Meditation Works For Me

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When I was 19 years old, I read a book called “The Lazy Man’s Guide to Enlightenment” by Thaddeus Golas.  Since then, I’ve read it again at various times in my life.  This book motivated me to change my vibration level by meditating.  Over time and changing circumstances, and most likely because of my Christian background, I began to use meditation as a means to secure necessities and desires.  Coming full circle, I have returned to my original intent to change my vibration and energy, to increase my awareness, and to go deeper into understanding.

Many years ago, I received an awareness that, no matter what happened, I was to remain seated within a circle.  I didn’t fully comprehend this at the time.  Looking back years later, I saw that I ran away from intense challenges or ran aggressively forward in confrontation.  Never did I sit quietly in contemplation or acceptance.  Over time, I grew tired of banging my head against the wall.  I grew weary of and exhausted from conflict, resentment, and pain resulting from judgment and condemnation – whether mine or that of others.

Now, I primarily meditate to center myself, to connect to that which is Eternal and Infinite, and to access within myself joy, peace, harmony, and understanding.  I now fully understand what it means to stay seated within my circle.  Not only do I meditate, I find time to be still, to read, to listen and reflect.

I practice various forms of meditation.  I prefer to sit in silence.  Sometimes, however, I cannot stop my thoughts and my mind races with worry, fear, and anxiety.  In these situations, I use guided meditations.  On occasion, I fall sleep with selected meditations playing in my ear.  I believe in the adage, “Thoughts held in mind produce in kind.”  From personal experience, I know that – regardless of the reason, rationale, or justification – unproductive energy will materialize in my life when negativity of any kind emanates from my thoughts, speech, and behavior.  So I’ve got to keep my mind focused on the positive by any means necessary.

Meditation, whether silent or guided, helps to calm me.  It helps me to hold onto my faith while I’m going through the fire.  One morning, I awoke agitated, upset, and overwhelmed with panic and dread.  I had no desire to do anything but lie in bed with the covers pulled over my head.  I decided to mediate.  An hour later, I experienced a peace that I carried throughout the day.

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Awakening Consciousness

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It’s exhilarating to be alive in a time of awakening consciousness.  It can also be confusing, disorienting, and painful.  Adrienne Rich

When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.  Audre Lorde

It is crucial that we develop real awareness of ourselves as citizens of Earth, linked by mutual and indissoluble bonds.  When we clearly recognize this reality and ground ourselves in it, we are compelled to take a strict accounting of our way of life.  Daisaku Ikeda

Perhaps the immobility of the things that surround us is forced upon them by our conviction that they are themselves and not anything else, and by the immobility of our conception of them.  The Jesus Incident by Frank Herbert and Bill Ransom

The cosmos is within us.  We are made of star-stuff.  We are a way for the universe to know itself.  Carl Sagan

The quality of your consciousness at this moment is what shapes the future.  Eckhart Tolle

Evolution

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Where would we be today if we could have foreseen our future slavery, genocide, colonization, separation from our cultures, and unawareness of our nature and Spirit?  Where would the world be?  The destruction of a species is abhorred.  But, in the process of evolution, many forms die.  In the case of human beings, there are plagues, wars, and mass killings.  Eventually, all empires and regimes fall and disappear.  During the process of extinction, the death is very painful.  Much darkness endures, sometimes for centuries.  Out of that decay comes new beginnings and knowledge.  We miss the old ways; but, if nothing ever changed, we wouldn’t be where we are today.

Massacre, genocide, and extinction are worse than horrible.  However, if we believe that Life is eternal, that there is an infinite energy that continuously creates and destroys; if we realize that we exist within that Energy, that Flow, whatever it is that IS, then we have to accept that we are part of Its process of creating and destroying.  We have to accept that we have these tendencies within us and to notice when we ourselves are destroying and creating (at any level – at home, at work, in our communities, in our states, in our nations and in the world) and whether our actions in this regard are productive or harmful, are kind, loving, considerate, and virtuous.  Do our thoughts and actions nurture or destroy life?

We will one day not exist.  We must strive while we are here to not cause harm, to have a positive effect, and to not leave this place worse than when we arrived.

I believe that I chose to live as a physical being on Earth, but once embodied in the flesh, I became caught up in the ecstasy of physical feelings and the emotions of love, pride, and ego.  It became overwhelming.  Eventually, I forgot who I Am and why I came here.  I became lost.  How do I return to that which I Am?  Maybe I don’t.  Maybe I came here to evolve into something greater.  At some point, it will all come together.  My awareness of who I Am will be accentuated by all that I have learned.