You know how easy it is to be lulled into thought. While meditating, how many times have you caught yourself in thought a good five minutes after you committed to staying aware, present, and singular of thought?! After you had promised not to lose yourself in thought but to stay present in meditation or the moment.
It is so easy to be tempted by the individual or universal mind to take up thought, that in turn elicits emotional responses - then before you know it, you have lost yourself to the world again, to the mind and body. To stay present in the moment or in meditation is seriously hard after a lifetime of losing ourselves in illusionary thought.
It is so easy to step off the path of the road less travelled, losing ourselves and our good intentions each day in uncharted territory, heavy of heart and weary by nights end.
“Emotional habit patterns set up a disturbance in the cerebellum which may attack any part of the body. Fear adds coal to the fire because you do not understand what is taking place, thus a vicious circle is created”. – Dr Murdo MacDonald-Bayne.
Therefore, be sure every night to wipe the dust off your feet every night before sleep. Let go of emotions that have stuck with you during the course of the day due to individual or universal thoughts intruding upon your consciousness. Emotions that gathered while taking thought will disturb your peace - mind, body, and Soul. Deal with them not by suppressing them but by letting them rise, allowing them expression and then giving them reason to leave you in peace. The reason that they are not of the true Self is often reason enough.
“Divine reasoning and relaxation – you cannot separate one from the other. Relaxation without divine reasoning is like a ship without the helm. Divine reasoning leads you out of your difficulties, clears the mind and makes a path so that life can clear away the debris”. – Dr Murdo MacDonald-Bayne.
Bathe in the highest room of your temple (meditation) reasserting the peace that is an innate and fundamental quality of your being. Let the light of your being bathe away the days dust, so that you may go easy into the night, resting in the peace of Soul being Spirit. Spirit is your true consciousness (Intelligence) and Soul (love) is the expression of that consciousness.
I cannot stress enough the importance of learning to relax. It is the highest spiritual practice one can undertake when starting off on the road less travelled. There are many exercises one can learn to ensure the mind and body is relaxed. Find out what they are and employ them. I can tell you, without a shadow of a doubt they will be the most beneficial in helping your meditative and mindfulness practices.
One exercise I have found to be most helpful is one I took from the works for Dr Murdo MacDonald-Bayne that is practiced before getting out of bed in the morning and in bed at night before sleep and is practiced as thus:
Relax the whole mind and body then lie in this state for sixty seconds. Then stick out your arms and raise the body, making an effort to touch your toes, at the same time consciously tensing every muscle in the body for a few moments only, then relax again for sixty seconds. Do this five times.
When morning comes, don't be afraid to walk alone if need be while making sure to take time to smell the roses, enjoying all the little things life has to offer. Then when night comes and finds you once again in your temple, shake the dust off your feet once more. Do not let emotion accumulate and disturb your peace. Die to yourself each night so that you may be born again each morning in and of Spirit.
~ Tracy Pierce
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