January 24 – Mindfulness based Stillness Meditation
Butterfly Ship in a Little Breeze
4 Simple Steps To A Mindfulness Based Stillness Meditation
Meditation is one of the simplest things to do. All you need is something comfortable to sit on, a timer, and quiet. Set the timer, sit, close your eyes, and become aware of your thoughts, feelings, and sensations arising when you turn your attention inward. Notice how your mind will run with a thought. When it does, simply bring your mind back to paying attention.
Cultivating a mindfulness based stillness meditation practice
Preparation, Relaxation, Mindfulness, and Stillness.
1. Preparation is the easy part, the practical details of where you will meditate, your posture, deciding what specific kind of meditation you will try, and everything relating to how you set yourself up to begin the meditation. Preparation involves establishing comfort and ease. We create a conducive external and internal environment for meditation by preparing the location, our posture and our attitude.
2. Relaxation. Here we simply take the time needed to relax our body and mind. A tight or tense body often accompanies a busy or restless mind. We use relaxation techniques to create more spaciousness in the body, which helps in calming the mind and bringing our attention into the present moment. Starting with your right foot, working your way up to the top of your head, then back down the other side of your body to your left foot, relax your body, and at the same time, begin to quiet your mind.
3. Mindfulness is simply paying attention to the present moment. This may or may not be a challenge. Let go of thoughts of judgement, mind reaction, past, future. Let all thoughts flow out. Just be here, now.
4. Stillness. Gradually, by just paying attention without reacting, we become aware of a stillness. Sounds, sensations, even emotions and thoughts just come and go. Free of judgment. Free of reaction. We notice a background of stillness against which sounds, sensations and thoughts come and go, appear and disappear. We become aware of the still and silent presence in just noticing the movement of sounds, sensations and thoughts. In this stillness, awareness is open and undistracted. Stillness is not a static nothingness; it is alive, alert and non-reactive presence.
I normally meditate between 16 to 71 minutes(normal on Sundays) each day. The longest I have meditated in one day was 9 hours (in 3 180 minute sessions). Wow! what a mind awakening experience.
Enjoy Meditating!
January 23 – Cultured Collective
I have been among the cultured, followers of the collective, and they have taught me the foundation of their doctrines. But the more thoroughly I examined their course, their thoughts, their feelings, their mysteries, the less clearly I saw the light. They are tales invented attempting to inspire me with perceived truths of an imaginary freedom under the false hope of good which never comes, and engages me in inevitable unhappiness. The cultured collective is dark and fraught with storms.
I do not follow the cultured collective. Mankind is too young for me to any longer consider such a course as the right way. I follow God, the light within. I am free. I love. I am calm. My life course is clear. I live in joy.
January 22 – Wilder Course
I do not live my life simply meandering smoothly through green valleys of flowers shaded by pleasant trees, or observing the calm sea, so silent, so indifferent – troubled by vague uneasiness. I do not share in the great majority. I recognise the social value, I see the social order. There is something alarming to me in these delights.
A fever exist in my soul, in my blood, asking for a wilder course. In my heart I live more dangerously. I was prepared at birth for the jagged rocks and treacherous shoals of change and the excitement of the unknown, forever in the light, the light of God. I follow the way shower, the son of God – Jesus.
January – Create in me a pure heart
Create in me a pure heart, O my God,
And renew a tranquil conscience within me, O my Hope!
Through the spirit of power confirm Thou me in Thy Cause,
O my Best-Beloved,
And by the light of Thy glory reveal unto me Thy path,
O Thou the Goal of my desire!
Through the power of Thy transcendent might
Lift me up unto the heaven of Thy holiness,
O Source of my being,
And by the breezes of Thine eternity gladden me,
O Thou Who art my God!
Let Thine everlasting melodies breathe tranquillity on me,
O my Companion,
And let the riches of Thine ancient countenance
Deliver me from all except Thee,
O my Master,
And let the tidings of the revelation of Thine
Incorruptible Essence bring me joy,
O Thou Who art the most manifest of the manifest
And the most hidden of the hidden!
January – Kindness
Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God’s kindness: kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile.
Really big people are, above everything else, courteous, considerate and generous – not just to some people in some circumstances – but to everyone all the time.
If you have not often felt the joy of doing a kind act, you have neglected much, and most of all yourself
You have not lived a perfect day, unless you have done something for someone who will never be able to repay you.
January 21 – Victory
If many should conquer in battle a thousand and a thousand more, and I should conquer myself, I will be the greater victory.
The greatest of victories is the victory over oneself. No person, group, nation, or any other can turn into defeat the victory over oneself.
I will focus my energy and soul to learn, understand, and experience the joy of victory over myself. Victory over myself occurs in only one way – surrender to God!
January 20 – Nobility
We all have inherited from God our nobility. All persons are distinguished by high birth as we are all children of God. This is reality. Any lesser thought is an illusion.
There is only one way in the world to be aware of your nobility, to be distinguished. Follow God. Your instinct! Be what god intended, yourself, and you’ll be somebody and live in joy, in bliss, as god intended. Be a blind follower of kaos, of those who have no connection with god, and you will have the oblivion, the anxiety, the sorrow you desire.
It is of paramount importance to me to find people who can teach me how to become aware, and more aware, of god. You can tell who they are as they themselves are connected to god and live in joy.
January 19 – Dislike
The challenge is to see god in everything, everywhere, at all times, to love every person, even when my ego tendency is not love them because I dislike the actions I observe.
When we observe people, we are seeing a part of god. When we observe their behaviors, do we see god? Liking or disliking their actions, do we see their godliness? When I see their godliness, I am acknowleding they too are part of god. I unconditionally love the god within each person which is seperate from their actions. When I forget this, I am disconnected from god.
January 18 – Humility
Humility is the strength of the strong and the weapon with which the wise conquer their foes.
Jupiter – King of the Gods
