Category: Biographical

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A Mind of Ease Biographical Enlightened Flow Enlightened love and loving Integral Meditation Life-fullness Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Breathing Mindful Confidence Mindfulness Presence and being present

Natural Happiness

Dear Integral Meditators,

To be a meditator means to get in touch with your natural happiness. The article below explains something of what I mean by this.

Yours in the spirit of natural happiness,

Toby

Natural Happiness

I feel happy because…

A common tactic and one that I use myself for becoming happier is simply to reflect mindfully upon reasons why my life is good, on what I have achieved, on what I am enjoying, on what has gone right. If you keep a log of these types of things, either written or in just regularly in your head, then you are connecting to a form of happiness based upon the power of your rational, thinking, analytical mind.

I feel happy and so…

In meditation, one of the things we are aiming to develop the ability to do is to move our body-mind into a state of open relaxation that feels so good that, even if we had many reasons in the day to not be happy we would still naturally feel connected to happiness anyway.

This meditative form of happiness is a state of happiness that does not depend upon rational reasons, or the ticking of mental boxes. Rather it is a feeling that arises simply from sitting quietly, letting go and enjoying the process of enjoying relaxing deeply into a state of conscious awareness.

Relaxing into natural happiness

The other day I was travelling back from work with my head full of the troubles of the world; relationship doubts, money issues, business uncertainty, dissatisfaction with my circumstances and so on, you know what I mean right?

So instead of going directly home I went into the library, and sat down in the reading room. I determined just to sit down and relax for 30mins. For the first few minutes I paid attention to the physical fatigue in my muscles and the emotional turbulence that I was experiencing, just acknowledging them, giving them a bit of love and letting them go. Then I just sat still and relaxed, doing as little as possible, switching off my brain and mind and opening my heart space.

After 10minutes I started to feel ok. After 15 minutes I felt good. By the time I finished, technically I could still remember all the reasons that my life was difficult and challenging, but to be honest I didn’t care so much. I just felt good in my body, mind and heart, for no ‘reason’ other than sitting still in a state of relaxed meditation for a while. Technically I had not ‘solved’ any of my issues, but my world felt completely different, just because I had spent a little while connecting to my natural happiness in meditation.

When you meditate you discover that you don’t have to ‘do’ anything to be happy, other than learn how to connect to your natural happiness; the happiness that is there under the surface of our body-mind all the time.

If you meditate skilfully it won’t solve your problems or alleviate you of your responsibilities, but it will make you naturally happy.

© Toby Ouvry 2015, 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

Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia in May:

Friday 29th May 7.30-9.30pm –  Integral Meditation Session @ the Reiki Centre – Travelling deeper into the present moment through integral meditation

Saturday 30th May, 2.30-5.30pm – Enlightened Flow: Finding the Ultimate Relaxation and Release from Stress

JUNE CLASSES COMING SOON!

 

Integral Meditation Asia

Online Courses * 1:1 Coaching * Live Workshops * Corporate Mindfulness Training *
Life-Coaching *  Meditation Technology

 

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Biographical creative imagery Essential Spirituality Gods and Goddesses Inner vision Meditation and Art Meditation techniques Mindful Confidence

Your Tree of Personal Inspiration

Dear Integral Meditators,
As an artist and a meditator, I have a healthy appreciation of the power of the imagination to affect the way we expereince our reality in very real and tangible ways. The article below explores a fun and imaginative method to receive inspiration through meditation and visalization. Enjoy!

The program of events in May is nearly finnished, see beneath the article for diary dates.

In the spirit of inspiration,

Toby

Your Tree of Personal Inspiration

Back when I was a monk one of our visualizations we used to work with was a wish-fulfilling tree which grew up from the centre of a lake (which in turn was in the centre of the world!) Upon the leaves and branches of this tree sat all of the enlightened beings you could imagine. We would visualize them in this way in order to create a connection to them, build a relationship to them and receive their blessings.
One variation on this that I have developed since then is as follows:
I visualize my own ‘Tree of Life’ (you can visualize this tree in any way you choose). On the leaves and branches of this tree are all the people and living creatures from which I derive inspiration and strength. This includes people I know personally, those from the public sphere as well as those who may be from stories, myths and so on.
After visualizing this tree in general, I then set my intention to connect with those on my tree who it would be particularly appropriate at this time in my life, in view of the present circumstances and challenges that I am facing. I then let my ‘imaginative eye’ wonder over the tree and pick out one (or two or three) people or living beings that fit this description.
I then spend time just connecting with them, feeling inspired by their energy, perhaps having a bit of a dialogue with them about an issue I have or choices that I need to make. When I have finished the communion, I bring the meditation to a close.
This is a simple technique that I use that can be very useful for finding inspiration when you need it, as well as developing your visualization, imaginative and intuitive skills. The figures that I connect to change often; sometimes they are ‘enlightened’ figures, other times they are just those who have particular qualities that I may have a need of. It is also an organic and relatively free form way of connecting to the powers of inspiration that do exist in the inner world, and that we can access through meditative awareness.

Related Articles: Meditating on the Power of Your Creative Imagination
When Your Energy Level Follows Your Mind and Imagination

© Toby Ouvry 2015, 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

Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia in May:

Friday 8th May, 7.30-9pm – Integral Meditation Session @ the Reiki Centre – Stillness, Energy, Positivity and Relaxation -A grounding in the basics of Integral Meditation

Saturday 16th May, 9.30am-12.30pm – Growing Your Mindful Freedom – The Essential Meditation of the Buddha: A Three Hour Meditation Workshop

Saturday 16th May, 2.30-5.30pm – Meditations for Activating, Healing and Awakening our Ancestral Karma

Wednesday 20th, 7.30-9.30pm – Going Beyond Happiness (and resilience?) – Using the Wisdom of Paradox to Find a Deeper Level of Fulfilment and Wellbeing in Your Life

Friday 29th May 7.30-9.30pm –  Integral Meditation Session @ the Reiki Centre – Travelling deeper into the present moment through integral meditation

Saturday 30th May, 2.30-5.30pm – Enlightened Flow: Finding the Ultimate Relaxation and Release from Stress

Integral Meditation Asia

 

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Awareness and insight Biographical creative imagery Energy Meditation Life-fullness Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Presence and being present

Defence Against Bliss

Dear Integral Meditators,

Sometimes it is tough to accept pain, sufffering and disappointment, but wierdly it can be equally tough to accept bliss, love and wellbeing. The artlcle below offers a personal reflection on why this can sometimes be so.

Beneath the article there is some information on the Schumman Holophonic Meditationfrom I-Awake. It is the original track that got me into meditation technology of this sort. It is on special offer at the moment, and I recommend it throughly!

Beneath that are the dates for your diary for classes and workshops in May, full details to follow shortly!

In the spirit of accepting bliss,

Toby

Defence Against Bliss

When I was a few months away from being ordained as a Buddhist Monk back in the early 90’s I had a peak ‘love’ experience in my meditation. It started out in a sitting session as a feeling of overwhelming and impartial warmth and affection  for all living creatures, and then stayed with me for the next few days as a heightened awareness where my heart felt like it was completely open, my body felt full of blissful energy, and the world around me felt ‘alive’; the grass and the trees seemed to sing, simply sitting on a park bench felt like a heavenly experience, animals seemed to smile at me and so on…It was kind of a classical peak love experience.

Coming out of this peak experience I travelled to Seattle, Washington in the US where was going to a Buddhist festival of sorts. By the time I landed at the airport I was feeling fairly ‘normal’ again, but the feeling of bliss in my body and heart had been replaced by a kind of claustrophobic sense of darkness, I had the song ‘Don’t box me in’, which is a kind of brooding young man’s song of anger and discontent playing in repeat in the background of my mind. It felt as if there was a part of me that resented the blissful experience of love that I had had, that felt threatened by it, and that wanted to destroy it. This experience persisted for the duration of the festival, four or five days.

Over the next couple of years it felt as if there was a ‘dark’ part of me that was fighting against a ‘light’ part of me; a limited small self against an open, bright self. One of the main take-aways of this experience for me was that it is actually as difficult for us to accept expanded states of bliss, happiness and joy as it is for us to accept suffering, disappointment and sadness. BOTH are as much of a threat to our limited ego and everyday self as the other. As a result our established ego seeks to defend itself against not just suffering but also from too much happiness, joy, pleasure, bliss, as these things threaten our inner status quo, challenge our perception of reality quite as much as pain does.

Be aware of the bliss that is available to you and what it offers
So then an awareness practice that you can use to explore your own experience of bliss, love and pleasure if you like; just ask yourself the question ‘What bliss, happiness, pleasure is available to me right now, in the present moment?’ Investigate what bliss you may be able to find in your body, you mind, in your feelings, your relationships. Then ask yourself the question ‘What is preventing me from accepting and enjoying this bliss?’ See what answers come back to you.

It’s is not either the small or the big self
How did I end up resolving my inner battle between my small ego and my bright, expanded self? Essentially by understanding that I could integrate them both together; The small self felt threatened by the big self, so I needed to re-assure and acknowledge it. I spent time letting  it know that it was still valued, still had a purpose and function within me. Once it understood that it could still exist within the context of this new and expanded blissful state, then the conflict subsided. Now on the whole I think they get on very well together! The principle here is that when the different parts of self communicate with each other effectively most inner conflicts can be resolved harmoniously.

Related articles:
Dreams, Meditation and Working with the Bright Side of Your Shadow
Re-Awakening to Your Bliss
Nine Factors to Connect to Bliss and Ecstasy in Your Relationships

Shadow Coaching with Toby

© Toby Ouvry 2015, 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

I-AWAKE PRODUCT OF THE MONTH

For a Centering, Grounding, and Refreshing Meditation
 
 25% off In celebration of Earth Day, feel the pulses of Earth and the Schumann Resonance
 
Discount Coupon Code: (apply during checkout) NEWSAPR25OFF
 
Good until April 30, 2015
 

Dates for your diary in May (Full details shortly)
Friday 8th May, 7.30-9pm – Integral Meditation Class – Focus, appreciation and awareness -A grounding in the basics of Integral Meditation

Saturday 16th May, 9.30am-12.30pm –  Exploring the Roots of Mindfulness – The Essential Meditation of the Buddha

Saturday 16th May, 2.30-5.30pm – Meditations for Activating, Healing and Awakening our Ancestral Karma

Wednesday 20th, 7.30-9.30pm – Going Beyond Happiness (and resilience?) – Using the Wisdom of Paradox to Find a Deeper Level of Fulfilment and Wellbeing in Your Life

Friday 29th May 7.30-9.30pm – Integral Medi classes – Travelling deeper into the present moment

Saturday 30th May, 2.30-5.30pm – Enlightened Flow: Finding the Ultimate Relaxation and Release from Stress

Integral Meditation Asia

Online Courses * 1:1 Coaching * Live Workshops * Corporate Mindfulness Training *
Life-Coaching *  Meditation Technology
Categories
Biographical Inner vision Integral Awareness Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Shadow meditation

Mastery Follows Acknowledgement (Plus Integral Meditation & Self-Healing Videos)

Dear Integral Meditators,

Sometimes the most difficult thing to do is to acknowledge the things that we become aware of within ourselves, yet without this first step it is almost impossible to achieve any genuine self-mastery. The article below explores this theme.

Final reminder for the Workshops on Integral Meditation Practice and Meditation For Self-Healing and Self-Energizing this Saturday of you are in Singapore.
I have also created two new short videos, one on Integral Meditation Practice and one on Self-Healing meditation. To view them just click on the workshop pages above, or you can view them on youtube directly HERE (Integral Meditation Practice) and HERE (Self-Healing Meditation)

In the spirit of acknowledgment and mastery,

Toby

Mastery Follows Acknowledgment

You can’t master a challenge or a part of yourself that you don’t admit you have.

When I was a young man beginning my meditation practice I had a lot of repressed anger that I was not really aware of. Meditation was an exciting new skill for me at the time, and I immersed myself in the ‘spiritual’ aspect of the mastery of meditation for the next ten years. I worked very hard in a very disciplined way at my meditation and as a result had a lot of peak experiences, genuine ‘enlightenment’ experiences, states of expanded awareness and so on. However, in those ten years I never really came to terms with my anger. In a certain sense you could say that I used my meditation as a way of escaping from my anger, avoiding it, not really looking it in the eye, so to speak.
As a result after ten years of meditation I found myself i many ways still as lost and unfamiliar with how to deal with my human anger as I was before I began my spiritual path.
The beginning of me mastering my anger started with being able to look at myself, my emotions and my inner self and say ‘I have a lot of repressed anger that I need to understand how to work with’. This initial acknowledgment was then able to act as the basis of my mastery of anger, which had and still has (it is an ongoing process) three main stages:

  1. The acknowledgment, exploration and acceptance of my anger
  2. The constructive engagement with that emotion and its  causes, followed by the
  3. Redirection and transformation of that angry energy into something constructive and worthwhile

So, my basic point here is that there is no way you can master an aspect of self that you don’t admit that you have. This is why a genuine and sound mindfulness practice begins with an investigation into and acknowledgment of what is really there, and proceeds to work on mastering what it finds based around the reality of what you find.

If you can make this first step of acknowledgment well, which generally involves some discomfort, insecurity, a sense of ‘failure’, and humility (not to mention a bit of a knock to your ego), then truly your potential for inner growth knows no limits!

A final point here, when you begin practicing meditation or mindfulness (or any path of inner growth) there are literally many aspects of yourself that you can’t see, and that only start to come out as you progress. So the process of acknowledgment and mastery continues to unfold as time passes by and your knowledge of yourself continues to grow.

Related Articles: The Four Essential Stages to Transforming Negative Stress into Positive Energy
The Self-Healing and Self Evolving Power of the Mind and Six Tips For Releasing the Shadow Self

Related Online Course: Meditations for Transforming Negativity and Stress into Energy, Positivity and Enlightenment

© Toby Ouvry 2015, 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

Integral Meditation Asia

Online Courses * 1:1 Coaching * Live Workshops * Corporate Mindfulness Training *
Life-Coaching *  Meditation Technology
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Awareness and insight Biographical creative imagery Enlightened love and loving Inner vision Insight Meditation Meditation and Art Meditation and Psychology

Making it Beautiful

Dear Integral Meditators,

What if instead of seeing yourself as a consumer of beauty, you focused upon becoming a source and creator of beauty in the world? The article below examines how we might go about doing this…

There is a special 2 day Easter sale on at Integral Meditation Asia, with two of the online courses being offered at a 30% discount! Scroll down to the ‘Upcoming Courses’ section below to find out more!

In the spirit of the mindful journey,

Toby

Making it Beautiful

There is a rubbish bin at the bottom of my block of apartments next to the lift. Some of the local school kids have painted with the message ‘Some people look for a beautiful place, others make a place beautiful’.
To me this is a great mindfulness saying, and communicates a lot about the power that each of us has as human beings to use our creative energy to create beauty in the places, circumstances and situations we find ourself in.
Often times and without really thinking about it too much we are passive in our experience of our life; we are looking for someone else or something else to provide us with experiences of beauty, or positivity, or empowerment, or solace, or wellbeing. What would your day look like if you started it by saying something like:

  • ‘I am here to appreciate beauty but also to create it where there is none’
  • Or ‘I am here to enjoy the good energy of others, but also to create good energy and give it away to myself and others’
  • Or ‘If I’m finding it difficult to find fulfillment in what I am doing right now, what can I do to create fulfillment within the same circumstances?’

If everyone made a mindful choice each day to make things beautiful we’d be living in quite a different world. We can start making the world a little bit more beautiful today by making the choice ourselves.

© Toby Ouvry 2015, 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

Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia in March:

Sunday/Monday April 5th&6th – Easter Sale save 30% on the following Online Meditation Courses – 
Integrating the Energy of Dynamic Calm into Your Life – A Four Module Online Course

Taking Control of Your Life Through the Practice of Mindful Self-Leadership – A Five Module Online Course

Live Workshops:

Saturday 11th April, 9.30am-12.30pm – Integral Meditation and Mindfulness: Optimize Your Inner Calm, Strength and Energy – A three hour workshop

Saturday 11th April, 2.30-5.30pm – Meditation and Mindfulness for Self-Healing and Creating High Levels of Energy

Tuesday 21st April, 7.30-9.30pm –  An Evening of Mindful Self-Confidence – Developing your self-confidence, self-belief & self-trust through mindfulness & meditation

Integral Meditation Asia

 

 

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Biographical creative imagery Enlightened Flow Inner vision Integral Awareness Meditating on the Self Meditation and Art Mindful Confidence Presence and being present Primal Spirituality

The Laughter of the Young and the Ancient

Dear Integral Meditators,

What if when something in your life went seriously wrong, the first thing that you did was laugh open-heartedly? Perhaps there is a part of us that already does, and the article below explores how to connect to him/her/it!

This Saturday if you are in Singapore we have two meditation workshops, do scroll down to the ‘upcoming courses section’ below to find out more.

In the spirit of ancient lightness,

Toby

The Laughter of the Young and the Ancient

What if when something in your life went seriously wrong, the first thing that you did was laugh open-heartedly?
What would happen if the next time you lost some money, or a big business deal feel through you winked knowingly at the first stranger you met?
What would happen if you could respond to the most ‘serious’ parts of your life with playful and spontaneous creativity?

I really enjoyed the movie version of the Lord of the Rings books, but the one thing I was slightly disappointed about was that they left out a character called Tom Bombadil. Tom Bomabadil interests me because, of all the characters in the story, he is the only one who is immune to the evil, corruptive influence of the ‘ring of power’. All of the other characters are afraid of the power of the ring, which upon contact causes them to immediately start fantasizing about delusions of power and dominion. However, when Tom puts on the ring it has no effect; to him the all corrupting ring is an object of amusement, a trinket, with no real practical use.
We hear in the story of the lord of the Rings that Tom Bombadil was the Oldest of the Old (‘the oldest and fatherless’) who walked the earth before both elves and men. Essentially he seems to be a nature spirit of sorts, coming from a time and existing within a mental framework both before and outside of our human paradigm of good and evil, a time when harmony, laughter and song were a natural state of being, were perhaps the law of being.

As my own practice of meditation and mindfulness develops, I find myself coming across and connecting to an inner place within myself that lies beyond the daily struggle of good and evil, of striving or laziness, achievement versus failure. It seems to be an innocent state of being that is naturally laughing and humorous, naturally light and strong, naturally comfortable and balanced despite the comings and goings of fate and fortune in my life. This state of mind seems to me to be a little bit like my ‘Inner Tom Bombadil’, the part of me that walks on the earth as one with nature, that lives truly in the primally presentmoment, that sings and laughs with child-like and yet very old spontaneity, comfortable in the world but not of the world.

Connecting within yourself to a time before good and evil
Spend a few moments now connecting to that part of you that is fatherless and motherless, the oldest of the old as well as the youngest of the young.  S/he is beyond any struggle for human power, beyond shame or pride. s/he is primally humorous and celebratory; the wise fool, the innocent sage. Bring your inner Tom Bombadil out into the world to play and celebrate. See what starts to change in your life when you do!

Related articles: The Four Types of Present Moment Awareness
Locating Your Deep Centre
Connecting to Your Spiritual Fool in the Mirror World

© Toby Ouvry 2015, 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 

Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia :

Tuesday March 10th – The Mindful Salesperson – An Evening Exploring the Relationship Between Mindfulness, Sales and Marketing

Saturday 14th March 9.30am-12.30pm – Living Life From Your Inner Center – Meditations for Going With the Flow of the Present Moment

Saturday 14th March 2.30-5.30pm – Meditations for Developing the Language of Your Shadow Self – A Three Hour Workshop

Saturday March 28th 2.30-5.30pm  – Mindfulness and Meditation For Creating a Mind of Ease, Relaxed Concentration and Positive Intention 

Integral Meditation Asia

Online Courses * 1:1 Coaching * Life-Coaching * Live Workshops * Corporate Mindfulness Training * Meditation Technology

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Awareness and insight Biographical Inner vision Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Meditating on the Self Meditation and Art Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Resilience Mindful Self-Leadership

Happiness is Getting What You Want?

Dear Integral Meditators,

The article below explores the idea of mindfulness in relations to our wants and desires and how being mindful of what we want can make a huge difference in relation to our personal happiness.

Yours in the spirit of getting what you really want,

Toby

Happiness is Getting What You Want?

What is it that makes you happy? You can read a lot of books on this topic, but from a mindfulness perspective the best way to investigate this is to observe from your own experience the things that make you happy and the things that make you unhappy, and then proceed to do more of the former and less of the latter.
But it goes a bit deeper than that; as Zig Zagglar said “The chief cause of unhappiness is trading what you want most for what you want right now”. From this we can start to understand (and see from our own experience) that getting what we want in the short term can be a huge obstacle to getting what we really deeply want in the long term.

  • We can put off the difficult conversation with our partner/spouse because we want peace in the short-term, but the long term consequences of doing this repeatedly will leave us with (and possibly stuck in) a relationship that we don’t want to be in
  • We can take the job that brings us cash in the short term, but it takes all the time and energy that we need to start the business that we really want to do in the long term
  • We want and desire to change our body weight/shape/fitness, but we continually become distracted from our long term desire by our short term appetites for unhealthy food
  • We deeply want to find a relationship, but we keep giving into our short term desire for safety and non-embarrassment, so we never ask someone out

And so it goes on….

Focusing on what you want and desire as a mindfulness practice
So a really good daily object of mindfulness is the question “What do I truly, deeply want and desire in my life?” Sit with this question for a minute or two. Maybe write down the answer.
Then ask yourself the question “What step, big or small can I take today to move toward that goal?” Follow up your answer to this second question. If you like do this exercise for a month, see what changes.

Each day in unconscious and imperceptible ways we sacrifice our deepest long term desires and wants for short term convenience and small time wish-fulfilment. If you practice being mindful of what you really want, and honour the wisdom that starts to come forth from your heart when you do, you will find that your life will become happier. Not easier, happier.

Related article: Mindful of our conflicting desires

© 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

 

Integral Meditation AsiaOnline Courses * 1:1 Coaching * Live Workshops * Corporate Mindfulness Training *
Life-Coaching *  Meditation Technology

 

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Biographical Greenworld Meditation Integral Awareness Meditating on the Self Meditation and Art Presence and being present Primal Spirituality Shadow meditation

The Soft Strength of Mud and Blood

Dear Integral Meditators,

Seems like the theme of my articles since the turn of the year seem to be centering around finding strength through softness, the article below offers a slightly different take on this…

Yours in the spirit of mud and blood,

Toby

Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia :

Special offer for 1:1 Coaching For January at Integral Meditation Asia  (Via skype or face to face)

Sunday 1st February – Mindful Self-Leadership: Take Control of Your Life Direction and Wellbeing Through Awareness, Curiosity, Courage and Care

Tuesday 10th February, 7.30-9.30pm – An Evening of Mindful Resilience – Sustaining effectiveness, happiness and clarity under pressure through meditation and mindfulness

Saturday 14th February, 2.30-5.30pm – Mindfulness and Meditation For Creating a Mind of Ease, Relaxed Concentration and Positive Intention 

The Soft Strength of Mud and Blood

I a meditation that I did last Sunday with a small group, there was a section in the narrative where we visualized ourselves sitting or kneeling in front of a Goddess embodying the energy of death, regeneration & renewal, and were asked to offer her something.
Within my own visualization I found that I had a small locket in the shape of a heart that had been broken in two, so I offered this to her. In return she offered me a small physical heart fashioned from mud and blood. It felt soft, wet, warm and alive in my hand as I held it.

Honouring the brittle and the broken
Often when life is hard on us, we can become hard and brittle in response; we use the part of us that has been hurt, damaged or broken as a shell that we place around us in order to protect ourselves. This is a natural response to difficult challenges, and it is ok to allow ourselves to go through a stage where we withdraw, wounded into this shell. However, there comes a time, if we are interested in regenerating our life, where we have to let go of what is broken, and emerge anew, soft, vulnerable but fully alive into our world again.

The strength of regeneration
If we are able to do this we discover what I would call the strength of regeneration – The experiential knowledge that if we feel destroyed, damaged and hurt today, this is not a problem. If we relax into our experience, withdraw into ourselves and nurture ourselves for a while, we will be reborn again when we are ready, soft, flexible & different, stronger & more vibrant than that which we were previously.

We can use hardness as a shell when we need to, but if we want to really express the depths of our soul in our life as we are leading it from day to day, we need to discover the strength that comes from the softness of mud and blood.

Related Articles:
The Resilience of Gentleness
A Butterfly in the Wind
Life-fullness

© 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 

Integral Meditation Asia

Online Courses * 1:1 Coaching * Life-Coaching * Live Workshops * Corporate Mindfulness Training * Meditation Technology

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Biographical Energy Meditation Integral Meditation Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Meditation techniques Mindful Resilience Mindfulness Stress Transformation

Caring For Your Life-force Through Meditation: Four Levels

Dear Integral Meditators,

I’ve been focusing in my own practice over the last week on taking care of my life-force or libido through meditation. The article below is really some thoughts I have put together as a result. I hope you enjoy it!

Yours  in the spirit of the journey,

Toby

Caring For Your Life-force Through Meditation: Four Levels

Your life-force (as we will be defining it in this article) is your ‘psychic energy’ or ‘libido’. It manifests on the physical, psychological, soul and spiritual levels of your being.

Simply put if your libido or life-force is healthy then it will manifest as a healthy ‘appetite’ for life. If your libido is low then your appetite for life diminishes correspondingly.
Here is a brief resume of the way in which our life-force manifests on the four levels (the soul and spiritual level being counted as one):

Your life-force on the physical/biological level – On this vital level of your being a healthy libido manifests as appetite for food, drink and sex/sensuality, and healthy emotions. It can be sustained by the appropriate engagement with these basic activities (eating & drinking healthily, enjoying sex and sensuality appropriately, feeling emotions fully). Correspondingly it can be damaged by eating and drinking unhealthily, over indulging in sex (or unhealthy expressions of sex) and negative emotions.

Your libido & life-force on the psychological level – On the level of your ego the libido manifests as striving, desiring and willing (to use the Jungian terms). From this we can see that to maintain a healthy psychological libido we need goals to strive towards, and a healthy pleasure in striving for and achieving those goals. Correspondingly our psychological ‘appetite’ can be damaged if we lack motivation, goals and objectives to strive for in life, or if our self-esteem & confidence are low.

Your life-force & libido on the soul& spiritual level – This level of libido is really the psychological level expressed at a deeper level of our being. It involves the pursuit of “the true, the beautiful and the good” as we feel compelled to explore and express them in our life. One way of understanding our own ‘spiritual path’ is how our psychological process of striving, desiring and willing evolves and transforms toward a creative expression of truth, beauty and goodness.

From this we can see that looking after your life-force is a multi-disciplinary activity, ranging from physical diet to psychological motivation to a deeper contemplation of the meaning of your life. Each one of these levels has something to offer you in terms of the overall experience of your life-force and the power of its energy.
Moreover, our life-force can shift from one level to another and back again. For example we can find a new lease of psychological motivation as a result of a changed diet, or we can find a renewed enthusiasm for emotional or sexual expression as a result of finding a deeper level of meaning on the soul level of our being.

Healing, balancing and renewing your life-force thorough meditation.

One very simple way in which you can use meditation as a way of enhancing your life force and libido is to just take the discipline of sitting still and relaxing in a focused, aware way for a certain period of time each day. This will:

  • Enable your physical body to relax and begin regenerating its biological life-force
  • Enable your psychological being to relax and begin regenerating its motivation and energy
  • Enable your soul to become receptive to spiritual and intuitive inspirations that inspire it toward greater meaning and creativity.

You can further enhance this function of meditation as you are sitting and relaxing by:

  • Deliberately imagining and encouraging your body to move into a state of deep, regenerative relaxation
  • Deliberately not pursuing thoughts and discursive thoughts in the mind so that your psychological being can regain its clarity and focus
  • Consciously inviting, being receptive to and noting intuitive inspirations & idea  that arise whilst you are enjoying the process of relaxing your body and mind

This very simple process of meditation, sitting in a state of receptive awareness in the way I have described is not the whole story when it comes to looking after and increasing our life-force on the physical, psychological and soul/spiritual levels, but it will help all of the other efforts that we make to do so!

Two more thoughts: Enhancing your life-force meditation a little further:

1. There are certain simple ways of directing the energy in your body-mind that can enhance and increase the flow of life-force. You can see a couple of simple examples from my qi gong blog here:
Building and strengthening your Qi/Light Body by connecting to Planetary Qi
Qi gong standing exercises 1: Light body standing form/Earth light standing form

2. You can use bio-field and neuro-flow technology to achieve a more rapid and deeper entry into a regenerative state of mind. The one I’m using a lot at the moment is called Harmonic Resonance Meditation, if you’re interested you can scroll down to see the coupon code to get 25% off any of the products at I-Awake technologies.

© 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 

November 26 – December 2,
2014

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Categories
Biographical creative imagery Enlightened service Greenworld Meditation Inner vision Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Meditation techniques

Mixed Mindfulness Arts, Animals and Starlight

Dear Integral Meditators,

If you look at the martial arts scene these days you will see that a lot of the top guys are mixed martial artists, that is to say that they have trained in and mastered more than one form of martial arts, and this has made them better overall. Similarly training in complementary meditation and mindfulness styles can have a great effect upon your personal growth, more than training in just one.

With this in mind I have edited and updated an older article below on how to meditate with animals and landscape. It is a very old form of meditation that people have been doing for thousands of years, and has a lot to offer us in today’s very urbanized society!

Similarly I would like to sincerely recommend that if you are in Singapore next Sunday 31st September in the morning, then do consider coming along to my meditation workshop “The Call of the Wild–Meditations for Deepening Your Inner Connection to the Animal Kingdom and the Green-world” where I will be teaching this meditation method in a very practical and relatively easy to apply way.

Finally, another practice that I have gotten a HUGE amount out of over the last year, and that continues to be a great support and strengthener for my mindfulness practice and personal growth in general is the brain-entrainment and bio-field technology tracks fromI-Awake. They have got a new product, Neuroflow out just a few days ago, which I am posting some information on immediately below. As it has only just come out, I have only had it a few days myself, but I have already had a great experience with it!

Yours in the spirit of mixing and flowing,

Toby

Meditating with Animals and Starlight – Shamanic Journeying

Meditating with animals and animal spirits is one of the main practices found in ancient shamanic traditions worldwide. The ancient shamans were really the pioneers of the first meditation techniques and these techniques (which are mainly the technique of “inner world journeying”) are deeply embedded within the psyche of human beings, including you and me. The result of this is that most people who actually try shamanic meditation techniques actually find that they are able to gain some success quite quickly. Michael Harner, one of the pioneers of modern proto-shamanism reports that fully 85% of people participating in his shamanic journeying workshops are able to gain tangible results and experiences from their first attempts at journeying meditation (The only caveat to that would be that these people chose to attend the workshop, so in a sense they may have ‘self-selected based upon their innate aptitude and interest).

As mentioned above, the main meditation “technique” found in shamanism is the “inner world journey” where contact with animal and ancestral spirits is sought for the purposes of gaining guidance, wisdom and healing. When meditating with animals and animal guides the sequence of the meditations would tend to go something like this:

  1. The shaman (or you and I if we are choosing to meditate in this way) goes on a journey, either within his imagination, or actually physically into a landscape to meet his or her animal guide.
  2. Once the specific animal has been contacted, the shaman requests to be taught or shown the wisdom or healing method that the animal has to impart to him.  There then follows a communion between human and animal, trust is hopefully gained and the relationship proceeds. It should be noted that the animal chooses the shaman, not vice-versa. If you are met by an ant or a rat when you wanted a lion you cannot do a trade in! Experience will show you that in reality the animal that comes is invariably the best one for you and for the job at hand!
  3. A series of meditations can then be embarked upon where the mediator then goes on journeys and receives teachings, techniques and insights from the animal. Initially the meditator travels WITH the animal, but over time s/he may feel as if he is merging with the animal’s body and actually BECOMING the animal for periods of time.
  4. Over time a stable working relationship is established with the animal spirit which is mutually enriching for both parties, and the wisdom and abilities of the animal are imparted to the meditator.

What “abilities” and wisdom do you get from an animal guide?
The way in which animal guides impart wisdom is non-intellectual, experiential and mainly done through images. To take an example, if your guide is a spider, and in meditation you experience what it is like to have eight sensitive legs picking up information from all directions around you then this will give you a heightened awareness of your inner sense of touch which you can apply to appropriate life situations and challenges.

Starlight meditation with a pigeon
One animal that I developed a relationship with around the the beginning of 2010 for a period of months is the pink necked green pigeon a number of which used to hang out in the park near my office. My animal journeying-type meditations are mostly spontaneous these days, done whilst napping or just sitting having a quiet moment. Animal journeying really just becomes an integral part of life once you have been doing it a while. So anyway, here a journey that I experienced with the above mentioned green pigeon that I recorded at the time :
I am having a ten minute meditation break in my office. My mind becomes quiet and tranquil. Quite suddenly I feel myself to be sitting in the next door park, staring up at a tree, where the green pigeon is sitting looking at me. After an initial contact we fly up into the sky going high above the cloudline.
With the clouds below us and the blue sky above, I become aware of rays of starlight flowing down from the heavens, bathing our bodies in white light. The rest of the meditation is then spent simply enjoying the starlight, absorbing it and being it. We then fly back down to the park, the vision breaks apart and I am sitting in my office meditating. I say thankyou to the green pigeon and get on with my day!

For many people the idea of meditating in this way may seem a bit far-fetched.

However there is HUGE value for urbanized humans to do this type of meditation, as it re-connects us to a truly living relationship with nature and animals. The other thing that we discover is that it is actually quite not difficult, it is just a matter of re-awakening our visualization and imaginative skills, and pointing them in the right direction.

© 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