoclip:0:clip_header.htm") es;
mso-endnote-continuation-separator:url("Macintosh HD:Users:robynsheldon:Library:Caches:TemporaryItems:msoclip:0:clip_header.htm") ecs;}
@page WordSection1
{size:595.0pt 842.0pt;
margin:70.85pt 3.0cm 70.85pt 3.0cm;
mso-header-margin:35.4pt;
mso-footer-margin:35.4pt;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
/* List Definitions */
@list l0
{mso-list-id:1941446199;
mso-list-type:hybrid;
mso-list-template-ids:-903585104 201981953 201981955 201981957 201981953 201981955 201981957 201981953 201981955 201981957;}
@list l0:level1
{mso-level-number-format:bullet;
mso-level-text:;
mso-level-tab-stop:none;
mso-level-number-position:left;
text-indent:-18.0pt;
font-family:Symbol;}
@list l0:level2
{mso-level-number-format:bullet;
mso-level-text:o;
mso-level-tab-stop:none;
mso-level-number-position:left;
text-indent:-18.0pt;
font-family:"Courier New";}
@list l0:level3
{mso-level-number-format:bullet;
mso-level-text:;
mso-level-tab-stop:none;
mso-level-number-position:left;
text-indent:-18.0pt;
font-family:Wingdings;}
@list l0:level4
{mso-level-number-format:bullet;
mso-level-text:;
mso-level-tab-stop:none;
mso-level-number-position:left;
text-indent:-18.0pt;
font-family:Symbol;}
@list l0:level5
{mso-level-number-format:bullet;
mso-level-text:o;
mso-level-tab-stop:none;
mso-level-number-position:left;
text-indent:-18.0pt;
font-family:"Courier New";}
@list l0:level6
{mso-level-number-format:bullet;
mso-level-text:;
mso-level-tab-stop:none;
mso-level-number-position:left;
text-indent:-18.0pt;
font-family:Wingdings;}
@list l0:level7
{mso-level-number-format:bullet;
mso-level-text:;
mso-level-tab-stop:none;
mso-level-number-position:left;
text-indent:-18.0pt;
font-family:Symbol;}
@list l0:level8
{mso-level-number-format:bullet;
mso-level-text:o;
mso-level-tab-stop:none;
mso-level-number-position:left;
text-indent:-18.0pt;
font-family:"Courier New";}
@list l0:level9
{mso-level-number-format:bullet;
mso-level-text:;
mso-level-tab-stop:none;
mso-level-number-position:left;
text-indent:-18.0pt;
font-family:Wingdings;}
ol
{margin-bottom:0cm;}
ul
{margin-bottom:0cm;}
-->
</style> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oEvj4x4sg_E/TgrpH70h4uI/AAAAAAAAABE/Nv3pmygpoeQ/s1600/IMG_0770.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oEvj4x4sg_E/TgrpH70h4uI/AAAAAAAAABE/Nv3pmygpoeQ/s320/IMG_0770.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Meditation is so often perceived as a drudgery, it takes longer than brushing our teeth, it is harder work than yoga or aerobics or spinning, it is more boring than bookkeeping or cleaning the house, and anyway it is not a requirement, so why add yet another “should do” to an already endless list?</span> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">How about if we chose to meditate because it was yummy and soothing, like chocolate cake or a fag and a drink at the end of a long and stressful day? Meditation is not always going to be fantastic, because it is about staying present, and often we would rather escape, but 10:1 that cigarette isn’t always brilliant either. Meditation can be fulfilling and spacious and calming, and it can release some of the anxiety and stress of daily life. The calming aspects of meditation are side effects of the process rather than the end goal, however if we employ meditation techniques that develop a sense of well being and enjoyment from the beginning, then we have a chance of sticking to it, so as to develop the ability to become more open hearted, equanimous and wise in the face of the experience of daily life. If meditation can’t be an enjoyable process then, unless we’re dogged and tenacious, it’s not going to be part of any kind of daily ritual for long. </span><br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pZyyqWkC9BU/Tgr1t1IkW8I/AAAAAAAAABo/C9eXq1drf0o/s1600/IMG_0765.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pZyyqWkC9BU/Tgr1t1IkW8I/AAAAAAAAABo/C9eXq1drf0o/s320/IMG_0765.JPG" width="233" /></a></div><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">There are many effective meditation techniques that develop contentment and peacefulness. They are useful for their feel-good factor. Having achieved some peacefulness in meditation, it becomes much easier to stay mindful and to focus on ‘Being Here Now’.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">_________________________________________________</span></div><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;"></span><br />
<br />
<div style="mso-element: footnote-list;"><hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /><div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;"><div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=1444299113771737767#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""></a></div></div></div>Robynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137802723113889365noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1444299113771737767.post-7387931541264444662011-06-23T07:42:00.001+02:002011-07-22T07:44:03.108+02:00Meditation 1. Listening Deeply<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-s04T6k1GN0s/TgrnQXCb0-I/AAAAAAAAAA4/y0H7ovgfCQM/s1600/IMG_0821.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-s04T6k1GN0s/TgrnQXCb0-I/AAAAAAAAAA4/y0H7ovgfCQM/s320/IMG_0821.JPG" width="240" /></a></div></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Listening Deeply</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 252.0pt 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Shhh... Slowdown. Listen. Listen to the subtler sounds behind the strident sounds. Not only to the subtle external sounds, or the sounds of the universe humming, but also to the sounds of our senses – breahing, pulse and stomach sounds.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 252.0pt 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 252.0pt 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Listen to the rising and falling of your chests as the breath moves in and out.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 252.0pt 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 252.0pt 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Listen to the weightiness of the of your body as you settle into it.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 252.0pt 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 252.0pt 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Listen to the judgment shifting aside as you notice what’s here.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 252.0pt 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 252.0pt 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Listen to the energy tingling and flowing in a rhythmic pulse of life through your body.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 252.0pt 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 252.0pt 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Listen to the silence and the stillness and the settling.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 252.0pt 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 252.0pt 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Listen to the heat, the cold, the breeze, the traffic, the passing thoughts, and the presence of being more than a limited body.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 252.0pt 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 252.0pt 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Listen to the expansion of your consciousness.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 252.0pt 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 252.0pt 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Listen to the dissolving into Oneness.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 252.0pt 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 252.0pt 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Listen to your heart creaking open and to the painful edges that initially provokes.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 252.0pt 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 252.0pt 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Listen to the well-being and bliss that is beneath being open and tender and welcoming to all of life's experience in this very moment.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 252.0pt 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Listen and be at peace.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 252.0pt 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;"> __________________________________________________</span></div>Robynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137802723113889365noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1444299113771737767.post-88746460632419621992011-06-22T15:19:00.006+02:002011-07-23T19:24:36.088+02:00Meditation 2. The Present Moment.<style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-font-charset:78;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1791491579 18 0 131231 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Cambria;
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073743103 0 0 415 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0cm;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US;}
@page WordSection1
{size:595.0pt 842.0pt;
margin:70.85pt 3.0cm 70.85pt 3.0cm;
mso-header-margin:35.4pt;
mso-footer-margin:35.4pt;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
-->
</style> <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Arial;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073711037 9 0 511 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-font-charset:78;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1791491579 18 0 131231 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Cambria;
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073743103 0 0 415 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0cm;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US;}
@page WordSection1
{size:612.0pt 792.0pt;
margin:70.85pt 3.0cm 70.85pt 3.0cm;
mso-header-margin:36.0pt;
mso-footer-margin:36.0pt;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
-->
</style> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 150%; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">My happiness, peacefulness and equanimity, depend not on my outward circumstances, but on my perception of my circumstances.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JXwQHQj7Mgs/Tgrsx4v-yTI/AAAAAAAAABg/ryiEGwz_kQk/s1600/IMG_7908.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JXwQHQj7Mgs/Tgrsx4v-yTI/AAAAAAAAABg/ryiEGwz_kQk/s320/IMG_7908.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Arial;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"MS 明朝";
panose-1:0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0;
mso-font-charset:128;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-format:other;
mso-font-pitch:fixed;
mso-font-signature:1 134676480 16 0 131072 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"MS 明朝";
panose-1:0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0;
mso-font-charset:128;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-format:other;
mso-font-pitch:fixed;
mso-font-signature:1 134676480 16 0 131072 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Cambria;
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0cm;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US;}
@page WordSection1
{size:595.0pt 842.0pt;
margin:70.85pt 3.0cm 70.85pt 3.0cm;
mso-header-margin:35.4pt;
mso-footer-margin:35.4pt;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
-->
</style> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: small;">“Be Here, Now”. They all say it. Echardt Tolle. Ram Dass. Buddha. Mindfulness gurus. Thousands of people, saying the same thing, in thousands of ways. It’s become a litany, a catch phrase, a truism that’s lost its meaning through over use.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: small;">Here, right now, is a slow breathing, clock ticking, truck passing, white duvet experience. It tastes of toothpaste and smells of July early morning, which in southern Africa is Winter, not Summer. But most of all, it is soft and spacious hearted. Can every morning be soft and spacious hearted? Can icy winter, late for work with the geyser broken yet again be soft and open hearted? Or, beyond personal experience, can tsunamis, earthquakes, uprisings against dictatorships, and the violent quelling of them, be met with soft and spacious hearts? As our world trundles into deeper chaos, more violent wars, children headed households, and environmental degradation can we find peace and inner stillness? If we can’t find it, we’re doomed.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: small;">The drama and hectic pace that is blowing our world apart is not only global, it is also intensely personal. How many people do you know who are not exhausted and dealing with some kind of emotional tsunami? We are in a vortex of chaos, and unless we can drop into the middle of it, with the surrender of a soft and gentle heart that can embrace it all, the vicious spiral will only increase. However from its centre, held without closing our hearts to any part of it, and responding from there with appropriate clarity and wisdom, we will have discovered the point of this grand all-fall-down experiment.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: small;">The size of the crisis is irrelevant; a broken coffee machine, a broken kid’s shoe when we’re late for school, a broken marriage, a broken nation or culture all offer the opportunity to take a deep breath and drop into the very midst of what is happening. Right now. With a heart that can smile and embrace this too. There is nothing we can afford to turn away from any longer. We can no longer avert our global crisis through fighting it, but we can transform it by being here fully and responding appropriately to each and every moment. In the midst of the darkest places, is the seed of purest light. It is each and every individual’s quest to find this seed of light. We find it through the soft hearted, present moment opening towards our full-on lives.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: small;">There is a fundamental issue that arises as soon as we start investigating open heartedness. We may find ourselves closed to the pain of a child who’s being bullied at school, to the resentment arising from an irascible boss, or a beggar hassling us with “Funny Money” pamphlets at the traffic lights, or to the deep anger aroused by another massive corporation destroying our fragile environment. However, we cannot open our hearts to those around us, until we open them first to ourselves. Until I, Robyn, open my heart to myself. To Me. Can I love ‘me’ first? All of me? Peevish, prickly, fractious, disheveled, blotchy me? Since I can’t find my open heart in someone else’s body, I have to start the journey with finding it within myself first, and embracing all the pain and longing for who I wish I were, but quite clearly am not. The Buddha stated that of all beings in the entire Universe, the one most deserving of our love, is ourselves. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UgoVPZKClXU/TipYL6r_vUI/AAAAAAAAACo/Pfi-TdoUIKw/s1600/IMG_0072.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UgoVPZKClXU/TipYL6r_vUI/AAAAAAAAACo/Pfi-TdoUIKw/s320/IMG_0072.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="ES" style="font-size: small;">Being open hearted to whatever is happening right now is the key to staying fully present, and there is nothing as reliable as the present moment. It is solid. It may not always be the way we want it to be. It is seldom fully the way we want it to be. But it is always there. Any time we focus on it, it is there, in its entirety. The solidity is not always in material form, dreams for instance, are a depiction of what's happening here and now within our minds. During meditation we can be fully present and even lose a sense of ourselves. The present moment can be scary, uncomfortable, angry. It can be constricted and tight or frighteningly without boundaries. We make it the way it is; this present moment is entirely a creation of who we are. When we investigate this moment deeply, we discover that our happiness, peacefulness and equanimity, depend not on our outward circumstances, but on our perception of our circumstances. Wealthy people as a group are not happier than slum dwellers, and on the whole they are not less happy either. We are happy, more or less of the time, dependent on our attitude about our circumstances and not on the circumstances of our lives themselves.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="ES" style="font-size: small;">Living fully in the present moment is the ultimate creative act. It changes who we are. It changes how we relate to others and how we react to experiences. As we open more to the experience of how it is to be here, we expand into experiencing how it is for every being we interact with too. If we are fully present, we cannot be closed to the experience of someone whom we encounter in that moment. Fully present, by definition, includes not only our own experience, but also an empathic and open response to the experience of others. Fully open in this moment transcends the boundaries of self and other, of material physical reality, of emotional awareness, and of other dimensions of space.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="ES" style="font-size: small;">Not only does this moment include an awareness of those around us, it also includes all of our past experiences, not only of ourselves, but also of the collective consciousness of all beings. We are who we are because of who we have been and how we interact with our surrounding external reality. </span><br />
<br />
<span lang="ES" style="font-size: small;">This moment also includes our future potential. How we experience this moment now, and how we respond to it, creates and forms the future moments; both ours and those of the people we interact with. We are entirely interdependent in terms of self and other, mind and body, time and space, form and being. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="ES" style="font-size: small;">There is no escaping the phenomenon of all is One. The meeting point for this interdependence is this very moment. This moment is</span><span lang="ES" style="font-size: small;"> the place where we creatively construct our lives</span><span lang="ES" style="font-size: small;">.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="ES" style="font-size: small;">_______________________________________</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="ES" style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span lang="ES" style="font-size: small;">Meditation.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-R9qWfjg1bPc/Tgsb5wqiVOI/AAAAAAAAAB8/1IkfphioD24/s1600/Image002%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-R9qWfjg1bPc/Tgsb5wqiVOI/AAAAAAAAAB8/1IkfphioD24/s320/Image002%25281%2529.jpg" width="240" /></a></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="ES" style="font-size: small;">Notice what is here, right now.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="ES" style="font-size: small;">Include all the senses. </span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="ES" style="font-size: small;">What do you see? The colours, the time of day, close up and in the distance.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="ES" style="font-size: small;">Close you eyes to increase your perception of your other senses.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="ES" style="font-size: small;">What do you hear? The strident sounds, the subtle sounds, the silence beneath it all.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="ES" style="font-size: small;">Can you be with these sounds without judgment?</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="ES" style="font-size: small;">What do you smell, and what is the taste in your mouth right now? Notice whether you like or dislike the smell and the taste, and let go of any judgment.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="ES" style="font-size: small;">What are the sensations in your body? Externally on your skin - a breeze, the temperature, and internally - the areas of tension and those that are relaxed and calm. </span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="ES" style="font-size: small;">Can you feel these and allow them to be just the way they are?</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="ES" style="font-size: small;">How is your breathing, deep, shallow, slow, fast, easy anxious? Allow it.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="ES" style="font-size: small;">Notice the thoughts that pass by, or churn through your mind. A myriad thoughts a second. Can you allow them to pass by without attaching to them and following them off on some story? Like clouds in the sky.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="ES" style="font-size: small;">Notice your emotional state right now. Are you peaceful, anxious, resentful, bored, calm? Can you embrace that feeling the way you would a little child, without needing to fix or change it.</span><br />
<br />
<span lang="ES" style="font-size: small;">Be with it all. It does not need to be profound. Be with the ordinariness of breathing and of noticing what is here. Focus your awareness on the simplicity and the complexity, the clarity and the confusion, the depth and the breadth of right here, right now. </span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="ES" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="ES" style="font-size: small;">Staying with whatever is there, allows resolution. Breathe into the experience of nowness and be fully present to whatever is there.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="ES" style="font-size: small;">Watch it change. The one certainty in life is that everything changes.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="ES" style="font-size: small;">Breathe deeply and embrace this very moment.</span></div><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;"> </span><span lang="ES" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div>Robynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137802723113889365noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1444299113771737767.post-35906224367317235742011-06-20T15:53:00.002+02:002011-06-30T17:09:31.294+02:00Meditation 3. Meditation for connecting with the your highest potential.<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CEcaGkBB300/Tgrqhn_2CsI/AAAAAAAAABY/YrwCsD4zNpw/s1600/IMG_0624.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CEcaGkBB300/Tgrqhn_2CsI/AAAAAAAAABY/YrwCsD4zNpw/s320/IMG_0624.JPG" width="215" /></a></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Bring your attention into this moment…..</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Visualize a sense of being in a place of peace and harmony. Feel the essence of that place in your body and allow it to calm and quieten your mind.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Allow the most beautiful potential of who you could be to emerge in your mind. What does this ideal potential you look like and feel like. Let the essence of this future you wash through you and experience his or her perfection; experience the particular aspect of perfection that you could potentially bring to the world. To anchor your perfect potential into your body here and now, let this aspect of you help you to release your tension so as to allow your perfect potential its full expression.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Begin by acknowledging and feeling the times when stress and haste and work have overwhelmed you, leaving you unable to cope with the pressure of juggling too many commitments at once. Hold these times soothingly, gently and patiently. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Acknowledge and feel the times when your world has fallen apart and left you stranded, alone and unprotected. Hold these times with compassion.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Acknowledge and feel the times when you have felt depressed and life has seemed grey and dreary. Hold them with joy.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Acknowledge and feel the times when you've experienced sorrow and abandonment. Hold them with tenderness. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Acknowledge and feel the times when your mind has governed you in a tight grip of skewed perception; when anger, resentment or indignation have distorted your judgment, when you have ben subjected to uncontrolled emotions that do not belong to you, and that have caught you and held you hostage. Hold these times with equanimity.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Acknowledge and feel the times when you have been caught by raging desire, so that rational, thoughtful behavior is no longer accessible. Hold these times with tranquility and peacefulness.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Acknowledge and feel the times when your mind has been deluded through ignorance or laziness or stubbornness, and hold these times with understanding and wisdom.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Acknowledge and feel the times when it has been necessary to compromise your integrity. Hold them with forgiveness.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Acknowledge and feel the times when you have been overcome by envy and jealousy, and hold yourself with enough self love and joy that you are able to let them go.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Acknowledge and feel the times when you have been avaricious. Hold them with a generosity of spirit.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Acknowledge and feel the times when you have felt agitated and anxious. Hold these times calmly.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Acknowledge and feel the times when you have experienced great pride. Hold yourself gently and humbly.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Acknowledge and feel the times when you have felt genuine hatred for someone or something. Hold this time, yourself and the object of hatred with loving kindness.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Acknowledge and feel the times when you have judged yourself or others harshly. Hold yourself or them with affection.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Acknowledge and feel specific times of trauma in your life; times when life has felt most cruel to you, or when you have been most cruel to yourself or others. Hold these times with bountiful warmheartedness and care. Gently cradling them with the perfect potential of who you could be in a perfect life under perfect circumstances.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Now let the perfect potential of who you are show you how to be centered in the luminosity of your pure self. Let it show you how to be centered in its brilliance in the midst of all the circumstances of your life.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Imagine how your luminous self would respond to stress and haste and overwork. Feel its patience and calm.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Imagine how your luminous self would respond to your world falling apart. Feel its compassion.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Imagine how your luminous self would respond to your depression. Feel its underlying joy.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Imagine how your luminous self would respond to sorrow and abandonment. Feel its tenderness.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Imagine how your luminous self would respond to your anger and indignation. Feel its equanimity</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Imagine how your luminous self would respond to raging desire. Feel its tranquility.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Imagine how your luminous self would respond to your deluded mind. Feel its understanding and wisdom.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Imagine how your luminous self would respond to compromise. Feel its integrity.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Imagine how your luminous self would respond to your envy and jealously. Feel its ability to hold you with love.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Imagine how your luminous self would respond to avarice - yours or others. Feel its generosity.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Imagine how your luminous self would respond to anxiety and agitation. Feel its calmness.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Imagine how your luminous self would respond to your pride. Feel its humility.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Imagine how your luminous self would respond to your hatred. Feel its loving kindness.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Imagine how your luminous self would respond to your judgment. Feel its affectivity.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Imagine how your luminous self would respond to the the times when life has been particularly cruel to you. Let it hold you with warm heartedness and care.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Let your perfect potential hold you gently, soothe you and release you from the stranglehold of past conditioning. Feel your perfect potential settling into the cells of your body. Breathe into the feeling, allow it to anchor and take hold and become a reality, right here and right now.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div>Robynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137802723113889365noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1444299113771737767.post-53609222854736030692011-06-18T15:52:00.001+02:002011-07-23T07:32:41.364+02:00Meditation 4. Have You Ever Been Intimate With a Fly?<style>
<!--
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0cm;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Helvetica;
mso-fareast-font-family:Helvetica;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-ansi-language:EN-US;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-size:10.0pt;
mso-ansi-font-size:10.0pt;
mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Helvetica;
mso-ascii-font-family:Helvetica;
mso-fareast-font-family:Helvetica;
mso-hansi-font-family:Helvetica;}
@page WordSection1
{size:612.0pt 792.0pt;
margin:70.85pt 3.0cm 70.85pt 3.0cm;
mso-header-margin:36.0pt;
mso-footer-margin:36.0pt;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
-->
</style> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2AYfQM1SsBA/TgsJr_7mcII/AAAAAAAAABw/NIUPQ6nv8Co/s1600/fly13t.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2AYfQM1SsBA/TgsJr_7mcII/AAAAAAAAABw/NIUPQ6nv8Co/s1600/fly13t.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image</span></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> © Alex Wild</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">Have you ever melted to the touch of a fly</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">as it caressed your cheek,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">picked your nose,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">and savoured the moisture in the corner creases of your lips?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">Have you ever welcomed a fly buzzing at your ear orifice,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">and let it guide you into the delicacy of the present moment?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">Have you ever quietly opened to a fly's fascination for you,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">and let go into its tender touch?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">Have you ever recognized your fly as the gatekeeper to Shambhala,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">and blindly followed it home to God?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">Try it sometime. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">A fly is the most intimate of lovers.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Robynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137802723113889365noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1444299113771737767.post-49637900887949233362011-06-16T15:53:00.132+02:002011-08-14T10:42:55.219+02:00Meditation 5. Armouring<style>
</style><br />
<style>
</style><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 35.4pt;"><div style="text-align: center;"><style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Arial;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073711037 9 0 511 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-font-charset:78;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1791491579 18 0 131231 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Cambria;
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073743103 0 0 415 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0cm;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US;}
@page WordSection1
{size:612.0pt 792.0pt;
margin:70.85pt 3.0cm 70.85pt 3.0cm;
mso-header-margin:36.0pt;
mso-footer-margin:36.0pt;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
-->
</style> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">Aow.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">My heart cracks open.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">Its painful tenderness reveals</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">Lichen on the bamboo fence,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">And rain-splattered sand.</span></div><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gXssb-bUDCo/Tgx8mtwh5NI/AAAAAAAAACY/jgDlIHYOrlQ/s1600/IMG_0073.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gXssb-bUDCo/Tgx8mtwh5NI/AAAAAAAAACY/jgDlIHYOrlQ/s320/IMG_0073.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></div></div><style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Arial;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073711037 9 0 511 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-font-charset:78;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1791491579 18 0 131231 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Cambria;
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073743103 0 0 415 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0cm;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US;}
@page WordSection1
{size:612.0pt 792.0pt;
margin:70.85pt 3.0cm 70.85pt 3.0cm;
mso-header-margin:36.0pt;
mso-footer-margin:36.0pt;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
-->
</style> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 35.4pt;"><style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Arial;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073711037 9 0 511 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-font-charset:78;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1791491579 18 0 131231 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Cambria;
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073743103 0 0 415 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0cm;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US;}
@page WordSection1
{size:612.0pt 792.0pt;
margin:70.85pt 3.0cm 70.85pt 3.0cm;
mso-header-margin:36.0pt;
mso-footer-margin:36.0pt;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
-->
</style><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><br />
</span> <br />
<span style="font-size: small;"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">We define ourselves by our limitations. They create our self image and make us who we are. If we were unlimited, un-constricted, undefended, we would be enlightened and would have no egoic sense of self to define us as separate <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">beings. </span></span></span><style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Arial;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073711037 9 0 511 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-font-charset:78;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1791491579 18 0 131231 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Cambria;
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073743103 0 0 415 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0cm;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US;}
@page WordSection1
{size:612.0pt 792.0pt;
margin:70.85pt 3.0cm 70.85pt 3.0cm;
mso-header-margin:36.0pt;
mso-footer-margin:36.0pt;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
-->
</style><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Fully conscious beings experience each moment without resistance or judgment, because they know there is nothing to protect themselves from, and that their core essence is unlimited and impossible to damage.</span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">However, this 'me' person, vulnerable, fragile and sometimes angry, jealous or resentful, is showing me where I am damaged by my moment to moment reactions to my environment. It is the perfect tool for healing. That which I resist or cling to is an indication of what inside me is longing to be healed. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">As individuals, the difficulties we encoun</span>ter on our life journeys, from birth trauma to sickness, grief and death, usually increase our armouring and defensive separation. We want our layers of armour to shield us from further suffering, but they also serve to block the integration of Oneness into our lives. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">When a painful experience is too difficult to deal with, we block it off and suppress it from our conscious perception. This creates a wall of defense around us that protects us from feeling the pain. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">Our defenses mean we are less vulnerable but also feel less deeply. Highly defended people seem closed hearted and are more difficult to interact with. Some people become strongly defended from relatively small traumas, others seem to experience adversity with little scarring and contraction. But unless we are enlightened, we all have layers of defenses, fortifying, barricading and protecting our inner core. </span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">The cracks in this armouring are often the places where we feel most deeply. These edges are the entrances to our essential selves – they indicate the path towards our centre. Beneath the armour may be the pain of the original hurt, but beneath the pain is the soft, pure core of our being, that is always undamaged, no matter the circumstances of our lives.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hTt937WbBvM/Tgrp0q9SllI/AAAAAAAAABU/cMIyXpfwKGo/s1600/Image018.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hTt937WbBvM/Tgrp0q9SllI/AAAAAAAAABU/cMIyXpfwKGo/s320/Image018.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div></div><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 35.4pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">Where each of us suffers most poignantly, that exact experience is the entrance to the individualised perfection of what we bring to the collective consciousness on earth. Staying open to our the places where we have felt the most pain, leads us directly to our deepest truth. This truth is the gift we bring the world. This truth has the power and potential to transform it. Each crack in our armour is the exact place from which we bring heaven to earth, so that the Divine within us may experience itself. It is the meeting point of the Creator bursting forth into the Creation. Through the entrances at the edges of our pain, we reach the stillness within. Resting powerfully in our centres, life unfolds, appears and manifests in uncontrolled and magnificent form. It is rich beyond measure. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">And it is also absolutely ordinary, simply the experience of whatever is here right now - marmite toast, rain on the windows, blue-cold typing hands and a peaceful or painful heart.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7PHvtVxFYeM/TgrmvUCKTII/AAAAAAAAAA0/peYxeHgm63Y/s1600/IMG_0833.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7PHvtVxFYeM/TgrmvUCKTII/AAAAAAAAAA0/peYxeHgm63Y/s320/IMG_0833.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">Meditation 5. Enquiry.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;"> </span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">A.H Almaas founder Diamond Approach and the Ridwhan School of Inquiry and Pema Chodrun from the Shambhala tradition, amongst others, have developed a meditation practice that involves looking deeply at the defenses we place around ourselves. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;"><br />
</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">Enquiry works best in groups of either two or three: A listener/questioner, a respondent and possibly an observer/listener.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;"><br />
</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">A question is posed to the respondent who is given 4 or 5 minutes to enquire into their personal experience around the question, and to answer aloud. Except for the questioner occasionally repeating the question, the questioner and observer remain silent, and listen with full attention and care.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;"><br />
</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">A good question for enquiry, that can be repeated daily for weeks or months is,</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;"> "What is keeping you from living with an open heart?"</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">Or "What is keeping you from being present now?"</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;"><br />
</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">As the speaker, if you struggle to think of responses, give yourself time, and wait to see what else arises.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">As the listeners:</span><br />
<ul><li><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">Allow for silence.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;"> </span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">Listen without judgment, interruption or advice.</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">At the end of the 5 minutes, there is no attempt by the listeners to 'fix' anything. All we do is offer a listening space, so that the person involved in the enquiry can explore their feelings and their armouring for themselves. </span></li>
</ul><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;"><br />
</span><br />
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">Pema Chodrun says,</span></div><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">“If your everyday practice is to open to all your emotions, to all the people you meet, to all the situations you encounter, without closing down, trusting that you can do that — then that will take you as far as you can go. And then you will understand all the teachings that anyone has ever taught.” </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;"></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;"><br />
</span></div>Robynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137802723113889365noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1444299113771737767.post-90414305507885285242011-06-15T15:53:00.002+02:002011-07-25T12:01:20.574+02:00Meditation 6. Shambhala Meditation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BKCSz51Bs3g/Tgrpp5VBsiI/AAAAAAAAABM/aBBnFXiC0Yk/s1600/Image035.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BKCSz51Bs3g/Tgrpp5VBsiI/AAAAAAAAABM/aBBnFXiC0Yk/s320/Image035.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">An easy way to bring joy into the practice of meditation is through the use of the imagination. Our imagination does not just represent a childish state of daydreaming, it is the language of our soul, and is rich with symbols and deeper levels of meaning. We are each entirely responsible for our own imagination as it belongs to each of us individually. Nobody else does our imagination for us, we don’t mimic it, and each person’s imagination reflects who he or she is on all the levels of their being. Imagination holds an authenticity that gives us information that is specific to our worldview and our individual reality. It is moulded and changed through the layers of consciousness it moves through as it arrives at our level of reality. If we are angry or suffering, our imagination is likely to reflect that. But it also holds deeper levels of meaning and significance that can guide us to interpret our reality in a different and more wholesome way. We can teach our imagination to see things in a particular way, and this perception will eventually filter through all the levels of our consciousness and change the matrix of who we perceive ourselves to be.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">If meditation is about being open to the experience of this present moment, it might seem that imagination is an escape from what is happening here and now. Sometimes it’s very hard to stay present; sometimes this moment is so awful we don’t have the will or the stomach to stay with it. Finding a space of peaceful inner stillness and equanimity can assist us to turn back towards that which is difficult, and to face it without flinching. Let us call the state of inner peace ‘coming home’. Let us imagine that this state is our True Nature that is always unchanging at the core of our being. It is so, but if we don’t know it experientially yet, then we can initially imagine it to help us understand it better. For ease of reference let us call this place of coming home ‘<i>Shambhala’</i>. Shambhala is the archetype for Heaven on Earth. We access Shambhala through imagining ourselves merging </span><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">with the stillness, the joy, wisdom, love and peace of a heavenly place. Shambhala can either be conceptualised as a place which exists on a different dimension to </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">our</span><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;"> third dimensional experience on Earth, or as an archetypal symbol for a heavenly state of being that we have the potential to access whilst on Earth in human form. In either form Shambhala represents deep within our psyches that place of wisdom, understanding and love where we are not separated into lonely beings struggling to be heard, seen and acknowledged in a frighteningly careless world.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">This meditation process is one of turning things back to front initially. It often seems that the experience of life is one of harsh suffering for innumerable beings a good deal of the time, interspersed for some of us, with moments of joy. If we are to believe that our external circumstances are a reflection of our internal state, or to put it in new age jargon, that we create our own reality, then the possibility exists that we are causing life to be like this. So, the suggestion is, to kid ourselves initially, by imagining a different reality whilst experiencing this one. We imagine as fully as possible - with our minds, our emotions, our felt sense and our bodies - an archetype of heaven on earth, so as to begin to change how we feel inside. Having done so, we can turn our attention back to the experience of this present moment with a broader sense of spaciousness and a deeper level of commitment to stay calm and present to it.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">Initially it therefore seems like we are deceiving ourselves by imagining a perfect heavenly realm on earth. However, if we can become peaceful, we have more resources with which to manage our conflicts. If we are spacious and non judgmental, we can see things from a broader perspective. If we are loving and compassionate, people respond differently to us. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">Stillness within creates stillness without. If we can be still and spacious and receptive to our boundary-less nature, then an inner trust begins to manifest externally. Sinking into the stillness, creates the conditions for it to percolate into our external world. Meeting the external world from the space of stillness, rather than busyness and distraction, changes our relationship with the world.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">Not only do we become open to embracing all experiences, but as we do so, the experiences themselves align with our inner state of being and become more harmonious, reflective, and loving. If we can be still in the face of external hardship, we transmute into beings that are more substantial and reliable.</span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2j14NLGXcBU/Tgrn8tPPPoI/AAAAAAAAAA8/HPd-JqLRdEw/s1600/IMG_0811.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2j14NLGXcBU/Tgrn8tPPPoI/AAAAAAAAAA8/HPd-JqLRdEw/s320/IMG_0811.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">As a vision:</span><br />
<span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;"><i>Shambhala</i> is a place of caring, of calmness, of spacious peace. </span><br />
<span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">As a practice we:</span></div><ul><li><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">·<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">Imagine <i>Shambhala</i> as a place – the colours, smells, sounds, and perceptions of how it would feel to be there. </span></li>
<li><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">·<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">Then we draw the quality and the feeling of that vision deep into our bodies to experience it as a physical sensation. </span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">·<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">Ultimately we allow that energy to flow out from us into the world. </span></li>
</ul><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 18pt;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">Anchoring the felt sense of <i>Shambhala</i> into our experience destroys our illusion of being separate and alters our concept of ourselves in relation to our world, so that we can recognise that we are One.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 18pt;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">We simply focus on the highest level of consciousness we are capable of imagining, and feeling and merge with that in the most embodied way. We can feel the beauty and light of this in the cells of our bodies, and it creates a sense of awe, of love and of bliss to emerge.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">Settling into that place of stillness within, we let go and allow it to do its work of transforming us unimpeded. All we need to do is to trust and let go. As we do so, we become wiser and more loving. Peering out into the world through the eyes of a higher level of consciousness, we not only perceive it differently, but we also gain access to wider and deeper levels of wisdom, that weren't available available to us before.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 150%;">This wisdom informs our outlook and it also anchors through us into the earth at large and transforms the collective consciousness, to a lesser or larger extent, depending on the level of consciousness we <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">are accessing. </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">If we want to change the world we can only do it from within. As UNESCO claims,</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span><br />
<blockquote><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br />
</span></blockquote>Robynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137802723113889365noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1444299113771737767.post-90058143056942663262011-06-14T19:10:00.007+02:002011-07-25T12:08:00.326+02:00Meditation 7. Oneness<div align="center" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Imperturbable, solid as a rock. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Awareness has space within it for bliss, compassion, tranquility, sadness, grief, guilt, anger and hatred.</span></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Like the Great Mother, hips as broad and solid as Africa.</span></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Immovable, unflappable, spacious coming Home.</span></div><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">________________________________________________________</span><br />
<br />
<span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The underlying experience of Oneness is hidden from us by our mind’s continuous wandering in search of resonances with its wounded self, so that it may heal them. We continuously recreate harsh experiences in order to recreate our original wounds, in the hope that we might finally fully address them this time around. Our wounds arise out of our sense of separation; separation from all that is, from the womb, from our mothers, from painful experiences that contract us. We cannot truly know Oneness as an experience until we know its opposite of separation. As an analogy, we cannot see ourselves, except as a reflection, because we are ourselves. Just the same, Oneness cannot experience itself, except if it separates out into individuation.</span><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> </span> <span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zFzCHXGVuFw/TgsXZCL57hI/AAAAAAAAAB0/Unp4-0lp43M/s1600/DSC_0577.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zFzCHXGVuFw/TgsXZCL57hI/AAAAAAAAAB0/Unp4-0lp43M/s320/DSC_0577.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">We chose to be here on earth so that we could fully appreciate ourselves and integrate back into Oneness. There is no judgement about the separation, with its associated anxiety and scrabbling and searching; it is in itself the path back home. We can only hold it with deep awareness and allowing.</span><br />
<br />
<span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The integration of Oneness seems like it ought to be about merging rather than separation, however the Oneness is always there, it cannot not be a part of our lives. We integrate all of who we are by accepting our separation and our suffering and by acknowledging its value to us as Divine Creators. Separation is a part of our whole experience of life and not something to be avoided. In the merging of the fullness of this experience, the separation becomes imbued with Oneness and we at last become whole again. Embracing it all, we return to the completeness of our Original Nature.</span><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> </span> <span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Then there is only the underlying joy and spaciousness and freedom of our inner truth, unclouded by our clinging, judging, controlling selves.</span><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> </span> <span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The fact that we return over and over to clinging or aversion must seem weird indeed. From the place of spaciousness it seems weird. Who in their right mind would choose restriction and judgement at the expense of spaciousness and pure joy? But we are not in our right minds, we are mostly in our left minds, and they are restrictive and carry our conditioning and our fear.</span><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> </span> <span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">To let them go takes faith and courage and trust.</span><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3K7G1RhSxL8/TgsXacPV9qI/AAAAAAAAAB4/bRMKKULX6KI/s1600/Image021.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3K7G1RhSxL8/TgsXacPV9qI/AAAAAAAAAB4/bRMKKULX6KI/s320/Image021.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Arial;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073711037 9 0 511 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Times;
panose-1:2 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-font-charset:78;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1791491579 18 0 131231 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Cambria;
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073743103 0 0 415 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0cm;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US;}
p
{mso-style-priority:99;
mso-margin-top-alt:auto;
margin-right:0cm;
mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
margin-left:0cm;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Times;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US;}
@page WordSection1
{size:595.0pt 842.0pt;
margin:70.85pt 3.0cm 70.85pt 3.0cm;
mso-header-margin:35.4pt;
mso-footer-margin:35.4pt;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
</style><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Meditation 7. </span>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> </span>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">There is only one thing to
learn on earth, and that is how to simultaneously be present in this world, and also merge back into the wholeness out of which
we arose, and about which we have become unconscious. In our unconsciousness,
not only have we forgotten that we are One, Complete, All That Is, but we have
forgotten that we have forgotten. All that we need to do to remember is to turn
back towards that love and spaciousness within us. Turning to God, God comes
directly to us, our only task is to request the reconnection, to long for
Wholeness, to remember again and again and again, and to return to our true
home within. </span>
</div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Initially we can connect most
easily to this aspect of ourselves by recognizing it as something separate from
ourselves, as the Beloved. Then once we truly feel and embody the Beloved
within, we recognize that it was none other than ourselves all along. </span>
</div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Breathing deeply, notice what
is here. The sights, sounds, smells, tastes, sensations, feelings, emotions and
thoughts. Allow them all to be exactly as they are. Open up to this very moment
without judgment or resistance. Then take your attention into the centre of
your chest and draw into it the image of a perfect Being of light and love.
Choose an image that resonates with you. Don't choose someone you know personally, you are looking rather for an
archetype of light and love. Imagine how this Being feels, looks, smells, imagine
the quality of their energy. Connect with the feeling of this Being. Draw the
sense of him or her or it deeply into the cells of your body. Allow it to merge
with the sense of who you are. Allow it to become One with you. </span>
</div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Bring to mind any situation
you would like to resolve. Allow the insights and felt sense of this divine Being to show you how to deal with this problem. You do this by feeling how it
is to be One with its light and love, and then from the perspective of this
sensation of calmness, notice how you would respond to the situation you wish
to gain insight about. Notice how it allows everything without judgment, but
that this doesn't stop you from responding with thoughtful and perceptive action
to resolve difficulties.</span>
</div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Breathe into this sense of
being One with a magnificent and divine archetype, that is in fact none other
than you at the deepest level of your being, thank it for its wisdom and
insight, and retaining its quality of energy, return to the room.</span></div><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span lang="ES" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span>Robynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137802723113889365noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1444299113771737767.post-21536283587325816412011-06-12T21:01:00.000+02:002011-06-12T21:01:28.184+02:00The art of “un-doing” and the birth of a new form of consciousness. .<style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Arial;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073711037 9 0 511 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-font-charset:78;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1791491579 18 0 131231 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-font-charset:78;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1791491579 18 0 131231 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Cambria;
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073743103 0 0 415 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0cm;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US;}
p.MsoFootnoteText, li.MsoFootnoteText, div.MsoFootnoteText
{mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-link:"Texto nota pie Car";
margin:0cm;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US;}
span.MsoFootnoteReference
{mso-style-priority:99;
vertical-align:super;}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;
text-underline:single;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
color:purple;
mso-themecolor:followedhyperlink;
text-decoration:underline;
text-underline:single;}
span.TextonotapieCar
{mso-style-name:"Texto nota pie Car";
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-locked:yes;
mso-style-link:"Texto nota pie";}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US;}
/* Page Definitions */
@page
{mso-footnote-separator:url("Macintosh HD:Users:robynsheldon:Library:Caches:TemporaryItems:msoclip:0clip_header.htm") fs;
mso-footnote-continuation-separator:url("Macintosh HD:Users:robynsheldon:Library:Caches:TemporaryItems:msoclip:0clip_header.htm") fcs;
mso-endnote-separator:url("Macintosh HD:Users:robynsheldon:Library:Caches:TemporaryItems:msoclip:0clip_header.htm") es;
mso-endnote-continuation-separator:url("Macintosh HD:Users:robynsheldon:Library:Caches:TemporaryItems:msoclip:0clip_header.htm") ecs;}
@page WordSection1
{size:595.0pt 842.0pt;
margin:70.85pt 3.0cm 70.85pt 3.0cm;
mso-header-margin:35.4pt;
mso-footer-margin:35.4pt;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
-->
</style> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Somewhere in amongst the maelstrom of 2012 hype about the “End of the World”, and the death of our planet and ourselves, we sometimes come across the optimistic conviction that perhaps we are also birthing a new form of consciousness. The belief is that this will transform the old world order into something grand and altogether different, and that out of this birthing, peace will arise on earth. It is a magnificent vision of harmony, of ecological awareness, of care and of love, which will metamorphose the shattered, exhausted and violent existence within which we presently dwell. The vision seems impossible. How do we achieve such a reconstruction of our world, particularly when the old world order only seems to be strengthening its impact on the earth, and there is a vey real possibility that she will be strangled and we will die as a result of our destructive behaviour?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;">But the possibility is not so very alien. We, each of us, have within us the potential for being an angel or a demon. We each know, even if we don’t live in either extreme, the felt sense of these potentials. The exquisite experience of allowing the best of our potential to emerge, is accessible through a receptivity and a surrender into a deeper place beneath our interference and control. Our behaviour is usually moulded by a desperate urge to restrain and manipulate our external world, in order to transform it into a place of beauty and support. In fact, all we need to do is to turn inwards, and allow the underlying ground of our being to emerge. In doing so, we transform ourselves, and our external world naturally comes into alignment with that. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Transforming ourselves is impossible if we try to impose an angelic way of being onto how we express ourselves. Transforming our expression of who we are, can only happen authentically if it is a spontaneous, natural response that has arisen out of an internal state of being that we have surrendered into. Sri Nisargadatta, an enlightened sage from India who lived last century, describes it thus, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.4pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;">‘If you want peace and harmony in the world, you must have peace and harmony in your hearts and minds. Such change cannot be imposed; it must come from within. Without peaceful people how can you have peace in the world?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The birth of a new form of consciousness is the birth of a state of inner stillness, of love and of Presence that is experienced as a felt sense in our bodies here on earth. Thich Nhat Hanh says that the miracle is not to walk on water, but to walk on the land – to be present and open to the experience of that. We all know how to surrender into this stillness within, because we all hold its potential within our collective and individual consciousness. We may be more or less aware of it, but accessing it is the simple task of letting go into what is already there. It isn’t necessary to leave home to find it, we simply come home to ourselves, and sink into the experience of tranquility and presence that underlies the conditionings, fear, anxiety and anger armouring us against the world.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Our perception of this consciousness feels delicate initially. We drop into it and it is felt as a flutter, a momentary awareness of our potential, much as a foetus is felt in the belly when we first discern its movements. The foetus is already there, we have received the pregnancy test results, seen the scans, yet the first felt movements are like a whisper that we cannot quite believe yet. As we come to trust this feeling more, it becomes stronger and sturdier, and our babies grow into movements that are full and rounded, taking up all the space in our bellies. We begin to feel their movements unbidden, they begin to arise without our focusing so intently on them, although they are stronger when we are quietly aware. Some women, who are very perceptive, can feel their babies moving at 8 weeks, even though we’re only supposed to feel them at between 16 and 22 weeks. Rose described the first movements in her belly of her 8 week old baby, and then her recognition of him when she looked deeply, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.4pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“He’s very active…. he’s joy, ease and certitude, it’s all truth, truth, and he’s very comfortable with that, nothing to defend…. He’s a bundle of love and joy.” Rose is intuitive and insightful. Towards the end of her session with her baby, she added,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.4pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“He’s just showing me a lot of joy and lightness and surrender, and a new sense of what it is to really be in control – there’s nothing rigid, it doesn’t lack fun, or play or joy… He’s coming to bring down an energy, he’s going to embody this energy, the new gate for this generation, to create a platform for it – to balance and aid in our evolution. It’s something very effortless.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Finding our inner stillness is similar to becoming like Rose’s baby. We have to be very present, to listen with deep and alert awareness. We quiet our churning minds and emotions and our loud bodily demands in order to sink into it. It is like dipping into a stream that runs beneath our usual level of awareness. The Buddhists refer to it as ‘stream entry’. It is the awareness of being a part of and One with a Universal flow of energy that is always there all the time. I call it ‘coming home’. In discussion with a group of friends </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Ruth called it ‘<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">not interfering’</span>, Annika called it ‘<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">doing less to create more’</span> and Zo called it ‘<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">being present’</span>. The value of settling back into ourselves and holding space can become a guiding principle. If we cherish this as the core reason for being here, it can serve as a reminder that this is the only work there is, and it assists us to powerfully transform our world, each in our own way. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;">It is the gateway to Shambhala, it is the entry point for bringing heaven to earth and it is right under our noses and easy to access. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius, described this almost 2000 years ago, when he said, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.4pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“He who lives in harmony with himself, lives in harmony with the Universe.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;">We find that from a harmonious place of stillness, the way we respond to our environment changes dramatically and our environment changes its response to us in return. When we are held in the embrace of our underlying True Nature, we could not wish to harm our environment any more than we might harm our finger or foot intentionally. When we drop the shields and defenses that shore up our brittle sense of our separate identity, we recognize that we are not segregated from our surroundings, and that we and the world are One. Then there is nothing that we have to do, because the doing happens naturally. From this place of compassionate awareness, we can only respond appropriately. So it becomes a process of un-doing, the less we ‘do’, the more the world transforms around us. The less we interfere, the more the harmony prevails. The less we stamp ourselves on this earth in order to make our individual mark, the more we live in our truth and our integrity, and the more we become that which we truly Are. Then the doing happens all by itself, so that our responses, which may be stern and strong when the need arises, happen spontaneously, without forcing them and without emotional angst or anger. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Sinking into present moment awareness, as we allow our underlying state of consciousness to reveal itself, we allow it not only for ourselves, but for the collective consciousness as well. Each time one of us accesses this stream of stillness, we strengthen the connection for every other person. There is a tipping point, a 100<sup>th</sup> monkey phenomenon<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=1444299113771737767#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: ES; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a>, whereupon, when enough people are merged with their inner stillness, enough of the time, this Still Point<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=1444299113771737767#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: ES; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[2]</span></span></span></span></a> has the possibility of breaking through into our collective awareness. Some people will do far less to access this gateway to a new form of consciousness, because the groundbreakers have constructed the paths and the highways for them. We, who are working with this concept today, are blessed to find our way into the stillness so much more easily than the individuals who were forging the way 10, 20 or 100 years ago. Each of us adds a little to the collective whittling away of the perception that controlled pushing and pulling and forcing are our only options within the grand drama of these intense times we are living in. Much as a honey bee collects pollen as part of a single organism that is the hive, in order to keep it alive and flourishing, when we come into alignment with the stillness that belongs to the Whole, we come into alignment with the harmony and order that can create peace on earth. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div style="mso-element: footnote-list;"><br clear="all" /> <hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /> <div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=1444299113771737767#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: ES; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The <b>hundredth monkey effect</b> is a supposed phenomenon in which a learned behavior spreads instantaneously from one group of monkeys to all related monkeys once a critical number is reached. </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundredth_monkey_effect"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundredth_monkey_effect</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div><div class="MsoFootnoteText"><br />
</div></div><div id="ftn2" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=1444299113771737767#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: ES; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[2]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> T. S. Eliot, reminded us of this potential in his poem <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Burnt Norton</i> in 1936;</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 35.4pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“Except for the point, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 35.4pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">the still point,<br />
There would be no dance, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 35.4pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">and there is only the dance.”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div><div class="MsoFootnoteText"><br />
</div></div></div>Robynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137802723113889365noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1444299113771737767.post-87409299591607060812011-05-30T11:20:00.000+02:002011-05-30T11:20:35.393+02:00The Soul’s Knowing: Connecting with Our Babies in the Womb by Robyn SheldonOne of the most uplifting experiences of pregnancy is to work at forming a relationship with our children when they are still in the womb. Unborn babies are connected to the soul’s knowing and hold a wisdom that far surpasses our narrow, limited version of reality. Unborn children quickly reveal themselves to be filled with unconditional love and a deep acceptance of us and our inability to understand life from their much clearer perspective. <br />
<br />
Babies are astonishingly responsive to being “seen” and noticed when they are in the womb. Paying them attention, sending them love and actively imagining how they look, feel and respond on a soul level is rewarded with a very real sense of their appreciation. This appreciation is expressed not only with responsive kicks, but also with a feeling of well-being that emanates from them and is fed back to us through the invisible pathways of thought and a felt sense of connection in the body.<br />
<br />
Babies in the womb can give their parents a clear idea of what they need in order to feel supported through labor, birth and parenting. As parents we can connect with our unborn babies using a process of active imagination, whereby, after relaxing, we allow symbols, images and colors to spontaneously arise. It's been my experience that parents who engage this process find their way to a place of connection with their babies, often while resonating on an extremely high level of consciousness.<br />
<br />
Even parents who don’t trust in their ability to connect intuitively to their child in the womb seem to easily establish a relationship once they relax and allow the process to unfold. As they soften, listen and feel the quality of their baby's essence, the baby tells them what it needs to say. This valuable work can create healing in the family dynamic and helps to resolve, prior to the baby’s birth, certain patterns or themes that the baby might otherwise have to experience as lessons later in life. Justin, a father I lead in a session of active imagination, was able to connect with his unborn son and experienced the healing of old father-son patterns prior to his son’s birth. <br />
<br />
“I see a circle, and the more I look at it the more I see the features of this circle. It is solid, gold in color, like metal. I'm overwhelmed with this feeling of completeness, of being whole again, this feeling of never-ending love. My baby looks like me, with lots of dark hair. I can see myself playing with his fingers and his toes, and he's giggling and there's this mischievousness about the whole experience. As these images are going through my mind, I am struck with the realization of what all of this means to me. With the birth of Luis, something broken will be whole again. The father-son relationship that has been missing in my life will return; except this time, I'll be the dad. And Luis will be my son. I realize the significance of the gold, shiny circle. I wear it everyday. This is my dad’s wedding ring which I wear as my own. It signifies the love I share with Heather, the love for our family, the commitment we've made to each other.”<br />
<br />
Projections such as Justin's are created from the thought pathways and heart connections we construct with one another. How we think and feel as parents will be recognized and imprinted in the thinking and feeling pathways of our infants' brains. As parents, we already carry all we learned subconsciously from our own parents. We are formed by their feelings and beliefs as definitively as by the genetic coding we inherited from our ancestors.<br />
<br />
Neonatal research identifies how the neurons in a baby’s brain link together to form pathways or roads along which thoughts and feelings travel. Neurons are the basic building blocks of our nervous system. After birth, they form chains, and the thoughts and feelings that are experienced most frequently form well-used highways. Unused paths become difficult to follow. By the age of three months, the thoughts and feelings that we have experienced most often are those that we continue to feel most easily throughout life. If we are loved and held close, the neuronal pathways responsible for feelings of security develop strongly. If we are separated from our parents for long periods or cry without being attended to, we are likely to build pathways in our brains that mirror a fear of abandonment. These fears might be so deeply entrenched as neural highways that as adults we become anxious and experience insecurity about our self-worth.<br />
<br />
As parents, we can recognize our infant's sensitivity to our thoughts and feelings through simple awareness. Babies register shock or fear when we ignore them or are unable to truly recognize their primal needs for safety, nourishment and love. They gurgle and relax and are fully in their little bodies when we notice them with full awareness. They love to be "seen" on every level of their beings—physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.<br />
<br />
Babies born in an atmosphere of brisk efficiency, where not much attention is placed on the sacred significance of birth, can register shock and toxic stress as a result of not being sufficiently “seen,” held and loved. Yet, it is not the physiological trauma of an overly medicalized birth that creates the worst shock. Regression studies show that we are more traumatized by being emotionally unwanted at birth than by being physically separated from our mothers. If, during labor and birth, parents consciously send their baby love, birth trauma seems significantly diminished and a baby’s response is often one of calm and ease. A baby who is not shocked at birth will often smile within a day or two instead of at six weeks, which is when we generally expect babies to start smiling. <br />
<br />
We “see” our unborn babies in the womb by connecting with them on a soul level, the wise and unconditionally loving core essence of ourselves. Each of us, no matter how judgmental we are of our outward personality, has this unchanging essence. Because unborn babies are still intimately connected to the soul’s knowing, pregnancy is a time when mothers and fathers can generally choose to experience their own soul's reality more profoundly than at other times in their lives. <br />
<br />
In a session with her unborn child, Ana’s own soul essence was symbolized by a beautiful blue light that made her smile. “My baby is at peace. He touches my eyes; it’s just the way he looks at me, full of love. It’s empowering, pure. It’s happiness. All he wants from me is love, and in labor he wants me to talk to him and think about him so he will feel safe. It feels white and shiny…Our baby is letting me know he never judges us, no matter what we do or where we are.”<br />
<br />
An advantage to “seeing” our babies on a soul level prior to birth is that we can learn to recognize their wisdom when they are helpless infants and little children. As Ellen said of her unborn child session after the birth, “I was amazed that what my child told me in the session was so true.” <br />
Another mom, Hannah, felt “the unborn child session was intense, but tremendously beneficial in helping us understand each other on a level we wouldn't ordinarily explore.”<br />
<br />
When they are in the womb, babies don’t seem to take our stress and anxiety personally. After birth, however, babies are so responsive to our feelings that their bodies may contract if we are stressed and constricted. This sensitivity can cause digestive cramping and unsettled responses in their bodies. Being gentle with ourselves and allowing for our imperfections is important for settling our babies. Honoring the deep wisdom and high level of consciousness from which our babies are emerging can help us to create an aware environment that allows our babies to adapt to life outside the womb.<br />
Babies being born these days seem more highly evolved than in the past, perhaps because our expectations of their wisdom, compassion and enlightened awareness are growing and they are not closing down as readily to fit our assumptions of their limitations. Parents who connect with their unborn baby don’t perceive the baby in abstract concepts, but rather, as a clearly felt, bodied being. Even cynical parents have the ability to feel, imagine, visualize and express who their unborn children are on a soul level. Parents form a connection with their unborn baby because they want to, because they already love their baby. Even when they are not yet consciously aware of this love, they create the connection. <br />
<br />
Parents are often incredulous at how authentic their baby feels when they are prompted to visualize the baby. They are invariably awed by their baby’s compassion, especially if their behavior has been unsupportive of the pregnancy. Parents might visualize their baby as taking a symbolic form, yet the form the child takes always holds an aspect of who the baby really is at a deep level of its being. It is a rare parent that does not visualize their child as unconditionally wise and loving. <br />
As Lisa said of her soul session with her baby, “It gave me the space to express and explore and connect and move and dance and be centered and feel moments of deep connection with my baby and experience her wisdom and beauty, this being filled with love.”<br />
<br />
The more we collectively expect our babies to be wise and wonderful, the more they become so; we can only watch, a little awestruck, as the wisdom of our children blossoms and expresses itself. Pre-verbal communication is similar to animal communication; babies understand and respond to the language of projected symbols and images from our minds. Using active imagination to figure out our baby’s needs or to show our baby love often has excellent results. After birth, a sleeping baby will often smile if we consciously send it feelings that include not only our thoughts, but also images and colors that remind us of love.<br />
<br />
Our babies have a primal, instinctual desire for tenderness, for safety and for food. As parents we have an intrinsic and essential need to protect them, to provide for them and to love them more deeply than we have ever loved anyone or anything before. Their sensory antennae are sensitive and alert to our love. Coming into resonance with our unborn babies through opening our hearts to love, we get to deeply “see” life through the eyes of our newborns—and from that perspective life looks sparkling, fresh and very alive.<br />
<br />
<strong>Camilla's story</strong><br />
<strong><br />
</strong>With a three-year-old, a 21-month-old and 27 weeks pregnant with my third baby, I had a strong sense that I was ignoring the growing baby inside me—poor thing would only get noticed when I finally managed to sit down at seven o'clock after the chaos of dinner, bath, bottles, books and bed, when he or she gave me a full blown kick in my ribs. I had read a lot about communicating with your unborn child and the process really appealed to me, although it felt a bit “hippie dippy.” <br />
<br />
With an open mind and heart, and a dash of skepticism, I arrived for my session with Robyn. She explained that I was not going to be hypnotized or put into a trance or anything like that, but that she would simply help me to relax and give my imagination a chance to let go.<br />
<br />
First she asked me to imagine or remember, then describe a place where I felt calm and safe. She asked me to think of the colors, textures and smells of this place. This was a great way of getting me into the right mental space to let my imagination go. Robyn then led me through a series of questions, asking me to describe any images and feelings that came into my mind. At first she asked me about my body and then she focused on the baby.<br />
<br />
At this point I realized I was not going to hear a little voice telling me things about itself, as I had naively expected, but that “talking” to my unborn baby meant recognizing feelings—feelings I had about being a mom for the third time, feelings about my own mother, feelings about this child, feeling about what this child was like and what this child would bring to our chaotic little family.<br />
<br />
My sense of who this child was, was very strong—a wise, old soul that would bring balance, calm and “rootedness” to our family. It also felt like I knew this child already—that the birth would be like meeting an old friend of mine.<br />
<br />
I left the session deeply moved, feeling connected to my baby, feeling very calm and really looking forward to welcoming this baby to our family. <br />
<br />
<em>First Published in Midwifery Today Spring 2011. Robyn Sheldon is a midwife and natural birth consultant. She holds a deep respect for the significance of birth as a means of transformation and for its impact on the newborn psyche. Robyn’s book, The Mama Bamba Way: The Power and Pleasure of Natural Childbirth, was published by Findhorn Press in 2010.</em>Robynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137802723113889365noreply@blogger.com0