Category: Motivation and scope

Motivating Yourself to Meditate Part 1 – Looking at How You Can Meet Your Needs Through Meditation

Post author By Toby
Post date January 4, 2011

Hi Everyone,

One reason why people find it difficult to hold down a regular meditation practice is that it is very easy for meditation to get knocked down our priorities list. It seems like there are so many things that need our attention. It is easy to think that we have so many “important” priorities that we can put off meditating until tomorrow, and so it goes on. We never really get serious or consistent about our meditation practice because it is not enough of a priority.

So, what I am going to do in this and next week’s article is have a look at Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and see how meditation can help with these basic needs. If we have a clear idea about how meditation helps us with our human needs, then we will keep it high on our priority list and make sure that we do it!

A quick outline of Abraham Maslows hierarchy of human needs, he starts with the most basic first, and then ascends in terms of depth and complexity:

Physiological needs – Food and drink
Security needs – Shelter, physiological safety
Belongingness and love needs – Affiliation, acceptance, affection
Esteem needs – Competence, approval, recognition
Aesthetic and cognitive needs – Knowledge, understanding, goodness, justice, beauty, order, symmetry
Self Actualization

How meditation helps us with these basic needs:

Needs 1&2: Physiological and security needs

I am guessing that if you are reading this article, you will have your basic food, drink and shelter needs being met. You may not be in Buckingham Palace, but you aren’t homeless either right? Although many of us have our basic needs met, many of us remain stuck psychologically in “survival” mode, fighting our way through a hostile universe oblivious of the good fortune of having our basic needs met.

Meditation helps us with this by helping our mind to be calm enough to appreciate and enjoy the fact that our survival needs have been met. Meditation gives us the presence of mind to enjoy life’s simple pleasures; Food, drink, shelter and a basic quality of life. Without peace of mind studies show that those in first world countries are no happier than those in 3^rd world countries. Meditation makes sure this does not happen to you!

Need 3: Belongingness and love needs

A daily meditation practice is a statement to yourself that you are important and lovable enough to deserve happiness and peace of mind. Belongingness and love needs are often projected outward onto other people, but in reality our primary love relationship is with ourself. If we get this right it will help our love relationships to others.

Meditation also puts you in touch with a source of love inside you that might be termed as “Universal” or unconditional. This love starts to rise up in our mind whenever we truly touch mental peace and calm (see last weeks article on the “Two Main Lessons of Love”). You deserve to receive love every day right? So give yourself that pleasure by sitting down and doing a bit of meditation every day! One final point here, meditation by its nature makes us more mindful, relaxed and aware. This quality of mind helps us to see that there is love being directed toward us all the time by our friends, family and colleagues. A relaxed, meditative mind can open to this love and receive it deeply into our being, instead of shutting it out.

So, next week I’ll write a few thoughts on needs four, five and six, but I think if you contemplate the above three, there is plenty of reason to renew your determination to find time and space for at least a little meditation each day!

Thanks for reading,

Yours in the spirit of the harmonious meeting of our higher and lower needs!

Toby

PS: Two opportunities for meditative activities over the next week:

I will be facilitating a Qi Gong workshop for beginners this Sunday, 9^th January. Qi gong is a whole world of meditative movement exercises for health and wellbeing, if you have been interested in learning how to start a practice, this is an ideal opportunity!
Next Tuesday sees the start of a new series of Tuesday classes entitled “Finding Your Outer Balance, Inner Harmony and Spiritual Centre Through Meditation on the Tao, Yin Yang and the Five Elements”. Recordings will be available if you are interested but not living in Singapore!

PPS: Relating to point 2 above, I have started a new series of articles on meditating with the Tao and Yin Yang on my Qi gong blog. You can find the first article HERE.

Like this blog, if you wish to receive automatic updates of these free articles from my Qi gong site, then you can simply sign up on the top right hand side of the page after you read the article on the Tao and yin/yang.

Tags awareness, Concentration, consciousness, hierarchy of needs, love, meditation, motivation, relaxation

Enlightened love and loving Enlightened service Meditation techniques Motivation and scope Presence and being present

The Two Principle Lessons of Love

Post author By Toby
Post date December 29, 2010

I was thinking the other day that there are two main lessons that we need to learn about love. I think if we get these right, then other aspects of our relationship to love and loving will tend to be good.

The first is that we are loved
The second is that we are love

We Are Loved

Knowing that we are loved comes from two levels.

On a conventional, everyday level remembering that we have friends, family, pets, colleagues and so on who love us, and allowing ourselves to open to and receive that love, rather than unconsciously blocking it out or forgetting about it.
On a more spiritual level it means remembering (and trying to experience in meditation everyday) that as a child of the Universe, a child of the Planetary Being, a child of God, or whatever way in which you conceive the forces of the Cosmos, we are loved. If you sit still in meditation and allow your mind to open to it, you will feel the conscious spiritual love of the Universe flowing into you. Its free, and its unlimited, unlike oil and other material commodities!
So, on a conventional and spiritual level we are loved

We Are Love

This second understanding takes it a step further to the realization that our very nature is love and to love. Again you can look at this on two levels.

On a conventional level the impulse to create, to form relationships, to nurture, to bond are a part of everyone. These are all characteristics of love, and we all have them. Therefore we are all love. Sometimes these impulses get misguided or expressed in inappropriate ways, but fundamentally love is at their core.
On a deeper level, if you sit in meditation each day and practice receiving the love of the Universe, there will come a time when the distinction of you as the receiver of love and the Universe as giver starts to drop away. The subject object duality will gradually dissolve and you will simple become the love of the Universe, full stop. At this point you become a gateway through which the creative and loving power of the Universe can flow forth into creation, you have become love.

Simple Breathing Meditation on receiving and being love.

Sitting quietly in meditation, as you breathe in know that you are loved and breathe in that love, RECIEVING it deeply into your being. Follow this pattern for a few breaths.
Then as you breathe out, practice BEING love. As you breathe out feel love and joy radiating out from your heart and touching others. If you like you can visualize particular people or beings such as your friends, family or pets. Alternatively you can simply practice being and giving love to all beings, with no one specific in mind.
Once you are used to both forms of breathing described in sections 1&2, you can practice combining them together. As you breathe in feel yourself receiving love. As you breathe our practice being love, and giving it to all beings.
End with a short period of just simply sitting in silence and being love.

Thanks for reading and all the very best for your inner growth 2011!

Toby

Tags being love, enlightened love, lessons of love, love, recieving love

Enlightened love and loving Meditation Recordings Motivation and scope Primal Spirituality Uncategorized

Christmas Post: Three of the Central Teachings of Jesus, Three Types of Love to Practice, and a Winter Solstice Meditation

Post author By Toby
Post date December 23, 2010

Hi Everyone,

Well, its Christmas time, which is essentially the celebration of the birth of Jesus, so I thought it might be a nice time to reflect on his teachings in this post. Cynthia Bourgeault in her book The Meaning of Mary Magdeline: Discovering the Woman at the Heart of Christianity (recommended reading) outlines three of the central mystical teachings of Jesus. When I say mystical teachings I mean instructions that are meant to be practiced in order to bring about inner transformation:

1) Gnosis– The letting go of, or detaching from the egoic self and its self-centred concerns

2) Abundance – Letting go of the concerns of the egoic self enables us to access the unlimited resources of the Kingdom of Heaven (found within our own hearts), thus tapping into a source of unlimited of universal abundance

3) Relational Love– This is basically the special ability of learning to love in relationships (to lovers, family, friends, pets etc…) to teach us how to spot and let go of our egoic self (thus teaching us Gnosis), and thereby access a direct personal experience of the abundance of the Kingdom of Heaven, which is something that we find within ourselves. There is something about the nitty gritty of learning to love in relationships that opens our hearts in a real and tangible way that cannot be achieved by loving God in an abstract or meditative way.

Three types of relational love

Christmas, lots of opportunities to meet with family and friends and practice relational love. Here are three main types of relational love, they all really interpenetrate each other in an organic way:

Eros, or erotic love– The creative and passionate love most commonly associated as being between lovers, but can also exist in other situations. For example if we have someone with whom we share a common cause, our creative efforts to further that cause could be considered a type of non-sexual Eros in relationship.
Agape– The love that empathizes with others, feels keenly their suffering and practices compassionate understanding and care. The classic image of this would be the mother caring for her child, but it infuses any situation where we open our hearts to others with compassion.
Philia– So called brotherly or sisterly love, found between literal brothers and sisters, spiritual brother and sisters, between good friends.

Christmas can be a time to consolidate and rejoice in all of these wonderful expressions of relational love.

Winter Solstice Meditation recording

Christmas was superimposed on an older pagan festival, the Winter Solstice, which is celebrated on the 21st/22nd December. Last Tuesday We did a Winter Solstice meditation which you can listen to here:

[audio:https://tobyouvry.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Winter-Solstice-medi-Dec-21-2010.mp3|titles=Winter Solstice medi Dec 21 2010]

Or download the entire meditation and talk here:

Winter Solstice talk and medi Dec 21 2010

All proceeds from the class went to the Riverkids Project , a charity dedicated to stopping child trafficing in Vietnam. If you feel guided to, you could spread the love a little more this christmas by visiting their website and making a donation 😉

Thanks for reading, and have a great Christmas!

Yours in the spirit of relational love,

Toby

Overview of upcoming events, classes and workshops with Toby in January

Tags agape, christmas, eros, gnosis, jesus, meditation, philia, relational love, winter solstice

Awareness and insight Enlightened service Inner vision Motivation and scope Presence and being present

On meditation and miracle powers

Post author By Toby
Post date December 19, 2010

Hi Everyone,

As a meditation teacher I am regularly asked by enthusiastic beginners whether if they meditate they are going to develop miracle powers like telepathy, clairvoyance and the like. In the course of the conversation it quite often also comes out that these people are also struggling mightily to deal with stress and anxiety in their life. So, with this in mind here are a few things to think about:

1) Before you have got on top of your daily stress and anxiety, the main objective of your meditation should be to manage that stress and anxiety effectively, and thus to develop a happier, more grounded and centred life. This is the basis upon which you can be of greater service both to yourself and others.

If you think your life is stressful now, try adding the additional stress, energy and information overload of any kind of any substantial inner power, and you will just find a new, possibly dangerous level of stress.

2) You are not going to develop startling new inner powers before you become fully aware of the way in which telepathy, synchronicity and other inner powers are ALREADY operating in your life.

Start to notice what is already there by learning to observe and listen to the dynamics of each moment of your life closely and attentively. When you become more conscious of what inner powers are already under your nose, then that conscious awareness will help you grow them carefully and consistently.

3) Don’t think the development of inner powers is going to make your life any easier. They bring challenges and complexities. This is why you need to focus on point 1 above, and not hope for too much too soon.

4) Be prepared to work very thoroughly on your psychological baggage. Psychosis, neurosis, or existential crisis plus greater inner powers generally equals bigger psychosis, bigger neurosis and bigger existential crisis! You need to be working to:

a) Have a right relationship to yourself, and

b) Becoming stabler, saner and increasingly loving/compassionately motivated to effectively use any powers you might develop.

5) Inner powers are real, but they are frankly only really useful to a psychologically stable, developmentally mature person. The best advice is to work on a disciplined daily meditation practice, and on your strength and modesty of character. Then let your inner powers find you in their own time!

Yours in the spirit of the journey,

Toby

PS: If you are in Singapore on the evening of Tuesday 21^st December, please feel free to join us for the Winter Solstice Charity Meditation!

Tags inner growth, inner powers, meditation, miracle powers

Concentration Meditation techniques Motivation and scope Presence and being present

Two things that you need to do before you sit down and start to meditate

Post author By Toby
Post date December 14, 2010

Firstly, before you do the two things, you need to actually set aside the time to meditate, and, when the appointed time comes you need to sit yourself down and get on with it!

There seems to be a never ending stream of excuses that our distracted mind uses to avoid the things that will make us most happy, like meditation, so take a NO EXCUSES APPROACH!

Having done this and sat down, here is what you need to do:

1) Create a safe space – Decide that for the next 5, 10, 15 minutes, or however long you have set aside, you are in a safe space where you can relax. Draw the boundary around your meditation time. After you arise from meditation, the world may indeed come to an end, or your worst fears may be realized. Alternatively, when you get up from meditation you may win the lottery, or get asked for a date by George Cluny, Yelena Isinbeyeva (or insert God/Goddess of choice). The point is that for the time you have allocated for your meditation is down time, relaxation time, YOUR time, time to be present with yourself and not worry about the past or future.

2) Make a strong decision to focus! – Beyond relaxation, meditation is also about building the strength and focus of your mind. It is like inner weight training or fitness training where your mind is building muscle and stamina. If you start your meditation wishy-washy, then you are probably going to continue that way, so it is really important to get focused and stay focused during the short period of time you have set aside for your meditation practice.

Two life skills that you will develop from this:

If you practice like this at the beginning of your meditations you will learn

1) That it is possible to create a “safe space” at many times in your day, not just when you are meditating

2) How to FOCUS. Now, there are many more things that could be said about focus, but for now let’s just reflect on the fact that ALL SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE, IN WHATEVER DISCIPLINE KNOW HOW TO FOCUS!

That last sentence is a good object of meditation in itself…

Yours in the spirit of relaxed focus,

Toby

PS: For those of you in Singapore, this coming Tuesday 21^st December there will be a special Winter Solstice meditation at Sanctuary on the Hill with myself. All proceeds will be going to the River Kids Project. See you there!

Tags Concentration, determination, focus, meditation, power of mind, relaxation, stress management

Awareness and insight Enlightened love and loving Motivation and scope Uncategorized

The five types of romantic love that we can experience

Post author By Toby
Post date October 10, 2010

When you think of romantic love, what type of love do you think of? Chances are that most people will think of love between two individuals who fall in love with each other. What I want to do in this article is broaden the idea of what romantic love could be to include five ways of experiencing romantic relationships:

With ourself
With the Divine
With another human being
With landscape or place
With our art or work

Before I go into detail with each of these, I want to give a working definition of what romantic love is, for the purposes of this article:

“Romantic love is a type of love that has 4 stages. Firstly there is an attraction toward or a desire for the object (person or otherwise). Secondly we move into relationship with the object of attraction or desire. Thirdly we experience a union with the object, fourthly that union gives rise to a creative result.”

So, in a subsequent article I will be going into these four stages in more detail, but for now within the context of this short definition let’s have a look at the five types of romantic love:

In our relationship to ourself – This can be thought of as the romance between the soul and the personality, or the higher self and the lower self. The spiritual path in some ways can be seen as the development of this romance. The soul(or deeper self) and personality(outer self) feel attraction to each other, move into relationship with each other, accomplish a union though various practices, with the creative result or “birth” of enlightenment within the individual
Romance with the Divine – This is the romance that we experience between ourself as a single human and the divine or creative forces (however we may conceive it, God, the Tao, the Primal Buddha Mind etc..) of the Universe. We all have a different way of relating to the divine, dialoguing and conversing with it, moving into communion with it and finding and finding ways to express that union creatively.
Romance with another human – This is the most common context that we think of romantic love in. It begins when we experience an attraction or desire for someone. If that person responds favourably, then we can proceed into the complex process of relationship, various levels of union (sexual, emotional, mental spiritual) that in turn give rise to creative results, ranging from marriage, to children, to inner transformation, to joint working projects and so on…
Romance with a landscape or sense of place – This begins when we feel a deep empathy, attraction or simpatico to a particular place. We then move into relationship with it by spending time there (by living there or repeatedly visiting), our communion gives rise to various forms of union with the forces of the landscape which cause a creative result. This creative result can be physical (eg: When we work to build something there or do conservation work) or it can be inner, for example when we are changed or healed in some way through our interaction with the place.
Romance with a type of art, discipline or work – This is perhaps most often thought of in terms of an artist with her artistic muse, who drives him/her toward ever greater heights in his creative work. However we all have work that we feel a natural desire to participate in more than others. If we are lucky we are then able to move into that work more and more deeply by making a career of it. We merge our mind and body more and more deeply with the discipline of the work, which gives rise to greater and greater creative results as time goes by. Relationship to work we love is like a relationship to a human lover, not always easy, but behind the struggle lies a deep passion and belief in the rightness of the partnership, and a desire to remain in creative union.

Suggested reflection:

When you have a quiet moment, work your way thoughtfully through each of these five ways in which romantic love can be experienced. See what types of free associations and feelings come up with regard to the way in which you currently relate to your relationship to yourself, the Divine, your lover, your work/art and the place where you live (or other landscape/place that you love). What new ways of experiencing your life arise when you place these different parts of your life in a “romantic” context?

Final note: Still haven’t found your soul mate yet? Never mind, as you can see there are four other types of romantic relationship you can be pursuing in the mean time 😉

Tags enlightened love, love, meditation, romantic, types of love

Awareness and insight Enlightened service Inner vision Motivation and scope

Enlightened transformation – Five levels of motivation for personal change

Post author By Toby
Post date September 27, 2010

Toby Soul Portrait - Buddha — www.tobyouvry.com/soulportraits

Here are five reasons why people are motivated to make a change in their life:

1) Self-hate – “I’ve got to change because I hate myself so much”. At this level you have to change because the level of dislike that you feel when you look in the mirror or contemplate your behaviour is just no longer tolerable. Think many of the contestants on “the biggest looser” or a junkie who has been told he will die unless he quits his habit. Unfortunately, for many of us it has to get this bad before we can really make genuine change.

2) Self-improvement – Here you can like who you presently are, but you have become hungry enough in evolutionary terms to want to continue to change and transform into something even better. High achievers in any discipline; meditation, sport, sport business or whatever, all have to get to at least this level to be where they are.

3) I want to benefit my circle of influence – Sometimes we can’t bring ourself to change our behaviours just for ourself (maybe we don’t feel we are worth it?), and it takes a sense of responsibility to others to make us change. I saw five minutes of an interview with Pamela Anderson last night. In it she explained how she tolerated violence from her ex-husband until she had kids, when he demonstrated violence to her in their company she left him. Classic example.

4) I want to benefit the world – Here our concern extends beyond our ego and our circle of friends and family to include the whole world as our object of compassionate care. This compassionate care for the Whole has become strong enough for us to actually change ourself and our behaviours.

5) The universe wants to benefit others through me – Here there is to a greater and greater degree a sense in which our actions are a spontaneous expression of something greater than ourself. Rather than us willing the action, the action flows though us from some deeper source. The transformative action feels spontaneous, effortless, choiceless.

In this arrangement, level five is the highest motivation, level one is the lowest. However the key to mastering them all is to understand that level 5 transcends and includes all the others. You can be operating largely from level five whilst at the same time:

Wanting to change something about yourself you don’t like
Wanting to get better at something you already do well
Wanting to specifically help your circle of influence in some way
Being motivate to make the world a better place

One minute mindfulness of motivation:

For two or three of your actions each day, sit down before hand and think to yourself “Why am I doing this?” Mentally bring to mind the five levels of motivation above (or print off the above summary and have a look at them as you ask yourself the question). How many of these motivations are you currently exercising in your life in an appropriate way? How many of them can you start introducing into your daily actions to deepen and enhance them?

Tags awareness, Concentration, consciousness, insight, meditation, motivation

Awareness and insight Enlightened service Motivation and scope Uncategorized

The five types of enlightened power

Post author By Toby
Post date September 20, 2010

The series of meditation classes that I am teaching at the moment has got me thinking about different ways in which you can express enlightenment in your daily life. Here is a profile of five enlightened powers that, if consciously practised together will make your own attempts to embody enlightenment in the market place more powerful:

The five types of power are:

The power of embodiment
The power of devotion
The power of affirmation and visualization
The power of energy
The power of karmic action

The power of embodiment – The basic practice here is remembering that you are, in essence a spark of Universal spirit experiencing (temporarily) a physically embodied life on Earth as a human. Whatever situation you find yourself in, grounding your awareness in your true identity and not getting caught up in your small or egoic identity is the power of embodiment. Wherever you are, remember WHO you are!

The power of devotion – This power is the power of invoking prayers to forces greater than oneself regarding any situation that you may be in. The power of devotional prayer connects higher and deeper energies into the situation, and enables them to participate in the event more directly, thus increasing the chances of a more enlightened outcome (See my article on “Why worry when you can pray?” ).

Another aspect of this power could be said to be your devotion to your highest ideal and highest outcomes, not settling for second best so to speak.

The power of affirmation – This power is really a mental training. It involves paying attention to the thoughts and images that you are having, and ensuring that as far as possible they are affirming the highest and best outcome for any given situation. Our thoughts and imagination have tremendous unseen power to influence events one way or another.

The power of energy – This power entails being aware of the subtle energy present in your body and in the environment, and learning to develop and maintain as harmonious, positively powerful and stable subtle body energy as you can at all times. Simply being a point of stable, expansive enlightened energy in any situation will be of help, even if we do or say nothing.

The power of karmic action – This is choosing to physically act and speak in a way that is congruent with the above four enlightened powers, so that the actual daily actions that you engage in are a reflection of the higher intentions that you have been developing.

A five minute meditation for engaging the five enlightened powers in your daily life:

If you do this exercise once a day over the next 7 days, it will give you a feel for how to engage the five powers in any given action.

– Minute 1 – Embodiment: Select the life situation that you want to engage the five enlightened powers with. Visualize yourself in that situation. Breathe deeply into the core of your being and body, find the formless, timeless space of pure awareness in your heart that is your True or Universal Self. Ground yourself in the awareness that this is your true identity.

– Minute 2- Devotion: Offer a prayer in whatever manner feels appropriate for the highest good of the situation. Invoke any higher or greater universal powers into the situation and request their help. Give them permission to participate fully in working toward the best outcome.

– Minute 3 – Affirmation: Offer your highest and most encouraging thoughts regarding the situation. For this time see, think and visualize the highest good and the best outcome

– Minute 4 – Energy: Feel the subtle energy and light vibration in your body as strong, balanced, harmonious and stable. See this energy spreading out into the situation and the energies of all the people involved. Feel and experience this strong balanced subtle force flowing in the dynamic of the whole scene.

– Minute 5 – Karmic Action: For the last minute think about practical things that you may be able to do or say to take the situation forward. Make a metal note of when and where you are going to try and engage in these practical actions.

Conclude with a dedication that the energy of all the five forces that you have generated in your meditation should be a cause for the most enlightened outcome possible!

Finnish.

Tags awareness, Concentration, consciousness, enlightened power, insight, meditation

Awareness and insight Enlightened service Inner vision Motivation and scope

Why expressing your enlightenment in the marketplace of your life is an ethical imperative (and three things you can do to start NOW!)

Post author By Toby
Post date September 10, 2010

In the past, if all those who had some degree of enlightened awareness chose to retreat from society and live in the mountains, then that would be unfortunate for society in general, but at least we could rest secure in the knowledge that the world and humanity would continue to be here. In past times humanity did not have the power to wreak total destruction on the planet, ecosystems and itself.

Now we are in a situation where the LACK of evolved consciousness in human society at large is a huge problem, because the problems that human activity is causing are global in nature. Humans now have the power to alter the ecological balance of the planet through pollution, to wipe out other species of creature in ways that in the past would have been inconceivable. We now have a situation where we have GLOBAL OR “METTA” PROBLEMS, BUT MOST HUMAN BEINGS ARE TRAPPED IN A EGOIC OR “MICRO” MINDSET!

The only way to solve global problems is by adopting a global mindset, where as many individuals as possible are actively caring about the state of the world as a whole. That means that humanity as a whole needs to raise its level of consciousness from a fundamentally self-centred, self-serving mindset to a fundamentally world-serving, globally caring mindset.

This current situation then places a new onus upon those whose level of consciousness is raised to any degree of enlightened awareness. It urges them to get out into society and start acting to raise the level of consciousness in as many practical ways as they can think of.

With this in mind, here are three areas that you can start working on NOW:

1) Developing and sustaining your own enlightened level of consciousness: Having a series of practices that you do each day that are specifically designed to raise your level of consciousness and sustain it. It is no use trying to save drowning people if you are drowning yourself! Knowing, experiencing and embodying enlightened awareness personally is essential for raising the level of societal and global consciousness!

2) Working mindfully with your own circle of influence: Your circle of influence is that group of people over whom you have some kind of personal or direct influence. These are the people and groups of people that you have real power to affect for better or worse right now . Maximising your potential to benefit them and help them raise their consciousness is perhaps the most obvious and direct way to help raise the consciousness of society as a whole!

3) Being actively involved in metta projects that are designed to benefit the evolution of the planet and society: As a meditation and Qi gong coach, my main metta project is creating a profile of services and education programs that help people to raise their consciousness, heal their mind and body and participate in life in an enlightened manner. Your project might be a long term relationship to a charity, working on conservation, creating new enlightened business systems or whatever. The main point here is that you have some form of long term project that is designed to make an enlightened impact on society in some way and in the long term.

So, the KEY with understanding these three areas is that ALL THREE NEED TO BE WORKING IN BALANCE.

– You don’t want to be a meditator with a high level of consciousness but completely cut off from society

– You don’t want to be a charity worker working on metta projects but totally personally burned out due to neglecting your own personal well being

– You don’t want to be a person who looks after his or her own circle of concern, but whose boundaries never extend beyond the scope of benefiting friends and family

You need to express whatever level of enlightenment you have in a balanced way in all three areas of your life.

I hope you have enjoyed the article, and I hope to see some of you at the Tuesday class where we shall be looking at this subject in depth!

PS: Here is the link to the new Integral teleseminar seiries entitled “Beyond awakening; the future of spiritual practice” guranteed to stimulate, and free to participate in!

Tags consciousness, Enlightened service, insight, meditation, spiritual intelligence

Awareness and insight Concentration Motivation and scope Presence and being present spiritual intelligence

Uniting the body, mind and heart: The three levels of mindfulness that we evolve through

Post author By Toby
Post date September 7, 2010

Following on from my earlier articles on gratitude and self-love, and articles on spiritual intelligence in general, here are three levels of mindfulness that we can distinguish.

As we develop our meditation practice we gradually evolve our experience of mindfulness through three levels. The three levels are as follows:

– Controlling the desires of the selfish / unconscious heart and instincts

– Engaging the mind, heart and body in communion with our actions and with life

– As an intuitive union of the mind, body and heart in all that we do

Level 1: Controlling the desires of the selfish / unconscious heart and instincts:

At this level mindfulness is basically used as an act of concentration and willpower extending mainly from our mind. We have decided that we wish to live a more conscious, engaged life and we realize that in order to do this we need to start exerting control over our selfish and uncontrolled desires that are leading us to experience repeated patterns of pain, stress, anxiety and emptiness.

We use our mindfulness to consciously direct ourself toward positive actions, ways of thinking and being in the world. At this stage our mind and willpower are like an animal tamer, and often our heart and instincts can feel a bit like the wild animal!

Level 2: Engaging the mind, heart and body in communion with our actions and with life

At this level of mindfulness we have developed a certain level of skillfulness. During our daily actions our mind, heart and body are co-ordinated in a more harmonious whole (as opposed to each going in their own direction, often pulling against each other).

We learn to bring the attention of our thinking mind, our feeling heart and our bodily senses into our actions in a mindful manner that makes life a deeply felt and fulfilling experience. We start to reap the rewards of our mindfulness practice, the main one being that we find that even small or seemingly mundane activities become causes of deep happiness and contentment. Our mindfulness enables us to experience first hand the truth that happiness can always be found in the present moment.

Level 3: As an intuitive union of the mind, body and heart in all that we do

At this stage we no longer a have to exert a large amount of effort to keep our mind, body and heart in a mindful, synchronized whole. The energetic “communication wires” between these three levels of our being have become well established. This means that even when we temporarily loose our mindful awareness, our feelings, thinking and body awareness tend to remain intuitively happy and harmonious through force of long habit.

Attaining the third level of mindfulness indicates a time in our practice where effort and hard work are replaced more and more by a sense of naturalness and flow extending from our deep communion with life on all levels.

Upcoming events with Toby:

Tuesday 15th September, new series of 3 classes on “How to express enlightenment in the market place of daily life”

Three body Qi gong classes with Toby in September and October

Tags meditation, mindfulness, spiritual intelligence, uniting mind and feelings