Guided Meditation: Allow Grace To Be Your Center Always

Also again, just breathe as you are and we'll just do this for a couple of minutes. So just breathe in and breathe out, inhale, exhale as natural as you can, keep your eyes open if you want to. If you want to close your eyes, like I tend to do you can do that too. It's totally up to you. Be as free as you can and as natural as you can. Keep the inhalation and exhalation as natural as possible. Now I want you to take in what your senses are taking in. So if you have your eyes closed, use the sense of hearing and listen to what surrounds you. Can you hear the cars rushing past? Can you hear children playing outside or adults taking a walk and you can hear them having a conversation. You can hear the birds chirping, maybe dogs are barking. Maybe where you are. There may be strong breeze and you can hear the breeze crashing against the windows and the doors. And if you have your eyes open, take in what you can see, whether you can see trees or if in your home, have a look at the furniture in your home, observe everything as much as you can. You may see the TV, it may be on and on mute. You may see outside the window. If you have your eyes closed, then you may see darkness, you may see aspects of light. You may see different shapes of light and different colors of light appearing. So right now, I just want you to observe everything as much as you can, with the capacity that you have. And then I want you to, after you've observed everything around you, I now want you to look within you. So by looking within, I mean, by observing, observe if there's any part of your body that may have a certain sensation. So it maybe you have tingling in the feet. Your arm may suddenly move, your eyes may twitch a bit. You may notice your breathing, you can feel your chest moving up and down when you're breathing. Note down, every sensation, observe every sensation and especially during meditation, you may even start feeling hungry and you may feel like you need to eat something. Remember, these are all tricks of the mind, and we're going to go to the mind in a minute, but I want you to just observe your body, your belly may start rumbling. You may feel your heart racing a little, more than usual. Just observe it. And let's do that in some silence. Just observe. And even if you can, if it's possible for you and you are a regular practitioner of meditation, you may be able to even hear a certain buzzing, around you and within you when you're meditating. So if you're able to hear that, that'd be great. But now to just observe, what is happening within the body. If your mind tries to drift away, bring it back to looking within the body. Now I want you to observe your mind. So if a image arises in your mind, if a thought appears in your mind, I want you to just watch the thought, watch the image. Don't do anything. Just watch it. If you don't have a thought, you're awesome and that'd be great. But if you do have a thought, an image or a feeling or an emotion appear in the mind. Or anything that has some level of content, just observe it. The more you watch it without resistance, you will find that these thoughts, these images, these feelings, emotions, whatever content arises within the mind will slow down and let them slow down. Allow them to slow down. If you interfere, you will get the incessant chattering going on. If you just observe, watch the thought slow down. Watch the feelings slow down. Watch the images dissolve away. Allow everything to slow down, allow these contents of your mind to rest a little. If you find that the mind is resisting a little, just inform your own mind, if you must, that you would deal with those thoughts later, but right now you have to be present in the meditation. Because we're not here to make enemies with our mind. We are there to befriend our mind. So let your mind be at rest, knowing that you will deal with the thoughts, the feelings, the emotions, the memories later on, the future planning later on. If you've been able to slow down your mind and enter stillness, stay there. If you haven't, then I want you to watch the thought, watch the image, whatever it is, whatever content, I want you to watch it and then I want you to watch the watching. And we'll do this together. So watch a thought or the content appear within the mind. If it has to be a pink elephant, think of the pink elephant, watch the pink elephant and then watch the watching. When you watch the watching, you find there is stillness there. Even though that pink elephant is still there in the mind, it's doing nothing to the one that is watching. The watching of the elephant, the pink elephant, the image, the thought. That is what we call Awareness, Pure Awareness or Pure Consciousness. The Rishis of the East call this Brahman, the Ultimate Reality, some call this Being, some call it Presence, the Buddhists call this shunya. And the Sikhs call this, WaheGuru or Nirakar, which means Formless. This is the real essence of Shiva. And this is all within you, but not as something separate. It is your very being is who you are. For years you may have been told that you are this body mind complex. And to a certain degree in this world, yes, you are that name of form and in the world that has a place, but the whole purpose of spirituality is to understand that we are 'That' which we seek. If we remind ourselves if we may, of the Mahavakhyas in the Upanishads, Aham Brahmasmi, which means 'I am Brahman.' 'I am Pure Consciousness.' J Krishnamurti calls this your natural state. And this is always there in the background. It's always there in between the thoughts in your mind, in between the images in your mind, in between the colors are presented in your mind and presented through the sense objects It's that silence that you sometimes don't acknowledge throughout the day, but it is there. It's always been here. It's so close to you that we fail to see it. It's like when we're looking for a necklace that is already around our neck, we are seeking the Truth, without realizing that the truth has always been within us. So let's take a look into this Truth. Let's be as you've always meant to be, and you always will be. This Stillness, this Shapeless, Awareness, you can see it has no form. It has no image for the mind to cling to. It pervades everywhere, even within space, For example, it's the space between your eyeball and your eyelid. It is within that space too. It is that close. It's absolutely free. You cannot name it. Although, we do make concessions when we name 'It'. But in the experience right now, it may be a separate experience, but for those that live in this all the time, they don't need to refer to it as Awareness or Brahman or Consciousness. They see it as it is. Again, in the Upanishads, they refer to this as 'Is-ness' sometimes, to refuse a name Even Lao Tzu refused to give it a name and said that the Dao that can be named is not the Dao. You cannot define it in any way. You cannot label it in any way. It doesn't move anywhere. It's vast in it's experience, yet it feels that it is immediately here at the same time. It's so close. It's so vast. It's absolutely full of peace. It's like an ocean without a wave in sight. It cannot be held in a container, because there is no container big enough or vast enough or small enough to contain it. No image can be made of It. And therefore it cannot be disturbed in any way. So we feel that essence of peace. Here there is contentment. Here no desire can arise. In the east, we use the word 'Ananda', it is loosely translated as bliss or joy or happiness. And it's not really a feeling, it's so natural to be in bliss right here and right now. It has this awareness. It's because it's so content in itself because it's so peaceful. Joy is its natural way of being. This is a happiness that, although you're just touching right now, but the more we meditate, the more we immerse ourselves in this bliss, and here lies Pure Radiance. And this Awareness, this Consciousness doesn't just belong to me or you alone. But we understand that each and every human being, each and every living being from the blade of grass in the ground to the farthest star in the universe. That awareness is shared amongst every thing. Therefore, you cannot feel inferior in this. Nor can you feel superior in this. All you feel is being centered. Allow this awareness to be centered within you and see this centeredness in everything. When you leave this meditation try to bring this centeredness to the forefront of the mind. Usually it's in the background and if we are alert enough, we can notice it in the background, And when we are more in tune with this and we go more into the center of 'This', this can be at the forefront amongst all activity. This is what the Sages and the Rishis and the great teachers have told us will happen. So allow yourself to be centered in this. It doesn't matter what is happening around you. It doesn't matter what's happening in the body. Nor what the mind springs up, this center is always there, always available Feeling and experiencing this center throughout the day, it's what can be called grace, kirpa in in Sanskrit. Allow that grace, that Awareness to be your center always, regardless of what's happening around you. Because this is nothing, but what You are.