Even though the time and effort I have spent at meditation has been modest at best, I have come to realize that the only thing that has ever had a lasting and positive effect on my life has been those few moments of presence during meditation and the love I have shared with others during my life. Now more than ever is a time for love and being present as we navigate through our lives as individuals and as a community. We were delighted to hear about the opening of Ananda Chico Meditation Center. What follows was compiled by Marlene Marron from articles appearing in Clarity magazine, published by Ananda Sangha of Nevada City.

Rahasya Poe, Lotus Guide

Meditation: Devotion, Expansion, and Bliss!

Meditation must be filled with the sweetness of longing and love. All efforts in meditation should be directed with love and offered on the altar of devotion. An attitude of humility and surrender must be the guiding force in every self-effort to advance spiritually.

Feel in meditation that your heart center is like a flower with its petals turned upward. Awaken love in the heart and channel all this love upward in deep meditation to the altar of the divine. Once the heart is open and receptive to the feelings of peace, love, and joy that flow from spirit, we can meditate longer and enjoy the sweetness of meditation more fully.

Devotion is a necessary ingredient for success in any field. On the spiritual path, devotion is the deep yearning of the heart for the divine. Try to increase your devotion to the divine and see how the depth of your meditations is increased. Reading books about the lives of devotional saints can help us feel devotion. Devotional chanting also helps us to relax and open the heart. Experiment with different chants until you feel them uplifting your consciousness.

End each meditation by bathing yourself in joy. Once you feel the seed of inner joy, expand it to fill your whole being. Hold that feeling for as long as you can. Make a special effort to stay in joy as you make the transition from meditation to daily activity. Spend the first five minutes of daily activity in a joyful, uplifted state of mind and it will lighten your entire day.

During deep meditation, when the breath becomes calm, you experience an enjoyable state of peace. You will find that the spirit of bliss will surround you and talk to you through the voice of peace. When ever new, ever increasing joy fills your silence, know that you have contacted the divine and spirit is answering through the receiving instrument of your soul.

Our job on the spiritual path is to summon a quality of divine ardor, because that is what ultimately will enable us to win the battle against materialism. It is the ardor for spirit that gives us the depth of purpose and level of intensity needed to experience divine uplifting in meditation. Whatever form our uplifting takes—a feeling of bliss, deep calmness, the melodies of Aum—whenever it comes, we need to hang onto it. That becomes the string we follow to get out of the labyrinth of material attachments. As we follow that string back to the divine source within ourselves, we begin to experience “a constantly flowing fountain of joy.”

The true goal of life is the search for divine bliss. When we meditate deeply, we can direct our feelings upward from the heart to the spiritual eye and focus them there in the expectation of bliss. The deeper you meditate, the more you feel a kindness and sympathy for others. You understand that all of us really are one. We’re not giving up the ego at all—we’re expanding it into omnipresence. Self-realization means to know that the whole universe is a part of our own reality, and that in our basic nature, we are infinite.

At the end of your meditation, bathe in the divine light, and ask the divine to bless those in need with healing energy and light. Send love outward in blessing to humanity, to all creatures, to all things, moving and unmoving, everywhere.

Use this affirmation for self-expansion from Affirmations for Self-Healing by Swami Kriyananda:

Affirmation

I feel myself in the flowing brooks,

In the flight of birds,

In the raging wind upon the mountains,

In the gentle dance of flowers in a breeze.

Renouncing my little, egoic self,

I expand with my great soul-Self everywhere!

Prayer

Beloved Spirit in all that is!

Help me in my own nothingness

To find myself one with all that is.

Marlene has been a meditation teacher for almost 20 years and she is now teaching classes at the Ananda Chico Meditation Center. She can be reached at: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Check the Ananda Chico website for information about classes and meditation groups: www.anandachico.org.

An Interview with Dhara Lemos By Pamela Jamian

\n This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. , or visit her webpage at www.LotusGuide.com/dhara

Pamela Jamian has folowed a career path for more than 20 years as a business leader for health plans and as a professional musician in Texas and California. She has an avid interest in diverse spiritual practices, music, and the practical application of conscious spirituality to everyday life. Pamela lives in Magalia and works in Chico. Contact Pamela at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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Meditation, The Way In

"The Watcher"

By Dhara Lemos

This time we're going to talk about the very core of meditation … awareness. All meditation techniques have the same goal, which is to make us more awakened/alert than we ordinarily are. A few essential things are necessary in every technique: a relaxed state and no fighting with the mind. Just watch with a relaxed awareness, without judgment. Millions of people miss out on meditation because they have gotten the wrong impression from some of its practitioners—those who take it far too seriously and obsessively, those who end up rejecting life rather than embracing it. In reality, a meditative person is playful—life is fun for him or her. Life is Leela, the Hindi word for "the play of life." Meditative people enjoy life tremendously—they're not serious, and they are loving and relaxed. So, let's have fun with meditation and life.

The important question is: What is the core or the spirit of meditation? The essential core is to learn how to be the witness. Meditation is just "being," like a little child is. Whenever you can find the time for just being, drop all doing and enjoy. But the next question is: How can I enjoy being with no thoughts? The answer is first to learn how to become the watcher.

Watching can be meditation if there is a quality of being aware and alert, without judgment. Meditation is not against action. You don't need to stop everything to be in meditation; you can bring the quality of being aware and present in the moment to your day-by-day actions such as walking, eating, cooking, or watching a sunset. Whatsoever you do with awareness is meditation.

The Four Steps toward Awareness

1. Be watchful of your body. Start with your body because it's easy. You can touch it and feel it. Become alert to each gesture, tension, pain, or pleasure. Be aware when you eat, take a shower, read a book, or this very article. Just pay attention; don't try to change anything. It will seem as though a miracle is happening as you become more relaxed and peaceful through awareness.

2. Now that you know how to watch the body, it's easier to watch the mind. Becoming aware of your thoughts is more difficult because they are more subtle than the body is. We are much more closely identified with our minds than with our bodies. For example, if someone tells you that your body is sick, that you are not looking well, you may be worried and go to the doctor, but if someone says to you that your mind is sick, you immediately feel insulted and angry with the person. That's because our sense of self, of who we are, is much more closely identified with our minds than with our bodies. And when you become aware of your thoughts you will be surprised at what's going on inside you. There's a madness inside us saying all kinds of things such as: I'm a failure, I'm not good looking, and so on. Without awareness, this unconscious dialogue will continue. It affects everything we're doing. We can change this situation by simply watching the mind. We need only to be willing to see and become aware of our minds. Slowly, slowly, the madness and chaos start to disappear and the mind settles into a peaceful awareness.

3. When your mind and body are relaxed and at peace, you will see that they are attuned to each other. There is a bridge, they are in harmony, and this harmony helps immensely to let you become aware of your feelings, emotions, and moods. Reaching this subtlest layer of awareness is the most difficult step, but if you can become aware of your thoughts, it's just one step more to reach the state of enlightenment. But you need to work up to that point of more intense awareness.

4. Once you are aware of body, mind, and moods, they become part of one phenomenon. And when those become one and function in harmony, then and only then does the fourth step "happen," which is the end of conflict and the awakening of the witness. This state of awareness has been given many names: enlightenment, awakening of the Christ consciousness, becoming the Buddha, becoming one with the divine. As Osho said:

The body knows pleasure, the mind knows happiness,

the heart knows joy, and the spirit knows bliss.

So remember, it's very important that you are watchful, but even if you forget to watch, the moment you see that you forgot to watch, that's also awareness, so pass no judgment on yourself. There's no need to feel bad about it and in fact, if you do feel bad, the awareness of feeling bad is also good; just go back to watching—that's part of the path. As we continue to watch, slowly, our watching becomes stronger and more stable and a transformation begins and we can just be … at peace.

Active meditations (i.e., dance meditation or tai chi, running, or walking as meditation) are excellent ways to begin the process because they are centered on the body.

Using Meditation as the Way In

In every age people have sought to understand themselves, their world, and their universe. They have sought awareness, consciousness, inner knowing, enlightenment, and transformation in the search for themselves.

"Know Yourself" has always been the fundamental teaching of every spiritual tradition. The very word "meditate" literally means "remedy." Remedy for what? Long ago we started to understand that forces within us shape our destiny. Forces such as our ancestry, karma, biology, and the culture we live in are all very strong energetic patterns that we carry deep within our body, mind, and spirit and they all shape our destiny. The "remedy" for getting past these forces and taking charge of our own destiny is meditation.

In meditation we become aware, and in that very awareness, we begin to transform into a more conscious self rather than reacting to old patterns and conditioning.

What is the difference between meditation and meditation techniques?

Meditation is a stage of being and meditation techniques are the way to get there.

·        Being here and now.

·        Being in oneself.

·        Being in peace.

·        Being love, compassion.

To be in meditation is to be in joy … to be calm, centered in the core of one's heart. Meditation is your birthright. When we are born we are in a state of meditation. As we grow up we lose it; that's why babies are so beautiful. Meditation techniques were developed to help guide us back to how we were when we were born ... in bliss.

Techniques are helpful because they are the result of thousands of years of scientific experiment—they have been created by many diverse teachers/seekers from all over the world. There are many different techniques for the many different types of people.

How do I find the right technique for me?

The first step is to choose a technique that appeals to you. Then you need to do it at least three times. If the method is right for you, something clicks and you know that that may be the right method. Then you need to make a commitment and stay with the same method for at least three months because there may come a point at which it could get difficult. To discover the real self, sometimes you need to pass through some layers of ego and uncomfortable emotions before you can reach peace.

How long and how often should I meditate?

One hour every day is the ideal but not everybody has the time, so do the best you can: 15 minutes in the morning, half an hour at night, 1 or 2 times a week, whatever you can manage. The important thing is consistency and it's better to do some than none at all.

How long does it take to start noticing results?

When you find the right technique you will notice results immediately. Sometimes change can be very subtle—it slowly creeps up on you and after a month or two you notice some change. It all depends on how ready you are: your life situation and how fast you want to change or how fast you're able to change. One of the first things you may notice is that you take action when confronted by emotional situations that you used to unconsciously react to.

You can contact Dhara by email at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

or visit her website at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it www.lotusguide.com/dhara

Meditation is nothing but a device to make you aware of your real self—which is not created by you, which need not be created by you, which you already are. You are born with it. You are it!

It needs to be discovered.

Osho, Puna, India

Recommended:

Osho. Meditation, The First and The Last Freedom

Osho. The Book of Secrets

www.Osho.org

Music as Meditation

By Dhara Lemos

All beautiful and great music comes out of the space within. Some people call that space the soul, and you need to have a soul to create music. Something magical happens when great sounds are created, or even just before a performance. Where does the music come from? Where do the first notes come from? Music comes from within. Everybody has his or her inner sound, and it is connected with the divine and it manifests itself out of silence. Silence is the background to any sound, including music . . . we recognize sound only because of its contrast to silence. Here is a simple method you can use to find your own inner sound. And if you are a musician, you may find practicing this technique very helpful before you play. Sit comfortably and quietly, and listen to the sounds all around you. Just open your ears to every sound—let the sound come to you. Slowly, something starts to happen. You start to hear the inner sound, and then beautiful creation can happen. You become centered and still. You are in the center of the universe, you become the inner sound. Learning how to listen is very important; listening is a very feminine technique. You take in the sound, you absorb it into yourself, and then you give birth to new sound. Originally, music was used for meditation. Most Indian music was created as a method for meditation, as was Indian dance, also a meditation technique. Before beginning a concert, the musicians will tune their instruments while the audience sits totally in silence, listening to the tune-up; it is as if they are tuning up their ears so as to listen better. For the musicians, as for the audience, the concert is a deep meditation experience. It is beautiful, it is divine. Try music as meditation; you will enjoy it. One of the most powerful methods of music as meditation is chanting. Chanting is the devotion and manifestation of the divine. In this issue of Lotus Guide, our guest writer, Christina Sarver, tells of her discovery of devotional music as a healing force and wellspring of creativity.

Namaste, Dhara

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