Meditation Inspirations

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Meditation and Spirituality

noreply@blogger.com (Tejvan Pettinger) — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 18:56:00 +0000

Sri Chinmoy taught meditation was an invaluable aid for a seeker to discover his inner self. It is through meditation that the inner life can become a reality rather than mere mental abstraction. Spirituality we cannot get from book learning; but meditation is the practical application of spirituality.

"When we go deep within, into the deepest recesses of our hearts, we commune with God through meditation. It is through meditation that we can know that God is both with form and without form, with attributes and without attributes."

- Sri Chinmoy (10)

Prayer and Meditation

Often people ask about the difference and similarities between prayer and meditation. Sri Chinmoy often replied that through prayer we feel we are talking with God - asking God to fulfill our desires. These desires may be worldly or prayers to increase our aspiration. But, whatever our prayer, there is a feeling of separation - a feeling of asking God for a boon. With Meditation, we try to listen to God. We keep the mind quiet and try to enter into the highest consciousness, which is none over than God. There comes a point when both prayer and meditation merge and lead to the same goal - the upliftment of the human consciousness to the divine consciousness. In the West, prayer has a stronger tradition. But, through the practise of both prayer and meditation we can make the fastest spiritual progress.

Meditation and Realisation

Through meditation we become aware of what we always had. As a beginner in meditation we feel we are trying to achieve something. But, in our highest meditation, we merely feel we are remembering what we always had. Meditation is a process of emptying the mind; often it is a process of unlearning many things and perceptions of the mind.

There is a story of a Zen Master, he was visited by a famous professor. When the professor arrived, the Zen Master poured some tea. When the cup was full, he kept on pouring and the tea went on the carpet. The professor said, what are you doing? the cup is full.

The Zen Master replies, yes. Your mind is like this cup - completely full because you think you know everything. If you want to understand Zen you need to first empty your mind otherwise you will not get anything.
Meditation and Modern Life

We can live in the remote Himalayas but be troubled by a restless mind. We can live in the hustle and bustle of New York but, able to gain inner peace through effective meditation. Meditation involves the acceptance of life. Meditation we can practise whatever our situation or location. The only thing we need is the inner aspiration, the inner hunger.

Many Actions from One Source

noreply@blogger.com (Tejvan Pettinger) — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 09:33:00 +0000

When time has passed and history is able to bestow its judgement with the benefit of distance, Sri Chinmoy's unique contribution to the world may well be appraised in terms of his efforts to show that meditation and spirituality can be brought into all forms of human achievement - creative, athletic, humanistic and philosophical. Granted, meditation teachers before Sri Chinmoy have certainly been engaged in outer activity - spiritual Masters have been composing mantric songs almost since the birth of spirituality itself, and many Masters have also been accomplished poets. However, to branch out into so many different fields - poetry, music, art and athletics - over the course of one lifetime is a very new development, and one especially suited to Sri Chinmoy's philosophy of harmonising the meditative inspiration of the East with the forward-flowing enthusiasm of the West.

So many and varied were the activities which Sri Chinmoy engaged in over the course of his lifetime that at first glance one might be forgiven for wondering what they all had in common. However, like the stem of a lotus branching out into its many petals, so all of these activities stem from a single unifying core that comes from deep within the human spirit. Deep inside us, beyond the reaches of our vacillating mind, lies the core of our being, a place of stillness, peace and vastness within ourselves. In this space deep in our hearts, we begin to experience higher and deeper realities of life, and terms which the mind cannot really comprehend such as Infinity, Eternity, the soul, God - are able to be directly experienced and communed with. Ever since primitive times, cultures all over the world have devoted some part of their society to this inner search; in the East, where Sri Chinmoy hails from, great yogis had been realising the Self for thousands of years through the practise of meditation. Sri Chinmoy began practising meditation in his early teens, and was soon meditating for eight hours a day and sometimes more; very soon he was attaining very high states where he was united with this higher self - his "Inner Pilot" as Sri Chinmoy fondly called it.

One effect of these many forms of creative and athletic output is to give us a glimpse of the nature of the relationship between the seeker of truth and that which he is seeking, between man and God. In Sri Chinmoy's writings and poems, we see that in one sense man and God are merely points along one continuous road of evolution - "Man is the God of tomorrow; God, the man of yesterday and today", he writes - and yet in another sense there is a sense of separation which can only be narrowed by the love of the heart. Many of Sri Chinmoy's poems and songs, take the form of sweet and living conversations between Creator and Creation: to the critical mind there may be two people talking, but reading these poems with the heart reveals a depth of closeness and intimacy between man and God that render the two inseparable, and increasingly indistinguishable, as evidenced by this sweet conversation-poem from "My Lord's Secrets Revealed":

"My Lord, I have millions of desires.
Do You have any?"
"Yes, My child, I have."
"You have? Please tell me what they are!"
"My only desire is to see you eternally happy.
Can you fulfil My desire?"
"I shall try, my Lord."
"Try, My child, try."

In Sri Chinmoy's art we find another aspect of this relationship manifested in the childlike spontaneity that gave rise to the name 'Jharna-Kala' which Sri Chinmoy gave to his paintings - it means 'fountain-art' in Bengali, or art flowing from the inner source. "I do not use the mind; I use the heart", he explains. "I try to make my heart a receptive instrument so that God, the Supreme Artist, can paint in and through me. I am like ballpoint pen. Somebody is using me to write something. Somebody is acting in and through me."

However future historians may very well regard Sri Chinmoy's athletic achievements as the most striking demonstration of what can happen when one goes beyond the mind and listens directly to the heart. In particular, Sri Chinmoy's weightlifting achievements serve as a direct challenge to the human mind and its often limiting concepts about what is and is not possible for a person to achieve. It is especially notable that weightlifting was never a favourite sport of Sri Chinmoy's to begin with: "Weightlifting was never my forte", he said in an interview one year after he started weightlifting in 1985. "Right from my early years I disliked bodybuilding and weightlifting. I was a sprinter and decathlete, and I did not care for weightlifting at all. It was something foreign to me. But last year I started weightlifting because of an inner command. I always listen to the dictates of my Inner Pilot, and my Inner Pilot asked me to enter into weightlifting....For that reason I do it cheerfully." Surrender to the inner voice is something that comes easily when the command is something we like doing; in the case of Sri Chinmoy, his weightlifting was very much a case of surrendering to the inner command when it was not so pleasant. And in that surrender, he was able to perform feats that astounded experts in the weightlifting world, and inspire countless people around the globe.

Just as Sri Chinmoy's activities stem from one inner source, his sole reason for doing them was to inspire everyone to in turn go deep within to that same Source in order fulfill their own dreams. Sri Chinmoy tried every day of his life to reach out to as many people as humanly possible during his 43 years in the West, and the huge range of his activities meant he was able to touch people from all walks of life - athletes, artists, religious and world leaders - whose paths he might never have crossed as a mere spiritual teacher. As part of his weightlifting, for example, he would honour people who had served as an inspiration in their own right by lifting them overhead - sometimes these would be household names, more often they would be ordinary people like teachers, social workers, doctors, pilots, lecturers, policemen, firemen, the backbones of society finally being recognised for their pivotal role. In doing all these activities, Sri Chinmoy's hope was that there would be at least something there that each person could enjoy.

"I try to inspire others. If I can inspire others, and if they in turn inspire the rest of the world, then we can have a better world. It is by virtue of inspiration that we can do good things for mankind. "

by: Nirbhasa Magee

Positive Thinking

noreply@blogger.com (Tejvan Pettinger) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 17:49:00 +0000

Only by our positive thinking,
By our bringing the positive qualities
Of others to the fore,
Will this world be able
To make progress.

Excerpt from Seventy-Seven Thousand Service-Trees, Part 15 by Sri Chinmoy.

Photo by Unmesh, Sri Chinmoy Centre Galleries

The New Year

noreply@blogger.com (Balavan) — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 15:12:00 +0000

"From the spiritual point of view the New Year has a special significance. On the eve of the New Year,a new consciousness dawns on earth. God once again inspires each human being, each creature with new Hope, new Light, Peace and Bliss. God always wants us to move farther,
farther, farthest. He does not want us to look back. We know when a runner runs fast, while running fast if he looks back he drops to the ground. Similarly, if we constantly look behind at the year that we are leaving aside, thinking of our sorrow, miseries, frustrations and all that we lose everything that we gained. But if we look forward, ahead, we see hope dawning deep within us, we see a new light illumining our consciousness.

Each New Year is like a rung on the ladder of consciousness; we have to climb up the ladder of consciousness and each New Year serves the purpose of a rung in the ladder. When the New Year dawns, we have to make ourselves conscious of the fact that we are going to transcend ourselves. We have to go beyond the present capacity, beyond our present achievement. And when we have that kind of firm determination, God showers His choicest blessings upon our devoted heads and He says, "New Year dawns, a new consciousness dawns deep within you. Run towards the destined goal." And we listen to God, we listen to the dictates of our inner soul, we run towards the Ultimate Reality. The New Year energizes us, encourages us, inspires us to run towards that Ultimate Truth."

- Sri Chinmoy.

Excerpt from Flame Waves, Part 8 by Sri Chinmoy.

Faith

noreply@blogger.com (Balavan) — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 20:28:00 +0000

The inner and outer world in Sri Chinmoy's teachings

noreply@blogger.com (Tejvan Pettinger) — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 09:31:00 +0000

Western film and television has often given a very fixed portrayal of spiritual teachers, such that we have come to expect a master to seclude themselves away from the world for hours on end, with occasional breaks to dispense wisdom to their students.However, the reality is that every great spiritual Master has made his own unique contribution to the world's evolution by accepting and loving the world in order to transform it. In ancient times we had great teachers like Sri Rama and Sri Krishna who would combine the earthly duties of kingship with the higher calling of dharma, enlightened beings like the Buddha who criss-crossed the Indian subcontinent spreading the message of liberation to king and peasant alike, not to mention Jesus Christ, whose time on earth was as much a social revolution as it was a spiritual one. In recent times many great spiritual figures such as Swami Vivekananda and Mother Teresa have also demonstrated that spiritual progress can be made just as much by remaining in the world and working to transform it.

Many terms have been used to describe Sri Chinmoy during his 43 years of service in the west, but recluse is certainly not one of them. "The inner life is not the life of isolation," Sri Chinmoy explained. "The real spiritual life, the real inner life, will never tell us to leave society and enter into the Himalayan caves; far from it! We dive deep within early in the morning. Then, when we enter the outer world, we bring forward what we have received from within and we try to offer this to the world at large."

Sri Chinmoy's philosophy encompassed each of the main three yogas or paths to enlightenment in Indian philosophy: bhakti (love), jnana (knowledge) and karma (action). In particular, his life was a sterling example of the philosophy of karma yoga expounded in the Bhagavad Gita. In this ancient Indian scripture, Sri Krishna explains to his student Arjuna how one can achieve illumination whilst working in the world, summed up in the famous line "Thou hast the right to action, but claim not the fruits thereof". Sri Chinmoy, through his own example, showed how one could take this philosophy into the modern world. He threw himself into multifarious projects for one reason and one reason only - because he had received the inner inspiration from the communion with the Highest which he obtained in his meditation. Sometimes in carrying out these projects he would meet with success and other times with failure, and yet Sri Chinmoy treated these two events with identical detachment: all that mattered to him was that he was carrying out the express wish of his Inner Pilot.

"Human beings usually think before they act", he replied once when asked about the nature of God. "But in God's case, it is not like that. He uses His Willpower which, while seeing, also acts and becomes. God's seeing, acting and becoming are simultaneous and instantaneous." In Sri Chinmoy's every action, he would attempt to recreate that divine flow as far as was humanly possible. It was not uncommon for him to announce a new poetic, musical or artistic endeavour and complete it in one sitting. This spontaneity was a lesson for all of those who were fortunate enough to observe it - there was no wasting time wondering if what he was creating was good or bad, no stalling waiting for better conditions to present themselves; Sri Chinmoy just sat down and started creating.

The other hallmark of Sri Chinmoy's actions - and the same could be said of spiritual Masters throughout the ages - is the love and concern for humanity that lies behind them. For Sri Chinmoy, love of God and love of humanity are inseparable - "If we love God first, then automatically we are loving humanity. If we love God, then God will give us the capacity to please His creation, which is humanity", he once said. This oneness with his fellow man took Sri Chinmoy to the farthest corners of the globe giving lectures and concerts of meditative music. Sri Chinmoy always sought to awaken the best and brightest qualities of humanity, and no matter what far-flung region of the world he travelled to, he was able to meet with people who exemplified these qualities and could take the inspiration he had to offer and use it to inspire others in turn.

For spiritual aspirants of the hoary past, the outer world was something to be feared lest it took one way pace and bliss one received from meditation. Sri Chinmoy, on the other hand viewed the outer and inner world as natural complements of each other. As the goodness and kindness of humanity comes more and more to the fore, this outer world is evolving into Heaven on earth.

"There comes a time when my inner world and my outer world become inseparably one. At that time I feel that my reality and God's Reality are inseparably one, that my reality's height and God's Reality's Height are inseparably one, that my vision-world and God's Vision-World are inseparably one."

- Sri Chinmoy

Article by: Nirbhasa Magee

Poem on Beauty

noreply@blogger.com (Balavan) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 10:08:00 +0000

The eight stages of Yoga

noreply@blogger.com (Balavan) — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 14:56:00 +0000

The eight stages of yoga are:

Yama, self-control & leading a moral life:
Niyama, observance of conduct & character:
Asana, various postures which relax the body & help us to meditate;
Pranayama, breathing techniques to help control the mind:
Pratyahara, turning to the inner life;
Dhyana, Meditation ;
and Samadhi, the highest level of meditation.

Many people in the West think of Yoga as just Asana, the stretching exercises.But as we can see Asana is just one part of Yoga.If you can sit on a chair & concentrate you are ready to try Meditation.

Try this simple exercise;

(first read The ABCs of Meditation see previous post)

Put a chair in front of a low table on which you have put a candle or night light & a beautiful flower in a vase.
Sit on a chair or on a cushion on the ground.
Relax your body & mind.
Breathe slowly and deeply and concentrate on a candle flame.Focus all your attention on the tip of the flame.After a few minutes turn your attention to the flower.Concentrate on the whole flower and then just one petal of the flower.Next look at the whole flower and try to identify with the beauty of the flower.

Congratulations! you have started on the path of Meditation.

Each Moment

noreply@blogger.com (Balavan) — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 14:30:00 +0000

May each moment
Of my life
Be the sweetness-fragrance
Of my heart-rose

- Sri Chinmoy

The ABC's of meditation

noreply@blogger.com (Balavan) — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 21:21:00 +0000

When you start to meditate there are a few basic things it is helpful to know.

1. It is best if you can have a place to meditate every day.The best thing is if you have a spare room you can use just for meditation.Otherwise just make a place in your bedroom which you use just for meditation.

2. Its good to use incense,flowers and a candle to inspire you.(use a night-light or make sure you blow the candle out when you leave the room to avoid accidents!)

3.Before you meditate it is helpful to have a shower or bath.

4. Its best if you can wear clean,comfortable & light coloured clothing.

5.It is important to have the back upright and body relaxed.You can sit on a chair or sit on a cushion on the floor.

6.Its not a good idea to lie down as you may fall asleep.

7.You need to meditate at least once a day to make progress.

8.Do not meditate until at least two hours after a big meal.(if you feeling hungry you can drink a glass of milk or juice)

9.It is best to meditate before 7am around 6am is ideal.The evening is also a good time.

10.It is best to pick a time and meditate at that time every day.

If you follow these guide lines you should be of to a good start with your daily meditation practice.

Your Inner Poise

noreply@blogger.com (Tejvan Pettinger) — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 20:00:00 +0000

Do not allow any thought
To disturb your inner poise.

- Sri Chinmoy

Source of Poem: Seventy-Seven Thousand Service Trees vol 33

The Omnipotent Power of Peace

noreply@blogger.com (Tejvan Pettinger) — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 19:57:00 +0000

" I meditate
So that I can inundate
My entire being
With the omnipotent
Power of peace."

- Sri Chinmoy

Meditation for Health

noreply@blogger.com (Tejvan Pettinger) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:53:00 +0000

Meditation can be a helpful aid in improving physical health.

Studies have shown that meditation can be effective in reducing stress and heart related diseases.

Meditation helps improve health for a number of reasons

Proper Breathing. Wrong breathing can contribute to and exacerbate many related health problems. The way we breathe can have a big effect on our health One very useful meditation technique is the one four two breathing exercise. This helps to regulate breathing between our left and right nostril. This balance of alternative breathing is very helpful for improving medical conditions such as high blood pressure.
Detach from Worries. Meditation teaches us detachment from our worries and anxieties. Through meditation we can detach from various thoughts that flit through our mind. Therefore this reduces the stress we are likely to feel. If we can reduce stress we are able to reduce the impact of many diseases and conditions such as back pain. The spiritual teacher Sri Aurobindo said that many diseases are often caused by feelings of self importance that encourage people to over tax and over work themselves. Meditation enables us to step back and gain a more peaceful perspective.

The real goal of meditation is not just to improve our health. Good health is perhaps a side effect of meditation

Meditating in Nature

noreply@blogger.com (Tejvan Pettinger) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 20:35:00 +0000

The perfect combination - peaceful lake at sunset - cannot help but inspire a meditative stillness

Nature has inspired some of our great Seer Poets, artists and musicians. To be in touch with nature helps us be aware of the beauty, vastness and expanse of Mother Earth.

I WANDERED lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

- William Wordsworth ( I wandered lonely as a cloud)

Meditation is an inner process, but, if we can gain inspiration from our surroundings then it will be easier to dive deep within.

Secrets of Meditating in Nature.

Find a place where you do not get disturbed by people, flies or extremes of temperature.
Wear appropriate clothes to avoid
Carry a lightweight seat or cushion to make it comfortable to meditate
Early in the morning or around dusk make ideal times
One can retreat to the most beautiful Himalayan peak, but, at the end of the day, it is the silence of the mind which will give us the meditation experience.

Meditating in London

noreply@blogger.com (Tejvan Pettinger) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 16:57:00 +0000

Battersea Park Pagoda in the snow.

This winter, London was hit by a rare snow showers, which covered this Buddhist statue in Battersea park, London.

test

noreply@blogger.com (Tejvan Pettinger) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 16:45:00 +0000

test flight