Dear Momma,

I see your anger, and I see the sadness and the disappointment behind that anger.

You’re angry with me, with my brother, Dad, your own mother, the physiotherapist…

Not all at the same time, but at any given moment in your life you had - and have - somebody you are a bit (or very) angry with.

It hurts me to see that!

You know why…?

Because all that anger, is a reflection of the anger you have inside yourself.

Only if you are angry with yourself, or with parts of yourself, only then you can be angry with somebody else.

What is it, that makes you so angry… where does all that anger come from?

Seen from my point of view, you have always been a good mother, because you were the mother that you were, and everything is as it is, and it is good.

Maybe you invented the ideal story of your own life, and maybe you are angry because reality turned out to be different.

But:

Your ideal story is not God’s ideal story, and in the end He is the one who determines what happens, and not us.

If we become angry, or sad, or disappointed, it is because God does not keep himself to our story. I think that God only will smile and send us love when that happens.

Mom, our life IS the ideal story. It goes as it goes, it goes as it has to go, and it is OK.

We ourselves have the choice, we can keep believing in our own story. If we do that, we know it immediately: we have reasons to feel angry, sad, disappointed, offended, deceived, …

We can also choose to believe God’s story - we will also know straight away if we do: We have peace with everybody and everything which is, and with ourselves.

Mom, we love you!

Concentration is the secret key to a whole world of possibilities, enabling you to keep out distractions and focus on attaining your life goals. In addition it is an absolute prerequisite if you want to learn the art of meditation, as it helps ‘clear the road’ of any mental obstacles. However if anything the average concentration span is decreasing as life gets busier and busier and the world becomes filled with more things to distract and scatter our attention.

Here is one very easy-to-learn concentration excercise which was taught to me by my meditation teacher Sri Chinmoy. It can reap tremendous rewards in terms of clarity, productivity and efficiency in your life, and it can be done with just a few minutes practise every day. People commonly view concentration as purely a mental exercise; but here we are also going use our heart centre, that space in our chest we point to when we say ‘me’ - helping to take some of the burden away from our tension filled minds.

Requirements:

An object of concentration - best is to use a candle or flower, but you can even use a dot on the wall.

Method:

1. In this exercise, we will use the candle, although you can adapt the exercise to whatever object you are using. Sit with your back straight, and place the burning candle at eye level.
2. First bring your awareness to your breath. Gradually your breath becomes slower and more relaxed. Try to imagine a thread placed in front of our nose; you are breathing so quietly it will not move to and fro.
3. Now we look at the object. Gradually bring your attention to a tiny part of the candle flame, for example, the very tip of the flame.
4. When you breathe in, feel that your breath, like a golden thread, is coming from that point on the candle and entering into your heart. And when you breath out, feel that your breath, feel that the light is leaving the heart, passing through a point in your forehead between the eyebrows and a little above (in Eastern philosophy this is a powerful concentration point) and then entering into the object of concentration. Try to feel that nothing else exists except you and the object you are focusing on.
5. When you do this exercise, thoughts will invariably get in the way. When this happens, don’t be annoyed or upset, just bring your attention back to the exercise. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and similarly it will take time to rein in your mind.
6. (if you have the time) You can go one step further, and use your power of concentration to identify with the object’s existence. Try to feel on the inbreath that the existence of the flame, and the qualities it embodies such as radiance, serenity and aspiration, are entering into you and becoming part of your own existence. On the outbreath, feel that your existence is expanding and spreading out from the centre of the chest and entering into the candle. In this way, you concentrate on the object to such an extent that you feel no separation between you and the object; your existence has expanded to include the candle. In this way you can identify ourself with the entire world.

Start off with a modest goal - i.e 3-5 minutes a day, and then gradually increase with time. After only a couple of weeks of doing this exercise, you should notice the progress - a clearer mind, better ability to cope with tasks, less stress, more serenity.

If you are inspired to try, please let us know how you got on! Good luck!

From: http://www.srichinmoybio.co.uk/blog/productivity/an-easy-to-learn-concentration-exercise/

Have a look at their blog, it has nice articles on meditation and inner peace!

On 21 June I was in Jordan, more precisely at the Dead Sea, invited by the Queen to write a text that was to be part of the opening ceremony of a meeting of the WEF. As soon as the event came to an end, I attended a dinner at which I found myself in an extraordinary situation.

Sitting at the table right across from me were the King and Queen of Jordan, Secretary of State Colin Powell, the Representative of the Arab League, the Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs, the President of the German Republic, the President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai, and other prominent names involved in the processes of war and peace that we are witnessing. Although the temperature was close to 40o C, a soft breeze blew over the desert, a pianist played sonatas, the sky was cloudless, and torches spread throughout the gardens lit up the whole place. On the other side of the Dead Sea we could make out Israel and the lights of Jerusalem shining on the horizon. In other words, everything seemed to be in harmony and peace - and then all of a sudden I realized that, far from being an aberration of reality, that very moment was really and truly a dream for us all. Although my pessimism had grown a lot over the last few months, if people can still manage to sit around and hold a conversation, then nothing is lost.

Later on, Queen Rannia remarked that the venue of the meeting had been chosen for its symbolic character: the Dead Sea is the deepest place on the surface of the Earth (401 metres below sea level). To go any deeper, we have to dive - but in this specific case the salinity of the water forces the body to return to the surface. And thus it is with the long and painful process of peace in the Middle East: one can go no deeper than the present stage. If I had turned on the television that evening, I would have learned of the death of a Jewish settler and a young Palestinian. But there I was, at that dinner, with the odd feeling that the calm of the evening could spread over the whole region, that people would start talking to one another like they were talking at that moment, that Utopia is possible, and that men can go no deeper.

If one day you have the chance to go to the Middle East, do not miss visiting Jordan (a marvelous and warm country), then go to the Dead Sea and look at Israel on the other river bank: there and then you will understand that peace is necessary and possible. Below is part of the text that I wrote and read at that event, accompanied by the splendid improvisations of Jewish violinist Ivry Gitlis:

Peace does not mean the opposite of War.
We can have peace in our hearts even in the midst of the most ferocious battles because we are fighting for our dreams. When our friends have all lost hope, the peace of the Good Fight helps us to carry on.
A mother who can feed her child holds peace in her eyes, even though her hands are shaking when diplomacy has failed, bombs are falling all around, soldiers are dying.
An archer pulling his bow holds peace in his mind, even when all his muscles strain from the body’s effort.

So, for the warriors of the light, peace is not the opposite of war - because they are capable of:

A] Distinguishing what is passing from what is lasting. They can fight for their dreams and for their survival, but they respect the ties that have developed over time, through cultures and religions;
B] Knowing that their adversaries are not necessarily their enemies;
C] Realizing that their actions will affect five future generations, and that their sons and grandsons will benefit or suffer from the consequences;
D] Remembering what the I Ching says: perseverance is favorable. But let not perseverance be confused with insistence - the battles that last longer than necessary end up destroying the enthusiasm that is needed for reconstruction.

For the warrior of the light there are no abstractions; each opportunity to change oneself is an opportunity to change the world.
For the warrior of the light there is no pessimism either. He will row against the current if necessary; for when he is old and tired he will be able to tell his grandchildren that he came to this world in order to understand his neighbour better, and not to condemn his brother.

by Paulo Coelho

Za Rinpoche’s way of dissecting ehat actually is “struggle” is throwing a new light on our daily existence!

Ho’oponopono for starters

In July I am attending a Ho’oponopono workshop, I will tell you about what I learned and experienced!