Meditation Experiment

 For some time I decided to follow some experiment.
 Experiment is simple, there is no formal meditation
 practice for certain period of time. Once you live
 a meditative, aware life is that really possible not
 to meditate? I am courious how it will feel for some
 time not too have morning meditation practice,
 the only difference is that you don't sit with your
 eyes closed and then awareness has a bit other
 flavor for it is more directed outside, but then again
 if once you recognize that inside is outside and
 vice versa does it really makes difference? I don't
 know and that's why this little experiment. Maybe
 on the other hand I had too much meditation and
 body needs some rest for awhile, we will see what
 happens.


       take Care :)

Spiritual Grounding

 When there is too much meditation and not
 enought bodily activity there might come
 imbalance. So, it is good sometimes to do
 less meditation and instead washing dishes,
 gardening, walking in nature, cleaning house
 ect. In my case, too much meditation resulted
 in my sleeping problems, next to it I had
 some nightmares and this was very disturbing,
 meaning - not peaceful at all. By eating some
 more and having more movement, exercise,
 work, body/mind somehow was able to come
 to harmony again. I still sometimes feel
 temptation to do extra meditation and usually
 I pay the price for it - bad sleep, to much
 pressure around head ect. Now, what works
 best for me is morning meditation and
 maybe a bit more inside the day. Because I
 am almost constantly aware of energy inside
 the body, extra meditation just makes it too
 intense and is not necessary. When there is
 proper amount of meditation then process
 developes smoothly and peacefuly, which doesn't
 mean that I may not cry or feel intense joy, but
 it is within borders which body/mind can take.

 

Creative Expansion

Hello  Walking to the shop, air was fresh, shoes were  swinging on some ice cubes here and there.  Love is simple, it happens. You see a bird,  blue sky enveloped in white curtain. You are  alive. Or are you a life  ?  The mood was cheerful, optimistic, without  a reason. It was good to walk, to move. Exchanged  few laughts with Aneta who is working there.  She has two kids, boy and girl. Both are an  angels for her. There is many angels isn't it?  She told me they love each other very much,  but they also bother each other. The girl likes  to read very much, he is younger and a bit  impatient yet with this.  Tea, bread, few lemonades, smile again.  Didn't have enought money, she said, no  problem, next time. Gentle expansion,  creative expansion, one is the one. And  fresh air again. Dreams are dreams, love  is love. Music is delicate and wonderful.  Full of grace, you feel it, it spins in your  spine, fills your heart. Your mind is quiet,  drops of rain fall, you notice. Infinite kindness,  as a tree. He made few photos, sky, white  cat, love lines, heather, ice matrixes, sun  shining throught the divine hole. Holiness  indeed, one by one, like holding each other  hands. Sound of birds, it becomes warm.  You notice the expansion of heat, slowly  enveloping your surrounding. Heart opens  somehow, you didn't do it. It IS unstoppable.  Easy way out...  Be the love, be the light.

"Who Are You" by Gangaji

 

 Yestarday and today I was listening to Gangaji's
audio: "Who Are You". I know her book "Diamond in
Your Pocket" and even translated this into polish.
"Who Are You" however is her older work, she is
 talking there about her realization, how she met her
 master Papaji and what was the result of that. I liked
 very much when she used metaphore of an ocean.
 That all the life streams finally come to an ocean.
 And in reality you are that ocean. Than it was pretty
 extraordinary to hear from her that I am listening to
 nothing else but my own Self, which manifested it-Self
 in this particular experience.

 Very helpful was part about emotions and direct
 experiencing them instead of falling into reactivity
 and story making. It is like neither repressing emotion
 nor expresing it outward, but facing it directly and being
 with it, feeling it's pure energy in your system. She said
 that if you go layer by layer deeper into this emotions,
 sooner or later you face the Ground of Being or Deep
 Abyss, some call it Black Hole, Empiness. That is not
 yet my experience, but I had taste of it and this talk about
 emotions made me feel being very close to it. Then she had
 pretty good points about relationships and honest work.
 Althought material was a bit similar to "Diamond in Your
 Pocket", I had chance to listen to her voice which is nice
 and some parts were indeed fresh, different.
 Thanks Gangaji :)

www.gangaji.org

Love and Animals

 Today we have been on a visit to veterinary.
 In our house we have one older dog and two
 cats, one black the other white. Black is he,
 white is she. It was the dog which took advantage
 from physicians grace. Well, probably Mobus
 wouldn't see it this way, because we wake him
 up and he had to travel in a car and they washed
 his ears, can you imagine - his ears! That is going
 definitely too far. But whatever his mood, girls
 in veterinary declared him improving, well you
 know he is old, sort of disabled being, has problems
 with his back legs and kind of cancer. And adding
 to this not so favorite list he developed skin infections,
 but today he was better and modern skills make
 his life easier and longer. When we took him here
 4 months ago wise people said he will live only
 3 weeks longer. Recently lady in veterinary proposed
 that perhaps he can live 3 years if lucky, so a bit
 of a heart can make difference you know. My friend
 said that cats open you for the higher, spiritual worlds
 and dogs ground you on the earth. In any case taking
 care for some other being opens your heart and makes
 you sensitive for some-body-being needs. Eckhart made
 also one very important remark, "when dog looks at you,
 he doesn't judge you". You don't have to worry if you
 are tall enought or eloqent enought or strong enought
 or funny enought or whatever enought :) You feel like
 scratching his ear or say to him something nice and
 you do, it is easier than with humans. So, we can be
 grateful that animals exist too.

Walk in Nature

 

 When you have a chance it is a great peace
 maker to walk in nature. I am lucky enought
 that I live now in mountains and very close
 to the forest. You move your body and imediately
 thoughts are less, you breath deeper and start
 to feel envigorated by fresh air. You look around
 and you see blue sky sprinkled with white drops
 or white cakes if you prefer. Then there is this
 yellow central heating system which makes
 you warm and inspired. Your feet touch the ground
 and you are aware that your legs move forward
 or backward if that's the case. Caselessly you melt
 in the space of life that is given. Maybe you notice
 some birds on the sky or on the trees. Or perhaps
 you will just listen to their sound from far. When the
 day is a bit wet like right now, I could hear melting
 snow falling into the valley and could feel when
 snow made this strange "glups-glups" sound. Down
 below were some small points moving, cars passing
 the road, going next to the river. I saw green pine
 trees and grey beeches. They were still, didn't care
 what I was thinking about them, or maybe they did?
 In any case they were beautiful and quiet. And again
 I saw the sun shining throught them, this time it
 was different sun, courious, mysterious, seducing sun.
 Some other thicket was growing out of snow but it
 was brown, kind of frozen in a sleep, you could imagine
 almost dead. And yet wonderfuly fitting to this picture,
 to this wintery atmosphere. And the silence was growing
 deeper to cover all the valley, the love became form and
 form become loveliness. Light and shadow melted with
 a snow and music of the heart was whispering beetwen
 dry leaves. Miles apart and so close, here and everywhere.
 Always changing, always the same. That's the heart of
 this game. Be blessed my friend!

Meditation and Shower

 My experience is that shower before meditation
 is a great help in the process. You become more
 sensitive to all the delicate energies and your
 energy body becomes more 'fluid' therefore
 meditation usually goes better in this case.
 Once my friend was saying that Sri Sri recommends
 to take shower even twice daily, but of course
 that may be sometimes difficult and even not
 possible. In any case that is very simple thing
 you can watch for on a daily basis and can help
 you to feel fresh, new and reborn. If you have
 for instance difficulties with sleep which I do
 have once in a while, than shower before bad
 can also have relaxing effect and help you
 in falling asleep. That is also good idea for the
other reason, in the night Energy is also doing
it's job and it is easier for IT to flow smoothly
when the body is fresh. You can be especially
aware of it in the time just before sleep and in
the early morning when you are kind of awake
but still have some dreams and floate between
two worlds. So, enjoy the water when you can!
  

 

Open Your Heart

 I was once wondering, what can open deeper my
 heart? And I came up with few ideas: one might
 be creative works like painitng, singing, dancing,
 playing music, sculpture (this I barely do, but
 it is on the list, who knows). Recently from all
 those things I paint the most, singing and playing
 music I do a bit, but somehow less than painting.
 It seems that when you are creatively busy, your
 right part of brain developes and that in turn
 opens your heart, your emotional life. Thoughts
 diminish and being here and now is more important.

 Probably it is more important to create than to
 create good if you know what I mean, when you
 put pressure on yourself that it has to be
 good enought ect., than you lose spontanity and
 inner peace. So, just play with this and see where
your talent is, maybe you never checked that out.
 
 Another idea was to play with childeren. That is
 indeed beautiful way to drop your borders, most
 of childeren are very cheerful, alive and playful.
It seems that they only care for good game, having
 fun and hug from their Mom or Daddy. That's simple
enought, isn' t it? Of course you need to have this
blessing, this chance to take part in this activity.
I was once serving as helping instructor on some
yoga course for kids and it was definitely wodnerful
experience. Of course some kids are difficult and
make more problems than you would imagine,
but their honesty and life energy are very uplifting.
You can see yourself again as a child and learn to
behave like the one. For in truth we all are childeren
in our hearts and hopefuly this never be lost.

Loneliness and The Work of Katie

 


 Loneliness seems to be the core of human conflict and
 suffering, when you sit alone in the room and it is
 increasingly discomfortable, you know what I am
 talking about. Interesting is that in the same time
 it is this core of loneliness which is a doorway to
 freedom and realization. Krishnamurti often was
 talking and writing about it, that we try to cover this
 basic fact in many ways: relationships, work, hobbies,
 eating, other addictions ect. But when you open your
 heart for the fact and will not resist it you might
 dicover something you never did before. Byron Katie
 came up with her famous questions: is this true?
 are you absolutely sure that this is true? how do you
 react when you belive that thought? who whould you
 be without this thought?

 When it comes to loneliness she observed that you
 feel lonely only if you travel in your mind somewhere
 else and notice that this person is not here, but if you
 are present here and now, just like Jiddu was saying
 about looking at the fact, than you discover that loneliness
 is also mind made. Funny part is that if you carefuly
 watch your mind it will sometimes resist being with
 people too and when you are alone you might seek the
 company, so in the end it is really resistance to the
 now, whatever the form it takes. 'The Work' of Byron
 Katie might look a bit too mental at the first side,
 but actually link between feeling and thinking is very
 close and just as many buddhist scholars teach it is
 purification of the mind which matters, for thought
 and feeling like to dance together. Of course feeling is
 more important and you might sometimes think in
 order to avoid some uncomfortable feeling, that's
 why in the east breath is highly recomended by
 many masters. On the other hand often you might
 not be aware what kind of thoughts create the feeling.
 And here 'the work' of Katie is brilliant. So, if you are
 courious and want to heal your loneliness, you can
 try few questions of Byron Katie.

 www.thework.com

   

Eckhart Tolle starts online TV

  


 Eckhart Tolle starts new service - EckhartTolle TV.
 This is paid service where you can watch his new
 and orginal teaching online, it seems to be on a monthly
 basis. Eckhart Tolle is one of the most respected and
 known spiritual teachers on the west. He is author of
 "Power of the Now" and most recent "New Earth". Both
 books are quite impressive and hit you with clarity,
 silence emanating from them.

 He is talking much about 'pain body' and 'inner body'.
 Pain body being energetic part of ego, where traumas
 and other pain karma is loaded in the body. Inner body
 is subtle body of energy where spiritual transformation
 takes place, so in other words, when you meditate regularly
 this Energy is falling into body and heals the 'pain body',
 with time energetical frequency of that inner body is
 growing what you might translate into presence or
 kind of inner light. When you meet somebody like that
 most likely you can see light in his eyes and perhaps also
 light around his body.

 One of my friends met somebody like that who was
 selling books in Warsaw and noticing this kind of light
 in his eyes asked him imediately: "what are you practicing?"
 , his answer was "I am meditating since 20 years". This was
 buddist type of man.



 www.eckharttolle.com  
 

Anthony de Mello

Anthony de Mello  Anthony de Mello was Jesuit priest and then he woke up. Born in India he finished his life  in US. For many years he was conducting seminars for people and wrote many books on the subject. I read his "The Prayer of the Frog" and quite liked it. He has definitely good sense of humour. My fiend Ela has sended me cd with his recorded conference/seminar, one of the few which has ever been recorded. His massage is very similar to "A Course in Miracles". He says: "there is only fear and love, fear is responsible for all the evil in the world and love for all the good", that is very much in line with Christ teaching in "A Course..." Fear is connected with our false identity as a body or individual story/mind. So, according to his words you don't need to gain anything to wake up to life, you just need to drop all the false beliefs. Then he stresses awareness, as in one story he talks about master who just gave one advice: "awareness", to the question what it means he answers:"awareness, awareness, awareness", than the seeker still asks - ok, but what does that mean? Master replies:"awareness means exactly that - awareness" Being aware of your voice, of your body, your breath, being aware that you have thoughts, being aware that you sit on a chair, being aware that you see trees, clouds, sky. Another nice thing he said was:"you don't need to fix anything, just watch it, just observe", there is point where understanding dawns on you. Here is his wikipedia link. Well, I didn't finish yet that tape so perhaps can write some more next time.     take Care       p.s. Today we have amazingly sunny and covered with  soft snow day in Pcim...

Visit to Ashram of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar


 

Recently I was visiting Sri Sri center in Poland. It is located in beautiful
forest near Piotrków Trybunalski ( about half hour drive ). Being exact,
it is in Taraska, very small village where perhaps 10-15 houses exist
appart from the center. This time I spent there about 5 weeks. Met
some new friends and also some old ones. I was doing seva, which means
service. When you are there on this option, you are expected to work
6 hours for the ashram. I did many things among them: cleaning floors,
washing dishes, helping in the kitchen, ironing, eating :), hugging people,
preparing christmas tree. The main practice of this man called Sri Sri is
sudarshan krija, which is yogic breathing technique. So, this practice you
do in the morning around 7 a.m., it takes about 30-45 minutes together
with relaxation/meditation afterwards. Than in the middle of a day you
have 20 minutes meditation and in the evening satsang, which means
singing bhajans together and/or listening to some words of inspiration by
Sri Sri. During my stay we had one advanced course with woman from UK.
Definitely, this are most exciting times, usually more people come and
there is more presence. Maybe the sad part was that we couldn't
participate in evening satsangs because of energy concerns from the teacher.

Personally for me I had one of the most imortant krija next day when the course was already over. This was long krija in the morning, long krija is 10 minutes longer than short one and usually more emotional healing takes place. However for me I was a bit afraid that it might be too strong and put me in the state of imbalance. This wasn't the case, I was crying and definitely some garbage came out. So, this is important part of the process, another part takes place in the interactions with other people, some push your buttons, some give you support in more gentle way, you always get what you need. I went there because I had some sleeping, meditation problems at home and wanted to ground myself better. After first week I started to have a good sleep, daily seva really did it's job and often I would feel tired and sleep also some during the day. Food is really excelent and if you have some bad eating habits you can be greatly helped here. I am not that case, but feel very lazy to prepare my meals, so in any case I was
eating better than in my hometown Pcim. Taraska is kind of windy place
and I don't mean the wind but people who are coming and going like
wind. So, you can easily get the feeling of impermanence of material
structures. Some people stay for weekend, some for week, some just
pop in for one day. Some have paid positions here and are for instance
few months or a year (which is really rare stuff indeed). Ten minutes
walking from ashram is river, that is especially joyful during summer
time but even in this winter season it was beautiful place and bringing
quietude to your soul. And the river is hugged by pine trees forest, which
is fresh and quite clean. If I am not wrong they have here kind of national
park. So, now and then we were walking on this path to the river and
sometimes I was walking alone.

When advanced course was over it become more lonely, more empty place. If you are not used to be with yourself much,
you might have hard time in such periods. Imagine, you are in a nowhere
land and you speak little during the day, strange kind of silence starts
to work on you. You slowly start to notice wail of pine trees, knocking
of woodpeckers and barking of dogs. Yes, there are two half-wild dogs
here, people from the ashram started to give them food and builded
kennel for them. When it comes to english, Sylwia, who is now secretary
there speaks very fluent english, other people usually speak good enough
that you can have some conversation. I left for the Christmass to my
family in Pcim and didn't know what will happen next, if I will come again
to this weird, mysterious place in Taraska or not. Perhaps yes, but I wanted more this course feeling, when there is more people, despite that, work was basicaly all the time physical and I started to be a bit tired from it. However I was clearly better than when I came. Sitting in a bus back to Pcim I was very sensitive to the people's energy and felt it very sharply, like seeing light or darkness in the eyes ect. So, if you ever want to come to polish asharm you may check out Taraska.

www.artofliving.pl
www.taraska.pl