Meditation 6. Shambhala Meditation

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.

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 ‘Shambhala’. Shambhala is the archetype for Heaven on Earth. We access Shambhala through imagining ourselves merging 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 our 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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

As a vision:
Shambhala is a place of caring, of calmness, of spacious peace. 
As a practice we:

• ·       Imagine Shambhala as a place – the colours, smells, sounds, and perceptions of how it would feel to be there.
• ·       Then we draw the quality and the feeling of that vision deep into our bodies to experience it as a physical sensation.
• ·       Ultimately we allow that energy to flow out from us into the world.

Anchoring the felt sense of Shambhala 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.

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.

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.

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 are accessing.
If we want to change the world we can only do it from within. As UNESCO claims,

Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed.

Meditation 7. Oneness

Imperturbable, solid as a rock. 
Awareness has space within it for bliss, compassion, tranquility, sadness, grief, guilt, anger and hatred.

Like the Great Mother, hips as broad and solid as Africa.

Immovable, unflappable, spacious coming Home.

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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.     

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.

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. Then there is only the underlying joy and spaciousness and freedom of our inner truth, unclouded by our clinging, judging, controlling selves. 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. To let them go takes faith and courage and trust. 

Meditation 7.   

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. 

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. 

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. 

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.

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.

  

The art of “un-doing” and the birth of a new form of consciousness. .

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?

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.

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,

‘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?”

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.

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,

“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,

“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.”

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 Ruth called it ‘not interfering’, Annika called it ‘doing less to create more’ and Zo called it ‘being present’. 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. 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.

Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius, described this almost 2000 years ago, when he said,

“He who lives in harmony with himself, lives in harmony with the Universe.”

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.

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^th monkey phenomenon[1], whereupon, when enough people are merged with their inner stillness, enough of the time, this Still Point[2] 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.

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[1] The hundredth monkey effect 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. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundredth_monkey_effect

[2] T. S. Eliot, reminded us of this potential in his poem Burnt Norton in 1936;

“Except for the point,

the still point,
There would be no dance,

and there is only the dance.”

The Soul’s Knowing: Connecting with Our Babies in the Womb by Robyn Sheldon

One 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.

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.

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.

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.

“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.”

 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.”
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.”

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.
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.

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.
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.”

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.

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.

Camilla's story

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.