Dear Integral Meditators,
I hope the first few days of the new year have been good for you, and that as you gaze into the landscape of 2014 you can feel the potential for new levels of growth and connectivity within your inner and outer life. This weeks article is a contemplation on the power that each of us has to mold and define our daily experience using the power of our conscious mind.
Yours in the spirit of the courage of consciousness,
Toby
The Conscious Self in the Landscape of the Mind
Imagine yourself in a landscape. It could be within wild nature, it could be in a cityscape, it could be a mixture of both. Feel the largeness of the sky above you and the landscape around you. Sense the relative fragility and smallness of your physical self in relation to the landscape around.
Now imagine that the landscape around you is the landscape of your mind and consciousness. The sky above is the infinite vastness and (relative) abstraction of your spiritual being. The monolithic structures around you such as mountains, oceans and skyscrapers are well established structures in your subconscious mind. The weather and the coming and going of people and creatures are like the thoughts and emotions that come and go in each moment and in each day. Within the landscape of your mind your conscious self is like the tiny, seemingly fragile physical body.
To be a meditator means to build the power of your conscious mind in the face of forces that seem much larger than it so that it becomes the difference, the defining factor in all your experiences.
Building the power of your conscious self means that in the face of past trauma, physical or mental sickness, difficulties in building a future, temptation, peer pressure, overwhelming emotion or any other challenge it is YOU, small and sometimes insignificant as you may feel remain the chooser and the master of your inner landscape.
The path of meditation and the path of courage are not too different.
© Toby Ouvry 2014, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com