Originally posted on Facebook HERE
Beautiful day. I woke up thinking about what I might write about today, and was really being guided to write about love. Specifically, how do we/can we bring more love into our lives? There’s so much in a normal day to get aggravated, anxious, and worked up about. I sometimes wonder what my balance is of loving thoughts vs ego driven worries and anxieties. Because if tallied up, I think it wouldn’t be pretty. So, I started reading this morning from one of the books I currently have going (Being Nobody, Going Nowhere – incredible book), and today’s chapter is “loving-kindness”. I wound up highlighting basically the entire chapter. This was a snippet that really hit me: “The heart needs training because by nature it isn’t constituted to always feel loving-kindness. By nature it contains both love and hate. It contains ill will, rejection, resentment and fear, and also lovingness. But unless we diminish the hate and enlarge the love by doing something about it in our daily life, we have no chance of experiencing that peaceful feeling that loving-kindness generates in the heart.” Which then brings us to the question “what can we do in our daily lives to enlarge the love?”… Our egos are pretty good at eating up all our time so our souls don’t think much about this, much less work on it. The book I mentioned is a book about the importance of meditation, and I know that if I began a regular practice it would help me considerably. I’ve known it for years. To this day, I have yet to start it though. What if we all took 20 minutes a day to meditate? To get in contact with God, with Love, on a daily basis? I think the effects would be incredible. I know in my own life, when I was early in recovery from alcohol and drugs, I had a period where I read and meditated daily for a couple hours before I went to work. It was maybe the closest I’ve ever been to God as I know Him. If you asked me right now, “what’s the most important thing in life?” – I’d say “conscious contact with God”. If you followed that up with, “How much time have you spent on that this month?” – I’d say “none”. And I do believe a decent response to that would be “then it doesn’t seem like it’s very important to you”. Ouch. My ego has set my life up so it’s a constant barrage of “drinking from a firehose”, and very little peace. Yet peace is what I want. To be seen as a more loving person wouldn’t be a bad thing (I’m not sure “loving person” is the first thing that comes to mind when my name is mentioned). I knew I had a drinking problem back in the day, anyone who knew me could see that. I knew it for years. I tried a few half-ass measures and then one day (Nov 1, 1988), I decided to move in another direction and I haven’t used anything since. I feel like I’m at a similar crossroads here – I’ve known for years meditation would be good for me (and probably everyone around me), but I haven’t done it. I’m doing it today, though. And maybe it’s the first day of the next big positive change in my life – March 18, 2018 – the day I made love a priority. The day I started to really live the idea that “conscious contact with God” is important. I just need to make it my new “obsession” – I’ve proven myself to be pretty good with those. It is my hope anyone who has read this far is also seeking to expand loving-kindness in your life. We can change the world together, one person at a time, by making it a priority.
3 Comments
Dave, I agree with you; meditation ?♀️ probably would benefit everyone. I would like to suggest, too, that It, as with any worthwhile endeavor, need not be “full throttle or not at all” to be effective. Perhaps if you ease up on your strict regimen, you would find more time to dabble in more of things you have on your To Do list. Let your next “obsession” be to allow a little flexibility in your day. Just a friendly reminder. What do you think?
I’m actually working on quite a few things that could free up time for me. I’m also taking April 8-28 off from work to finish the book “Feed Your Angel”. I suspect that period of time will allow me to focus on making sure I’m spending my time going forward on the things I feel are important to me from a more metaphysical standpoint.
Dave, prayer is a form of meditation, I think. A “twofer” (after coffee and before a shower in the morning). For me at least, it’s touching base with God and thanking Him for all that is good in my life, and asking guidance for the day ahead. It’s also praying about the things that concern me and acknowledging that God is always in charge. And it’s also a 24/7 thing. An awareness that God is always there and ready for quick little prayers anytime – a reaction to a news story, or something you just heard from a friend or loved one. Sort of like formal prayer, which is meditation-like, and informal prayer. Your awareness will lead where you want to go.