What can I do to recognize my next step in life?
January 28, 2011From Maja:
What can I do to help myself learn to recongnise my next step in life? Can you actually meditate while you go about your everyday? Inspired actions, can they be as simple as housework?
Inspirations from Binah:
While many think of meditation as a silent, stationary exercise, there are also ways to practice active meditation. Any activity can become a form of self-examination, allowing you to reach deeper levels of consciousness and insight. An added benefit is that meditation in motion can be integrated easily into the hustle and bustle of daily life, therefore transforming housework or the walk from the car to the store into an opportunity for reflection and growth.
Your next steps in life are already around you. They manifest in your energy field before you know they are there in order to prepare you for the transition. As your vibration changes to match theirs, they reveal themselves subtly, allowing you to integrate the messages at your own pace.
To attune to this new form of introspection, start with walking meditation.
“When your body is in motion, it is generally easier to be aware of it compared to when you are sitting still. When we’re sitting still in meditation the sensations that arise in the body are much more subtle and harder to pay attention to than those that arise while we’re walking, This can make walking meditation an intense experience.”
Though you can practice inside your home, it is best if you can be outside. Whether you are in a city or out in nature, the ability to move without end will give your mind the freedom to release. At first, keep your awareness on your body as you walk with no specific goal in mind. Tune into each step you take, feeling your feet connect to the earth. Keep your eyes forward, using them to see any obstacles you need to avoid, but little else. Use all your senses to “see” the world as it passes you by. What does it feel like when the wind caresses your skin and the sun fills you with light? Think about the smells you encounter and the noises you hear. You are in perfect harmony with all that surrounds you.
At first, you may find the world a distraction, but with practice you will learn to tune out that which is not important, revealing the knowledge you seek. Naturally, you develop a rhythm in your step, which mirrors the steps you need to take in life. When your body is in sync with the Universe, the messages become clear in thought. They may come in the form of shapes, colors, smells and sounds… trust that they are there and that you have the knowledge to decipher them. Each step contains everything you need, give yourself time to acquire, then understand and integrate.
As you master this new tool in your spiritual toolbox, you will find yourself extending your practice out to other activities. Vacuuming the house will become something you look forward to, since it provides several minutes of uninterrupted time in communion with spirit. Other activities take on double roles, the external focus of accomplishing a physical task and the internal focus of your spiritual enlightenment.
Carry a notebook or recorder with you always to capture the messages that at one time felt so elusive and now effortlessly divulge much sought after comprehension. In motion, your connection to body, mind and spirit grows, making everything you do an opportunity to commune with the Divine.
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And eventually there’s no need to compartmentalise these mindful activities and you’re in that state consistently. A phrase I picked up somewhere was ‘mind like water’. Have you ever had a day like that?
I agree. Someone once asked Neale Patrick Walsh, the author of Conversations with God, what he did when he felt disconnected from God. He said he never felt disconnected, so there was nothing to do. I think that is what most people strive to achieve, that feeling of always being connected. That being said, it is good to be able to shut off the stream of messages from time to time. While there is no need to compartmentalise, there is sometimes a need to selectively listen.
[...] What can I do to recognize my next steps in life? [...]
The pursuit of the Self is an introspective inquiry followed by a real challenge of each of our beliefs. The quest itself is thus an individual analysis of our personality. An exercise through which we see that our personality is composed of different masks. The quest itself is actually a crossing of the masks that imprison us. The outcome of this inquiry can only have as a result the release from these masks. An issue that ultimately leads us to a dimension where there is no self, no ego but a void. A dimension where silence and clarity reign and in which we can reach a perfect state of contemplation of reality.