by Dawn King•In our busy lives, sometimes the day seems chaotic. Chores, cooking, meetings, phone calls, texts, child care, traffic jams, emails, sounds that irritate us, and even more bombards us. Our attention is demanded from all sides.
If we can remember to consciously take a deep breath, inhaling the life of Spirit and realizing the temporary nature of this ever-changing life, we win! This is when we embrace the advice of Paramahansa Yogananda to “…Stand unshaken amidst the crash of breaking worlds.” Our spirit remains strong and is untouched.
An article I read recently told of a young man’s six-week sojourn in a Buddhist temple. He described being invited one day to tea by the abbot. He ascended the stairs to an upper story, only to find the abbot absorbed in concentration over his task at hand, and observing a focused silence. He cleansed each article used in the tea ceremony with full attention, as though nothing else existed at that moment. Ultimately, tea having been served, the abbot turned the same full attention on the young man.
When we focus the mind completely on the moment, whether in meditation, or while carrying out an action, we bring peace to our minds, hearts, and nervous systems. The distraction of phones and other electronics is especially disruptive to this process of being here now. We make ourselves ill by attempting to deal with everything at once.
Studies have now proven that multitasking can reduce your cognitive functioning. Your brain isn’t really doing more than one thing at once, it is jumping back and forth between tasks, and needing to try to remember where it was each time it returns to the earlier one.You lose valuable productivity time in completing tasks, make mistakes, and memories are harder to recall.
Entrepreneur Andy Hill writes: “Multitasking is just a fancy word for being unfocused.…When we multitask we can’t give ourselves to the present. Instead, we sacrifice now for later with the hopes of future happiness.…Imagine what we could hear, learn and share if we were 100 percent present in a conversation. …We’d be more focused, apt, adaptive and therefore better decision makers. The better we can solve problems, the more productive. More successful. Happier. And isn’t that the point?”
To the words of psychologist Michelle Fung: “…By simply focusing on one thing at a time you will instantly improve the quality of your work,” I would add “and your life.”
by Dawn King•We are always delighted to learn about the life of another great, illumined person from earlier times. Today I’m writing about Guru Nanak who became a spiritual teacher (“guru”) during his extraordinary life. With deep devotion (bhakti) to Truth, he equated God with the ultimate Truth, and he saw all people as bearers of Divine Light.
Born in what we call Pakistan today—but in the 1400s and 1500s—Nanak refused to favor a sex (male or female), religion (Hindu or Muslim), or one caste over another. Women were not given equal status with men at this time. His attitudes shocked his contemporaries also because competing religions and the caste system were firmly established in that era. Followers of Hindu and Muslim faiths were in constant conflict; something Nanak continually tried somewhat to reconcile.
Stories of Nanak’s early childhood state that as a sleeping child he was shaded from the hot sun by a venomous cobra’s hood, or a magically moving tree. While 7 years of age, upon learning the first letter of the alphabet, he associated it with the number “one”, and described it as a symbol of unity and the one God within all. Like Jesus, at a young age the precocious Nanak debated with both Hindu and Muslim religious scholars about the nature of God.
He is quoted as saying: “There is but One God. His name is Truth. He is the Creator. He fears none; he is without hate, He never dies. He is beyond the cycle of births and death. He is self illuminated.… He was True in the beginning…. He is also True now.”
Another saying attributed to him: “Even Kings and emperors with heaps of wealth and vast dominion cannot compare with an ant filled with the love of God.” He was attributed as hearing the “word” of God, a divine guiding sound.
Revelations from God inspired Nanaks’ teachings. Popular tradition offers ways in which his teaching may be practiced: 1. Be of service to others. [“Share with others, help those who are in need, so you may eat together.”] 2. Earn an honest living, without exploitation or fraud. Daily life offers opportunities to serve. 3. Meditate on God’s name, in order to feel His presence, and to control the five vices or thieves of the human personality. The “thieves” steal one’s common sense: lust, wrath, greed, attachment and excessive pride, or ego. 4. Maintain connection to the Divine in your heart with every breath.
Nanak travelled extensively during his life, exploring religious practices in many areas far from his home, and offering his own views on the Truth. Consequently, he made an impression, and is celebrated in Sri Lanka, Tibet, Nepal, Iraq, Russia, and China.
My favorite story about Guru Nanak is that about his passing from this world. Both Hindus and Muslims wanted to claim him as their saint. When representatives of both religions showed up to claim his body, the shroud was removed to reveal a heap of flowers. Each group was able to take flowers and treat them as they would their revered saint’s body.
Today we have the Sikh faith, all followers of their original saint, Guru Nanak. Sikh means “seeker of truth,” meaning the divine Truth within.
The importance of meditating each morning and evening cannot be emphasized enough. At first, this discipline takes effort, but as your meditations deepen and you begin to feel the inner peace and joy, your desire to meditate will grow. Each day resolve that you will meditate more deeply than yesterday. Set aside time one day each week for a longer practice. Make a place in your home that is dedicated to meditation.
Developing devotion, called bhaktiyoga, is also an essential part of the practice. Norman [Sunburst’s founder] often said, “Talk to God as you would your best friend, your divine companion!”
Devotion to whatever concept of God is pleasing to you is a powerful magnetic force that Spirit cannot resist. Your heart may be drawn to visualize Divine Mother, Heavenly Father, a God-realized soul, or a radiant sphere of Light, I Am That I Am, brilliant like the sun. Offering your love and devotion to your favorite image of the Divine will help rein in the ego-centered self, freeing the pure Self to come forth.
The meditation technique can take you to the door, but only your devotion will take you through the door. – Paramahansa Yogananda
John Kiddie:
Using our meditation technique, we quiet the senses, find that center place within us, that spark of the Divine that has been with us always. We imagine our spine as a hollow tube connecting Mother Earth and Father Spirit. We make the connection with the breath going up and down that tube.
We continue to do this, mixing and melting the energies of the Mother and the Father, bringing forth a union within us. It’s like dipping the fabric of our soul, our being in the waters of the Divine and washing it clean with every breath. As we bring in the energies and circulate them through our spine, we are slowly but surely cleansing ourselves from the inside.
We quiet our mind and come to reside in that center place within where Spirit resides. Through time, all will be revealed in that sacred space. What is revealed in that place is virtue, taking many forms. When we get to that place and reside there, we put on the cloak of virtue and transform ourselves so that our thoughts, words, and actions are virtuous. We do not have to think of being virtuous because we have become virtue.
by Norman Paulsen, Sunburst Founder • Self-discipline arises from commitment to the vision you seek, knowing what you want and dedicating your life to bringing it forth into being. True discipline is never a restriction. It is a liberation! Through meditation and right conduct, the ego, the false self, draws nearer to the pure Self. Virtue begins to arrive in your outward expressions, conducting the power of infinite love through every thought, word, and deed. Energies, never before felt, approach your awareness. Great love is felt for life, for God!
God is more desirable than all that can be experienced by the five senses. However, one does not abandon the outer for the inner! The adept, once knowing the inner, brings it to the outer world for expression. To bring heaven on earth again is our purpose. Yes, God is alive in you, experiencing the five senses, picking and tasting the fruit of the trees that I Am That I Am created, feeling the miracle of the solid earth beneath your feet, bathing in the waters, experiencing the warmth of the sun on a summer’s day.
Having access to the inner life, one now expresses it in the outer life. I Am That I Am now walks the earth as was originally intended in the cosmic plan. Yes, God, Mother and Father, those two divine dreamers, living and walking fully conscious within you upon the earth. This is the reason you are here today, dear friend, that God might live and work and play through you, fully conscious. And as a son or daughter, you are joined in this union.
by Catherine Mauron•There is so much love in our hearts. We are so blessed to be here, to pray to God who is ever-present, around us and within us. The virtue Sunburst celebrates this month is Patience, the ability to wait. This is a long-forgotten gift in today’s society.
The whole of existence waits for the right moment. The trees know when it is the right time to bring the flowers and when to shed their leaves. It is for us to learn to wait, to let go and let God bring forth the fruits. We plant the seeds and then we wait. It takes time for a fruit to ripen, for a new project to manifest, for a child to grow in the womb, for an oyster to cultivate a grain of sand into a pearl.
We must learn to wait through the phases of the moon; in the time of waiting we learn skills. Before the perfect moment arises, we have to let go of our ideas and beliefs, to return to being little children. We must let go of our expectations to receive this river of life that wants to run through us. In order to cleanse ourselves, we need to let go of the old, to renew our spirits. Thus we can be happy right here, right now.
There is nothing else but Now. There is no yesterday or tomorrow, only a dream of them. We must try to awaken to every moment and see that there is so much for which to be grateful. It is best to be loving and compassionate toward each other, to see God all around us and in each other. If we can’t see God in everything, we can’t see God at all. The Light shines on everything, a beautiful pearl or an old broken car. The Light does not mind.
In Brother Norman’s book, he wrote that when Divine Mother visited him, she said she would come back in seven days. So he had to wait. Through the waiting period he learned that he could meditate during his work time. He then could meditate all of the time. This is the true meaning of Kriya action, divine action, action with love. Not only in deep meditation, but when you work, when you talk, walk, eat, and sleep. Always let the Divine move through you. Mother and Father Divine await at the door, knocking silently until we are ready to open our hearts and minds so they can come in and enjoy this world through, and with us.
In French we say, “La patience est la mére des vertus.”“Patience is the mother of all virtues.” Waiting, listening, remaining alert, there is no anxiety knowing that all is well. All is well in the greater scheme of the Universe. All is well!
