How would your current life and lifestyle be affected if you made the pursuit of Final Liberation your absolute intention from this moment on?
The great spiritual Masters tell us, again and again, that to reach the ultimate goal of complete Freedom and Enlightenment, we must focus our EVERY moment on The Inner Self, on God. My greatest challenge is to remember that this is what I want most in my life.
Paradoxically, the more challenging my life is, the stronger my intention is to focus on God. In fact, the more intense my life is, the more I am inspired to make my sadhana, my spiritual practices, my priority. Conversely, when my life is light and easy, my tendency is to relax and allow my focus on the Self to slowly dissolve into the turbulence of my mind.
It is all very subtle at first. I continue to meditate, of course. I never stop doing that. I continue to offer my love, to come from my heart. But my interest slowly, imperceptibly, moves toward outer things: politics, movies, TV, sports, etc. Now these are not bad things, necessarily. But when I do this, I tend to forget the Self. I forget the great Truth that everything is God, that nothing is other than God. As I pursue all these worldly things, I find myself ultimately getting lost in them. My mind takes me on a trip until something comes along to wake me up. The more lax I become, the more my mind leads me all over the place, and the more I forget the inner experience.
But I have received Shaktipat, the incredible spiritual awakening. Slowly, I begin to notice the little things that are breaking down all around me. I soon see that I am no longer experiencing the wonder and beauty of my own life. If I don't heed these warning signals, invariably the negativity in my life heats up even more. I get so uncomfortable! Finally, I see it. I have gotten lost. I am no longer in my heart. I have drifted into a dull, unconscious state of mind. But it is those very realizations that bring me back to my intention to be free.
More and more, I am absolutely certain that to be free of the pain and fear of this life, I need to constantly remember the Self and how wondrous it is to live from my heart and the love that eternally resides there.
When I look back, after 28 years of commitment to meditation and my other spiritual practices, I see clearly that my life is most affected by my inner awareness of gratitude. Remembering to be grateful for all I have been given always brings me back into alignment with The Shakti, with Grace. But most of all, when I am happy and content, my gratitude arises on its own.
I would like to encourage everyone to take the time this week to contemplate, then write down, the ways your life might change or be affected by making Final Liberation-Total Freedom- your absolute intention from this moment on.
Happy New Year, dear ones.
Love and Blessings,
Alan
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2 comments:
Alan, It is nice to realize that others have similar experiences with their meditation practice. I have found that when my life situation is on the up swing, I often forget the benefits of connecting with my true self. It is when stressful circumstances occur that the need to meditate is clear. Thank you for sharing so freely and openly. I look forward to reading more.
Dearest Alan,
It's a Blessing I was directed towards your book and your blog. My son is in prison and doesn't have access to the internet so I will copy and paste and mail them to him. Unfortunately I can't copy/paste where we click to read more. Is it available in another way?
I have been actively meditating for about 13 years. It is the mainstay in my life and has converted suffering to love and compassion for others as well as for myself. I am so grateful to be introduced to your book and sharing for myself and my son. He has spent nearly 6 years with 24/7 lockdown in a maximum security prison and just recently transferred to another prison without lockdown and where he can see the sun and get hugs at visits. He began meditating and visualizations several years ago. It has proven to be a God send and indeed fortunate to have maintained his ability to look forward in life without obvious resentments and despair. I’m
I’m very excited about the prospect of our communications via mailing your posts to him and his mailing me his replies so I may post back for him as well.
GE-LEG TRA-SRI CHHAR-BEB SHOG
And may the rain of supreme good fortune
And well being forever fall.
Susie T.
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