- become a powerful guide for your
highest state of mind
-
Continue your regular, daily meditation practice
To summarize some of the issues we have discussed over the course of the
classes, we could begin by speaking of the way we are conditioned in our society
to search externally for Laughter, Love
and Learning. This external search leads us to think:
Happiness is space and time bound –
" I will be happy when
something happens ."
Love is outward .
"When I find someone then I will begin to love ."
We even deal with trauma outwardly.
" I am feeling bad – lets
go shopping ", feeling sick
- put on the TV, grieving - "do something - go
somewhere to forget about my grief . "
We are even taught to search for our sense of self outside of ourselves.
Constructing who we are, by the job we do, or the career aspirations we have,
or the clothes we wear or the people we associate with, or even where I might
fit in my family tree.
We ask the world to acknowledge and value us before we will
acknowledge and value ourselves. How many people work so hard, 50-70-100 hours a
week, so that they can have things that will make people say,
" wow look at
him , he has so many things. "
Our things do not and can not define us, no matter how hard
we try. If I wear Nikes and drive a Range Rover does not necessarily mean I am
successful, nor if I ride a skateboard and dye my hair and go surfing mean I am cool.
These are just things.
Clarity is realising that everything is for a reason: red,
white, brown, male, female, we are here with a fantastic gift. Everything is a
gift. Thrive on whatever comes. Even if it is tragic – it is a lesson. And if it
is magic – it is a lesson. They are all gifts,
nothing happens without reason.
From the moment we are
born the process of limiting us begins. We define freedom
in terms of being free of some of the things that bind us, our wealth and material
possessions, work, even the day-to-day family responsibilities.
We hear
frequencies from 20 to 20,000khz and call it sound. We see the spectrum between
infra-red and ultraviolet and call it light. We touch something with our fingers
and we say it has been felt. We don’t believe in reality beyond those ranges and
we are actively conditioned not to. But put plugs in our ears so we cannot hear
and notice what happens. The other senses compensate. They become super-senses –
so powerful that we almost feel that
we do not need the sense that we have lost.
What if I
were to tell you that you had another sense that you had invisibly capped. That
by entering into this world with all it’s conditioning it had forced you to
close that sense. That for thousands of years all the worlds greatest
philosophies had spoken of this sense as central to the fulfilment and meaning
in our lives. All of your other senses have tried to compensate but your ‘heart’
is so central to your perception of freedom and love and peace and fulfilment
that all of us are left feeling hollow and lost and as though there is something
very basic that we do not understand.
You can not
be a spiritual
person by just having the
intention, you have to have intention and live it, do
the practice and empower yourself to live the messages of your soul.
Real unconditional love is realising that every starving
mother and starving child is your
mother, your child, that anyone that hurts, that you hurt, that anything that is
harmed you are harmed.
Real love is infinitely larger than romance - it
speaks of the connection with the force that runs through us all.
If your life doesn’t feel like this then you’ve got some
wonderful things waiting for you, a wonderful exciting journey ahead..
Thoughts don't finish their journey until they become love
Do you remember
our conversation about the force in class 3? We tried
to explain the nature of
the dark and light side of the force and how it affected state of mind.
It was a simple way of explaining
that thoughts are not all the same in the way that they affect state of mind. We
alluded to the process of the light of the soul, and how it inevitably illumines
our consciousness. The conclusion of this was the realization that thoughts can
range from the uncontrolled reactive rage of aggression, hate and violence to
the pure, blissful, ecstatic feelings of ever-expanding love. The out of control
cacophony of thoughts, versus the direct, peaceful intuitive flow of the soul's
light, of wisdom and truth from within us
I would like you to imagine for a moment
that thoughts are just like souls. They also are eternal. They also are
journeying from darkness to light. They also are daily confronted with the
barrage of pressures from the external world. They also are looking for freedom.
And every thought – every thought - leaves a fragrance (sometimes a stench) that
shapes our state of mind that we view our world through. The journey for every
thought is from gross physical or material desire to love in all its flavours:
from romance to real wisdom or truth.
The
result of
this is the idea that every thought, is on a journey within us. Just as if it were one of
our own children, every thought is born and must be nurtured and guided and
developed until it becomes love (no longer a thought but an intuitive
experience). Our hateful thoughts need to be directed and lifted, not to be
rejected but to be loved and empowered. To reject our hate-child, for example,
is to stop truly looking at ourselves. The hate-child still exists within us, but we refuse to look
at it. It becomes an anchor that won't allow us to sail free of the lower states
of mind forever.
As we lift our consciousness, however,
we find that the children-thoughts that we give birth to are surrounded by more
and more positive role models and empowering guides. Simply put, every thought
we have, stays in our consciousness, whether it be way back in the sub-conscious
or more directly in the conscious mind, every thought is a crucial foundation in
the construction of our present state of mind.
Getting our heads around this idea
emphasizes the importance of simplicity and purity. The fewer thoughts we have,
the more positively they are selected, the more mindful we are not to allow the
birth of negative thoughts, the less we are weighed down by the
responsibility of carrying a multitude of naughty children through to their
final evolution.
The upshot is that we reach a state
where we do not think thoughts at all. We actually are able to directly intuit
the truth and wisdom within each of us.
So what to do? There are a number of
important conclusions.
First,
we
must accept all of our children, good and bad, and love them all
equally. Look yourself in the mirror and accept and love all the constructors
of your present state of mind. Remember that love is the most powerful evolver
of any wayward child.
Second, just like a naughty child
sometimes it is necessary to firmly correct undisciplined behaviour. So don’t
be afraid to gently but firmly offer love and guidance to aspects of your
present state of mind.
Thirdly, create an inspiring environment for your state of mind,
being considerate of the sorts of children you allow your thoughts to hang
around with and the situations you place yourself in.
Finally, remember that the consciousness you are evolving to, is one of direct
intuition. A place where your state of mind is constantly empowered by the
infinite love, peace and truth of the heaven within you. This consciousness
you reach often in meditation, so practice it as often as you can and more
importantly practice staying there.
A
true story...
“Kill him!” the old
lady sobbed hysterically “kill him . ”
The men pushed the
young warrior to the ground and forced him towards the chief of the tribe. “Kill
him! Kill him” the mob yelled. The chief reached out
to the old lady, his wife, and pulled her sobbing, grief stricken eyes to his
chest. The capturer of the
young warrior, the chief’s son stepped forward. “Father, this is the warrior
that has killed my brother, we must kill him!”
The crowd surrounding the scene grew
more frantic, “kill him” they cried over and over. Drums were beating to the
rhythm of their chants – the young warrior lay on the ground but was defiant,
seemingly never giving up.
The old chief stepped forward and
the noise grew in anticipation. “Will killing him feed our children?” he
whispered, his eyes steady. But few heard him so he spoke again, this time
directly to the loudest of the crowd, ‘will killing him return my boy to us?”
The crowd became quieter “will killing him make the sunrise any sooner?”
The daughter of the
chief, a beautiful young girl then ran to the warrior the murderer of her
brother and pulling the knife from his hands she yelled “father this is knife
that killed your son, this is the blood of my brother and this is the animal
that has committed this crime, you are a coward if he is not killed right now.”
She raised the knife high above her head ready to plunge it into the captive
warrior but the chief caught her hand easily in his powerful grip and held it
there. He whispered even more quietly “will killing him save your brother?” and
everything went quiet and still. Then there was a tiny squeak of a voice. “No”
said the old lady. “No it won’t” she repeated. And a murmur rolled around the
crowd “no” they repeated. The drums stopped and everyone listened as the old man
pulled his wife and daughter and son to his chest, “this matter needs careful
consideration, I would like to contemplate this overnight and explain my
decision to you all at sunrise.”
The next day the chief
called the tribe and the captive warrior to him. He had considered the matter
carefully and had also discovered that the captive warrior’s parents had long
ago been killed. He spoke deliberately – “you see that tepee up there ,
that was
my son’s. Those horses, his as well, they are yours now, you will be my son, and
you will replace the son that you have killed.” The warrior looked up, confused.
The chief looked at him gently and smiled. The warrior’s eyes filled with tears.
Brown Bear went on to become a most devoted son and actually saved the lives of
both his new brother and the newborn child of his sister in other battles.
The chief was
wise, he did not want to carry the burden of hate with him, and his forgiveness
freed him and his family from carrying that heavy baggage. He forgave not
because he had to, it would have been far easier to kill him, but because he
knew that it was the wisest thing to do.
We need this kind of
forgiveness of others but most importantly of ourselves. We must be comfortable
with ourselves. We must be able to look into a mirror and accept every part of
ourselves. This acceptance is the start of love...
Pick
up a leaf. Place it in the palm of your hand. Look
at how perfect it is – if it is decaying, watch how other little lives are
beginning : the bacteria and insects that it is feeding. Look at how the
circle of nature continues, how death creates life. Put all your attention
on that little leaf, imagine how it was born.
A tiny
unfurling beauty that sparkled in the sun. How it strove for the light
reaching up through the forest canopy and fluttered in the wind. Then one
day it had grown old and was losing its hold on the branch that had carried
it, its family, the tree that had sustained it, began to direct its
nutrients to other newer leaves and gradually its hold became weaker and
weaker until finally it had to let go and it fell and floated to the earth,
to feed the very tree that gave it life, in its death. Contemplate that
perfect balance for a few moments. The perfect balance of sun, wind and
water that the leaf had thrived and lived and died in.
And then realize that as you contemplate this forest, there are millions
of leaves, millions of perfectly balanced evolving little lives of perfectly
circular motions of nature. Realize that you are following exactly the same
journey. Rejoice and realize that heaven is here, now.
Summary
During this
seventh
class you will have;
understood the limitations you place on
yourself
begun to pay attention to your thoughts,
and chose which thoughts you allow in your consciousness