July 2004

Inspirations
a poem by Sri Chinmoy

Feature article
Peace Pilgrim

News
updates from the Meditation Society

Campaigns
Peace Experiment and World Healing Day

Readers Article

on Politics of our time

We need you
to submit to the meditation e-zine

From the Editor

The theme of this months edition seems to be "pilgrimages, peace, and politics". Quite different on the outside, but as you read on you will see the connection in spiritual terms - that it all begins within each of us.

Each month in the meditation e-zine i hope to bring you a little flavour of the rich treasures that are out there, and if you feel inspired by any of the authors or campaigns i hope you will search for them and use their material in your own spiritual practices. Past issues of the e-zine are available here.

As the meditation society of australia grows, the website is becoming more interactive, so i hope you'll take advantage of that by participating in the forums - more info is contained in the "News" section below.

in peace,
sabine

P.S. i encourage you to sign up for the free online course if you haven't already - as well as the guided meditations to music you can download throughout the course, we have special deals for those registered with us. Also, coming up in October are live online classes for those who've passed class 7 of our course. So join up now!

Inspirations

Feature Article

An introduction to Peace Pilgrim from https://peacepilgrim.org: From 1953 to 1981 a silver haired woman calling herself only "Peace Pilgrim" walked more than 25,000 miles on a personal pilgrimage for peace. She vowed to "remain a wanderer until mankind has learned the way of peace, walking until given shelter and fasting until given food." In the course of her 28 year pilgrimage she touched the hearts, minds, and lives of thousands of individuals all across North America. Her message was both simple and profound. It continues to inspire people all over the world:

"This is the way of peace: overcome evil with good,
and falsehood with truth, and hatred with love."

Here follows excerpts from the book "Peace Pilgrim" Her Life and Work in Her Own Words.

...A pilgrim is a wander with a purpose. A pilgrimage can be to a place - that's the best known kind - but it can also be for a thing. Mine is for peace, and that is why I am a Peace Pilgrim.

My pilgrimage covers the entire peace picture: peace among nations, peace among groups, peace within our environment, peace among individuals, and the very, very important inner peace -which I talk about most often because that is where peace begins...

...I made two very important discoveries as time went on. In the first place, I discovered that making money was easy. I had been led to believe that money and possessions would insure me a life of happiness and peace of mind. So that was the path I pursued. In the second place, I discovered that making money and spending it foolishly was completely meaningless. I knew that this was not what I was here for, but at that time I didn't know exactly what I was here for.

It was really the realization that money and things would not make me happy that got me started on my preparation for the pilgrimage. You may wonder how in the world I got involved with money and things in the first place, but you see, we are taught these sets of opposites which are extremely confusing.

On the one hand I was trained to believe that I should be kind and loving and never hurt anybody, which is fine. On the other hand I was trained to believe that if so ordered it is indeed honorable to maim and kill people in war. They even give medals for it. Now that one did not confuse me. I never believed there was any time under any circumstances when it was right for me to hurt anybody.

But the other set of opposites confused me for awhile ... I was trained to be generous and unselfish, and at the same time trained to believe that if I wanted to be successful I must get out there and grab more than my share of this world's goods. These conflicting philosophies which I had gathered from my childhood environment confused me for some time. But eventually I uprooted this false training...

...I would like to mention some preparations that were required of me. The first preparation is to take a right attitude toward life. This means, stop being an escapist! Stop being a surface liver who stays right in the froth of the surface. Be willing to face life squarely and get down beneath the surface of life where the verities and realities are to be found.
There's the whole matter of having a meaningful attitude toward the problems that life may set before you. If only you could see the whole picture, if you knew the whole story, you would realize that no problem ever comes to you that does not have a purpose in your life, that cannot contribute to your inner growth. When you perceive this, you will recognize that problems are opportunities in disguise. If you did not face problems, you would just drift through life. It is through solving problems in accordance with the highest light we have that inner growth is attained.

The second preparation has to do with bringing our lives into harmony with the laws that govern this universe. We are our own worst enemies. If we are out of harmony through ignorance, we suffer somewhat; but if we know better and are still out of harmony, then we suffer a great deal. Suffering pushes us toward obedience.

I recognized that there are some well-known, little understood, and seldom practiced laws that we must live by if we wish to find peace within or without. Included are the laws that evil can only be overcome by good; that only good means can attain a good end; that those who do unloving things hurt themselves spiritually.

These laws are the same for all human beings and must be obeyed before harmony can prevail.

So I got busy on a very interesting project. This was to live all the good things I believed in. I did not confuse myself by trying to take them all at once, but rather if I was doing something that I knew I shouldn't be doing I stopped doing it and I always made a quick relinquishment. And if I was not doing something that I knew I should be doing, I got busy on that. It took the living quite a while to catch up with the believing, but of course it can, and now if I believe something, I live it.

There is a third preparation that has to do with something which is unique for every human life, because every one of us has a special place in the Life Pattern, and no two people have exactly the same part to play in God's plan. There is a guidance which comes from within to all who will listen. Through this guidance each one will feel drawn to some part in the scheme of things.

When you come into this world your jobs in the divine plan are there. They just need to be realized and lived. If you do not yet know where you fit, I suggest that you try seeking it in receptive silence. I used to walk amid the beauties of nature, just receptive and silent, and wonderful insights would come to me.

You begin to do your part in the Life Pattern by doing all of the good things you feel motivated toward, even though they are just little good things at first. You give these priority in your life over all the superficial things that customarily clutter human lives.

There is a fourth preparation. It is the simplification of life, to bring inner and outer well-being, psychological and material wellbeing, into harmony in your life. I thought it would be difficult. I thought it would entail a great many hardships, but I was quite wrong. Instead of hardships, I found a wonderful sense of peace and joy, and a conviction that unnecessary possessions are only unnecessary burdens.

Now I do not mean that needs are all the same. Your needs may be much greater than mine. For instance, if you have a family, you would need the stability of a family center for your children. But I do mean that anything beyond need-and need sometimes includes things beyond physical needs, too-anything beyond need tends to become burdensome. If you have it, you have to take care of it!

There is great freedom in simplicity of living, and after I began to feel this, I found harmony in my life between inner and outer well-being. There is a great deal to be said about such harmony, not only for an individual life but also for the life of a society. It's because as a world we have gotten ourselves so far out of harmony, so way off on the material side, that when we discover something like nuclear energy we are still capable of putting it into a bomb and using it to kill people! This is because our inner wellbeing lags so far behind our outer well-being. The valid research for the future is on the inner side, on the spiritual side, so that we will be able to bring these two into balance-and so that we will know how to use well the outer well-being we already have.

Further info: You can find out more about Peace Pilgrim at https://peacepilgrim.org where her books and other material are available for free.

News (and fun stuff!)

At meditation.org.au we’d really like to encourage a world-wide family of meditators. At the moment hundreds of people all over the globe, from Dubai to Delhi and Madrid to Melbourne, are currently doing the meditation course, and we know that you would all benefit from the sharing of experiences.

So this month, we have started our forums. (https://meditation.org.au/forum/default.asp) We would love you to have a look and get involved. You’ll be amazed at how much benefit you will derive from meditating in a group, both from the inspiration of others and also the collective energy of the group. Apart from discussions, there is also a place to advertise meditation events, or you may like to start a meditation group in your area... Its your forum!

Each month, we will also feature a topic that we’d love you to get involved in as a discussion topic in the forums. This month it is ‘Politics of our time' which looks at the relationship between our political leaders and the spiritual lives of ourselves and our planet. To make it easy, this month the forum topic is also our readers article below.

So get on to the forums now – you will need to register with a username and password. We look forward to hearing from you!

Campaigns

Open Heart are seeking 80,000 people who are willing to be part of an experiment - the Peace Experiment - to see if we can shift the world's perception of "good and evil" to a perception of love. It won't cost you any money and will take only seconds a day. Open Heart believe we are all one mind and that if enough people (critical mass) could shift their own personal perception - change their minds - about the existence of evil, then the whole planet could shift into a perception of love.

Open Heart also believe that world peace begins with each individual achieving a state of peace within themselves. We can begin to do that for ourselves by becoming aware of the "negative" influences in our lives and choosing consciously to eliminate or shift those influences. What they propose is a two step process as follows:

STEP 1: Whenever you perceive that a negative event is occurring say the words "only love prevails." This phrase sends "positive" energy to the perceived negative event as you stand as an observer in non-judgment.

STEP 2: Become aware that the news media has a profound impact on your perception. Do whatever you need to do to protect yourself from exposure to "negative" or fear based stories in the media.

For more information or to sign up to the experiment, go to https://www.openheart.com

World Healing Day is a global linkup for world peace and healing. It is an opportunity for people to unite to raise world consciousness through the power of their collective intent for peace and healing.

This year World Healing Day will take place on July 17.

There will be two simultaneous global linkups in meditation. The first will be at 11.15 GMT. The second will be at 20.00 GMT (add 10 more hours for Australian EST, click here to convert GMT into your local time). Each meditation will last for at least 20 minutes, and will consist of clear, focused positive thought. Please dedicate your intent to the awakening of planetary consciousness and the advancement of world peace and healing.

More information can be found on https://www.worldhealing.co.uk

Readers article

Politics of our time - by Sunirmalya Symons

To view the political time of which we live and the nature of the outer world masters we serve from a spiritual perspective, we must be simple.

Let us simply remove the events of the past and present and gauge only the spiritual qualities of this time. Have we grown spiritually as a result of a particular political leader or leaders being in power? Are we more compassionate? More loving? Happier?

With reference to the brothers and sisters of our human family, have our political masters encouraged harmony, love, equality, tolerance and ultimately oneness

Some political leaders are quite negative. They might even encourage the use of negative spiritual qualities such as fear and panic to maintain control of the masses. In the past, despots like Hitler or Stalin, have found an outside enemy for which to lay blame for internal errors or problems. We might gauge these techniques as if the world was a single person. Do you see how they would plunge a single person into dark depression and/or violence and rather than searching for answers within would cause them to lash out at whatever came close to being perceived as a threat.

These are the unmistakeable signs of political leadership that negatively affects the world spiritually.

We must treat our planet as we should treat ourselves spiritually. That is, just as we are trying to expand the love, peace and joy in every moment of our lives and we are transforming our negative qualities, so we should do the same with our planet.

When you view the world in this way - you may see very quickly - the awesome responsibility those of us that are trying to live a spiritual life hold in relation to the world. We are, in effect, the conscience, the 'inner voice' of our world.

Lasting peace, lasting progress can only come when we can inspire the world's state of mind, and just as it is hard sometimes to hear our own inner voice, the world's consciousness needs to be pricked a little to hear the voice of spirituality.

If you would like to discuss this topic, or any other, please log on to our new forums and have your say!

We need you!