Meditation: For contemplating what comes next after the Women’s March

 

 

Meditations:
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“You know each other, because you were all born in the same time and space as a batch of the third millennium. No matter where we live—we have all come to the planet Earth. You know that you are here. Do you accept that everyone knows everyone? Do you ever go up to someone and say “Hi, you are here, I am here!” without knowing the person’s name? Whenever dealing with people, remember you are here along with everyone else all of the time.” – Yogi Bhajan

Balancing projection with intention
Yogic scriptures tell us of the four stages of the mind: normal awareness, the dream state, total mental rest, and total awareness. Mastery of this meditation enables the practitioner to master these four levels of the mind. It can create a mental equilibrium so that our expression will be consistent with our intention.
Contemplating our intention will align our intention with our identity.

Living above denial and the faculty of self engagement

When we feel badly about what is going on around us, and feel helpless to do anything about it, we are denying who we are and separating ourselves from it.  Rather, we should know the self that is equal to the challenge and  engage it rather than separate or shrink from it.

Increase the flow of spirit in you
When everything is upside down and stagnation and chaos prevail, it is time to be and not do.  There is nothing to do personally but peacefully participate in the divine flow.  That flow is present even in chaos and will emerge as the way everything will eventually right itself.  The situation is too complex to force any single remedy successfully.  Relying on your inner worth with perseverance and being in the flow will allow divine wisdom to take its course.
From “It is time to be and not do”.

Develop patience and intuition
You must consciously breathe the breath of life. Give yourself a chance to wait, and the patience to understand. When you meet and talk with somebody, or think about somebody, you cannot even think of that person’s condition if you do not use patience and intuition. If you do not use patience and intuition you will do a lot of wrong. Patience and intuition are essential in order to meditatively assess what is going on.

 

About this page
After the women’s march, it is useful to contemplate what comes next.  As individuals, a community and a nation, men and women, we can look first within ourselves to know our light, find our strengths, and gather the means for making an effective impact that will heal our communities and bring them together, local and global.  Then we can reach out and join with others communicating our ideas and plans.

I have begun this page as a means of reminding us of the motivations that brought everyone together and as a means of sustaining the internal space that it opened in us through that experience.  It is a collection of meditations that I feel will contribute to that intention.  All the meditations were given to us by my teacher, Yogi Bhajan.  They come from the tradition of Kundalini Yoga, which is simply a technology that gives us tools for living a happy life. Continue reading “Meditation: For contemplating what comes next after the Women’s March”

Truth is being redefined

Throughout the ages, there have been only a few pillars upon which  standards have been developed for discerning Truth.  Reason is one of them.  Plato wrote about it millennia ago.  Reason has been applied by individuals,  groups of individuals and most nations.  Reason is the basic foundation of the Republic.  Modern republics exist because their peoples have accepted the basic veracity of reason and have agreed to live by it.

Sages that lived in India and China gave us simple principles to live by whereby we can learn to supplement Truth with intuition in order to fill in gaps that reason leaves us with when we ask really hard questions, such as posing moral dilemmas, or complex questions that include overwhelming amounts of data, often with conflicting components.

With a balance of reason and intuition, it seems that we can know anything   we need to know in order to proceed wisely in any situation.  They give us wisdom.  Great leaders tend to master that balance not just to accumulate power and win the consent of those they govern, but to advance their civilization in ways that reflect that wisdom.

Now, we seem to have come to a point where Truth itself is being marginalized in the public discourse.  Not that there is conflict in opposing views, but that Truth just doesn’t matter.  What is replacing Truth as the most important thing is belief.

Truth cannot be controlled.  Belief can.  Just as mighty conquerors would impose a new order on the civilizations of the conquered, modern conquerors are doing the same.  They are using the same model, only the currency has changed.  The old currency was weapons and brute force.  The new currency is money and persuasion.  It used to be the biggest army that prevailed.  That is more difficult to pull off these days, since too many people are now aware of the Truth, which is the most powerful ally.  Now, it is the biggest megaphone that wishes to neutralize that most powerful ally.  Truth must be discredited.  Not true, who cares?

Fortunately, there is an even a bigger movement afoot that will ultimately preserve the dignity of mankind, and perhaps the human race.  The vast majority still recognizes Truth and continues to hone intuition and balance it with reason.

Meditation for balancing reason and intuition.

Stay tuned.

The Tao Te Ching

taotechingcalligraphy

Verse 1

Existence is beyond the power or words to define:
Terms may be used
But are none of them absolute.
In the beginning of heaven and earth there were no words,
Words came out of the womb of matter;
And whether a man dispassionately
Sees to the core of life
Or passionately
Sees the surface,
The core and the surface
Are essentially the same,
Words making them seem different
Only to express appearance
If name be needed, wonder names them both From wonder into wonder Existence opens.

The Snake Revealed

That’s right, Im a snake.
Snakes don’t have compassion. We are reptiles, after all.
Don’t pay any taxes? –That makes me smart.
Stiffed everyone I owed? –That’s just business.
Wished for financial calamity so I can exploit peoples’ misfortune? –That’s just business, too.
Praised foreign despots while they inflict atrocities and then blame my personal adversaries for all of it? –Why not?
Climate change? — a hoax invented by the Chinese for China
Democracy? — overrated. Believe me I’ll fix everything myself in this hell we are living in.
Insulted people for their looks, weight, gender, race, lineage, nationality?
–They deserved it.
Now you know. Wait until I reveal who I really am.  But you will only find out if and when I am in charge and have control of the situation.
On her way to work one morning

Continue reading “The Snake Revealed”

Recognize the Snake

On her way to work one morning
Down the path along side the lake
A tender hearted woman saw a poor half frozen snake
His pretty colored skin had been all frosted with the dew
“Poor thing, ” she cried, “I’ll take you in and I’ll take care of you”
“Take me in tender woman
Take me in, for heaven’s sake
Take me in, tender woman, ” sighed the snake
She wrapped him up all cozy in a comforter of silk
And laid him by her fireside with some honey and some milk
She hurried home from work that night and soon as she arrived
She found that pretty snake she’d taken to had been revived
“Take me in, tender woman
Take me in, for heaven’s sake
Take me in, tender woman, ” sighed the snake
She clutched him to her bosom, “You’re so beautiful, ” she cried
“But if I hadn’t brought you in by now you might have died”
She stroked his pretty skin again and kissed and held him tight
Instead of saying thanks, the snake gave her a vicious bite
“Take me in, tender woman
Take me in, for heaven’s sake
Take me in, tender woman, ” sighed the snake
“I saved you, ” cried the woman
“And you’ve bitten me, but why?
You know your bite is poisonous and now I’m going to die”
“Oh shut up, silly woman, ” said the reptile with a grin
“You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in
“Take me in, tender woman
Take me in, for heaven’s sake
Take me in, tender woman, ” sighed the snake
Songwriters: Milan Pilar
The Snake lyrics © EMI Music Publishing

Continue reading “Recognize the Snake”

Yogi Bhajan’s Seven Steps to Happiness

Adapted from Aquarian Times, Winter 2001

   Shakti Parwha Kaur Khalsa was Yogi Bhajan’s first student in the United States. She has been teaching Kundalini Yoga since 1969. She is the author of Kundalini Yoga: The Flow of Eternal Power; Kundalini Postures and Poetry; and Marriage on the Spiritual Path: Mastering the Highest Yoga. She is a frequent movie-goer in the City of Angels.

Yogi Bhajan’s Seven Steps to Happiness

Continue reading “Yogi Bhajan’s Seven Steps to Happiness”

George Washington’s Prayer for the United States

GEORGE WASHINGTON’S PRAYER FOR THE UNITED STATES

Almighty God: We make our earnest prayer that Thou wilt keep the United States in Thy holy protection; that Thou wilt incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to government: and entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another and for theirfellow citizens of the United States at large.

And finally that Thou wilt most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility, and pacific temper of mind which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion, and without a humble imitation of whose example in these things we can never hope to be a happy nation.

Grant our supplication, we beseech Thee, throughJesus Christ our Lord.

Amen

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I’ll only say this once

I’ll only say this once.
Berine&HillaryI see a lot of anger being expressed over Bernie’s endorsement of Hillary. I feel the Bern. I am very grateful for his coming out to change the trajectory of the conversation: about justice and injustice, about the takeover of government (here and globally) by the one percent, about the planet’s reaction to humanity’s ignorant indifference to energy and chemical pollution, about the expression of hatred toward the mental projection of others who appear different or practice living in diverse ways, about the oppression of regular people by depriving them of education, a living wage, and the right to vote, about the mistaken assignment of the term populist to an unapologetic hater and plutocrat, and about the way forward toward reversing some of these atrocities. That is truly the Guru’s work.

Albert Einstein: The Negro Question (1946)

LJ_36AALBERT EINSTEIN: THE NEGRO QUESTION (1946)

I am writing as one who has lived among you in America only a little more than ten years. And I am writing seriously and warningly. Many readers may ask:

“What right has he to speak about things which concern us alone, and which no newcomer should touch?”

Continue reading “Albert Einstein: The Negro Question (1946)”

sadhana

SSSYWa
“The greatest thing you can do is rise in the early morning and do a sadhana – a practice to energize the body and refine your mind. Most of us rebel and go crazy rather than get up early. There are two special time zones, when you have to enrich your mind: one in the morning, from 4am to 8am, and one in the evening, from 4pm to 8pm. These are natural moments that have a tide of energy within you and without. The sun and Earth have a special relationship and angle at those times that affect your mind and your energy.” Yogi Bhajan

When you want to be successful and very convincing…

SSSYWa

“When you want to be successful and very convincing, just feel truth in your heart. Be sure. Be confident. Feel the truth in your heart, then speak that truth from the heart. Don’t try to run it around or manipulate it with your brain or head.” Yogi Bhajan

Meditation

What (else) Yogi Bhajan said

via Ram Anand

Infinity in our projection…

SSSYWa“Your common observations and expressions are not realities, and Infinity itself cannot be spoken. This is the normal situation. And there are so many Infinities in our experience. God is Infinity. Love is Infinity. Commitment is Infinity. In every facet of our life we have the potential for the Infinity of our projection. Projecting with Infinity in our speech is the base of our committed language.” –Yogi Bhajan

Meditation

What else Yogi Bhajan said

via Ram Anand