Class 20 - The first twenty - now where?

You don't need to look everywhere; the whole of nature is the mystery of God - Irina Tweedie The Sufi Path

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. - Oliver Wendell Holmes

Congratulations!

Getting through all the classes to the 20th class is a great achievement - well done! We'd really like to thank you for letting us into your spiritual life and we hope that you have enjoyed the discussions and meditations so far. This class is all about assimilation. How you can live your spiritual life most effectively.

How to take that next leap of faith

I am sure by now you see yourself as a meditator, as a spiritual soul on a journey of discovery. That vision needs to be constantly updated. For us, to create our highest reality, we need to constantly reveal the current highest vision of ourselves from within, and simply become it.

We burn daylight.- William Shakespeare

By its nature, this is not a static vision, it evolves, it grows, just as heaven, the divine, is constantly progressing.

This is done by no other process than revelation. The revelation of our heart.

So for us, trying to live this reality, there is one simple truth, the only way to reveal the heart is to be there. We cannot reveal the heart by being in the mind or in the body, our awareness must be constantly in the heart. This is what is meant by consciousness, how conscious, how aware we are of our own heart. A high consciousness is where we are very much in our heart, whilst a low consciousness probably means we are in our mind or body.

For us, this means practise, practise, practise. Practise our meditation, and then practise some more. Practise being in our heart when we walk down the street, do the dishes, when we smile, when we laugh, when we study or work. We need to simply increase the time we spend being in our heart. Reflect upon this. It's important.

By now, your meditation practise should be at least 30 minutes a day. Once a week, you should spend at least double your daily meditation time in meditation.

You are probably aware that it is possible to take huge leaps in your spiritual life. Great revelations can instantly supersede months of very slow transformation. These leaps take place most often when we spend at least 3-6 hours in meditation or in extremely spiritual practise. Perhaps you have attended a meditation intensive or have tried this yourself. This does not mean necessarily that you just meditate for this entire time, it would usually mean that it would be broken up into numerous meditation exercises of 15-25 minutes each. Each might be different to help keep it inspiring and interesting. Every month I go to the forest or beach to practise in this manner. I might do a slow walking meditation for 25 minutes, than sit and silently meditate for another 20 minutes. Then I might have a piece of fruit and relax for 10 minutes, read a spiritual book for 15-20 minutes and then go back to a silent meditation for 25 minutes or so. Rest again for a few minutes. Put on my headphones and meditate to music or to a guided meditation I like. In this manner, time passes very quickly, and you will be amazed at how after each of these ‘intensive’ meditations you will realise you have made a huge jump in your spiritual life.

But do you know what is undoubtedly the most profound help to our meditation practise? It is effortless but it's true - meditating with others.

There is simply no surer way of meditating well than in a group. There is a very powerful force that meditating in a group generates. If you haven’t tried it, you’re in for a treat. Have you felt that feeling that you get when you enter a really sacred building or temple? Well there is no other source than the spiritual aspiration of the people that inhabit it. So like this when we meditate in a group, we can sometimes feel that the meditation is extremely powerful and focussed with very little effort on our part. Ideally, we would recommend that you meditate in a group (even as few as 3-4 people) at least once a month, but hopefully more like every week or even twice a week.

We have recently launched the groups subdomain (groups.meditation.org.au) to help you with this. You can search for groups of people that are also doing this course in your area, or even start a group yourself. The meetings are free. The idea is for you to find a meditation group in your area that you can attend regularly. Not only is the group meditation important but you will love the inspiration and enthusiasm you will get from other people with spiritual aspiration like your own.

You may also have noticed our meditation directory (http://meditation.org.au/questionaire_display.asp), this lists all sorts of external meditation groups and paths, and they are rated by you.

Your highest meditation

Now firstly, don't imagine that you have one style of meditation that will always deliver your highest meditation. It simply will not.

Realise that your highest meditation really is defined not so much by your experience, by what you feel or even see for that matter, to experience your highest meditation what you really need to do is immerse yourself in your heart, a little deeper and a little more every time. This is important. Sometimes meditators have a powerful experience with perhaps overwhelming visions or feelings. This is fantastic, but you must realise that this is just one way our highest meditation presents itself to us. If you try and force your meditation experience into a particular mould you will be missing the point. Sometimes our highest meditation will offer an experience as that is what we need at that time. Some would say that ‘experiences’ or ‘visions’ are often not necessary if we are ‘getting’ all of the messages of our heart. Sometimes our highest meditation is blissful, sometimes enlightening, sometimes a perfect stillness, sometimes a chaotic movement.

To get to our highest meditation every time, requires enthusiasm and inspiration (class 19) practise and perfect, perfect faith.

For most of us, the last time we had perfect faith was when we were very young children having perfect faith in our parents. The faith that they would always be there, they would always make us feel safe and that we were totally loved. This is the basis of perfect unconditional love which is a prerequisite for our highest meditation. So how do we get that faith again?

A man who doesn't trust himself can never truly trust anyone else. - Cardinal de Retz, Memoires

Faith is about trust. Complete and perfect trust. We must have this perfect trust in our own heart. The trust that knows that ‘all the answers to all of my questions are inside my heart’. That if I have a question, any question, I will find the answer within me. That there is heaven within me, there is infinite love within me, that I can make myself do anything I choose to.

When I'm trusting and being myself... everything in my life reflects this by falling into place easily, often miraculously. - Shakti Gawain

Do you get this? It';s really, really important. Perfect trust leads to perfect faith, which leads to perfect love, which leads to your highest meditation, which is perfection or the divine.

Read this slowly.