Peace and Blessings Everyone
Today I went for a walk and spent some extra time meditating in a beautiful area. There were children playing nearby–Oh, the sound of life. And the sun just shone right at me, so warmly, so joyously. The wind lifted my spirits up as the birds sang an ever so peaceful song. I meditated for an hour, trying to focus within and without, trying to understand, to make sense out of life and such.
I wish to share with you all the meditations which I used today. The world is very chaotic and it hurts really bad to read all this news about war and such. So, I thought to post some meditations for everyone. When the stress from reading all this gets too much, then do meditate and pray to relax a bit inshaAllah.
So, all these are from a book titled “Live Well with One Spirit”. Its published by “One Spirit”
INSPIRING THE MIND
Meditation 1: Sea of Calm.
Prepare for meditation by counting backward from fifty. Visualize yourself rowing a boat toward a peaceful island. With each pull of the oars you count, feel your movements become more languid, your breathing slow down, and your strokes become longer and more relaxed. When you read zero, see yourself arriving on your island to begin your meditation.
Meditation 2: A Candle Meditation.
Whichever posture you adopt in your meditation-full lotus, half-lotus, or sitting on a chair-be sure to keep your back straing tnad your head upright. Close your eyes, empty your mind of thoughts, and imagaine the flame of a candle. See its flickering. Visualize it as your innate spiritual awareness.
Meditation 3: Your Inner Falme
A good object to use for meditation in an actual candle flame. Gaze at the flame, observing its shifting colours. Imagine the flame entering your being. Then look at it for another minute or two. Close your eyes, aware of the afterglow behind your eyelids, and for several minutes hold the image in your mind. As you meditate on the flame, lose all sense of its separateness.
Meditation 4: A Flower Meditation
Meditate on the Chrysanthemum flower, an Eastern symbol of good fortune. (I personally don’t believe in good luck charms and stuff. So I meditate on any flower because therese afterall God’s creations). Either use a real flower… Observe the flower, scanning its main features. Do not look for meaning in it; just allow its shapes, lines, and colors to penetrate your consciousness. Be aware that the image is both in front of you and inside your mind.
Meditation 5: Meditate on Clouds
Clouds make a useful focus for a simple but effective meditation. Sit somewhere comfortable inside your home, close your eyes, and, as random thoughts enter your mind, attach each one to an imaginary cloud, letting it float lazily across the blue sky of your consciousness until it is out of sight. Finish the execise after about fie mintues–feeling relaxed and refreshed.
SELF-BELIEF
Meditation 1: Be Fair to Yourself
Before we can truly give our love to others we must first learn to love and respect ourselves, but often we are our own harshest critics. Each evening spend a few minutes looking back over your day to give yourself the opportunity to learn from your errors. Forgive yourself for them, note and praise your successes, and reaffirms your friendship with yourself before going to bed.
Meditation 2: The Treasure Chest
Reflect on the treasures within you–gift such as love, strength, courage and empathy. Make a point of focusing on these positive qualities; learn to trust and respect all you have and all you are. If you are able to do that in your every day life, your inner treasure chest will spring open and your gifts will be revealed all around you.
Meditation 3: Connect with the Cosmos
Our lives can sometimes seem insignificant, but we can transform this feeling by remembering our place in the cosmos. Pick out a constellation in the night sky…and know that your life, like each of the millions of stars in the heavens, add light and beauty to the universe. In the midst of all this vastness, there is a place for you, and your life interconnects with the whole.
Meditation 4: Project Your Inner Self
See yourself as significant-not just a cog in the machine. You are the leading actor of your own drama, in charge of your own destiny. There are some aspects of life you cannot alter, such as the personalities or motivations of other people, but you can make big changes if you choose to. Act in the full knowledge of your powers, which are both a gift and a responsibility.
Meditation 5: Virtue’s Reward
Prizes and trophies are merely symbols of our attainments and as such they often have no practical value. Think of your own most significant successes in symbolic terms; your virtue may not have brought you material reward, but their effets on others, however modest, are meaningful emblems of your acheievements.
STILLNESS
Meditation 1: The Eye of the Storm
In the eye of the storm there is stillness. No matter what happens at any moment during any day, however hectic or troublesome things appear, and however many tasks we seem to be trying to do at once, we need only to turn inward to find a heaven of peace. To access your heaven, close your eyes, and imagine a stil and gentle light within you . Focus on the tranquility it brings.
Meditation 2: Stress Ballooning
Another way to banish worries is to imagine you are loading them into the basket of a hot-air balloon. In your mind’s eye, release the ballooon from its moorings and see it rise into the sky. Your problems become more and more remote as the balloon gets smaller and smaller. Watch it drift over the horizon, taking all your worries with it.
SELF-AWARENESS
Meditation 1: Many Faces
We create many identities for ourselves-the roles we playh for others in life’s various situations. Trouble arises when these roles obscure yoru understanding of who we really are. We might say “I’m a nurse”, or “I’m an extrovert”, or “I’m a coward”. Self-realization comes from throwing away these labels and focusing on the true, inner person. Esch day spend five mintues freeing yourself from one of your labeles-and see how much lighter you feel.
Meditation 2: The Mirror
This exercise helps you distinguish how you see yourself from how others see you. Take 20 minutes to write a list of all your positive qualities, and draw an image of this positive you. Next day, write a list of all the qualities that other people might see in you, and draw an image of this person. If there are differences, ask youself if, to narrow the gap, you need to change the way you behave or present yourself to the world.
