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Podcast title	Learn To Meditate - Meditation Podcast
Website URL	http://meditation.org.au
Description	This beginners meditation course features a variety of meditation techniques including mantra, meditating with the breath and music, concentration and meditation on a object. Each class includes a discussion topic and a guided meditation exercise. The Meditation Society of Australia (http://meditation.org.au) has no religious, political or financial affiliations, it is a community organization designed to help people meditate.
Updated	Wed, 31 Dec 2008 13:04:00 +1000
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Category	Health Religion & Spirituality
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1. Meditation - the new common sense http://meditation.org.au download (video/mp4, 14.44Mb) Description: Most people find that after some time, the benefits of meditation are revealed in their life, even before they fully understand what meditation is. This is normal. Remember that meditation is an experience of the heart and not of the mind, for us to learn how to meditate, we need to trust the messages of our heart. This is a short video introduction to meditation. It speaks of a new common sense that puts the sacred art of meditation aside from just the religious traditions of the past, and involves meditation with every day and every endeavour of our lives.
2. Class 1 - Meditation for Beginners http://meditation.org.au/class... download (audio/mpeg, 8.67Mb) Description: Meditation is an extremely simple process. It follows three distinct steps; we start with the superficial, scattered mind, we then progress by virtue of our hearts concentration - to deeper, analytical thinking and finally from this very deep thinking we enter into intuitive states, revelations, "I know this is right" feelings or extremely vivid goals or intense creativity or spiritual dreams. When thinking stops and intuitive experience takes over, this is meditation.
3. Class 2 - The Meaning of Life http://meditation.org.au/chkpa... download (audio/mpeg, 12.18Mb) Description: How are we supposed to have clear life goals if we do not know why we are here? Wisdom requires not thought but experience, it always feels very simple as it is a revelation of our real self. It is a meditation experience.
4. Class 3 - The Path of the Heart http://meditation.org.au/chkpa... download (audio/mpeg, 11.36Mb) Description: Simply put, if we allow ourselves to be thinking negatively, to be caught up in hate or anger or restlessness and worry, then we are going to view the world through that state of mind. It is as if we are wearing a pair of glasses that warps our vision in a negative way.
5. Class 4 - The Path of the Heart (cont) http://meditation.org.au/chkpa... download (audio/mpeg, 11.57Mb) Description: It is a journey of the opening heart and the letting go of all that binds it. For our journey a vehicle is necessary. This vehicle has four wheels and they need to be perfectly balanced. The wheels of our vehicle are our body, vital (emotions), mind and heart.
6. Class 5 - Learning to learn http://meditation.org.au/chkpa... download (audio/mpeg, 10.36Mb) Description: A valuable person is one who believes that he/she can do anything. With no fear of new tasks there is enormous potential and the possibility to learn quickly, quietly and efficiently. This is the basis of ‘Positive Learning’ and lies at the heart of a meditation lifestyle. ‘Positive Learning’ utilises ‘chunking’ or designing a simple step-by-step process that paces a skill into smaller achievable tasks. For example if you were learning to play the guitar, you might begin by learning how to place your fingers on the fretboard for two simple chords. Then with practise you might try a few more, until eventually you would be able to play a complete song. As we break down our learning process into steps, we find a circular procedure being formed the ‘Success Spiral’.
7. Class 6 - Loving, Learning and Laughter http://meditation.org.au/chkpa... download (audio/mpeg, 12.91Mb) Description: Sometimes we wonder about the decisions we make. Are they from the mind or the heart? We might ask - 'Is this a decision that is unveiling my highest possible destiny or perhaps just an easy, comfortable solution that fits into my outer life?'
8. Class 7 - The evolving thought http://meditation.org.au/chkpa... download (audio/mpeg, 10.42Mb) Description: The journey for every thought is from gross physical or material desire to love in all its flavours: from romance to real wisdom or truth.
9. Class 8 - Praise and Gratitude http://meditation.org.au/chkpa... download (audio/mpeg, 9.52Mb) Description: Topics include: 'Praise and Gratitude'. The great masters have always talked about gratitude as the great opener of the heart. That by offering gratitude we actually increase the heart’s receptivity. What a wonderful opportunity we have with such a simple dynamic as a ‘thank you’.
10. Class 9 - Constructing Heaven http://meditation.org.au/chkpa... download (audio/mpeg, 8.35Mb) Description: As we release ourselves from the outer constructs of ourselves what naturally radiates from the inmost recesses of our existence is the lightness and freedom and joy of the real – the kingdom of heaven within us – that defines our real and eternal nature. Is it not also uncanny the fact that when we are in the dark we feel ourselves imprisoned, enslaved – that even though our conditioning usually paints freedom as the ability to have any material or physical need immediately fulfilled – the reality of the darkness is that far from freeing – it enchains us.
11. Class 10 - To Be http://meditation.org.au/chkpa... download (audio/mpeg, 6.05Mb) Description: It is very easy to philosophize and talk and muse about all kinds of deep spiritual perspectives, but from the point of view of our actual spiritual progress, what we ‘be’ is the most important thing. That is, how we live our spirituality.
12. Class 11 - The Ego and the Soul http://meditation.org.au/chkpa... download (audio/mpeg, 7.48Mb) Description: Topics include: 'The Ego and the Soul'. In this class you will understand the roles of the ego and the soul and learn to discern your inner voice. The single most asked question we have come across is "how do I tell what are the messages of my ego and those of my soul?" To be true the ego and the soul have an existence within each other and so there is a measure of blurring between their realities but for the purposes of this class, let's separate them at their poles, so that we might more easily understand their nature and where they overlap.
13. Class 12 - Offering and Receiving Love http://meditation.org.au/chkpa... download (audio/mpeg, 8.04Mb) Description: Topics Include: "Offering and Receiving Love" - It is impossible to feel unhappy when we are offering love for real joy is the result of the flow of love. There is no more 'in-nature' a state, no closer to heaven, in fact, heaven's singular characteristic is the constant offering of love. To be sure, heaven wishes nothing more than to flow through each of us, empowering and inspiring us with the infinite, spiritual force of the universe.
14. Class 13 - Work http://meditation.org.au/chkpa... download (audio/mpeg, 8.97Mb) Description: Topics Include: how to work easily with no stress and high efficiency and how to direct your spiritual life effortlessly to more and more of your so-called "outer life" Often in doing these classes, a common problem is the management of 'outer' work activities and our spiritual lives. The overwhelming complaint is that all this meditation and spiritual activity is fine for the time that we are not involved in our jobs and ‘outer’ lives, but what do we do then? Obviously, the goal is not to create two separate lives, but rather to blend a much more holistic sense of self.
15. Class 14 - Oneness and Humility http://meditation.org.au/chkpa... download (audio/mpeg, 10.82Mb) Description: Topics Include: Understand the difference between intellectual belief and spiritual realisation and how to practise humility. The human ego is a wonderful tool, but can also leave us in a wonderful mess. It is very common for those studying spiritual philosophy to feel that their intellectual understanding is a spiritual truth, but this is a particularly dangerous trap! Everything understood must also be realised.
16. Class 15 - Living our Spiritual Lives http://meditation.org.au/chkpa... download (audio/mpeg, 6.20Mb) Description: Topics Include: practising a walking meditation and contemplating the process of meditation in action. Most of us have spent our lives living 'outside' of our real nature. We often have confused the desires of our body, ego and intellect, with the divine wishes of our soul. If you just reflect upon for a moment the way we habitually walk anywhere currently, you might be aware that most of the time, we are thinking about another place we want to be, or things we have to do, or any number of extraneous thoughts. We rarely are conscious of the present moment, and our heart and soul in the process of walking. Meditation, our spiritual life, seeks to redress the balance. It seeks to deepen every moment of our lives with the richness of experience of our own heart.
17. Class 16 - Letting Go http://meditation.org.au/chkpa... download (audio/mpeg, 7.43Mb) Description: Topics Include: Sometimes the hardest thing to do in our spiritual lives is to let go. There are so many chains that we drag around with us. Chains that might be attached to the heaviest, most cumbersome loads but we struggle on, fighting against our own very nature most of the time, because we simply do not know how to, or fear, letting go.
18. Class 17 - String Theory http://meditation.org.au/chkpa... download (audio/mpeg, 7.58Mb) Description: Topics Include: Explore the energy within the universe and look at 'string theory' and how it relates spiritually.
19. Class 18 - Life Changers http://meditation.org.au/chkpa... download (audio/mpeg, 10.36Mb) Description: Topics Include: In my own life, I came to a point where I was amazed at how little I knew about how to increase the quality of my life. I was happy, but I was not getting any happier, and I had no idea how to increase my happiness.
20. Class 19 - Enthusiasm and Inspiration http://meditation.org.au/chkpa... download (audio/mpeg, 14.52Mb) Description: Topics Include: Our daily meditation can sometimes become stale. We find ourselves having trouble getting new inspiration or enthusiasm. We sit to meditate and without inspiration our meditation might become a bit of a day dream, or we could find ourselves nodding off to sleep. We need to continuously look for ways for our meditation to evolve, ways to increase our enthusiasm and inspiration.
21. Class 20 - The first twenty, now where? http://meditation.org.au/chkpa... download (audio/mpeg, 12.33Mb) Description: Topics Include: The 20th class is a great achievement - well done! We'd really like to thank you for letting us into your spiritual life and we hope that you have enjoyed the classes so far. This class is all about assimilation. How you can live your spiritual life most effectively.
22. Class 21 - Guilt http://meditation.org.au/chkpa... download (audio/mpeg, 11.72Mb) Description: Topics Include: Understand more about guilt and how to use it for yourself. Learn about constructive and destructive negatives. In the next few classes, we are going to talk about some of these, namely guilt, anger, fear and more. The one thing you will notice is that negative qualities are energy black-holes, they drain us very, very quickly by taxing our attention and focus and diverting us from the energy-giving divine within us all.
23. Class 22 - Anger http://meditation.org.au/chkpa... download (audio/mpeg, 6.61Mb) Description: Topics Include: How anger is really a cry for us to act. When we are angry we do not listen, we react without thinking, we feel unsafe, alone and threatened. Our lives can become hellish if we are often angry, especially for those that are unable to have an outlet for their anger, not to mention those that do have an outlet - for often it is the less physically powerful that receive the brunt of anger's violence.
24. Class 23 - Fear http://meditation.org.au/chkpa... download (audio/mpeg, 16.84Mb) Description: Topics Include: Fear - a positive place to start. When we speak of fear, we speak of the most profound of all negativities. Profound because fear is the root of all negativity, and because it most clearly exposes us to the most powerful of all dangers, the loss of awareness of our real self, our soul. It is the ego that fears, not the soul. It's ultimate fear is to lose itself. This is why death scares it so much. It is sure it is all there is, so death means extinction. It also fears what it perceives to be separate from itself. Other people. Nature. The Wind. A storm. Fate. Animals. Even one’s own soul. The soul knows that we are not separate from each other. We are one. So why should we fear? The soul says ‘there is nothing to fear. Even time or death are but manifestations of our eternal experience.’
25. Class 24 - Birthdays http://meditation.org.au/chkpa... download (audio/mpeg, 5.49Mb) Description: Topics Include: The birthday is an extremely important day to the spiritual aspirant. Whether we realize it or not we do arrive at a particular time and place for a specific reason. There is nothing random about you being born on the date and time you were born.For this reason we should treat our birthdays with real reverence.
26. Class 25 - Listening http://meditation.org.au/chkpa... download (audio/mpeg, 5.48Mb) Description: There is a great deal of benefit to be derived from simply listening in almost every dimension of life but in particular in the spiritual life. To listen is a requirement for any spiritual evolution. It is the foundation of change. Without listening we cannot transform ourselves. It is listening that keeps us young and flexible. And it is not listening that ages us and makes us stagnant and unyielding. To listen to another is the first doorway to the flow of love between you. To listen to oneself is the doorway to the infinite flow of love within and between all things.
27. Class 26 - Depression http://meditation.org.au/chkpa... download (audio/mpeg, 10.15Mb) Description: Topics Include: Understand more about depression and how to treat it spiritually Find out the causes of depression Depression is a very serious condition. This class is not designed to be a cure-all for everyone, but it is hoped it will help inspire with a spiritual approach. Many times people with depression will feel helpless to change their current state, as though there is no point or that no-one can help. Depression often follows anger and helplessness. We quite often are literally beating ourselves up. Many times people that suffer from depression are extremely intelligent, very sensitive and compassionate people. Their sense of helplessness parallels the same spiral people suffering from anger travel into resentment and stress related illnesses (mentioned in class 22- Anger).
28. Class 27 - Learning from the Negatives http://meditation.org.au/chkpa... download (audio/mpeg, 8.31Mb) Description: Topics Include: For the last few classes we have been talking about ‘so-called’ negative qualities. To summarise all negatives are really just the bludgeon of change. Every negative quality is actually just a wall we hit as the last stop before we learn and grow. It was the Dalai Lama that said that there isn’t a big problem that did not start as a small one. This is true of all pain. Believe it or not, there is not a thing that happens in the world for no reason. Just as if a child was about to burn himself by putting his hand into a flame, an adult would yell and grab the child from harms way. The child might cry with the shock of being yanked to safety but most of us would say that that pain was necessary so the child would learn and grow. "Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional." Anonymous So it is for us exactly the same. Each so-called ‘negative’ that we experience remains negative while we experience it as a negative. For the child, we all say to the child ‘look you were so lucky, we saved you from being burned’. We try to teach the child that the pain was actually a positive experience because now it has learned and it will act differently. If this works the child will forget the pain of being saved, he will act differently and the lesson will be learned. If it did not get the lesson properly – it might feel angry or resentful at the pain the adult that ‘saved’ it inflicted and not learn a valuable lesson. In effect, the child would allow the pain to be swallowed down and fester inside the child, in resentment or anger.
29. Class 28 - Living Your Bliss http://meditation.org.au/chkpa... download (audio/mpeg, 10.58Mb) Description: Topics Include: Understand how blissful life actually is. For many to live in bliss is a fantasy. To be happy is not seen as a permanent state but as a kind of fleeting moment, a gift that fate might offer from time to time. Some people even think of too much happiness as being slightly delusional or uncaring for those that are suffering. It is simply unimaginable that a person could live free from suffering, free from the occasional nightmare, free from anxiety or pain, free from any or all negativity. But to live in bliss is possible. Not only possible but inevitable. Our most natural state is actually blissful. Many of us think we naturally are in a struggle with life, that we have to fight against fate, that we have to take what we need or we will be left behind. The opposite is true. We are naturally really happy beings. Our experience of fate is dictated by our choices, by our thoughts and intentions. The universe is actually incredibly abundant. It is only that we have created a series of illusions that stop us from experiencing our real blissful nature. To be very simple about this, the universe is love manifest. Stop for a second and get that. Make sure you understand that sentence. The universe is love manifest. When we experience this, we are blissful. When we are caught thinking the physical images that love projects through are the reality, we are not. It really is that simple. Our problem is complicating our lives. With every complication we give more credence to the illusion than to the reality.
30. Class 29 - Charity & Oneness http://meditation.org.au/chkpa... download (audio/mpeg, 12.57Mb) Description: Topics Include: Understand the relationship between charity and oneness. Roger walked into what was sometimes known as 'The Lost City' and was immediately struck by the level of suffering. This was not one or two homeless and hungry, this was tens of thousands of lost, lonely and painful souls. There were those bankrupt, those ostracised for their colour, religion, their weight or lack of weight, their ugly faces or scars or criminal record, their sexuality, their violence, their mental illness, their lack of education. There were people everywhere, in everyone’s faces, most were barely conscious from a cocktail of alcohol and drugs and petrol and paint cans. Everyone was on top of everyone and all they seemed to want was distance. A mess of urine and faeces littered the landscape but mostly it choked Rogers breath. He could barely breathe without feeling he was going to vomit. Involuntarily already he had dry wretched but had been able to hide it feebly behind a movement of his hand. He stared away not because he meant to, but because he physically could not get his eyes to look. He had never seen anything like it. This lack of human dignity, lack of human self-worth. Then he recognised a face, a shining light, a nerdy, gawky looking girl he recognised from high school. She caught his eyes immediately and smiled. There was nothing at all attractive about her physically but in this place she exuded warmth and presence. All the suffering people around her seemed to gather another breath as she walked past.
31. Class 30 - Free Your Mind http://meditation.org.au/class... download (audio/mpeg, 14.77Mb) Description: Topics Include: - appreciate the power of the mind - create an ego that will serve you not you serve it. One of the finest instruments given to us at the start of our life here on earth is our wonderful and complex mind. From the point of view of our meditation life the mind can be a blessing, but, if not properly trained, a profound hindrance. Its main feature is its malleability. This is also its problem. It can be made to believe anything. Indeed, it can even believe that it is in charge. It is programmed by its own thoughts, its own creation, and the more a thought is repeated the more likely it is to be believed. The mind is a master of habit. A habit is a thought pattern that requires no decision making process. For a computer this would be called a program. We program our mind by repetition. Just reflect for a moment how powerful this is. Just by repeating a thought pattern over and over, firstly it becomes a habit (so we no longer make decisions about it) and most often it becomes a belief, no matter how wrong it might actuality be. It is as though the mind is on ‘automatic’ and it programs itself by the things we repeat to it. It’s actually amazingly ingenious. With this very same process it creates an ego, which is really nothing more than a bunch of habits and repeated thoughts about what has happened - our past, and what might happen - our future. The ego exists only in the mind’s past and future. Whenever we observe the mind we see this play of time. The ego does not understand what exists in the now. The mind has very little to do with the flow of love in the present moment. However, the heart is completely in the present moment, which also contains within it the entire universe and all of time, i.e. eternity. From the present moment the heart in the flow of love projects out through the mind in intuition, inspiration and creativity. The mind and ego should really be a mouthpiece of the heart, but most often it gets so carried away with itself and its own noise that it completely shuts the heart out. It tries to make us believe that it is the only reality, and attempts to do this by always keeping us thinking about the past or the future, and never experiencing the present moment where it does not understand who it is.
32. Class 31 - Getting Stuck http://meditation.org.au/class... download (audio/mpeg, 0.88Mb) Description: Topics Include: - how to get out of a spiritual funk - learn if you are on the right path, working at the right job or if you have found your soul-mate. - widen your meditation experience with group meditation The spiritual seekers worst nightmare In the spiritual community, a common theme is of getting stuck. We wonder if we are on the right path, whether we are working at the right job, if we are doing what our heart is telling us to do, whether our friends really understand us, whether we should move from our current location in the city to in the country with the cows and the forests, or from the country to the city, or from this city to another city. We wonder where our soulmate is, or if this is our soulmate? Whether we should be Buddhist or Hindu or Christian or Muslim or this sect or that cult. We wonder why in every moment it is not blatantly obvious that we are living our absolute highest? "To progress, we have to change.." The reality is that there is no career, there is no soul mate, there is no place, no city, no country, no one else that can add very much to our spiritual life if we are not present. We must realize that every day is not rainy. Every day is not sunny. Some days there are floods and tornados and some days there are storms and rainbows, and some days are just like any other day. But every day is perfect and there is only one answer to being stuck and that is the flow of love. We cannot blame our place or our wife or our job, if we want to live a higher life, we need to stop, be in the present moment and offer and/or receive love. It is that simple. If we are not happy, or indeed if we are not as happy as we were formerly, there is only one answer, the flow of love. We need to stop and be. In the flow of love. We tend to believe that if we had another job with more money and less financial strain then we would be able to meditate more. That if my life wasn’t so stressful, then I would be able to be in my heart. That if I find my soul mate, then I will be more spiritual. That I have so much to do to just function in my normal day to day life that I have no time to meditate or to be in the flow of love. That I have kids or my wife is sick or I just got fired or I was abused when I was a kid, or I am too fat or too thin, or I am addicted to drugs or alcoholic or whatever the story, because that is what all these things are, our stories. The stories of our egos, the soap operas of our minds.
33. Class 32 - The brain is a reducing valve http://meditation.org.au/class... download (audio/mpeg, 9.93Mb) Description: We have become the kings and queens of prejudgement. There is so much information for us to take in it is almost a prerequisite for sanity that we develop methods of screening out the unimportant. The only thing is that the media, advertising the sounds and sights of the illusion are shouting all the time at us in CAPITALS TELLING US THAT WHAT THEY ARE SAYING IS VERY IMPORTANT. Sadly, we believe them and we start to filter out the wrong things. We start to believe it is really an imperative to be rich and famous and have power over others. We really do think that the terrorists are everywhere, that to be in fear is a normal state and that we need a facelift or botox to retain our worth. Even more than this, we become the experts of categorising so as not to experience a thing fully. If something does not have a name it does not exist. We look at things and measure and analyse their surfaces and mistake that for their reality. 'O he is gay, or she is too young, or too old, or too fat. He is a druggie, an alcoholic, he’s divorced or bankrupt' do you see what I mean? These dimensions of prejudgment are so insidious that we begin to be bored with everything because we have prejudged everything. We have seen it all. The reality is that we have actually experienced very little. Instead of scanning over the top of everything and labeling and prejudging, if we stopped at any single thing and experienced it fully in the infinite power and presence of now, we would find that there are universes within each thing we are not even glimpsing. Jamie was bored and uninspired. There was nothing to do. His playstation needed an upgrade, the internet was dull and his girlfriend was away with her parents. He thought about his future. What he might do. A surfer? A professional skater? ‘Nah’ he thought, ‘I couldn’t do that – I am not good enough’. He turned on the TV and sat and stared, flicking through hundreds of channels and falling deeper into his chair. He was overweight, lacking in confidence and too young for most things but already too old to change. His parents were out and he had wondered for some time what their preoccupation with alcohol was about. So he decided to try some. A bottle of whisky had been opened and was sort of water colored so he poured a little into a glass and refilled it carefully with water. It was so strong on his lips and actually so distasteful that he immediately wanted to spit it out. But he ploughed on, assuring himself that it must be important because all the adults were drinking it all the time. The effect was immediate, he felt himself relax. As though there was a distance between the nothingness he had just been getting bored with and the excitement and ‘maturity’ of being more adult. Believe it or not his addiction had begun. He was no more than 11, but he very quickly associated alcohol and drugs with the distance he needed from pain and boredom and the things he did not understand. The example of most adults was to reinforce this in Jamie’s mind. He saw it over and over again that when people were troubled or perhaps did not understand why something had happened, drugs where there to distance them from the pain. And he was always bored. He had labels for everything and everyone, mostly they came from others but he enjoyed them all. He enjoyed the safety they gave him. He never had to listen or to think because all the labels meant he could dismiss a thing before it tried to change him. Whenever he met someone new, inside his head he would scan for a label, a prejudgement and then dismiss them. She’s a ‘red-neck’, he’s a ‘hippie’, they’re ‘gay’, a ‘muslim’, never done drugs or whatever it might be. The reality was while they were able to be labelled he was able to dismiss. And not listen, not change, not grow. Everyone was in a minority group and everyone and everything was at a distance and therefore boring. This approach of Jamie’s is quite universal. We are taught to stay on the surface of our lives, to stay with the ego and not allow the deeper introspection that might allow us to realise our other deeper dimensions. This is what the world of the ego demands. For it the past and future are incredibly important but the now is not, in the now it is lost. The ego is always striving to be one cm higher than the next person and labels ensure this. The ego will walk in a room and see tables and chairs that have a past and future, dead matter with a function and perhaps fashion. In a few moments it will have prejudged in some manner with labels and names and be quickly bored. But the heart will come and feel energy, it will see the color and energy of things, see the life within the flowers on the table, or even the table and chairs themselves. It might feel a depth in any single thing perhaps even a single point of paint on one of the legs of the chairs. The heart will feel vibrating energy, love all around and even the smallest thing will open multi-dimensional universes of perception and reality. The heart does not know how to label and name, to prejudge or analyse intellectually, it knows only how to feel. How to feel eternity and infinity in a moment. By the time Jamie was 20, he had tried every drug known to man, he had robbed and stealed and long ago been kicked out of his house. He lived now on the streets of an unnamed city with pain coursing through every cell of his being more and more. His overwhelming desire was for more distance. More distance from his pain. Distance from the things he did not understand. From the people he hated. From those that he ripped off. Distance was his mantra. Distance from his heart. Because it was his heart, his conscience, that the drugs were in charge of silencing. Then one night his addictions became too much. His blaming and prejudging every one and everything else took him to the side of a road with a syringe full of something that he knew was way too much, but it was all he knew. He hated himself. He hated that he couldn’t get this figured out. That he couldn’t be like everyone else. The world was screwed up and this was the only way to get distance, to get numb. The walls were closing in on his life. There was no other way he knew except distance. He no longer knew how to love and worse, he had no idea how to receive it. His mum and dad and sisters and brother had only last week came and offered to give him whatever he needed, had hugged him and told him they loved him, but he had returned to the only comfort he understood. He certainly had no idea how to receive their love. And as the syringe squeezed down and into the last of his veins, he felt the ultimate pain of regret. Of not seeing. Of not looking any deeper than the surface. Of not knowing the 'universe in a grain of sand' or the vastness of 'eternity in an hour'. He looked at himself there on the gutter with vomit oozing gently from his pain wrecked body and felt the lament of someone who had not seen. And suddenly he did. He saw the love that had surrounded him, the people that had cared, the leaves and the flowers that had tried to radiate energy and meaning to him, the raindrops, O those raindrops that splashed on his face. And the pain now was so full and all encompassing, the pain of regret. He looked up and there was finally a friend. No judgement, no labels just a friend with unconditional love. And in the pain he could finally see that it would be resolved. He would get another chance. It would be even more painful, but he would get another chance. He knew that he had to make it through and it would only come with this deeper seeing that he felt now. That even the pain was an exhortation for him to see. And finally he welcomed it, He felt the pain a wonderful blessing. For the pain meant he was still being given the chance to grow. ‘O blessed pain’ he thought, ‘O blessed pain, thank you.’ His friend continued to smile. Nothing said. And he realised something more. That all his life he had craved distance when actually all he wanted to feel now was closeness. He realised that the labels and the prejudging kept him stuck in the ego, stuck in the illusion of the surface. He realised that just looking at something with his heart, just like he was doing now, he could see things with much more depth and authenticity. He realised all his labels did was try and identify the only part of a thing that was actually not real, that the real reality was far deeper and beyond the names and labels. He looked around and realised that science and our world had millions of different names for all these things but in reality there was only one name that made sense and that was love. All this was love. It was love in a trillion bazillion different guises but it was all love. Every label, every criticism had shut the door on another way love could shine through. His friend smiled broadly and they walked off. He had all the time in the world.
34. Class 33 - The Pain of Happiness http://meditation.org.au/class... download (audio/mpeg, 6.73Mb) Description: Many of us are under the misapprehension that happiness is defined by a constancy of laughter, an absence of conflict and a lack of pain. But it is actually a much different beast, or should I say dove. Laughter without connectedness is just empty comedy, it does not last. Harmony without understanding and love is just a low form of tolerance. And no pain with no love is just a vacant existence. 'It is far better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all' (Tennyson) The real definition of happiness from a spiritual perspective is very simply about connectedness. The more connected we are with each other, nature and God the happier we will be. This happiness is about lasting fulfilment. It is not imprisoned by one or two emotions. At its highest, real and full happiness encapsulates them all. It is a little like the perfection of nature itself. It changes. Often. Some days there are cyclones, some there are tornados, often it is sunny and calm, at other times it is rainy. Every day, though, has its perfection. Every moment is faultless. Every emotion, every feeling is an expression of love – the more love, the higher it will be and the more connected it will make us. As we have talked about before, pain is like this. Even anger at its highest can make us happy. Most emotions that we call negative, however, are usually about disconnecting us from each other, it is only at their absolute positive pole that they become obviously loving. I have a friend who felt the most love in her life at the funeral of her son. She was extremely sad and in pain, but there were moments were she felt immense love and connectedness. It was the saddest and happiest and most connected time of her life. Many women speak of childbirth as the most significant moment of their lives. A time of the greatest pain, but also, perhaps the most love, the most connectedness, the most happiness. For most sports people, the ultimate experience often comes at the apex of the most pain. The runner, the gymnast, the ballet dancer tell of pushing through pain to effortlessness and blissfulness. Or to be even more mainstream, if you have ever done a fun-run you will know the pain and the bliss. Many artists feel they have to have pain for them to be creative. That their best works often comes at the time of most pain. Many people that have major tragedies occur in their lives, such as an accident or other near-death experience, recall these events as turning points, often as epiphanies of great connectedness or love. Others have got very angry about an inequality or injustice and that anger has fuelled a flow of love and connectedness that became immediately immensely powerful. This oneness is born in anger but immediately is transformed via determination into the flow of love that creates enormous happiness. Some people argue that Christ was not happy being crucified, but in that great pain, I would contend, came his moments of highest connectedness and greatest happiness. To be really happy does not mean there are not events that from an outsiders point of view look painful. The happy person sees all of them as expressions of love and is therefore happy. The point is that to be truly happy we need to fill every moment, every emotion with the highest love, the highest connectedness. This is actually the nature of God if you think about it. Being omnipotent means you are involved in every thing, every experience, the difference is God is always connected and knows it, and is therefore ultimately blissful, but also full of pain. Our paths are all completed in that blissful connectedness. No matter which journey we take to get there. In the end, it is the one thing that is sure. In the beginning, the middle and the end, we are one. The highest happiness is simply being in the highest flow of love.
35. Class 34 - Hypnosis, Affirmations & Meditation (UPDATED 30 DEC 2008) http://meditation.org.au/class... download (audio/mpeg, 8.01Mb) Description: The difference between meditation and hypnosis is very stark. They both use very similar entry techniques, to relax and calm the mind and become concentrated and peaceful. They are both very powerful self development tools, but that is where the similarity ends. In my experience of hypnosis the focus is on the subconscious, and in understanding and reprogramming past negative learned behaviours. We enter into very deep concentrative states where we are able to replace bad habits and negative thought patterns from the past with positive, inspiring thought models for the future. Often just becoming aware of a negative thought habit is enough to dismantle it. Hypnosis makes it apparent again that lots of what we have programmed into our subconscious can be extremely detrimental. It makes us recognise that just because we repeat a thought doesn't make it true, but that is exactly what our subconscious assumes. I have seen examples where people have recognised compulsive eating habits as a means of hiding oneself or subconsciously taking oneself out of the dating game so as to be free from being hurt in relationships. Or of smoking or drug addictions as a means of punishing oneself over some form of guilt or self-hate. There are so many scenarios where unless we explore our subconscious we keep burying these extremely negative behaviours. Hypnosis is an extremely powerful tool for dealing with the past, and by dealing positively with the past it can help create very positive futures. Affirmations can be a form of self-hypnosis where a word or a phrase is repeated over and over as a means of reprogramming our subconscious. They are the most powerful when one is focussed and concentrated but are effective even amidst the hustle and bustle of worries and anxieties. A simple affirmation, such as ‘calm down, calm down’ can be very effective. More powerfully with silence and full concentration, ‘I love and forgive myself’ might be an affirmation that very simply changes our world. In meditation the focus is on the heart and the soul and the present moment. We leave the past and future and put all of our attention on ‘now’. In the 'now' in meditation we feel expanded and connected with one another and every thing, in calm peace. It is the flow of love, the giving and receiving of love that lies at the heart of meditation. Meditation simply accepts the past and in that way releases itself from its talons. Whatever has happened, has happened. They are only thoughts and they do not control us. They are simply released if they are destructive and celebrated if positive. It does not usually attempt to reprogram past thought patterns or behaviours rather through the infusion of love in the meditator, it is felt that new, higher thought patterns naturally develop and old habits are released or transformed. In my view, meditation is the simplest and most effective method of spiritual development. Unlike prayer where we lay out what we believe we need and do all the talking, meditation hands over the process to our heart and soul, or in some cases to God, and says you do the talking and I will listen. Sometimes in hypnosis it is hard to be clear on what our primary focus should be, on what we need most and so we may be directing ourselves to issues that are not important for this moment. In meditation we realise that by listening and having faith in ourselves, we can be directed and guided the most effectively. Because hypnosis is grounded in the past it is only able to clear obstructions to our future. Meditation, however, being in the now, the only place we are actually transformed, can work to help us actually evolve now. In this way we simply release our destructive past and elevate the thought patterns, the creators of our future.
36. Class 35 - The Masculine Warrior Energy http://meditation.org.au/class... download (audio/mpeg, 7.22Mb) Description: What is the masculine energy of the universe and why is it so important? What is a warrior spirit? Since we are all a mix of masculine and feminine energy, we can benefit from a clear understanding of the highest vision of masculine energy, whilst in the next class we will explore the feminine. The displays of masculine energy are most raw in ancient, more primal societies, where the man was the keeper of boundaries, the hunter and provider of food, the physical strength behind manufacture and the imagination of the innovator and creator. The masculine energy is like fire. When it is used properly it is creative, practical, benevolent and visionary. When misused it can burn and destroy in egoic anger and/or resentment. To be a warrior does not mean that we are stupidly brave or recklessly courageous, it means that we act with complete confidence and faith in the dialog of our spirit, with the voice of our conscience. Reason takes second place to the masculine warrior who acts decisively and with clear purpose. One listens to one’s heart, reasons with objectivity and intelligence, and then acts. Sometimes to others, this may seem illogical but to the warrior there is a duty to the authentic self first and reason second. Bravery or courage is not within a warrior’s reckoning, it purely is what one must do. There is always a flow of love in every action of the warrior, where ultimately it is love that powers the action and connects the warrior with the infinite power of the universe. This way of acting becomes eventually effortless. Many believe that real masculinity is fearless, but this is not only impossible but also unwise. Every so called ‘negative’ quality as we have seen in earlier classes, is a catalyst for ‘positive’ action, the negative impacts come when we do not act. If we do not feel fear than we might act recklessly, without weighing all options. Fear can paralyse, but for the warrior, fear heightens and focuses our awareness and physical being, allows one to contemplate all options and then act with decisiveness and clarity. When we fight our fears, working against them, they become stronger because we are creating more inactive fearful thoughts worrying about our fears. ‘What we resist, persists’ The warrior works ‘with’ fear using it as a springboard for action, rather than ‘against’ it – and is empowered and strengthened. Fear itself is quickly transformed into clear, decisive action. The warrior knows that in anxiety and hesitation is paralysis and if fear is maintained in that condition it can quickly eat away the insides of the warrior. The warrior realises that the fear energy must be channelled into calm, positive action for it to realise its highest purpose. Because men are physically stronger than women and smarter then most other animals, there is a physical dominance that men have that has nothing to do with masculinity. This is a dimension of the ego that those without masculinity get confused about. They see the actions of the masculine and believe them to be about egoic or physical dominance, but in reality, masculine energy is never about dictating to others or towering above. It is about the strength and power of the flow love, about the example we set, how we empower and inspire each other, how we rise above division and how we give each other a hand up. Men and women need this masculine energy as much as they need the feminine energy. Without one or the other we are incomplete. The New Age man has sometimes confused the warrior with war mongerers. The real warrior is a man of peace, a man that realises that his highest bravery comes from being at peace with himself and understands that this translates to peace in the world. That war is of fear and peace, love. Violence or other physical domination is cowardice not strength, and the antitheses of masculinity. It is cowardice because it egoically quashes free will and encourages paralysis by fear, because the coward acts with fear and not love. The whole person is a combination of feminine and masculine, the height of connection, creativity and free will. War is fear’s lowest ebb, neither masculine nor feminine it is a vortex of paralysing fear and cowardice that halts creativity and free will and lashes out in terror against the conscience of masculinity. It has only one lasting solution, its opposite pole, the flow of love.
37. Class 36 - The Feminine Energy of the Universe http://meditation.org.au/class... download (audio/mpeg, 7.27Mb) Description: The displays of feminine energy are most evident in the mother. Even in these times the mother is the best example of both conditional and unconditional love. In conditional love the mother loves the child if the child does as she commands. Such as becoming a doctor or a lawyer and not going out with that kid from down the road. In unconditional love it would not matter to the mother if her child killed everyone in the street she would still be there at the jail with the knife in the cake saying ‘it’s not my johnny’s fault, it was that Johnson kid that was the bad one.’ Masculinity and femininity are as important as each other, although in our patriarchal society masculine energy has been valued more in the past. Now and into the future that is necessarily becoming balanced. Real femininity has little to do with feminism, nor does it have much to do with the traditional wife and mother model of the 1950’s. Real femininity just like real masculinity is more about the flow of love. Feminine love is compassionate, nurturing and benevolent, but more than anything it is connected. Authentic feminine love walks in another’s’ shoes easily. It is coupled as one. Real feminine energy understands deeply the concerns of not only one another in the human family but in every soul, animal, plant and mineral. Its deep empathy vibrates through the hearts of all. The mother energy is that which loves us no matter what we do. This is the highest, most divine love of all. A child needs this perfect love that the mother energy uniquely displays. We all need to know that we are children of the universe and that we are being loved no matter what. This is the most necessary of all forms of love and it is only the mother energy that innately shows this. All of our problems in the world stem from this energy not being received. We need to practise receiving and the first is from our mother earth. Whether you believe it or not the truth is there is a ‘Mother Nature’ energy that is constantly loving us and caring for us. We only need to sit for a moment in nature and offer our gratitude to the earth to feel her feminine unconditional love. But more than this we need to feel the mother energy in the universe, the air, the moon, the stars all around us and inside us we are being loved. If we are lucky enough to have parents that have cared for us, then it will be evident there too. With the reception of love everything starts with gratitude. Even with our parents, if we are able to offer our gratitude their divine feminine love will shine through. Their empathy, their connection with us is very spiritual and the cord it flows along is founded in the feminine energy of both parents. The ‘mother’ is present in every one of our actions, underlying every step with a connection to the universe that says to us that we are always being helped, we are never alone. Just as a child might tempestuously say to ‘leave me alone’, the mother waits patiently and unconditionally to help wherever she is allowed. The highest feminine energy increases the flow of love in the universe with unconditional oneness and understanding.