12 Universal Focus Phrases to Quickly Bring Peace and Inner Clarity
Throughout his pioneering career as a psychologist and spiritual teacher, John Selby has sought new solutions to confusion and suffering, and discovered proven techniques for attaining mental, physical, and emotional well-being. The streamlined daily practice presented here is the final result of a lifetime of psychological research born of John’s personal struggle and spiritual awakening.
The twelve simple yet potent Focus Phrases taught in this book integrate the wisdom of the world’s spiritual practices with cutting-edge cognitive science, inserting realistic “intent messages” into your inner dialogue and encouraging creative insight and emotional healing. These core statements constitute a root psychological meditative practice to help you tap the power of the present moment — naturally, pleasurably, and with life-affirming consistency.
Here is a sampling of the focus phrases Selby offers:
➢ I choose to enjoy this moment.
➢ I feel the air flowing in and out of my nose.
➢ I am ready to experience the feelings in my heart.
➢ I honor and love myself just as I am.
“Expand This Moment” Introduction with John
In this short discussion of John’s new book Expand This Moment, you will learn the origins of the Wake Up meditation program taught in the book and online at www.TappingDaily.org. This is the short version of the video introduction to the Expand This Moment process – the longer version is also available at the author’s site.
lie Cioara was an enlightened mystic who did not belong to any lineage. He is unique in a way, in the sense that he lived in almost complete isolation, in Eastern Europe in a communist country, completely oblivious of nonduality, zen etc. Originally a Christian mystic, he practiced a mantra for over 20 years.
One day, he felt an intuitive impulse to drop the mantra, and just practice the silence of the mind, by listening to the noises on the street, in the now. After following this practice for a few years, one morning, as he was waking up from his sleep, he suddenly experienced Enlightenment. His description of meditation is fresh and devoid of any tradition and jargon.
His writings in 16 books describe the experience of meditation and enlightenment, as well as the practice of “Self-knowing” using all-encompassing Attention. Like Ramana Maharshi, Krishnamurti, Ekhart Tolle, his is a simple message of discovering our inner divine nature through the silence of the mind.
The Silence of the Mind is the first in a tetralogy by Ilie Cioara to be published by Obooks. Soon to follow: The Wondrous Journey into the Depth of Our Being, Life is Eternal Newness and I Am Boundlessness
Petrica Verdes (Deva Daan) A translator and a seeker of truth, he has been practicing meditation and living in various meditation communes in Italy, Germany and the UK. Translating Iie Cioara’s work has been a labour of love and a process of spiritual growth.
NDM: Can you please tell me about how you met Ilie Cioara?
Petrica Verdes: In 2002, I came across one of Ilie Cioara’s books in a bookshop, and I wrote the publisher straight away, asking if they could pass me the address of the author. The book just mesmerized me, I felt an energy around the text and I used to meditate with it and carry it with me. To my surprise, after a month, I received a reply from the editor, with the author’s address and telephone number. I called him the same day and arranged a meeting with him the next morning. Ilie Cioara’s door was always open to whoever was interested in the truth. He did not ask any questions: you were the one who asked the questions, if you needed to.
After a 10 hour train journey, I knocked on his door. The door opened and I was welcomed by the most amazing eyes. I had seen these eyes before, in photos of Ramana Maharshi, Osho, Papaji, Yogananda – yet it was the first time I saw them in real life. In front of me stood a very vital and alive old man, who I thought was around 60 years old. Little did I know at the time that he was 86.
The room was full of an energy which made my mind become silent. He asked me if I had any questions to ask him, but I couldn’t think of anything, my mind was just blank. I just wanted to sit and meditate in his presence, and look into those eyes. He said to me that this had happened to other people as well, and that, if necessary, I needed to write my questions at home, and bring them with me the next time.
There was a strong meditative energy in the room. I just wanted to relax into that energy.
I remember two anecdotes from this encounter. At one point, he told me a woman had come to him, and she had the gift of reading other people’s thoughts. She came to him for recognition, yet his reply was simple: “Aren’t your thoughts enough, now you want to have other people’s thoughts?”
Another thing he told me during our meeting – the famous saying by Descartes; I think, therefore, I am. Ilie Cioara commented this was one of the stupidest things he had ever heard, because, only when I do not think, I truly Am. This was an deeply untrue statement. A correct statement would be “I think, therefore, I am not”
NDM: So did you meet up with him again?
Petrica Verdes: I only met him once while he was in the body. After a few months I left the country to Italy, to live in a meditation commune there, I had other dreams and ideals. By the time I got round to seeing him again, in 2004, he had passed away.
NDM: Can you please tell me how this man and his book impacted you?
Petrica Verdes: I’ve been reading and re-reading this book for many years. Each reading adds a deeper level of understanding.
This is not a book about meditation, or describing meditation. The book is a meditation in itself. Words are used as a device to transport the reader in a state of meditation. Ilie Cioara – The Silence of the Mind
To give you a firsthand example, the poem The Power of Emptiness:
The mind is completely silent, we are attentive – a clear consciousness, / All meanings, boundaries disappear – us and the Infinite are “One”; / Practically we have a new mind, always fresh. / Being in the pause, I become infinite! / It separates two worlds. I leave the limited world / And enter Boundlessness, through total melting; / The whole being is calm – a constant sparkle. / There is no time, no space – just everlasting Eternity; I move in direct contact with life, in a permanent present.
The book is a journey of self-discovery for the reader. Through these mirror-poems, he is able to see the reality of his being as if in a mirror. The approach of the book is very intuitive and practical, rather than descriptive. He does not explain – he gives the reader an experience, using words. All the verses are followed by explanations in prose.
The book is not necessarily meant to be read from beginning to end. One can carry it in his pocket, open it randomly and read a passage: it will help reconnect with the reality of being. Like looking into a mirror, we are reminded of the original face we had before we were born and after we die.
I had been carrying this book in my pocket for a long time. The particular thing about this book is – usually, enlightened people do not write books – they speak to disciples, and the discourses are written. One feels like one is eavesdropping – the master is speaking to the disciple, and we are listening to this as spectators. Some of it may regard us as well, some of it is specifically directed at that disciple.
Because Ilie Cioara was almost alone, during the communist years, he had to communicate this experience in writing. He is using words directly, as a device for awakening. He is addressing the reader directly, but he is not there to provide information, he is there to awaken.
In a way, this setback has created a unique book. It is not a discourse – the reader can use the book as a device to awaken. And Ilie Cioara is the first to remind the reader:”You don’t need anything outside yourself. Forget the author completely and just stay with the experience of being in the moment. Read the words and transcend them.”
NDM: So as a result of reading this book, did you experience some kind of an awakening your self? If so can you please tell me what this is?
Petrica Verdes: One can read a book, close it and forget about it. Or re-read it again and think: this is a wonderful book, and close it again and forget about it.
Rather than merely reading the book, it is the daily practice of what is described in the book, that simple attention to the present moment that changed my life. It is a daily practice, wherever I am, in whatever circumstances, from early morning until late in the night, to just watch the mind and do not buy into its games and most of all, do not give it any energy. Mind exists because we give it energy, because we believe in it. If we disidentify with it, if we detach from it – its energy supply is cut off. It cannot exist without us. And the reverse is also the case – we cannot exist without the mind. When the mind is not – we stop existing as an “ego” entity.
This is why it is in our best interest to keep the mind going. This is how we can also continue to exist, with our dreams, ideals, aspirations – all these are fuel to our “ego” identity.
So the ego pretends – I want to be rid of the mind – but in fact, “ego” and mind are in a deep partnership. You watch the mind, but you don’t want to disappear as an entity. You want the mind to disappear, without realizing that – with the disappearance of the mind, you will also disappear.
So we give the mind energy, because the mind allows us to exist as an individuality. We pretend we meditate, this is a game that every meditator plays with himself. We don’t want to disappear. There is still something unaccomplished, something we long for, something we need to achieve, we have not let go and just be in the present moment. Ilie Cioara – Creation is Eternal Freshness
So this is one thing to be remembered, by not giving energy to the mind, you also cut off the energy invested in the “ego” identity. Accept death as an “ego” because sooner or later this is the end result of meditation. This is what I learned by practicing Ilie Cioara’s teachings.
It’s years of observation of one’s thoughts that finally bring an awakening, without needing to do something in particular, just a simple observation. It is not cheap. The mind is lives upon lives of living in ignorance, a huge deposit of unconscious mechanical impulses which does not go away so easily.
Whenever I read the book, I find a deeper dimension of myself. It’s one of those books that can be re-read, time and again, because it is mystical. It does not give you knowledge, it gives you an experience, using poetry. But the practice is not confined to the book, the book is just an indicator sign.
As translator, reading or translating the book is like a satsang with Ilie Cioara, it is a process of growth, being in the energy of an enlightened being. Each enlightened being that lived on this earth is alive in the infinite dimension, and one can come into contact with that infinite energy. Buddha is present in the Buddha statue. Jesus is present in the communion. Other enlightened masters are present in a photo. So from this point of view, the fact of translating, reading, re-reading the book, day after day, has been an individual process of growth and deepening of meditation that goes beyond knowledge. Reading and re-reading, one goes beyond words. But that has been my individual journey, each person has his own journey, his own enlightened masters that light one’s path.
NDM: Ok, your description daily practice sounds like Buddhist vipassana. Buddha first developed this method 2,500 years ago. Is his method any different from vipassana is what I’m asking?
Petrica Verdes: No, it is not vipassana. Vipassana is still a technique – you follow the breath going in, going out, going in, going out. It is a method.
Ilie Cioara’s practice (and he describes it better in his own words, but I will try sum it up) is not about watching a particular thing. You watch whatever is going on inside of you, thoughts, emotions, sensations, and you also watch what is going on outside of you, whatever “is” in the present. He calls it an “all-encompassing Attention”.
In the end inner-outer become one movement. There is no more inner and outer. It is difficult to describe, it is an experience. In the end the meditator transcends into the infinite dimension, when the “ego” is no more – you become infinite, beyond body, beyond mind, beyond emotions.
Of course it is difficult in the beginning; one starts with watching the mind, or the breath, but as watching deepens, as you go deeper in watching, this watching becomes all-encompassing, spontaneously, no need to force it. Start with watching and this watching will slowly expand. Do not get fixated on an object, such as the breath.
In one sense, vipassana has something in common with it – the act of watching. Watching the breath in this case. But as the experience deepens, watching becomes without object and effortless – you just watch whatever is, in the present, inside and outside. In the end watching dissolves into itself, and with the phenomenon of enlightenment – you disappear as “ego” and you are a pure silent effortless consciousness – who can still use the mind, who can still inhabit a body – but you are infinite, limitless, in the infinite dimension. The barrier or the illusion of the ego has disappeared.
When the body dies, you say good bye to your dwelling, but you continue to exist, nevertheless, nothing is taken away.
However, Ilie Cioara’s practice is not new. It is an old practice, expressed in a new form.
NDM: When you say “When the mind is not – we stop existing as an “ego” entity. “
Ilie Cioara – The Power of Emptiness
Petrica Verdes: Yes. but that happens every night in deep sleep, but let me ask you his question, why is it that when we wake up from deep sleep we are still sleep, sleepwalking during the day and do not know what we are?
NDM: Also how do we wake up exactly? Can you please tell me the process of how this works?
Petrica Verdes: Deep sleep is deep unconsciousness. During deep sleep, we completely lose consciousness of who we are – it is very different from the state of transcending the “ego” entity.
It would be a different matter if we were conscious during deep sleep. The body is asleep, yet you are conscious of it, and awake. This is the experience of turyia, the fourth state of consciousness.
I remember a story about Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of Aikido. He used to encourage his students to catch him unaware, whatever time, day or night, and to try to hit him with a staff. No one succeeded.
One of his students recalls waking up in the middle of the night, getting his staff and going to Ueshiba’s room, where he was sleeping. As he was about to hit him, Ueshiba’s eyes opened and he said “You aren’t going to hit your master, are you?”
Morihei Ueshiba was enlightened, and he had the experience of being aware, awake 24 hours a day, even during deep sleep. No one could catch him unaware.
So during the day we are in a state of unconsciousness, and during deep sleep we fall into an even deeper state of unconsciousness.
The experience of ceasing to exist as an ego entity is an oceanic experience. You become the ocean of consciousness, even if you keep living in a body, this is just a temporary abode for you.
Many masters have described the experience of awakening, enlightenment. In fact, descriptions do not help. It is an experience that needs to be experienced. You need to go through it.
In order to learn what love is, you need to go through the experience. No descriptions of love can help. Only after you fall in love with a woman or a man, then you will know what love is.
It is the same with awakening. You put all your energy into awakening. You will discover what it is when you experience it. There is no way to learn it from descriptions.
Transcending the “ego” is a mystery which needs to be experienced. There are many masters who have offered many descriptions of it. Descriptions are a hindrance because you already create an idea about it, so that prior idea becomes an obstacle.
In the Zen tradition nothing is said about enlightenment. People do zazen, and when someone gets it, he packs his meditation mat and goes away to teach. Or maybe he receives a slap from the master, as recognition. They laugh together, because he has got it. Someone else has not got it yet, but it is just a matter of time. He will only find it by himself, through experience.
NDM:Also when you say” We pretend we meditate, this is a game that every meditator plays with himself. We don’t want to disappear.’ Do you feel that traditional meditation doesn’t work? That it’s just a game of sorts?
Petrica Verdes: What I meant is we simply need to be aware of this game. Any meditation works if the person is sincere.
It is natural. In the beginning stages, the ego has a lot of energy, so it is the “ego” who wants to become enlightened, the “ego” meditates, the “ego” wants to be liberated. But it is just a natural stage. Everyone goes through this.
IlieCioara-PerfectlyConscious’
As the ego starts to weaken, as its energies weaken, we become more silent; quiet naturally, a new dimension opens. We realize the “ego” is the very problem, the very obstacle separating us from the ocean of existence. And this separation is just imaginary. We are never really separate. The fish is always in the ocean.
So meditation touches a new dimension – the ego starts to dissolve, there are short moments of union with the whole.
But these are just natural stages in meditation, what I meant is we need to simply become aware of this game, stop chasing one’s tail – and a new dimension opens.
Also when you say “Each enlightened being that lived on this earth is alive in the infinite dimension, and one can come into contact with that infinite energy. Buddha is present in the Buddha statue. Jesus is present in the communion. Other enlightened masters are present in a photo.”
NDM: What do your mean by this exactly? How is Jesus present in communion for example. How can a person who was executed two thousand years ago be in a piece of wafer bread today? Do you mean in an imaginary way of some kind, as a belief? The same applies to Buddha. How is Siddhārtha Gautama who was cremated and turned into ash or someone else like this who was buried and consumed by maggots be in a statue which is made out of stone?
Petrica Verdes: Buddha’s body was cremated, but Buddha was not the body. An enlightened person lives in a dimension beyond time and space. He is the ocean of consciousness, and the ocean itself is timeless and spaceless, it is beyond form.
Yet the enlightened person is very much alive, even after the death of the body, nothing changes. He belongs to the infinite, timeless dimension. Words are too poor to describe this.
Nevertheless, one can feel this. If someone is a devotee, or aware enough, you can feel Osho’s energy in a photo.
Meera, an Indian mystic woman, lived 4.500 years after Krishna’s death, yet she was a devotee of Krishna. She saw him, she danced with him, she felt his energy. Time and space are irrelevant.
An enlightened being lives in the infinite dimension – he is one with the infinity of the cosmos. He is beyond form. Yet, one can feel this person as energy.
Ilie Cioara – Listening and Watching
With modern mystics, if someone focuses on a picture of Ramana Maharshi, or Anandamayi, or Ramakrishna, one can feel an energy enveloping us, as if in an embrace. This has been experienced by many people. The enlightened person who is not in the body is not limited by time and space. It is a satsang.
In the past, when there were no photos, enlightened masters left their disciples certain symbols and rituals by which they could be contacted.
Jesus says – if three gather in my name, I will also be here.
Now this can be interpreted mystically. The three are the body, mind and spirit. When the three are one, I will also be here.
Baptism is one of such rituals. Communion is another. In the last supper, when he gives them the bread and the wine, and says “Eat this bread, this is my body. Drink this wine, this is my blood.” He leaves them a symbol, a means to connect with them when he is no longer in the body, yet he is still present in the infinite dimension.
Each enlightened person of antiquity left a key, a means to contact him. Nowadays, if there is a photo, there is no need for such key.
The same with the Buddha statues. Genuine Buddha statues were created by people who were in a state of meditation – and the statue has a quality of meditation. No one knows what Gautam Buddha looked like, and no one cares. It’s only appearance, form.
When a sculptor, in a deep state of meditation, creates a statue of Buddha, if someone meditates in front of that statue, he will come into contact with Buddha. This does not happen with all Buddha statues, unless they are created from a state of meditation.
Buddha is not in a statue, it does not matter what the statue is made of. Buddha is energy, and the statue is just a trigger, like a telephone, by which you contact the boundless, infinite, ocean of consciousness that is Buddha.
If someone from the middle ages came and saw people speaking on the phone, he would think they are mad. Why are they speaking to this small box? What is the point? This small box made of wires and copper and buttons!? Yet the person is not speaking to the phone, he is speaking to a real person, who is at the other end of the phone.
Similarly, if a person meditates with a Buddha statue, people think he is mad. How is Buddha in a statue made of stone? He is not in the statue – the statue is just a trigger.
Stone is a very primitive material. Nowadays there are photos. The photo is like a cellphone for contacting enlightened beings. Gurdjieff, Ramana Maharshi, Osho, Lahiri Mahasaya, Ramakrishna, Ma Anandamayi. Just sit in meditation, in full awareness, and look at the photo. Ramakrishna will be here, Osho will be here. Not Ramakrishna’s body, which was eaten by maggots. He was never the body. The body was just form, a temporary abode for the universal boundless spirit.
NDM: When you say a photo is for contacting enlightened beings. What do you contact exactly? Do you mean like their spirit, soul or their ghost of some sort?
For example can you contact Buddha’s spirit or his soul? Also what about looking into their eyes. For example if I were to stare at Ramana’s or Papaji or Gangaji or Moojis eyes, could I get direct transmission from them? Is this an esoteric eye method of some kind?
Petrica Verdes: There is nothing esoteric about it. Enlightened people are always available, Krishna is always available, Jesus is always available, Osho is always available.
We are just not aware enough to feel this. The more we grow in awareness, when we wake up, we simply see, that from the picture, an energy envelops us.
They are always available, only we are not available to them. We are in the mind. We live and dream in the mind.
When we get out of the mind, we see that they were always there. In a photo, looking into someone’s eyes.
The key is awareness… the more we are aware, the more we tune into their level of consciousness. The world is full of masters, but everyone has his eyes closed.
They have transcended the ego, they have entered into the infinite, timeless dimension. They exist as infinite energy, boundless, without form. In a dimension beyond space and time. In the eternal now.
There is no technique involved. The more we live in the now, in the same dimension they live in, the more aware we are to their presence.
Time does not make any difference in this dimension. Thousands of years have passed, Krishna is still alive as boundless energy in the timeless dimension.
A thing to be remembered is that we are also the same boundless energy. Only we have identified with a body, with a mind, we have created our own limits, in the form of the “ego” shell. But essentially, we are also boundless energy.
So when our boundless energy meets an enlightened person’s boundless energy, it helps the “ego” to dissolve. You surrender to this boundless energy and you have the courage to let go of limitations, allow this boundless energy to envelop you into boundlessness, like when the ocean flows into a dam and tears it down. This dam is the “ego”.
NDM: When you say” Many masters have described the experience of awakening, enlightenment. In fact, descriptions do not help. It is an experience that needs to be experienced. You need to go through it. ” How can I experience this? Is this something you can give me or transmit to me?
Petrica Verdes: There are many methods and techniques of meditation. The essential ingredient is the sincerity of the person, and the thirst for truth, otherwise one plays with meditation, postponing endlessly: Sometime, in another life, it will happen to me. I am just a poor mortal, not like the great enlightened beings that lived on this planet.
In fact, there is no difference between you and Osho, Krishnamurti, Ramana Maharshi. You have the same potential – only you are under the domination of the mind. The mind creates dreams, and you are daydreaming continuously. Everything they have, you also have. In fact, you are already in It. Only you are daydreaming, you live in a dream. To put it more clearly: you live in the mind. All thoughts are dreams.
So the mind is the only problem that needs to be addressed. When the mind is no more, or better, when the mind is completely silent, and it only comes into action when you want it to come into action – in that moment you see reality as it is and you realize you are already in It.
The only problem are the dreams of the mind. Papaji, the enlightened being who originated the neo-nonduality trend, had only one teaching. Be silent. Let the mind be silent. This is it. Many Papaji disciples forget this. How many non-duality teachers have a truly silent mind?
When the mind is silent all is revealed. Truth is simple intellectually; it is immensely difficult in practice.
Witnessing is the key. Witnessing, watching, you detach from the mind, you give it less and less energy. You are the mind. The mind is an extension of you.
The mind exists because you have so much energy invested in it. Stop investing energy in it and it will wither away. Just watch, constant watchfulness.
There are many teachers who describe witnessing, watchfulness. Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now is a good example. Osho has many books on it. Ilie Cioara describes the same. It’s the same thing, explained from every angle.
The important thing is to practice it, to explore it within us. To start with a practice and explore our inner being. It is a space where only we can enter.
Truth is simple, very simple. Most mystics were not intellectuals; they were simple people who walked the path. Practice is all. It is an inner exploration and there are no maps, because all is One, how can you map the One ocean of consciousness?
NDM: Also what do you mean by experience of turiya , the fourth state of consciousness. How can I “experience” this as you say?
Petrica Verdes: Turiya is the end of meditation. When the shell of the ego is broken and you become the infinite ocean of consciousness, beyond time and space, that is turiya.
It is practically the state of enlightenment, liberation etc. A state of permanent awakening, beyond time and space. It is a mysterious state, impossible to describe. It is impossible to understand with the mind because it is a state beyond mind.
It is the end of the road. The beginning of the road is witnessing, watchfulness. When the witness dissolves into itself, and you become limitless, spontaneously, effortlessly conscious, this is turiya. But turyia just happens, it cannot be achieved or attained. If you simply prepare the ground, by giving less and less energy to the mind, witnessing the mind – one day, the mind is so silent that boom, something happens, the witness dissolves into the limitless.
NDM: How would someone know if they were enlightened or not? Is there a test someone would take?
Petrica Verdes: I would say a good test is: when you go to sleep, if you lose consciousness during deep sleep, then you are not enlightened yet.
Who we really are is eternally awake and conscious. If you go to sleep, and the body falls asleep, but there is something in you that continues to be awake and aware of your surroundings, even during deep sleep, 24 hours a day, you are It.
NDM: When you speak about meditation, what kind of meditation are you speaking of?
Petrica Verdes: There are many techniques of meditation. The state of meditation is one.
There are many types of meditation because there are many divisions of the mind. But meditation is beyond mind – so it is beyond types. It just is.
The funny thing is, there are therapists who invent new meditations, CD guided meditations, trademarked meditations, only adding a new division and increasing the confusion.
Meditation is beyond techniques, labels, types, divisions, tradition. It is being one with the ocean of alive consciousness. We begin by having short glimpses of oneness.
Any technique is ultimately a burden, because it belongs to the mind. But some people need techniques. Even when practicing a technique, the important thing to remember is that meditation is beyond techniques and that sooner or later, the technique will need to be dropped.
Ultimately, even witnessing is a technique which will ultimately be dropped.
Revelatory answers in the search for meaning can seem to be the privilege of only the most evolved, brilliant, or blessed beings. But motivational counselor and teacher Jonathan Parker puts those answers within grasp. His step-by-step soul-solution process addresses that most profound of human quests with techniques that prompt transformational shifts.
Refined over Parker’s decades of counseling experience, these meditations and self-guided practices explore fear, meaning, ego, love, abundance, and healing in ways that will connect you to your core — the soul, beyond body and mind, from which real understanding and lasting fulfillment flow. By merging with this source, you will discover the love and peace that already exist inside you, allowing negative thoughts, painful memories, and limiting patterns to dissolve easily. By doing so, you will begin to experience the soul’s limitless gifts and replace endless searching with joyful, enlightened, and empowered being.
8-minute interview with Jill Bennet. Jill asks Jonathan the following questions:
1. Aren’t all meditations supposed to be enlightening?
2. What does the book [The Soul Solution] focus on?
3. Do we have only a percentage connection with our soul or are we disconnected?
4. How do we stay connected with our soul when our lives are so busy?
5. Does connecting with the soul ever get easier and become second nature?
6. Is it possible to go through the day with no mood swings or ever have a bad day?
7. What if a person is skeptical about the soul?
8. Where would a person begin to change their life around?
9. What should be a person’s experience with meditation?
For over thirty years, Jonathan Parker has been a counselor, author, and creator of one of the largest libraries of audio recordings for personal enrichment and self-directed growth in the world. His unique, spiritually based methods go far beyond traditional motivational and self-help techniques, empowering others to rise to an enlightened life and develop their innate potential.
His wide spectrum of programs tap the deepest reservoir of human capabilities and inspire success in achieving the highest of human potentials. His programs have touched the lives of many thousands, lifting them to achieve personal excellence and financial success, vibrant health, winning performances, and the heights of the human spirit.
His recordings, workshops, and retreats offer inspiring and life-changing experiences. Jonathan lives with his wife, Jackie, in Ojai, California.
Are you searching for deeper meaning and purpose in your life? Do you sense that you have an inner wisdom that can be a guiding force for you, yet wonder how to connect with that intuitive self? How do you know which inner voices to listen to?
For over thirty years, Shakti Gawain has helped readers address these questions. Living in the Light has given literally millions of people clear and gentle guidance to create a new way of life — one in which we listen to our intuition and rely on it as a guiding force. The key lies in bringing the light of our awareness to every aspect of ourselves, including our disowned energies — our shadow side.
With great insight and clarity, Shakti shows us the transformative power of bringing awareness to every part of ourselves. Simple yet powerful exercises on subjects including creativity, relationships, parenting, health, money, and transforming the world help us put these teachings to practical use in our daily lives.
Living in the Light is a comprehensive map to growth, fulfillment, and consciousness. As we grapple with personal, national, and global challenges on many fronts, this classic work is timelier than ever.
Shakti Gawain is the bestselling author of Creative Visualization, Living in the Light, The Path of Transformation, Creating True Prosperity, Developing Intuition, and several other books. Her books have sold more than six million copies in thirty languages worldwide. A warm, articulate, and inspiring teacher, Shakti leads workshops internationally.
For more than thirty years, she has facilitated thousands of people in learning to trust and act on their own inner truth, thus releasing and developing their creativity in every area of their lives. Shakti has appeared on such nationally syndicated shows as Oprah, Good Morning America, Sonya Live, Larry King Live, and New Dimensions Radio, and she has been featured in Cosmopolitan, Body Mind & Spirit, and Time magazine. Shakti Gawain was cofounder of New World Library along with Marc Allen. Shakti and her husband, Jim Burns, also cofounded Nataraj Publishing Company, which New World Library acquired in 1998. They make their home in Mill Valley, California.
LIVING IN THE LIGHT by Shakti Gawain – Official Book Trailer
This is the official book trailer for the 25th Anniversary Edition of Shakti Gawain’s LIVING IN THE LIGHT: Follow Your Inner Guidance to Create a New Life and New World.
For over thirty years, Shakti Gawain has been guiding readers toward conscious living. LIVING IN THE LIGHT has given literally millions of people clear and gentle guidance to create a new way of life — one in which we listen to our intuition and rely on it as a guiding force.
The first part of the book, “The Quickening,” sets the scene. It opens with the increasing pace of life we are all experiencing today. I show how this trend is not limited to modern times, but can be traced back through history all the way to the beginning of creation. What we are experiencing today is the culmination of billions of years of ever-accelerating development.
Why does evolution accelerate? The answer lies in the fact that new evolutionary breakthroughs often facilitate future advances. Multicellular organisms, sexual reproduction, and the emergence of nervous systems have each done their part to hasten the pace of evolutionary change. Now, with the emergence of human beings, two new features are speeding development yet further. Speech allows us to share our experiences and understandings with each other, giving us the ability to accumulate a collective body of knowledge. While our hands, one the most versatile organs Nature has evolved, have given us the ability to take the clay of Mother Earth and reshape it to our own ends. Combining these two evolutionary breakthroughs has made us the most creative species this planet has ever known. And the more we apply that creativity, the faster things change.
The second part, “The Crisis” focuses on the less welcome consequences of humanity’s rapid development, and the devastation we are bringing to the rest of the planet. How is it, we ask, that a species that is in some ways so intelligent can in other ways be so short-sighted? Where have we gone wrong?
These questions lead on to an exploration of our inner needs and the way our societies have seduced us – in effect hypnotized us – into a set of false assumptions about what it is we really want, and how to go about achieving it. Amplified by the might of our technologies, these errors of thinking are now having global ramifications. We see that the global crisis is, at its root, a crisis of consciousness.
If we are to navigate ourselves safely through this critical moment of history we must make a break with the past, and look at ourselves and our world with fresh eyes. This will entail a fundamental shift in thinking and perception – a shift in consciousness more profound and far-reaching than any in our history. It will mean awakening to the wisdom that lies within us all, of which the great sages have always spoken. This is our next step in evolution, not an outer step, but an inner step.
The third part, “The Awakening” is more spiritual in tone. It asks: How can we wake up? How can we liberate our minds from outdated habits of thinking and make the inner changes that are being demanded of us? The answer involves learning to be more in the present moment, less caught up in our judgments of the past and our attachments to future outcomes. One of the most important areas of practice is our personal relationships. It is here that we frequently meet the various patterns that we need to let go of, and here that we have the most opportunity to learn new ways of thinking and perceiving. As we do, we rediscover the true meaning of love.
The final part, “The Future ,” looks at where we may be headed. It considers some of the many prophecies that seem to foretell these turbulent times. And it looks behind their literal interpretations to deeper meanings, suggesting that they are metaphors for inner transformation and awakening.
Will we wake up in time, and avoid catastrophe? That is still an open question. If we do not, evolution on this planet could be set back to a new Dark Age perhaps; or worse, back to the primeval soup. On the other hand, if we do come to our senses, then it seems very likely that our rate of development – particularly our rate of inner development – will continue to grow faster and faster. What will happen if change is compressed from decades to years to months . . . ? We could be approaching a time of unimaginably rapid personal and social transformation – an evolutionary climax more profound than most of us have ever dared imagine?
Finally, we ask whether there could, after all, be a purpose to evolution? Recent work in cosmology suggests the answer may be “Yes.” The Universe seems to be set up so that conscious creatures like us can evolve, capable of knowing Creation in all its dimensions. Could we be on the brink of completing this process of cosmic self-discovery here on planet Earth? The answer to that is up to us.
WAKING UP IN TIME
Contents
PREFACE
THE QUICKENING
Acceleration - The Quickening Pace
Feedback - The Evolutionary Accelerator
Language - The Dawn of Thought
Hands - Levers for the Mind
Information - The Currency of Culture
Creativity - From Genes to Ideas
Today - Foundation for Tomorrow
THE CRISIS
Crisis - Sounding the Alarm
Crossroads - Choosing our Way
Malady - A Planetary Cancer
Self-Interest - Misdirected Needs
Happiness - The Mind’s Bottom Line
Materialism - An Addictive Meme
Fear - The Voice in Our Heads
Stress - The Wages of Fear
THE AWAKENING
Dehypnosis - Breaking the Trance
Presence - The Timeless Moment
Enlightenment - A New Way of Seeing
Relationships - The Yoga of the West
Love - The Gift of Peace
Meditation - The Art of Letting Go
Maturity - Coming of Age
Freedom - The Emancipation from Matter
THE FUTURE
Challenge - Crises as Opportunity
Apocalypse - Premonitions of Transformation
Setbacks - Constructive Extinctions
Compression - The Collapse of Time
Singularities - The Shape of the Future
Omega - A White Hole in Time
Purpose - A Design to Creation?
Knowing - A Conscious Universe
The End - Or the Beginning?
Peter Russell ‘The Great Awakening’ Interview by Iain McNay
Peter Russell ‘The Great Awakening’ Interview by Iain McNay
From the beginning of my meditation practice in 1971, I was very moved by a sense of the Buddha as an integrated being. Most of us can easily experience our lives as somehow fragmented, split apart. We might feel perfectly filled with complete loving kindness, strongly in touch with the radiant essence of our being when we’re alone, but as soon as we’re with people, it’s very difficult. Or we might feel fine when we’re with other people, but feel terrified when we are alone. We might feel one way at work, a different way in the context of our families.
Our lives can easily be experienced as split up into these little bundles, whereas for a being like the Buddha, it is seamless. There are no parts, there’s no division, there’s no fragmentation. His life is of one piece with threads of wisdom and compassion guiding his actions whether he’s alone or with others, whether he’s wandering through India or being still; whether he is teaching or meditating, it is at the root of his being. It is all of one piece. I found that tremendously inspiring. I felt so fragmented. I knew that integration was exactly what I wanted.
The Buddha said, “From time to time, the enlightened one is born into the world an arahat, fully awakened, abounding in wisdom and goodness, happy, with knowledge of the worlds unsurpassed as a guide to those willing to be taught, a blessed one, a Buddha. By themselves they thoroughly understand. They make this knowledge known to others. They proclaim the truth, both in the letter and in the spirit, “lovely in the beginning, lovely in the middle, lovely in the end,” abounding in wisdom and goodness, happy. What a wonderful sense of a possibility!
This Buddha, our Buddha you might say, arose in India in this world around 563 BC. He sat under a tree in Northern India and became enlightened. He came to birth as a human being, just as each of us has. This was perhaps accentuated for me by being in northern India, the land of the Buddha. I could take a short walk and be at the spot where, as bodhisattva, a being aspiring to enlightenment, the Buddha had the milk rice that fortified his body after so much extreme self-denial. And of course, day or night, I could go to the tree. The presence of the Buddha was intimate and everywhere, as though visiting the land of one’s ancestors.
As a human being, the Buddha’s questions, his very compelling questions, were about the nature of life. It’s as though he were asking, “What does it mean to be born into this human body, to be so vulnerable and dependent as an infant, to grow up, to grow older whether we like it or not, to die, unbelievably enough, even as we see all others die around us?” and “What does it mean to have this human mind which seems to veer constantly from one extreme to the other, always changing, so that we might wake up in the morning delighted to be alive, full of faith, really happy, and by the afternoon we’re freaked out, we’re frightened, we’re angry, we feel guilty, we question our very right to be happy. It seems incomprehensible to us. And then at night it’s something different again.”
What does it mean as a human being to look for happiness, peace, joy, that is not confined within the body, within that changing mind? Is there a quality of happiness, is there a kind of peace that is not a compounded thing subject to change, to destruction, as conditions change? He had questions in effect that are very similar to our own. As he phrased the call to awakening for himself, he said, “Why should I who am subject to birth, old age, sickness, death, sorrow, and suffering, seeing the danger in these things, why should I take refuge in that which is also subject to change, to death, to sorrow, to suffering? Let me find that which is changeless, which is deathless, which is without sorrow, which is unborn and undying, that is a true refuge.” And in fact this is what he found. He found a true refuge.
We say a human being sat under a tree 2600 years ago, motivated by compassion, brought there, moved there on a wave of moral force. There was no other place he could be. Throughout the night as he sat there, which was a full moon night, the full moon in May, he saw the conditioned nature of suffering, sorrow, grief, loss, and death. He traced it back. He traced it back until he came to ignorance. He saw his own and others’ countless past lives stretching back over many ages and eons of the world. He saw in effect the spectacle of the whole universe, beings being born and dying in accordance with the laws of nature. He saw the cyclic path of all beings, the unfortunate and the illustrious and the rich and the poor, all beings tossed about on these waves of birth and old age, sickness and death. As the night went on, he saw the means of liberation. He saw suffering, the cause of suffering, the end of suffering, and the path to the end of suffering. At the first light of dawn, just as the star Venus broke in the morning sky, he saw through the very last trace of ignorance in himself and was completely enlightened.
And, it is taught, we too can be enlightened, every one of us. We can be completely freed from the bonds of limitation and conditioned confusion through our own endeavor, inspiration, effort and development. There is a path, and we can traverse it.
Sharon Salzberg has been a student of Buddhism since 1971, and has led meditation classes and retreats worldwide since 1974. She teaches both intensive awareness practice (insight meditation) and the profound cultivation of lovingkindness and compassion in a non-sectarian, inclusive framework. She is a co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts and The Barre Center for Buddhist Studies.
Sharon’s newest book, Real Happiness, The Power of Meditation: A 28-Day Program, published by Workman Publishing in January 2011. She is also the author of The Force of Kindness, from Sounds True; Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience, from Riverhead Books; Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness and A Heart as Wide as the World, both from Shambhala Publications; and co-author with Joseph Goldstein of Insight Meditation, a Step-by-Step Course on How to Meditate
Leading Meditation and Spiritual Teacher, Author Sharon Salzberg, talks about her book “Real Happiness – The Power of Meditation,” and shares insight as to what Meditation IS and IS NOT and how it can benefit one’s life.
The Share Guide: What do you think are the most significant health benefits of meditation?
Deepak Chopra: They are stress reduction, better sleep, lower blood pressure, improved cardiovascular function, improved immunity, and the ability to stay centered in the midst of all the turmoil that’s going on around you. Meditation helps you do less and accomplish more.
The Share Guide:I understand there’s now 15 million Americans who are practicing yoga, but most are doing just asanas (poses). How many do you think are aware of the spiritual aspect of yoga?
Deepak Chopra: Not enough. Because when it started in the U.S. it was mainly as another form of physical fitness. Somehow that gained prominence and it became a fad–just a good way to improve flexibility and muscle strength. Of course, these are benefits of yoga. But the larger picture of yoga as it was meant to be understood originally is that yoga is union. It’s only now that people are actually becoming aware of the spiritual aspects of yoga.
The Share Guide:In your new book The Seven Spiritual Laws of Yoga, you describe the eight limbs of Raja yoga. And one thing that surprised me was that you said they’re not to be seen as sequential stages. I always thought the first limbs were preparatory for the last three, which are the meditation stages.
Deepak Chopra: That’s one school of thought, but not what I learned. I had my spiritual apprenticeship with the Shankara- charya school in India, and my immediate mentor was Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who brought Transcendental Meditation to the West. Maharishi was a disciple in turn of the Shankaracharya. That tradition goes back to the ninth century sage Adi Shankara. Their interpretation always has been that the eight limbs of yoga are practiced simultaneously. In that way it is similar to the Eightfold Path in Buddhism.
The eight limbs are Niyama, Yama, Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana, and Samadhi and are all actually combined into one discipline. Yama and Niyama are rules of social and personal conduct, so why not include them as things that you do? It’s about the internal shift in attitude that you have to make.
Pratyahara and Pranayama are actually forms of Raja yoga, and therefore they are complementary to Asana. Dharana, Dhyana, and Samadhi are supposed to be the culmination of this practice, but all eight limbs are still part of your daily practice.
The Share Guide:All right, so we can work on all the limbs at the same time.
Deepak Chopra: Right, and we should.
The Share Guide: I’d like to ask you about mantras. I received a personal mantra from Dr. Warren Mills, one of your Primordial Sound Meditation teachers. Can you discuss what mantras are in general and what is specifically beneficial about receiving a personal mantra?
Deepak Chopra: There are many kinds of mantras. The mantra that you are using as part of your Primordial Sound Meditation instruction as taught by the Chopra Center, is called a bija mantra. The word bija means seed. It’s the most basic kind of mantra there is, and it’s traditionally used for transcending or going beyond the realm of thought.
The way that mantra is selected is based on your time of birth and your place of birth. Based on that information, the person who is giving you the mantra can actually know the exact position of the moon at the time and location of your birth. There are 108 such positions, and so there are 108 mantras, and they are selected according to this principal. These days we have a computer program to do this, so we can take your information and immediately get your astrological chart. This knowledge goes back hundreds of years.
Now there are other mantras, of course, that have very specific effects. There is a huge body of knowledge on mantras for healing, for wealth consciousness, for invoking specific deities that are symbolic representations of psychic energy within your own self. Ever since I was a child, I’ve used thirty or forty different mantras for different reasons: for making me go to sleep if I can’t sleep; for increasing my energy; for increasing my desire for knowledge, etc. Usually mantras are given by teachers who are very knowledgeable and intimate with the tradition. In fact, they are passed on from teacher to disciple. Then the disciple one day becomes a teacher himself or herself, and passes the mantra on again. But as I said, it’s a huge body of knowledge.
The Share Guide:I am familiar with some for specific things like the Lakshmi mantra for generating righteous wealth. What about kirtan, which is devotional chanting with music?
Deepak Chopra: Kirtan is devotional chanting, but it does not always involve mantra.
The Share Guide: Regarding the seed mantra, is that supposed to be chanted out loud or quietly?
Deepak Chopra: Silently. Because it’s a seed mantra, at some point in meditation it disappears.
The Share Guide:Another aspect is the yantra or the mandala. I think those words are interchangeable.
Deepak: Yes, they are.
Share Guide:We use the Sri Yantra mandala in meditation class to gaze on while we meditate.
Deepak: Right. The Sri Yantra is the visual vibration of the mantra OM.
Share Guide:I’ve been told to draw the energy from the center of the Sri Yantra into your heart chakra. Is this how you use it, or are you just supposed to gaze at it?
Deepak: That’s one way. But you can just sit quietly and gaze at a yantra and it will draw your attention into the bindu (the point in the center) and then you disappear in it’s unboundedness.
Share Guide: I see meditation as a way to bridge the apparent gap between the physical and the spiritual. What are your thoughts on this?
Deepak: Meditation has only one reason: to get in touch with your soul, and then go beyond that and get in touch with the consciousness that your soul is a ripple of. It might be a good stress management technique, but there is only one real purpose, which is the means to enlightenment.
Share Guide:When I interviewed Dr. John Hagelin a couple of years ago (he also works closely with Maharishi), I remember him talking about five states of awareness: waking, sleeping, dreaming, meditating, and the fifth state which really intrigued me, a state of enlightenment in action, keeping that consciousness in your actions.
Deepak: There are actually seven states of awareness. Deep sleep is the first; dreaming is the second; then the third stage is waking; the forth stage is meditation; the fifth is called cosmic consciousness, which is when you have that internal experience of meditation in deep sleep, dreaming, and waking, so you are established in that state even while in action.
Then beyond cosmic consciousness is the sixth stage of consciousness which is God consciousness, where you become aware of the spirit in the objects of your perception. So you look at a flower and you can feel the presence of divinity within it. Or you look at a telephone or a table or a shoe and you can feel the presence of the infinite in it. The infinite is everywhere. And the seventh stage is the ever present witnessing awareness in the object of experience. They fuse and become one, and when that happens then you experience enlightenment–you see the whole world as an expression of yourself and you see that the ground of your being is also the ground of all existence.
By Dennis Hughes, Share Guide Copublisher
Deepak Chopra, M.D. is a bestselling author, teacher, trained medical doctor and pioneer of the mind-body connection. His books include The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, How to Know God, The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire, and The Seven Spiritual Laws of Yoga. Dr. Chopra cofounded The Chopra Center for Well-Being in Carlsbad, California to advance the cause of mind-body-spiritual healing, education, and research. He regularly gives lectures and seminars around the world.
Jack Kornfield, PhD, is a clinical psychologist, author, and one of the most well-known teachers of Buddhism in the West. He’s a founding teacher of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, and Spirit Rock Center in California. Here, he talks about meditation, his signature loving-kindness practice, an upcoming Kripalu retreat, and why he loves to teach.
What’s at the core of the trainings you teach?
The trainings are centered in equanimity and balance—it’s the training of the heart and mind to stay balanced. I teach a series of steps for equanimity, beginning with reflections on the vastness of time and changing circumstances, ever-changing winds of gain and loss, praise and loss, pleasure and pain. Training has to do with reflecting on the value of keeping a peaceful heart and envisioning others with compassion. We realize that people can love enormously, and that you can’t love on behalf of someone else; we try to understand the limits of love. It’s also using a series of deep intentions: May I live with peace in the joys and sorrows of the world. May you find peace.
What transformations can people have when they practice meditation?
There’s a glow people have, a “meditation facelift” that leaves people profoundly refreshed, their eyes open and skin clear. You don’t have to become a card-carrying Buddhist. You can tend to the beauty that’s awakened in yourself from meditation practice in moments, by skillful use of intention, and the practice of loving-kindness. You can do this anywhere—in the airport, supermarket, or workplace. In any circumstance, even tending young children, having the skills of wise intention is invaluable and makes that circumstance more alive.
Body-based practices, such as being aware of the breath, can help you embody the power of mindfulness and live fully in the present, whether you’re jogging or cooking. The result is the ability to live your life in the reality of the present, rather than in the worries of the future and regrets of the past. And you have the flexibility and ability to respond to your circumstances with a tremendous sense of inner power.
How can someone use mindfulness and loving-kindness every day?
You can sit on a subway in New York City and begin, without looking weird at all, to direct the force of loving-kindness to those around you. See a person as he was as a child in his original beauty. In a minute, your relationship to him becomes transformed and he’s connected with your heart. Another training, mindfulness of intention, is learning to take a few breaths before speaking to someone you’re in conflict with. Ask yourself, “What is my highest, or best, intention?” Your intention isn’t to be right or one-up the person, or defend yourself. Look into your heart, and it will show you that you’re looking for ways to connect and create bridges.
How do these practices connect us with others?
Mindful awareness practices are found in many ancient traditions: Hinduism, Buddhism, and mystical Christianity. As humans, we’ve always known about this capacity to live with a gracious, wise heart, and we’ve needed practices to help us do so, even in the ancient days. When we practice, we’re entering a stream of literally millions of humans before us who also awakened to the inner freedom, compassion, and dignity of their own true nature using the same disciplines passed down from warm hand to warm hand.
What is your current view and understanding of meditation and its effects?
My meditations used to be more directed, but they’ve become much simpler. I rest my attention in loving-kindness, an image or thought, or a part of the world or the body. I am very present in the world of unbearable beauty and an ocean of tears, and respond to it with what I can. Thich Nhat Hanh once said that on crowded refugee boats, if everyone panicked, all would be lost. If just one person remained calm, it showed a way for everyone to survive. I hope that my own meditation path lets me be one of those people on the beautiful boat of the world where we can share the love and centeredness so that everyone can survive.
There’s a remarkable new field, the science of inner transformation. Within this field, there are already thousands of studies on mindfulness showing the capacity for transforming the brain and nervous system. Even a little bit of training can start to reorganize the nervous system, and that transformation is possible for everyone. Some choose to emphasize hatha yoga or martial arts while, for others, it’s walking in mountains. All of them become vehicles for awakening a sense of the sacred.
What mantras do you like to use, if any?
I use a loving-kindness meditation at times, for inner recitation. When I encounter people, I use, “May you be well, may you be safe.” Sometimes, I use one from the Beatles: “Let it be.” I really take it to heart in a deep way when I recite that. There’s a way I’m letting the world be as it is, I know how to respond, and I don’t have to be worried or rushed. I feel what response comes from silence.
What inspires you to teach?
I love life. This earth. I feel more and more connected with everyone I meet. Teaching is a privilege. When we come together, we’re exchanging notes. It’s as if we’re all holding hands together as we all share what we know.
What question do students ask you the most?
Over 35 years, I’ve heard every kind of question, from “How do I work with mindfulness and my dog?” to “How do I deal with bringing a cancer I’m trying to heal from to a spiritual practice?” I’ve been asked, “How can I support my son, who’s been deployed to Afghanistan?” and “How do I deal with the overwhelm I feel when I watch the news because of all the concerns I have for the world?”
Each question is a person, and if I listen—and if we listen together with respect, tenderness, and interest to each person—kind of wisdom shows itself. Loving-kindness and compassion are central to the trainings I teach and can transform every part of your life. Other practices are important, too, like joy. It becomes important to understand not to put off happiness amid other pursuits and live in the reality of the present with a joyful heart.
What advice do you give people struggling with meditation?
Meditation presents challenges. Like other spiritual practices, it can be a grim duty that you impose on yourself. Or, in the course of healing, it can make you aware that you’re actually loyal to your suffering and are scared by the idea of how you’d be if you were to really live with joy. But living with joy is possible and, I believe, a birthright.
It can be a challenge to sit down to meditate. What arises is the unfinished business of life, tensions, grief or trauma, unspoken longing, unwept tears, and, without a deep understanding, you don’t know how to turn difficulties into a path of practice. With training, the fears, confusion, and agitation, we encounter become workable. We learn to liberate our energy and compassion.
If someone is having a challenging time, I have them close their eyes while we talk and have them feel what there is in that moment. I say, “Let’s ask what makes it so difficult to be present.” Often, it’s fear that they have to feel the grief of a relationship, or fear about what to do with anxiety about the future if they stop and listen to what they are actually feeling. When they do it with compassion, they realize they can live in the present. Become curious: what’s here that’s hard to experience? When you become curious, you discover all kinds of things. If anything, the world becomes more and more mysterious.
What should students expect from your upcoming Kripalu retreat?
It’s one of the most beautiful programs because it weaves together deep meditation, mindfulness, experiencing joy, the opening of heart, and finding inner freedom. It’s quite an intimate program. We spend the day together doing storytelling, meditation, question-and-answer sessions, and dialogue. Practicing together like this is one of the most satisfying teaching opportunities I’ve ever had. People become a community of spirit, as if we make a temple together.
I love how joyful and open people are by the end of the retreat, more content and compassionate. And they carry a wonderful set of tools back home to nourish them. I’ve had a woman with an eating disorder who said she tasted food for the first time. Another student was a mother who had conflict with her daughter for years, and, at the end of the retreat, she said, “I will live a life of forgiveness and start anew.” The practices we do bring out people’s dignity and joy, and their hearts get touched and filled. It’s beautiful to witness. A treasure.
Are you finding more and more diversity among your students these days?
I’m so happy that people with diverse ages and ethnic backgrounds are exploring meditation. It’s what the world needs. We are a marvelously, wildly diverse species—but at the core, we’re all humans with the same fundamental nature. Every child has a secret beauty and spirit that gets covered over as they age, but it can always shine underneath. All it takes are the right circumstances to reawaken their true selves. That sense of inner dignity and nobility is a basis for all the spiritual practice we do.
What are your goals as a teacher?
My goal is for people to awaken to their fundamental dignity, nobility, and freedom of the heart regardless of their circumstances. My goal is for them to remember how to love and bring compassion to all parts of their lives. Also, to give people ancient practices and tools in a modern form that they can use when they return to their everyday lives so they can quiet the mind, open the heart, and develop a spirit of compassion no matter where they are. So they can heal and transform themselves and learn to be their own enlightened master. My goal is for them to trust their innate wisdom.
Find out more about Jack Kornfield and his upcoming programs at Kripalu.
12 Universal Focus Phrases to Quickly Bring Peace and Inner Clarity
