By Dawn King • My husband, Al, has been reading “My First Summer in the Sierra,” which a friend so kindly gave Al. We have the book’s author, a young John Muir, to thank for the Yosemite area of the U.S. becoming a national park. It truly is an inspiring natural wonder. And when we read Muir’s beautiful detailed descriptions of Nature in the Sierras, we have to think he was a most inspired and illumined naturalist. Here are some excerpts from John Muir’s journal:
Aug. 25: Cool as usual in the morning, quickly changing…Of all Nature’s flowery carpeted mountain halls none can be finer than this glacier meadow. …The birds are still here, showing no sign of leaving for winter quarters…For my part I should like to stay here all winter or all my life or even all eternity.
Aug. 26: Frost this morning; all the meadow grass and some of the pine needles sparkling with irised crystals—flowers of light. …Probably more free sunshine falls on this majestic range than on any other in the world I’ve ever seen or heard of. And how glorious the morning sunbeams are pouring through the crystals on the grass and pine needles, and how ineffably spiritually fine is the morning glow on the mountain tops and the alpenglow of evening. …May the Sierra be named, not the Snowy Range, but the Range of Light.
Aug. 27: Crystals grow in marvelous beauty and perfection of form these still nights, every one built as carefully as the grandest holiest temple, as if planned to endure forever.
Aug. 30: How lavish is Nature building, pulling down, creating, destroying, chasing every material particle from form to form, ever changing, ever beautiful. Mr. D. arrived this morning. Felt not a trace of loneliness while he was gone. On the contrary I never enjoyed grander company. The whole wilderness seems to be alive and familiar, full of humanity. The very stones seem talkative, sympathetic, brotherly. No wonder when we consider that we all have the same Father and Mother.
Norman Paulsen, Sunburst’s founder, advises:Allow your heart to commune with God in nature. Find a pristine environment that makes your heart swell with joy and love. Embrace the solitude. The pure Self within you will come forward through your senses to commune with you in Nature.
•by Letha Kiddie•The real aim of meditation is unlocking our heart’s natural devotion for God. The Kriya meditation technique helps us to detach ourselves from the demands and images of daily life. By focusing our awareness on the breath as it moves through each chakra, we purify and energize those centers in our spine and brain, become more receptive to the currents of life force which give us life.
The meditation technique is essential in overcoming the ceaseless flow of thoughts that would keep us from realizing our goal of illumination. Even if you start with five minutes of meditation in the morning and five minutes in the evening, as long as you do something every day, changes will happen.
An important factor is the devotion with which we meditate. Over time, your desire to sit with God will grow. Your thought processes will slow down and your heart will open. You can then enjoy deep communion with whatever image of God you hold, or simply be bathed in the peace, joy, and healing of the Divine.
“Meditate more; go deep. By changing your habits you will awaken in your heart the memory of God’s wondrous Being, and knowing God, there is no doubt that you will love the Divine.” – Paramahansa Yogananda
It is our birthright to experience the uplifting that comes from growing closer to our Creator, experiencing the “breath of life.” The dual aspect of our Creator as Mother and Father can continually wrap us in a cocoon of love, peace, and rapture. The more we fully concentrate with love and devotion in our meditation, the more progress we will make on our inward journey, and the more we will feel at home with the meditation process.
Norman Paulsen, Sunburst’s Founder, has said: God is a living Being we can know and communicate with personally. Our secret thoughts and deepest desires are known by God. The greatest moment of all occurs when we truly realize that God exists and is teaching us how to walk through this life. We then know that we are not alone. We must listen deeply for our Creator’s instructions on how to live correctly; then happiness will come.
To meditate deeply requires us to sit very still; still in mind as well as body. Actually doing so, of course is a problem that we all have in varying degrees. It is important, though, because God’s voice inside of us is a quiet one that only grows louder as we make the effort to listen to it. That means stilling ourselves to all of the other voices around and within us.
If you live with other people, and they are not also trying to meditate, then there can be quite a bit of distraction around you. If so, try to meditate after everyone else is in bed, or have a set time for meditation when others agree to be quiet. Having a regular time for meditation also helps your body and mind become accustomed to that time and makes it easier to be still. A comfortable pair of ear plugs could also help.
When you stretch before meditating, it relaxes your body and prepares your mind for the idea that you are about to be still. Three slow deep breaths in and out can energize you at the start of the day, or let go of a busy day when it’s over.
At home and at work, there is always more than enough to do, but the spiritual path needs to be a balanced one. We need to convince ourselves that making time specifically for Spirit is important. Spirit created us and gave us free will. That’s because our love for Spirit would mean nothing if we were all programmed like robots to love our Creator. By our free will we can choose to love Spirit and make time to express it: “Nothing else matters as much to me right now than sitting in quiet meditation to experience Your Presence.”
Helpful to meditation is the practice of God’s presence in all that you do throughout the day. Being still within involves training our mind to be one-pointed; we can make an effort to keep the mind from wandering during daily activities. Likewise, we can maintain focus on Spirit as the doer through us.
Sunburst’s Founder, Norman Paulsen shared: By continually planting positive seeds of focused meditation, and making the effort to live as Spirit intended us to live, we overcome the negative forces—we split the darkness around us, and experience the Divine with its radiant spheres of brilliant light. Once seeing, we know.
• by Cain Carroll•Happiness is a changing feeling that comes and goes with circumstances that appear to coincide with it. Since circumstances are largely out of our control, and constantly in flux, our happiness is always waxing and waning. It swells when we feel good (physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually and declines when we don’t Nobody can feel happy ALL the time because conditions (internal or external) can never be controlled to that degree. Trying will make you crazy.
The problem is that social conditioning, especially in the U.S., has us believe that there is something wrong with us if we don’t don a permanent smile. Actually, it’s totally natural NOT to—the sky is not always sunny, flowers aren’t always blooming, and even cats and dogs get the blues. Without sadness, pain, dissatisfaction, broken heartedness, confusion, etc., we wouldn’t be human (and there certainly would not be some good art or music).
Feelings come and go like changing seasons. It’s our reluctance to fully appreciate all of them that makes us feel divided inside. We were taught to feel bad about not feeling good. We learned this from a neurotic culture that is pathologically addicted to unattainable ideals (flawless beauty, eternal youth, perfect happiness.
We can un-learn it! Like removing corrupter software from our CPU…”Delete program!”
When we are in harmony with our life we feel happy much of the time. But it’s also possible to be at peace when dissatisfaction, pain, loneliness, confusion, sadness, or any challenging feeling comes along for a visit. It requires that we simply let go of our resistance to feeling what we feel. In other words, if we can fully accept whatever comes without judgment, criticism, or the need to understand why, then we find a sense of ease opening up inside of us.
That way, we can be free to feel dissatisfied without being anxious about it. Feeling less anxious, we have less dissatisfaction. The whole thing unwinds itself.
Admittedly, this takes quite a bit of courage, and the willingness to get comfortable feeling uncomfortable. But if we do this repeatedly, moment after moment, day after day, our inner conflict melts like a chunk of ice into a flowing stream. We discover a basic joy and peace that is available to us all the time, even amid the changing tides of our thoughts, feelings, sensations, and circumstances.
• by Norman Paulsen, Sunburst’s Founder • The experience of Cosmic consciousness is ecstasy beyond description, far beyond the self-conscious mind and its perimeters of existence. It is That which innumerable writers and poets have tried to put into words: Gautama the Buddha in the sutras; Jesus in the parables; Shakespeare in the sonnets.
Following this ecstatic state comes the illumination of the intellect, again quite impossible to describe. In that great flash of light, all is known—or should we say, all is comprehended. The very essence of life force, the Breath of Life which created all images, is now dwelling completely exposed within and around you. This penetrating force shatters all your previous concepts concerning God, the visible and invisible universe, and Life itself.
You no longer see planets, suns, and galaxies as inert, lifeless matter. All images become alive, and are pulsating with the rhythm of eternal energy combinations. In an instant, you learn more than many existences could ever contribute.
The infinite floodgate is breached, and that flood never ceases in this life or hereafter. Above and beyond this, God, I Am That I Am, is experienced as ever new and expanding joy, love and bliss which rests on the surface of eternal peace. The experience reveals that the very essence of the creation is Love!
For lack and want of words, how can I express this divine state, this pearl of great price? You, dear reader, can only know this through your own experience of it.
•by Dawn King•Much as things may seem to be unchanging when we want them to change in some way (an illness, our paycheck, a government), Life is Change. We need to appreciate those things we count on each day. Take time to think about what those things are and be grateful for them. They may be gone tomorrow!
I’m stopping now to acknowledge those anchors in my life: my husband, my spiritual community, the wonderful area in which I live. No matter how much I may think of myself as a “loaner”, each of us needs our community, our “tribe,” because thetribal survival instinct is built into our DNA. If you haven’t done so already, find your tribe! Any group will do if it gathers due to a common interest that you enjoy pursuing. But it should be a physical face-to-face gathering to truly meet your need for tribe; i.e. not one on social media or Zoom.
We’re living in a time of amazingly rapid changes in technology and consciousness. As someone with many decades to reflect upon, I’ve experienced a much simpler life (the 60s and earlier), moving at a much slower pace. It was wonderful! We could actually digest the experiences of each day, instead of reeling from the dizzying barrage of stimulus that assaults us from every direction today.
How can we find our center in this busy world today? In perfect harmony with Paramahansa Yogananda and Sunburst’s teachings, Omar Itani reminds us of the ancient Japanese Wabi-Sabi philosophy:
“Wabi is about recognizing beauty in humble simplicity. It invites us to open our heart and detach from the vanity of materialism so we can experience spiritual richness instead. Sabi is concerned with the passage of time, the way all things grow, age, and decay, and how it manifests itself beautifully in objects. It suggests that beauty is hidden beneath the surface of what we actually see, even in what we initially perceive as broken. Together, these two concepts create an overarching philosophy for approaching life: Accept what is, stay in the present moment, and appreciate the simple, transient stages of life.
Strive not for perfection, but for excellence instead. In other words, simply do your best to be the best that you can be.
All things in life, including you, are in an imperfect state of flux. Change is the only constant. Everything is transient and nothing is ever complete. And that’s why perfection doesn’t exist.
Slow down and simplify your life. Otherwise, you’ll rush through it, arrive at the end and wonder, ‘What was the point?’ Slowing down is what helps you become a more observant person. Which then helps you become more self-aware.…Immerse yourself into the fabric of this universe and appreciate it for what it is: The joy of watering your flowers in the morning, the joy of watching a sunset, etc.
So what’s the problem with chasing success? First, it will always evade you. And second, it’s virtually impossible to be happy all the time. The root of all unhappiness is born from being discontent with where you are and what you have. It really is as simple as that. To be content with what you have and where you are is to be grateful. To be content with what you have and where you are, while working toward what you want, and fully trusting that you can achieve it, is to be intentional. And through gratitude, intention, and action, you find happiness.
But at its core, wabi-sabi reminds you that life is fragile and temporary, it is as impermanent as anything else in nature, so why not give yourself permission to be just that, yourself?”
You may want to read the whole article; it’s found at: https://www.omaritani.com/blog/
