•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 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 Sean Fennell•We give ourselves over to the influence of the breathing Earth. Sleep, the shadow of the Earth, seeps into our skin, spreading throughout our limbs, dissolving our individual will into the thousand and one selves that compose it—cells, tissues and organs taking their prime directives from gravity and the wind, as residual bits of sunlight caught in the long tangle of nerves, wanders through the drifting landscape of our Earth-borne bodies, like deer moving across the forested valleys.
Where Spirit, nature and humans meet in oneness—in activity, as well as non-activity—I find my center. Permaculture is not just about growing gardens; it’s about growing infinite possibilities. It’s the marriage of the spiritual with the natural and social, and therefore, one of the highest expressions of co-creating with Spirit.
Everything belongs to Spirit; it’s designed, created, operated and maintained by Spirit. We humans are merely caretakers of this divine creation. As such, we are obligated to share all Spirit’s gifts fairly with others.
The basic principles of permaculture are Earth Care, People Care, and Fair Share. It’s at the intersection where these three practices converge that infinite possibilities exist. In meditation we strive to commune with Spirit inwardly; in permaculture we strive to connect with Spirit outwardly.
Acknowledging this fact, I’m faced with the questions: “What does permaculture look like at Sunburst?” and “What infinite possibilities can I co-create with Spirit moving forward—not only for the immediate future, but for generations to come?
We sleep, allowing gravity to hold us, allowing Earth, our larger body, to recalibrate our neurons, composting the keen encounters of our waking hours (the tensions, joys and terrors of our individual days), stirring them back as dreams into the sleeping substance of our muscles.
As we move forward, the future of Sunburst looks brighter than ever, for what can be greater than honoring our Divine Mother and Father, by loving and caretaking Mother Earth and all her creatures, utilizing her natural resources with utmost respect and care, loving others as we do ourselves, sharing the fruits of our labor and our God-given talents with passion and commitment?
In the vast, endless sea of eternity, My body, mind and spirit with Thee,
In truth I strive to be the best I can be, Better than none, but simply all I can be. In silence amidst the inner worlds I dance, Feeling Thy presence. Oh the Divine Romance! How can I contain this gift from Thee, How can I let it flow unceasingly? Awakening gladly to the Sun-kissed day, Knowing love cannot be held, simply shared, Given to Nature and to all brothers, sisters dear. This gift, my offering, I humbly bear.
by Sharon Ray •Often great patience and perseverance is required on our journey toward God-realization. We are wanting to experience the Divine in a way that can be felt and remembered. Our Creator is our greatest example of patience! Desiring us to enjoy an expanded state of consciousness, the Divine yet waits…lifetimes for us to turn our hearts homeward to embrace Divine consciousness.
The Lord is a great fisherman! We are on God’s line, but she does not yank us in. The Beloved of Patience lets us run the line way out into the ocean! We swim out there and get our hearts broken making all kinds of mistakes we don’t know how to get out of. Then, the Lord of Love begins to slowly reel us in, and how willingly we come back! Given the example of God’s patience with us, we become inspired to be patient with others, as well as ourselves.
The great good news is that Spirit can be experienced right now as the consciousness that enlivens us. Our Creator is the inner silent witness to all that takes place. This is the open awareness in us that has always been there and has never changed: “Permanent, unmoving, the everlasting Seer of All,” is how Yogananda described it.
The Divine is the part of us that is conscious even when we’re not thinking. This awareness has been always with us, is with us now, and will always be with us. The silent witness in us is our direct and immediate communion with God. When we are silent and awake, we are one with the Divine consciousness that lives in us and is always connected to the vast great central Sun of I Am That I Am. The Beloved is not far away somewhere else, but closer than our minds—a more real part of us than our breath.
Let’s close our eyes and pay attention to that breath. Can you feel the witness who is paying attention to this moment? God is our conscious awareness that witnesses everything. Breathing, we invite the Light of I Am That I Am to fully illuminate our minds, our hearts, and every bit of our being.
by Norman Paulsen•Long ago in a vision, the “face” of God appeared to me as a great light, brighter than the physical sun. It identified itself to me as I Am That I Am, and conveyed the truth that the Divine is dual in nature. “I Am masculine; I Am feminine; I Am Thatness from which the two came forth.” Two equal forces neither stronger than the other, are active within the creation we observe around us every day.
“I Am That I Am” is one of the greatest mantras. When we identify with that life force and repeat those words with devotion and concentration, we will get an immediate response. We will experience that force, that life which is around and within us, keeping the atomic structure of our bodies functioning every microsecond of time.
We didn’t create ourselves, and don’t even run the inner mechanisms of our bodies. Who is doing all of this for us? There is a divine Being here in us right now that we can meet and know, who would walk fully conscious with us in these bodies it created!
There was once a devotee who was calling and calling on God, going every day to put flowers on the altar, meditating, praying, doing asanas—every practice he could think of. One day when he went to the altar, he was suddenly struck with illumination, and put the flowers on his own head! So it is when we start awakening into the Cosmic conscious mind that we begin to realize this body is a divine creation, spun together by dual divine forces.
Why does this creation exist? Why are all of us here? I Am That I Am says: “I created all of these beings so that I can become fully conscious in each one. I walk in the masculine and the feminine. I enjoy the experience of being human. I bathe in the waters. I gaze at the universe, and breathe the fresh air.”
To become fully conscious God-realized beings is what Spirit wants for all of us. Once you experience God-consciousness, it will never leave you. You may go astray, but it will never leave you. It’s like having a gentle hand on your head, always drawing you back to it.
Having this experience doesn’t mean you’re infallible, or that you don’t make mistakes. You’re like a child with a new sense added to the five outer senses. Call it the Cosmic sense, the Christ sense. It’s the sense that knows you are one with the whole cosmos, and it’s one with with us. The divine Being is you, and you are the divine Being, along with everyone else! Your awareness expands into everyone and everything you see. You realize that God is the only reality. Hold fast to that divine Being you know!
