Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Sunday – Rediscovering Happiness

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Contemplation, Contentment, Happiness, Joy, Love, Meditation, Prayer, spiritual discipline, Spiritual Exercises, Spiritual habits, Spiritual responsibilities

Regardless of your faith or religious path, each comes with certain disciplines that should be followed in order to attain the success the path offers. Meditation daily, prayer daily or multiple times, eating the right foods and avoiding those that are not allowed. All these should be practiced with love.

I mention quite a bit in my blog about my practice of a “do nothing day”. I wanted to correct that here. There are certain disciplines my religious path requires and even on my “do nothing day” these are done. I read from my bible, I study my discourses, I do my spiritual exercises, and I do my daily journaling. I perform these tasks with joy and detachment. Detachment means I do these things without expectation of a revelation, reward, or some other benefit. I do them out of love for God.

One of the quotes provided by the teachings I follow is that “All is in its rightful place in the worlds of God.” – Sri Harold Klemp. This statement if taken to heart provides a sense of contentment. I have all I need. I am happy. I am safe. I am content. How could I not be if “All is in its rightful place in the worlds of God”?

Many people are constantly looking for happiness. They look here and there, hoping they can find it. What is sad and funny is that happiness is within. It is sad for those who do not know this and are constantly looking for it somewhere else. Perhaps happiness can be found in making a lot of money. Perhaps I can get my happiness through another person. Perhaps I could get a better job, a better car, or a better set of clothes. It is funny because when we finally discover that happiness is within, we stop striving. We stop looking. We realize after all the time we spent suffering that we had happiness with us the whole time.

I wish everyone could experience the contentment I felt when I woke up this morning. I woke up, had my breakfast, did my journaling, my spiritual reading, and my religious studies. As I was doing these things a calmness came. Along with this calmness came contentment and happiness. Because I realized how great life is. The only way I can describe it is the feeling that arose with a scene in my mind about being a kid on Saturday morning with a box of cereal in his hand, watching cartoons with his brother. How we laughed.

We lose this simple happiness as we bear the mantle of life. Now there are bills. There are people to take care of. There are responsibilities. Those childhood memories fade away, as responsibility and worry take over. Then, one day, we reawaken those childhood memories. We realize that happiness has always been there, hidden under the clutter of our lives. A clutter, mind you, that we created because we wanted to recapture this happiness, but forgot where we put it.

Today, even if for a moment, think about a time in your life you were truly happy. Was it because someone else made you happy? Was it because of the things you had? Was it because of the way you looked? I think you’ll find that those moments of peak happiness were simple times. You were happy because you just were. I wish you every happiness in life. You already have it within you. Rediscover that.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Rest, Relaxation, and Celebration

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Achievement, Contemplation, family, Friends, Goals, Monday, motivation, Rest, Strive, Thankful

This week the United States celebrates Thanksgiving. As we approach the holiday season, it is a good time to talk about taking a break. You’ve worked hard all year. You’ve put your efforts into personal goals and are beginning to look at what you would like to pursue in the new year.

Take that time. Enjoy your family. Recharge the batteries. Have fun.

The year is almost gone. You still have time to knock out the rest of your goals, but if you didn’t make it, don’t sweat it. Goals are voluntary. We set them and strive to achieve them, but things change. One of the revelations I had a few years ago was the need to drop a goal if I felt like I was pulling my own teeth to work toward it. It didn’t mean that the goal was a bad one; it merely meant it wasn’t the right goal at the time.

I’ll be posting this week, even though my sister is here, but will be less active in this and many of my online accounts, because it’s time to enjoy the family and friends that come over to hang out. Take advantage of this time. It’s once a year, and it is a great time to contemplate what you want to do next year, and how you did this year.

With that, I’ll wish everyone a terrific Thanksgiving, if you celebrate the holiday. I can’t wait!! The food will be awesome!

Have a great Monday, folks.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday – The Law of HU

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Contemplation, creation, Divine Spirit, Eckankar, God, Light and Sound, Meditation, reality, The ECK

HU is an ancient name of God. In ECKANKAR, we use it during our contemplations, among other charged words. You can chant HU, regardless of your religion. It is an uplifting mantra that gives peace and calm, particularly when life is giving you a rough time. Below is a link for you to listen to if you wish.

HU—The Sound of Soul

The Law of HU declares that the ECK or divine spirit, or what we call the Light and Sound of God, are the formers of this and many other universes. It is this divine spirit that gives life to the matter in this reality.

I hope all of you have a terrific Saturday.

May the blessings be.

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday – Going Within.

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Calm, Chaos, Contemplation, going within, Meditation, News, Relax, Stress

The world just keeps getting crazier and crazier. This year has been a whopper so far. How do you remain calm in all of this chaos?

Each of us can go within ourselves in quiet meditation or contemplation. We can sit down and read a book that captures our attention. We can listen to Sound scapes, classical, or some easy listening jazz. The point I’m trying to make is you can be alone, quite, and relaxed, simply by going to your happy place in your home and just suck in the peace of silence.

Those that are hardcore meditators, particularly the Zen Buddhists, call meditation sitting, The simplest forms of their meditation is either following the breath or a body scan. Either technique achieves its end goal—serenity in the breath.

The greatest benefit of this process is learning to “control” the mind. You do so by focusing it gently on the breath and keep your attention there. It is harder than I describe it. Many of us have so many responsibilities, worries, and consume some form of news. The latter is the most stressful practice you can adopt. The news is designed to enrage, frighten, and confuse. If they achieve their goal, they have a person stuck in an endless loop of “soap opera”-type news stories that create a situation where you cannot stop reading to get your adrenaline fix.

Who can blame the news? They have to make money in a very competitive marketplace. They compete with podcasts, YouTube channels, Blogs, books, and social media. The news is on every channel in one shape or another. Even ESPN is political nowadays.

Chop down your news consumption. Treat yourself with loving kindness by taking 10-15 minutes to close your eyes and just listen to your breath. It provides tremendous benefits and will help you deal with all that is going on in the world.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday – Zazen

Tags

Being Present, Contemplation, Focus, Meditation, Mindfulness, Prayer, Shunryu Suzuki, Sitting, Zazen

“When you bow, you should just bow; when you sit, you should just sit; when you eat, you should just eat.” – Shunryu Suzuki

This quote relates to being present. Being present means you think about what you do and focus on that and that only. Before I began to attempt this, I had no idea how many details I was missing. Our minds have a way of doing this to us all of the time. It automates, because that is the most efficient way for the brain to operate. This automaticity, however, is also the brain’s weakness.

Being present means we do one thing, focusing all of our attention on that one thing. It is hard to explain the beauty of living this way. Recently, I began tracking my activities for the day. I start a timer and focus on one task. This focus allows you to realize a ton of things you may have missed if you fail to focus like this.

Here I am working on a blog posting. I focus on the words. I focus on the pressure my fingers feel each time they depress a button on my laptop’s keyboard. I say the words to myself as I type. My mind will wander at times, but I bring it right back to the task at hand. Truly focusing on one thing at a time is not easy. The mind is so scattered. One thing I have discovered over time while I practice this new way of thinking, is how much more focused I have become by practicing every day.

This is the crux of Zen Buddhism. It is not a religion. It is a meditation practice. The Zen Buddhists call this zazen or sitting. When a Zen Buddhist meditates, he sits. He does nothing but sit and focus on the breath. Over time, the mind will settle down. You transcend the mind and its thoughts. The mind, when it is ignored long enough, will fade away, just like your body will fade. The focus that arises from sitting is so pinpointed, everything beyond what is focused on disappears.

Think about the beauty of this. If the mind and body fades away, what is left? You got it–the real you! That is what is left. This level of focus is far above what you and I would consider focus. This focus, derived from sitting (zazen), will transfer to other aspects of your life. It transfers to your work, your writing, your eating, and your bathing. The focus becomes easier to attain as well.

The focus is the primary benefit. This focus, particularly when you are concentrating on a singular task, allows one to enjoy this state throughout the day. Imagine a day like this. A day without worry about the future, dread about the past, stressing over a mistake, or worrying about how long you have been doing something. This is a state called flow. You become so focused and engrossed with a task, time falls away, everything falls away but you and the task you are working on.

Imagine how wonderful eating would be if you could enjoy the texture, the smell, the feel, the sight, and taste of what you are eating. Imagine being so focused on your meal that everything outside that meal faded away.

Meditation, contemplation, or prayer all require focus. Focus comes with practice. Here is a simple meditation you can try. Sit in a comfortable chair with your back straight. Close your eyes. Take a few deep breaths. Then let the breath return to its normal pace and depth. Concentrate on the breath coming in and going out. Initially, you’ll want to count the breath as it comes in and goes out. One–breathe in. Two–breathe out. Three–breathe in. Four–breathe out. Do this to 10 and start over. If you lose track of your counting when you daydream or get engaged with a rising thought, start over again. You’ll find that the mind will be restless and continue to give you things to think about. Don’t fret over this. Simply return to your breath and begin counting again.

This is Zazen or sitting. It has been practiced for thousands of years. Zazen can be practiced when sitting, working on a single task, eating, or even gardening. You remain focused on the moment, by experiencing everything as it occurs. Try this out. You’ll be amazed how pleasant mundane tasks become. You’ll also begin to appreciate the calm, wonder, and flow that arises when you improve your focus.

I hope you have a terrific Saturday! My sister is coming over today to celebrate her birthday and hang out with us. We are looking forward to it.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday – Finding Truth

Tags

Contemplation, Emotions, Intellect, Intuition, Meditation, memories, Prayer, The Mind, Truth

No matter how much insight we gain about God, there will always be something that lies beyond the horizon of our understanding. That is simply the nature of truth.

—Harold Klemp The Language of Soul

If you search for God, you will never find IT. God is within, buried beneath layers of the mind, the emotions, memories, intellect, and intuition. If we look deep enough, we will find God. Looking deep enough is hard because our minds are so dominant in this reality. To experience God, we need to peel back all these layers first. How do we do this?

We meditate, pray, or contemplate. In my religious path we contemplate. Contemplation is like meditation but active. Meditation typically requires us to focus on the breath, chant a mantra, or focus on an object in our mind’s eye. Contemplation requires us to visualize scenes and actively interact within. Prayer can achieve the same things by chanting a verse, focusing on a religious concept. Why do these activities help us? They focus on things other than our immediate environment. This focus projects us to another place. The more we practice prayer, meditation, or contemplation, the easier it becomes to lose ourselves in the act.

We must drop the mind. Some of you are asking, how in the heck do you drop the mind? You drop the mind when you realize that the mind is not you. You are something else. You are that which thinks about thinking. In my religion we call this being soul. Soul is the real you. It is that part of you that can watch your thought stream. Soul is not the ego. Soul is not your emotions. Soul is not your hunger or lust. Soul is not the part of you that thinks or remembers. Soul is not your intuition. Soul is you.

For some, this can be difficult to understand. It is difficult to understand because science and our society has taught us that the brain is us.  It is not. Soul is the real you.

No one will convince you of anything related to truth. Truth is something you find on your own. Finding truth takes work. It requires you to act, to take matters into your own hands. Once you find truth, you soon discover that it changes. This is the nature of things. It isn’t the truth that changes though. You change. As you change, truth takes on new meaning as you look at it through “new” eyes. Truth never changes, only illusion changes.

If you are unsatisfied with your current religious path or seek questions you cannot answer, look around this website: www.eckankar.org This is the website for my religious path. On this website you can request information. You may like what you find. I have been an Eckist for over 40 years. It is the only path I know. It is a blessing to be an Eckist. Check it out. You have nothing to lose.

If you visit this site, get the materials and still have questions, you are welcome to reach out to me directly. Comment on this thread with: “Contact me”. I hope you have a great Saturday!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday

Tags

Buddha, Contemplation, Meditation, Prayer, Religion, spirituality

Image Credit: www.brainyquote.com

Regardless of your religious or even non-religious stance, it is one of the critical pieces of our lives. Today is a day to contemplate your relationship with God, the Universe, or whatever you consider beyond yourself. Perhaps philosophical concepts are divine to you.

I am an Eckist (see www.eckankar.org). This has been my religious path since childhood. Like most believers, it is a joy each day to go into contemplation (meditation or prayer are equivalents) and give my love to God. It is a joy to give thanks for the things I have in my life.

The path back to God is a long and hard journey but it is a journey worth taking. Those of us in Eckankar believe that we reincarnate over and over and over again to perfect Soul. Soul is the true “us”. The body we use currently is only for Soul’s use, not the other way around. As Soul learns it becomes more Godlike. It never becomes God. It becomes more refined and grows in awareness. This awareness provides Soul with better insights. These insights allow Soul to avoid past mistakes and this, in turn, allows us to live a better life.

Ultimately, we discover that Soul’s purpose is to continue to learn better ways of giving and receiving love—to be a channel for God’s love, wherever we are. The more we give, the more we get.

Whatever path you follow, give it reverence. Learn the religious books, practice the tenets of these scriptures. Dedicate yourself to improve in conjunction with the teaching your path provides. There is no greater pursuit than God.

I hope each of you is having a terrific weekend so far.

Until next time…

Dave

Reference

Buddha Quotes. (n.d.). BrainyQuote.com. Retrieved October 6, 2018, from BrainyQuote.com Website: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/buddha_121766

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesdays

Tags

Contemplation, HU App, HU Chant, Lao Tzu, Meditation, Relaxation, Stress Relief

Life can be stressful. We deal with traffic jams, stress at work, and the stress of being exposed to constant and uninterrupted noise. How can one escape it?

Some folks meditate. I contemplate. The key difference is that meditation waits, and contemplation is active. Regardless of the technique you use, take as little as 10 minutes a day and just be quiet. Close your eyes, relax, concentrate on your breath, scan your body, visualize a serene vista in your mind, or chant a word out loud or silently repeatedly.

One of the words I use to chant is HU. HU is an ancient name for God. Simply sit in a chair or lay down on a bed or couch. Place your attention on your third eye. This eye is about 2 inches in from the point between your eyebrows. Chant HU 3 or 4 times and then sit or lay quietly and listen and watch. It is also nice to think of something that creates a feeling of love within. Think of a pet, a parent, a sibling, friend, or significant other. Start your practice for as little as 5 minutes a day and work yourself up to 20-30 minutes.

There is a HU app in the iTunes library and Google Play. You can find the app for free in both. Simply use the keyword “HU” in either library and you’ll find it.

Meditation and Contemplation are excellent ways to relax, develop your ability to focus, and relieve stress. This is part of my day, every day. I cannot recommend this enough.

I hope your week is going well!

Until next time…

Dave

Reference

Lao Tzu Quotes. (n.d.). BrainyQuote.com. Retrieved October 3, 2018, from BrainyQuote.com Web site: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/lao_tzu_386562

Daily Ramblings – Daily Quote – Thinking before doing

Tags

Contemplation, David Allen, Execution, Getting Things Done, Learning from Others, Prioritization, reflection

“Follow effective actions with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.” – Peter Drucker

Anytime I’ve taken the time to really think through a project before I begin working on it, the more effective I am. It took me a long time to realize the wisdom in this. I, like a lot of my colleagues, would just jump in and get working only to find out we wasted time, missed critical steps, or hit the wrong target.

This quote offers a simple truth: Anything we create is first created in our mind, then brought into reality. I accomplish this kind of work by thinking about what I want to do. Then, I take some time to research, investigate, inquire about what it will take to accomplish a certain goal. Most of the time, someone else has already done this. So, it makes sense to look at what steps they took and then use this as a model for my own projects. Obviously, there may be some unique steps you need to incorporate to accomplish your specific goals but always remain open to other people’s experiences. They may offer a way to do something that helps avoid problems they already experienced.

This idea was reinforced by David Allen in his book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-free productivity. He talks about the natural planning model, which looks like this:

• Defining Purpose and Principles
• Outcome visioning
• Brainstorming
• Organizing
• Identifying Next Actions

Each of these steps is natural to the way we create things. We first develop an idea and begin thinking about how that idea would look in our reality. We then brainstorm and research all of the things we need to do to make our idea a real thing. We then organize the actions we uncover during our research and brainstorming and then begin working through these actions in the form of next actions.

The real challenge in using this model or way of working is to take the time to really reflect. What do we want? How do we get what we want? Take your time. Think. Then execute. After you begin executing the action steps you’ve devised, you’ll begin to realize some gaps or the need for further action steps, particularly if this is something you’ve never done before. That’s ok. The key is to reflect each day on what we did yesterday, plan what we will do tomorrow, and execute.

Planning becomes easier when we learn the length of time it takes to do something, it also helps us figure out what is really important for the next day and helps us complete things in the order we’ve set them to be executed. Take some time at the end of your day or at the beginning of your day to choose which action steps you’ll take and then get them on your calendar, keeping in mind all of the other commitments you have made (dentist appointments, gym time, etc.). Once you have your plan in place, just knock out the steps. Then do the same thing the next day.

David Allen defines a project as a task which contains more than one step to accomplish. Subsequently, you probably have a lot more projects to accomplish than you would initially think. Take the time to brainstorm each of these projects. What do you need to do first? What do you need to do next? What other steps need to be added based on your current activities? Take the time to think through all of these things and you’ll get closer and closer to your goals much sooner and in a more organized fashion. You’ll also capture the things you learned along the way, so if you ever tackle this type of project again, you’ll have a much easier time knocking that one off of your to-do list the next time around.

Well, that’s it for today, folks. I hope you have a great Wednesday!

Until next time.

Dave