“This practice – meditation rebranded – deserves serious attention from parents and policymakers. An impressive array of studies shows that integrating meditation into a school’s daily routine can markedly improve the lives of students. If San Francisco schools Superintendent Richard Carranza has his way, Quiet Time could well spread citywide.” (http://www.asafeworldforwomen.org/global-news/n-america/usa/4474-quiet-time.html)
This morning I woke up hearing, “Serve through who you are.” At the same time I was reminded to breathe through my flesh and bones. In this very body I must serve through who I am.
I am grateful for the training I have received that enables this to happen. At Claymont Court in 1978-79, I spent nine months with 53 other people, including my husband, practicing “sensation,” through the initiative of J.G. Bennett. It has provided the foundation for living in the body, and it has stayed with me as I have further walked the path that teaches that spiritual growth happens in this very body. (This in not the only way to come to this, but it was the way I was initially shown.)
My training as a facilitator in the Crystalline Consciousness Work has provided initiation in the process of awakening the DNA blueprint. An essential part of the awakening of humanity to its divine potential is the opening of the whole of each individual’s DNA field. We are moving from the “slumbering” way of being– where only a small portion of the DNA is being used– to the reality of being awake, in the Witness state. The opening of the full, unique DNA blueprint corresponds to full Self awareness– to the continual, unbroken awareness toward which all true spiritual paths ultimately lead.
The more our unique DNA blueprint opens, fueled by grace, spiritual practices, and other means such as the Crystalline Consciousness Work*, the more we do serve through who we truly are. We find and work from our own unique purpose. We know it in our bones. We know it from the inside out. It cannot be taught by any dogma. It has to be discovered in the temple of the body.
* Crystalline Consciousness Work boosts the activation of the latent DNA.
On this Earth do I stand,
Unvanquished, unslain, unhurt.
Set me, O Earth, amidst the nourishing strength
That emanates from thy body.
The Earth is my mother,
her child am I!
-the Atharva Veda
We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.
~Martin Luther King Jr.
When pushing through results in expansion, you experience yourself as part of a larger intelligence. You are aware of a non-negotiable wellbeing that exists independently of your circumstances. Then if you’re put on the spot, you look to that larger intelligence and trust that answers will emerge in due time, and you know that you will be okay however long that takes.
–Molly Gordon
I came across this on Facebook this morning; it seems to relate to my thoughts in recent posts that it is possible to surrender one’s small personal will to the “whole.”
The unconscious always tries to produce an impossible situation in order to force the individual to bring out his very best. Otherwise one stops short of one’s best, one is not complete, one does not realize oneself. What is needed is an impossible situation where one has to renounce one’s own will and one’s own wit and do nothing but wait and trust to the impersonal power of growth and development.
–Carl Jung
It was only a sunny smile, and little it cost in the giving, but like morning light it scattered the night and made the day worth living.
–F. Scott Fitzgerald
But what if we aren’t meant to do away with our longing at all? What if we are meant, as the poet John O’Donohue puts it, to let our absences enlarge our lives. What if the longing itself is the calling homeward? Just as grief shows us what we love most, we can follow our longing into the meaningful life we so crave.
A wise teacher once told me that the greatest spiritual practice he knows is to discover what you are most missing in your life – and then give that thing away. In other words, take your meagre scratch of a life, which knows too little about everything big, and make of it an offering.
Where you long for the friend who calls only to find out if you’re well, be that caller for another. Where you long for eloquent prayers to be made of everyday things, let your own clumsy words bless your meals out loud. Where you wish for ritual under the moons, be the one who holds the heartbeat of gathering. Where you ache to be recognized, allow yourself to be seen. Where you long to be known, sit next to someone and listen for the apertures into what they love. Where you wish you felt necessary, give those gifts away.
Rather than a disappointed wanting to belong, this is the practice to Be The Longing. Maybe it will take a lifetime, or maybe only the young ones who come up around you will feel the benefits, or maybe it will sneak up on you in a sudden moment, as you sit feasting with your loved ones, that you belong to this beauty you’ve made of your life.
— Toko-pa Turner
This morning as I watched the sunrise as a meditation, I found that I was “being breathed” by the whole rather than “taking my own breath.” It does require surrender and I hope to be up to the challenge today as I go about my life today.
Why does it seem easier to transcend the ego when we are part of a tradition in the performing arts? This is my sense coming from my own experience, particularly in storytelling. It is as if the entire culture and heritage holds one in check when one is representing that culture and heritage; in the face of that reality, one must be humble.
When what one offers is one’s “own” as an individual, it is as if there is no entity looking upon us and reminding us that we had better not inflate ourselves. The ego takes an upper stance and prevents us from accessing that which is “more.” Of course, we know of artists and composers who have entered into a state where something greater comes in, where the whole takes over. But for this one must make great effort, and then completely surrender.