Love Meditation

by She Who Weaves the Web

As I sit here writing this article on meditation, I am bowed and humbled by what comes into my space always when I need it. Always in my seeking I am richly rewarded with the cure to all my ills and the ever winding way to joy.

My wrist is hurting pretty badly. I've been working too much, not taking enough breaks, collecting stress like a tin pail sitting in the rain. The pain emanating up my arm, the anger I felt when they forgot to give me cream for my coffee and the sullenness of my child are trying to tell me something. And then I have occasion today to write an article on meditation.

Nevermind that in my daily inspirational readings I get the "meditation" card 8 times out of 10 and the "balance career and home life" card at least once per week. I guess it sometimes takes a lot to get my attention! And so there is pain... So with a humbled heart and the inner knowing that the teacher is always, always the student I'm going to answer the call to remind you, as I remind myself, about the power of meditation.

I think many of us are coming to be more aware than ever of the power of meditation as a way to develop our connection with divinity. Many people who never knew their inner world held so much richness and bliss have found a whole new way to communicate with their soul and their spirit. But we've almost forgotten what meditation is doing for the body.

My irreverence for my body has been legendary. I have sculpted, starved, toxified, whipped and negelected this body with the best of them. I realize more and more that I have never accepted this human body, nor it's perceived limitations and that created a great deal of disdain within me for the body. But as they say, all paths lead to Rome and as every strike of the keyboard sends a shooting pain up my arm this will be the last thing I type for the next couple of days. I promise to "get it"!

Yes, meditation can help you fulfill your destiny and put you in touch with your omnipresent self, your God Self, Higher Self and the All That Is. And if you keep on that road I am seeing that as with all great spiritual truths, you are lead back to where you first began and you see it with new eyes, new awareness and new wisdom. And this is what has happened for me. I have been lead from the body that I never could accept, to the mind and the inner planes of my soul that I could happily enjoin with and back again to my body. Now I know what this journey has been about, at least up to this point. I also know there is always more...

As odd as it may sound, meditation has taken me out of my mind, by allowing me to connect through my mind with No-thing and that has placed me squarely back in my body. What an unexpected miracle this is!

As is written on the OSHO Zen website: "If you want to live a more fulfilled life, first you will want to know your potential, who you really are. Meditation is the route to that knowing. It is the methodology of the science of awareness. The beauty of the inner science is that it enables whoever wants to explore and to experiment within, to do so alone. This eliminates dependence on an outer authority, the need to be affiliated with any organization and the obligation to accept a certain ideology. Once you understand the steps, you walk the walk in your own, individual way."

Yes, I so relate to that and this is why I meditate, but I have been delivered to a new destination within myself and I have never been so present within my body.

Osho masters say, "Many meditative techniques require one to sit still and silent. But for most of us accumulated stress in our bodymind makes that difficult. Before we can hope to access our inner powerhouse of consciousness, we need to let go of our tensions. Osho Active Meditations have been scientifically designed by Osho over a period of time to enable us to consciously express and experience repressed feelings and emotions, and learn the knack of watching our habitual patterns in a new way."

So Osho, you mean that if I meditate I'm going to really get to know myself? Snap! I guess that's why it took me so long to do it! Boy, am I getting the picture here...but the message is so simple it's almost easy to miss. This, for me isn't about processing my pain. It's about paying attention and understanding just how simple the answers really are. It's about understanding what this most amazing miraculous creation called a human body is capable of and capable of manifesting. It is understanding that the bodymind is God in the flesh, ever burgeoning to be purified so that it's desires, signals and messages are perceived through the eyes of love and can be interpreted and acted upon through life-giving means.

Meditation can help you get clear, connect you with your own divinity, the divinity of everything else and deliver you back into your body with a new awareness, more clarity and the ability to respond to your own body talk. I guess it's really that simple. I can attest to the newly forming power within me to connect deeply, in presence to my physical body. It is downloading into me and each day I become stronger in the knowledge that I have to integrate all the parts of myself, body, mind and soul to become all that I can and beyond. For me finally these are no longer words. Through the power of meditation, quietly and pervasively like a gentle rain and even through that pinch in my wrist... I am made whole.

Let's do this together.

There are several options here if you would like assistance with meditation and to explore what is right for you.

Meditation Classes and Events (Southwest Florida):
Love Meditation - Center To Self Reliance - Monday's 7:30am or 6:30pm Call 239-337-7333
Meditation for Your Soul & Diksha Blessing with David Essel - Wednesday's 7-8pm (First Wed of the month is free!) Call 941-266-7676
Divine Dance - Transcendent Dance Experience with Renee Bledsoe - First Friday 7-9pm (next event March 13th) Call 239-560-6314
Church of Spiritual Light - Every Sunday - 9:45am - 11am (Begins with silent meditation)

All of these events are hosted at Center To Self Reliance. Call 239-337-7333

Divine Dance - Oct 10th

Please join us for Divine Dance on Friday night, October 10th from 7-9pm. Divine Dance is a free form dance gathering that promotes freedom of body movement and expression of self as a means of meditation, ritual and communion. We dance for about an hour or so (you can take breaks anytime and sit and watch or relax a bit) and then we end with a half hour Chill Meditation.
This is a FUN way to get together with friends and celebrate the body!

If you're wondering what life looks like without all the partying, staying up late in smokey bars and one drink too many - Divine Dance could be the antidote, as it allows you to honor the "wild child" within, without the high cost of partying too hardy! Once you experience how it feels to free your body and release some of that pent up energy in a sacred and profound way, we know you'll love Divine Dance. If you think that being "good" means life is boring - think again!

For more info visit www.divinedancelive.com

Church of Spiritual Light Potluck Luncheon - Oct 12

The Church of Spiritual LIght will host it's first first PotLuck Luncheon on Sunday afternoon immediately after the service on October 12th at Center To Self Reliance. Please bring your favorite dish to share.

For more info visit www.churchofspirituallight.org


We should look for someone to eat and drink with before looking for something to eat and drink... ~Epicurus

Addiction Alchemy - Raven Clan

The Addiction Alchemy clan gatherings have been hosted at the Center To Self Reliance for almost 2 years now and I am so grateful for the sacred space that it provides for our gatherings. Once again another clan is beginning a medicine wheel journey with The Raven Clan, on October 4th at 2-5pm at the Center.

Raven is an amazing archetype and guide for going deep within. If Raven has come into your life, you can expect that your imagination will be sparked, and you can definitely expect many changes to begin to take shape within your life. Raven is all about creation...and sometimes in order to create, we must first relinquish old habits, lifestyles and ways of being.

With Raven medicine you will be courageously led into the recesses of your inner self and be given not only the knowledge of what needs be done, but the wisdom and wherewithal to make those necessary changes. For it is by facing what lies deep within that we surface with the most treasure!

Please visit www.addictionalchemy.com for more infomation or contact Renee Bledsoe 239-560-6314.

Rich in Personal Relationships

Man is not holier or higher for the outward works that he does. Truly God that is the Beholder of the heart rewards the will more than the deed. The deeds truly hang on the will, not the will on the deeds. Richard Rolle

It is because we don't have any real challenge in life that most of us do not grow to our real height. We need a challege that is worthy of our capacities, and making money, if I may say so, is not much of a challenge. Neither is becomming famous or achieving power; and as for pleasure, challenge is conspicuous by its absence.

But becoming rich in personal relationships, learning to return love for hatred, being always aware of the unity of life, these things are the most difficult achievements on the face of the earth. Only when we see a person who has accomplished such feats do we begin to glimpse the heights a human being can attain. This is our real stature, and no matter what our problems or liabilities, every one of us can attain these heights through the regular, enthusiastic practice of meditation.

From Words to Live By Eknath Easwaran

"The Rabbi's Gift"

The story concerns a monastery that had fallen upon hard times. Once a great order, as a result of waves of antimonastic persecution in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the rise of secularism in the nineteenth, all its branch houses were lost and it had become decimated to the extent that there were only five monks left in the decaying mother house:the abbot and four others, all over seventy in age. Clearly it was a dying order.

In the deep woods surrounding the monastery there was a little hut that a rabbi from a nearby town occasionally used for a hermitage. Through their many years of prayer and contemplation the old monks had become a bit psychic, so they could always sense when the rabbi was in his hermitage. "The rabbi is in the woods, the rabbi is in the woods again" they would whisper to each other. As he agonized over the imminent death of his order, it occurred to the abbot at one such time to visit the hermitage and ask the rabbi if by some possible chance he could offer any advice that might save the monastery.

The rabbi welcomed the abbot at his hut. But when the abbot explained the purpose of his visit, the rabbi could only commiserate with him. "I know how it is," he exclaimed. "The spirit has gone out of the people. It is the same in my town. Almost no one comes to the synagogue anymore." So the old abbot and the old rabbi wept together. Then they read parts of the Torah and quietly spoke of deep things. The time came when the abbot had to leave. They embraced each other. "It has been a wonderful thing that we should meet after all these years, "the abbot said,"but I have still failed in my purpose for coming here. Is there nothing you can tell me, no piece of advice you can give me that would help me save my dying order?"

"No, I am sorry," the rabbi responded. "I have no advice to give. The only thing I can tell you is that the Messiah is one of you."

When the abbot turned to the monastery his fellow monks gathered around him to ask. "Well what did the rabbi say?" "He couldn't help," the abbot answered. "We just wept and read the Torah together. The only thing he did say, just as I was leaving -it was something cryptic- was that the Messiah is one of us. I don't know what he meant."

In the days and weeks and months that followed, the old monks pondered this and wondered whether there was any possible significance to the rabbi's words. The Messiah is one of us? Could he possibly have meant one of us monks here at the monastery? If that's the case, which one? Do you suppose he meant the abbot? Yes, if he meant anyone, he probably meant Father Abbot. He has been our leader for more than a generation. On the other hand, he might have meant Brother Thomas. Certainly Brother Thomas is a holy man. Everyone knows that Thomas is a man of light. Certainly he could not have meant Brother Elred! Elred gets crotchety at times. But come to think of it, even though he is a thorn in people's sides, when you look back on it, Elred is virtually always right. Often very right. Maybe the rabbi did mean Brother Elred. But surely not Brother Phillip. Phillip is so passive, a real nobody. But then, almost mysteriously, he has a gift for somehow always being there when you need him. He just magically appears by your side. Maybe Phillip is the Messiah. Of course the rabbi didn't mean me. He couldn't possibly have meant me. I'm just an ordinary person. Yet supposing he did? Suppose I am the Messiah? O God, not me. I couldn't be that much for You, could I?

As they contemplated in this manner, the old monks began to treat each other with extraordinary respect on the off chance that one among them might be the Messiah. And on the off off chance that each monk himself might be the Messiah, they began to treat themselves with extraordinary respect.

Because the forest in which it was situated was beautiful, it so happened that people still occasionally came to visit the monastery to picnic on its tiny lawn, to wander along some of its paths, even now and then to go into the dilapidated chapel to meditate. As they did so, without even being conscious of it, they sensed the aura of extraordinary respect that now began to surround the five old monks and seemed to radiate out from them and permeate the atmosphere of the place. There was something strangely attractive, even compelling, about it. Hardly knowing why, they began to come back to the monastery more frequently to picnic, to play, to pray. They began to bring their friends to show them this special place. And their friends brought their friends.

Then it happened that some of the younger men who came to visit the monastery started to talk more and more with the old monks. After a while one asked if he could join them. Then another. And another. So within a few years the monastery had once again become a thriving order and, thanks to the rabbi's gift, a vibrant center of light and spirituality in the realm

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This story came from The Different Drum, by Dr. M. Scott Peck, M.D. It is the story read at our team building Global Relationship course at the Center to Self Reliance.

UYO in Wakefield Kansas

Hello Everybody,

A friend of mine Steve Lewis, a recent graduate of UYO will be sponsoring a satellite course in Wakefield, Kansas . He’s some guy, I was fortunate enough to be at his course. My goodness what a transformation! I saw him go from isolated to connected over that weekend. I know that is why he wants others to have this awesome experience. I asked him to share with you all, his “big why”. You’ll get to read it a little farther down in this letter but, first I want to give you the specifics as the course supervisor. Everyone is invited to come and assist. There is still time to enroll students also. Let’s transform the town of Wakefield with all the love from the “Purple People”! Looking forward to seeing you there!!!

Date: September 19-21, 2008
Location: Deacons Lodge, Wakefield , Kansas
Website of the lodge: www.deaconslodge-wakefield.com

Steve's contact info: course cell is 785-447-1780 home 785-461-5498


Love,
Sparkle Simmons
Course Supervisor


Steve’s “Big Why”



My name is Steve Lewis. I am speaking to you about how UYO saved my life and taught me how to be grateful for my life. I didn't always feel grateful for my existence; after I got back from the first Gulf War, I became sick. I had what they called Persian Gulf Syndrome. You Vietnam Vets can relate to this illness, due to Agent Orange. I chose to blame others even God, for my illness. I felt that God was punishing me, for all the things I had done in my past. I chose to live in self pity for 15 long years.

After my wife left me, I had the choice of staying where I was or committing suicide. In my contemplating I finally called my brother for help in September 2007. He and his wife who was a former center owner and instructor had tried to get me into UYO for 13 years. I guess I had to take it in my own time. They loved on me and gave me so much support (it felt like my very own one on one UYO course!) It proved to be good timing because I found out in November 2007 that I had Prostate Cancer. I know that I would be dead now if not for my brother and sister-in-law.

So, in March at their suggestion I took the UYO course in FT. Myers , FL. to get the entire experience. It was great; I healed that part of me that had always felt broken! I mended some of the damage I had done with my wife and children, and I even let go of some of those ghosts haunting me after the war. I thank God for UYO, and thank you also to all of you who have kept UYO going so there would be a place to take it.

Now, I want to give that same unconditional love and acceptant to others in my life. I want other military people to be able to talk to friends and loved ones about their experiences. Be able to open up, let others support them, not just keep their feelings and experiences inside eating way at them. I know taking this course will help them heal same as it did me.

So, that’s why I’m hosting a UYO course in Wakefield , Kansas . I would love if you all would join me in giving the same love I once received. This course is not just for military even through there will be some service men and their families present. I would still love more assistants and students. Let me know if someone you love is in the military or even if you served, we’d love to have you! This will be a special course please join me September 19th-20th. I love my life and know now what a gift it is.


Thank You
Steve Lewis 1 sgt US Army (ret)

Contact info: course cell is 785-447-1780 home 785-461-5498
E-mail: essayons333@twinvalley.net
ESSAYONS means let us try; it comes from the Army corp. of engineers our MOTTO. (There is no Mission to Difficult no Task to Great, LET US TRY) let’s do this!!!

Relationship to Money

Relationships are funny things.

They develop and mold us and we identify ourselves as we see our role in them.

Never did I realize that relationships went beyond how I related to the people in my life until I took a course called Money Freedom through the Global Relationship Centers.

In Money Freedom I learned that I judged myself and other people by how much they made in contrast to me. More to the point, I learned how some early issues regarding money in my youth had a direct bearing on how much I was willing to let myself prosper.

Money Freedom set my whole notion of money, my sense of worthiness, and success on its ear!

I learned in very specific ways, how I directly influence my own income, and how my attitude really does have a direct bearing on how much I attract into my life.

I now have an even more abundant life and, having taken the course with my wife, argue less about money than ever before. We each are now more responsible for dealing with our own financial issues, rather than blaming one another.

Money Freedom taught me that no matter how much I have or do not have, that my decisions and ideas about money shape me every bit as much as any other relationship and that I could make some new decisions that are more in my best interest.

Do I still have issues with Money? I sure do. Now I am aware of them and know ways that I am responsible rather than just blaming my circumstances (or my wife). It was one of the best investments I ever made.

Testimony from a Global Relationship Instructor

Money Alert

The Money Freedom class is for REAL and it's being done at our Center. We have living proof. I am living proof. My income increased 30% within two years after taking this class. You really truly can increase your income and not even change your job unless you so choose. You also change your life to be abundant in all areas--it's true for me! Be of service to someone you care about and invite them to this class. Jan Davisson, Interior Designer