After I wrote yesterday's blog, I thought those are great human qualities but I didn't say much about how to explore or develop them. Today I will share some ideas that I have explored, my client's have appreciated, and fellow journeyers in search of a fuller life have shared. It has been my good fortune that I have had some wonderful teachers and resources in my journey of life so I wanted to share a few of these resources pertaining to these qualities:
Finding our way to more fully express ourselves comes from a number of rich traditions. The following are few pathways that will be helpful in your and my journey.
There is one powerful way to move these qualities forward and that is the clear realization we are all connected. The experience of unity consciousness is so liberating because we no longer have to argue for our separateness and can instead explore our connections to each other. Unity is recognized and realized in the moments when we are quiet and still, when we have slowed down enough to sense this greater reality. This altered state of awakening is made possible by feeling and sensing us as connected to everything around us.
Once walking in the desert with some fellow seekers I melted away to a greater awareness. I felt totally connected to everyone and to all living things on the planet. I could never feel lonely again because I knew that the person I thought I was, was a mere a drop in an entire ocean of our collective consciousness. This sense of unity came from tuning in and away from the speedy world of doing and using mind altering practices to wake up to a greater knowing.
As I have explored, I have come to appreciate the power of being mindful. Mindfulness is much more than a variety of techniques. It is the ability to be fully present to whatever we are doing. Mindfulness can come in the form of eating, walking, washing dishes, reaching for something, brushing our teeth, sitting thoughtfully. and so many more ways of being present to what we are doing.
There is person at work who understands mindfulness as a daily practice and we often can share insights and perspectives that we can't share with anyone else. Mindfulness is something we experience, not something we can just share and people then understand. Nature is a wonderful place to be mindful and often late at night under the stars I feel my ego being replaced by the dark blue heavens of the moment.
Another method that I find very essential to developing these qualities is making contact with our heart. The heart is our center for feelings, our communication hub for compassionate interaction. Love, compassion, kindness, caring, courage and so much more flow from the heart.
My favorite meditation/visualization to be lead through is called, Loving Kindness and it involves opening our heart through visualization to share love with self and then those who are close to us, then our community, and eventually the world. Look up Loving Kindness on Google and you will find lots of resources for this guided meditation also called Metta in Buddhist practice. The way of the open heart is a blessing to all humanity.
There is this silence within that holds infinite wisdom and the collective consciousness of all living things on the planet. Only in silence or the gap between our breaths can we find that doorway into our inner knowing. Silence is the great path from which meditation blossomed. Silence is the mind turned off and the heart in waiting. Knowing of self comes in the silence, knowing of the Divine comes in silence, know of the possibilities of humanity comes in the silence.
Being quiet is a practice that changes over time. Sometimes there is less inner dialogue and gaps of quiet, other times the monkey mind is swinging from trees laughing at our attempts to quiet the endless flow of thoughts. Stillness is a momentary experience of being fully present and that is possible only in this present moment. Sit or walk quietly and see what shows up. Thinking, feeling, sensing or silence is really all there is.
There is a power greater than us or we would have to hold the universe together. This power has been called many names in many traditions to the point of dissolving their meaning. This Holy, Divine, Universal, Creative Force and Source is something unknown but beneficial to make contact with. There is pray, meditation, chanting, song, silence and other avenues of contact. Each of us must find our own way, no one else can really even give us directions.
This Higher Power is aligned in total unity with our Higher Self so touching into our expanding states is a way to communicate. In the movie Bruce Almighty we get one view of who this Higher Source is, it also comes to us in the beauty of spring time, the reading of a sacred text, the momentary awakening of our own true nature, in the ecstasy of devotional song, and so many other moments.
Be well and dip your toes into the infinite.