simple, honest, free meditation technique

How can it be otherwise to be true (?)

If you are be-ing charged to learn, how can it be authentic (?) with a dollar sign attached.

Do we pay for every breath we breathe (?) do we pay for every thought (?)

No, in some ways, yes, but I think you are beginning to see what I mean...

To share a sense of our godliness has no price nor should it, it should be given freely, with love and encouragement, with open mindedness, and humility.

And yes, with a sense of appreciation for what we already have, within our Selves, the miraculous nature of Homo sapiens, of evolution, of God's great work.

How can one charge for this (?)

Transcript

Speaker 0:00

Good morning. What better way to start one's day than being appreciative in the first place for being alive, for being awake, for being here now, having some sense of a realization one is a unique bundle of miracles. What better way to start? That's the question. And it's not a question, because for sure, this is a beginning of merit. Are there other ways to begin? Of course. Need not be said. Coming into a comfortable posture. Yesterday I mentioned, let's just do a basic meditation to start. Finding, being in this comfortable posture you've found, you've created for oneself. If you haven't done this before, then just get comfy. That's all. Be awake and alert. So most likely sitting up is a good idea. Many, if not most, people like to do it this way. Sometimes laying down is appropriate. Sometimes maybe standing up is also appropriate. But for a beginning, let's just be sitting, cross-legged, or with your feet on the floor. Doesn't matter. Up to you. Remember, it is your level of comfort we're talking about. I'm not asking you to conform into a box or in any other way than what brings you a sense of comfort and ease. It is how we should begin. Being here together in this way. Undisturbed is also important, for if we have others or other things distracting us from our purpose, then it is lessening the value of what we are accomplishing or wish to accomplish. So it is common sense we're using in both of these concepts and validating them. Being here now. When someone says being here now, they're not meaning something hyphaluting or complicated. They're saying being focused and concentrating upon the present moment, which is easy to do. So sometimes it is confusing. People hear this term, at least I was when I first began to hear it. Be here now. What do they mean, be here now? Just being here now. Touch your nose. This is being here now. Feel your feet. Same. Feel your buttocks if you're sitting down. Same. It is being in this moment. Not in the past reflecting or in the future visualizing. It is being here. This is a good way to begin one's meditation. It is a neutral posture in a sense of beginning. Finding one's physicality would be my suggestion for what's next. Coming to terms with one's own body is something we each share and have a great similarity with. We are Science says 99.6% the same. So it's easy enough that any Homo sapiens is going to be breathing. And the older one is, the more experience one has. So it's easy to do and easy to understand. Maybe not every nuance or peculiarity or circumstance, of course. But in general, breathing with a heightened sense of awareness, feeling one's chest rising, and then after the oxygen has been taken out of the breath and replaced by carbon dioxide from your veins, bringing back carbon dioxide from your body, allowing one's chest to subside as you exhale. In between one's in and exhales, we find ourselves pausing in varying different degrees. And yet it is also a wonderful time to take notice of your breathing process with the potential of adding in an appreciation, a sense of humility, that we have this air to breathe. Again, we call it our own. We feel ourselves being owed this breath of life, giving oxygen from our atmosphere. We take it for granted that the next gulp of air is available to us, and it is pure enough in content and sufficient enough in oxygen content as well to help us sustain our lives. But it need not be so. Going where there are forest fires and a great deal of smoke, one begins to more easily understand this statement I'm making now. Taking as little for granted as one can. Being amazed as much as being aware. Being in awe as much as being aware of what we're doing. The simple process of respiration in our atmosphere Each in their own ways and together are miraculous of nature. You want to know where God is or godliness is, look in both, both in a Homo sapiens or a mammal's respiration, and in the very air we breathe. This is God's work upon this world. If you find yourself hesitating in this understanding or this concept or this belief, then take a good look, ponder in a subsequent meditative experience about what we're saying. Think about it. Is it or is it not true? Make a discussion. Being here. All of us in this moment together, breathing. Longer and slower is my recommendation. Because this also helps us relax and breathe with a greater sense of calm, harmony, leading as one develops one's practice into a state of grace, helping one fathom the depths of one's own being, of illuminating one's characteristics, not what you might wish to be, but this which we already are. It is to recognize one's own greatness, to be receptive to one's possibilities, is what we're in a sense chasing. We will catch up. It does not run, it does not walk, it is right here, waiting inside of one's own being. It is one might say in our DNA, breathing, pausing, long and slow. When one finds themself multitasking, moving from one subject to another, one focal point to the next. What one can easily summarize as a distraction from our stated goal. Do not be disappointed, but kind. Do not become angry, but understanding. This is virtuosity, which is as important as the art of meditation itself. It is a part of one's mindful meditation, virtuosity. So being mindful of this and bring oneself back. Smile rather than frown. Chuckle rather than cry. You are here making an attempt. Do you not know that practice will help one improve? Perfect. I don't know if it will make you perfect. I don't know the word perfect exists. It is a concept more than a reality. The universe and all within it are constantly changing. So therefore, the concept of perfection is changing too. When one is first happy making a few pennies as a young child for doing a task for your mom or your father, changes over time. You then want a dime or a quarter or a dollar or two. And as one grows older, one wants even more and more. One sets goals, and then the goals change. So, this is what we're talking about. We're talking about reality. We're not talking about faith. We're talking about common sense. We're talking not about what might be, but of our human experience. It is the age of Aquarius. It is the Aquarian age. And we have thousands of years of experience which we can capsulate as history and gain from, learn from what we might or might not do. Remembering being here now as a bundle of miracles. As we progress through this time together, we become more cognizant of possibilities. You might say our perspective is changing and growing in every way. We feel the sensitivity of our skin, our body's largest organ. We feel this. We feel if we are being in a state of heightened perspective, we feel a sensitivity in our skin, a tingling, one might say, a receptivity of potential. We feel it also in our minds, in our minds' ears. There is a potential in our ears at either end of our auditory nerve. There is a potential of being more aware, more awake, more able to accept and be receptive to concepts, ideas, physical, as well as mental and spiritual. This is virtuosity also. It is why virtuosity is as important as anything else. Feeling within this sense of tingling, we're sharing now more. Feeling one's heat. Feeling, if it is warm, the moisture of one's body exuding water through one's skin. If it is cold, feeling this too. Feeling whatever way you are in an environment, feeling beneath one's skin the pulsing of one's blood through this flowing stream of arteries and veins, feeling as one breathes, as one acknowledges the heat in one's own being alive. Please, doing this, focusing, concentrating. If you feel like moving your body, do so. There are no set rules or regulations for mindful meditation. If you need scratch your nose or even pause and refresh a drink or go to the bathroom, or maybe do a little bit of business if one has to, then do it. Remember the word perfection is a concept, not a reality. Be open to the changes. As much as one's desire to focus and concentrate. We need to use our common sense always. And there's another virtue: patience. We need this virtue also, this quality, this characteristic. If you don't feel you have it, then take little steps to gain it. You're not sure what it is, look it up. And make a direction, pointing one's nose, one's face, one's being, one's mind in this direction. It will come. Know thyself, to thine own self Be true. It is you and I who must carry our own weight, who must shoulder our own load. We can be our best friend, as well, One can be one's worst enemy, too. It is a choice each makes. Maybe not really understanding this, one doesn't know. And yet, that does not change the truth. Being here now, a bundle of miracles, aware of the physicality of oneself, beginning to become in a greater sense and degree humble before the immensity of all we are finding out about ourselves just in these few short minutes, and about nature and our universe, widening our perspective. It is this way, if we allow it to be, and being thankful that we even have this opportunity to share, to converse, to begin, to understand, to begin to see the beginning of a sunrise in our own hearts, in our own souls, allowing this brightness, this illumination to rise in one's own being. We can go on, but this is enough time for today. The music's going to continue for another minute. Please ponder on your own physicality and what we've been saying, sharing, allowing this light which is growing to continue to grow and brighten one's day. And of course, I wish you the wonderfulest of days. Your family, your friends, all of our cultures and societies, our religion. namaste