Quieting your mind
We live in a crazy busy world…do not you agree? I recently went out with my family to have a nice dinner and we decided to treat ourselves, so we went to what you would call an upper scale steakhouse… we played the part, we dressed up nice and we were really looking forward to it.
When we were there at the place, across from us was another family of 5 and I thought… oh isn't that nice another family going out, but for the entire dinner both parents and their children, were on their cell phones and iPads, texting, communicating, and surfing, they weren't even talking to each other, that goes back to what I said at the beginning, life is available only in the present moment.
There they were at a beautiful steakhouse which was not cheap and instead of spending some quality time with each other they were keeping up with the outside world, and missing out on a beautiful dinner and a beautiful opportunity to really reconnect with each other.
It's amazing to see how many people live such crazy busy lives
I have a client that I recently spoke to who was complaining about how stressed he was, when he started listing all of the things that were on his plate it was incredible, he literally had so many responsibilities, but he was probably doing the jobs of three to four people… it was insane, it's no wonder, he was stressed out but here's the sad part.
He was unwilling to do anything about it… there is a great story from Zen that, I learned and goes like this…
Empty your cup
“Many years ago, there was a young man who became quite proficient in sword fighting in Japan, he was winning awards and becoming renowned around the area, all his teachers ran out of new things, that they could teach him so, they told him that the only person who could teach him now, was this man at the top of a mountain and a real Zen Master.
He was an old man who was once, one of the greatest sword fighters on the planet, the student is smart enough to realise that's a good idea so, he makes the journey up this mountain to meet this man.
The Zen Master invites in the man, they shuffle to the table where they both kneel down in Japanese tradition, the Zen Master starts to make tea, he places two cups out and starts to make fatigue while the young man starts to regale himself with all the stories of how wonderful and great, he is, all of the techniques he's used and all of the people that he's beaten.
He keeps talking and talking while the Zen Master patiently and quietly listens as he makes the tea, the young man continues bragging and talking and discussing all the things he knows, as the old man starts to pour the tea into his cup.
It's a tradition to pour for the guest before you pour for yourself, so he starts to fill up the young man's cup and as the cup fills up ,it starts to overflow while the Zen Master smiles and keeps nodding at the young man, who keeps on bragging and talking about all of his great skills, the young man notices the tea overflowing but thinks perhaps the Zen Master is a little senile and just allows it to happen.
The tea continues to pour out of the cup onto the tabletop eventually, reaching the edge and dropping over the side burning the young man's legs, the young man jumps up and yells: Are you crazy old man?! can't you see this cup is full!
The Zen Master raises his hand, smiles and gestures for the young man to sit back down, as the Zen Master puts down the teapot, he says to the young man.
This is your mind… your mind is so full, just like this cup, you have no way of learning anything new for you to move forward in life, you must first empty your cup, then you'll be ready to receive.
That's what, it's like here, in the world today, we need to learn how to quiet our minds, we need to centre ourselves, we need to take time for ourselves, so that we can become aware of spirit. We're often so busy that there's no way for Spirit Guides to be able to make a connection with us, so the best way to do it, is to learn how to relax your mind and centre yourself. When you centre yourself, you become one with spirit.
Quiet your mind
I want you to use this technique, three times a day to get started, do it once in the morning, once at noon and once at night-time, of course if you want to do it more, by all means, do it. Clearing your mind, allow you to be more receptive and if you can master this, it will only help and improve your life so, let's begin.
Breathing Meditation
Is my favourite and one that I use on a daily basis, you don't need anything to do this, what I want you to do is breathe for a few moments, breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth, it's as simple as that.
Unlike a lot of other meditative techniques, that teach you to breathe in deeply, and hold it and then let it out with a sigh… Well, you will not be doing that, you just simply are going to breathe, this is something that you've been doing since you were first born.
Imagine you can see your breathe like when it's cold outside, you can see it floating, now imagine that you can see your breathe going in through your nose filling up your lungs and exiting your mouth, see the breathe go out.
This technique is called following your breathe, because you are literally going to watch the breathe go in through your nose. I want you to imagine you can see it filling your lungs up, and then when you naturally need to exile, you just breathe it back out again.
Now imagine that you're sitting with other people, if the person beside you was just running, they're going to be breathing very quickly, you don't need to keep up with them, if you were breathing quickly, you don't have to focus on slowing your breath, you just have to concentrate on breathing, your body will naturally regulate it to the perfect state, you need to be in.
If the person beside you was breathing very slowly, you don't have to match his or her speed, everyone has an unique pace of breathing in and out, your job is simple, to follow your breathe, you can do this with your eyes open… though I like to do this with my eyes closed.
I would also like to point out that if you were on a public bus or train going to work for example you could be sitting beside somebody and doing this meditation, without that person even knowing what you're doing, there's no signs that you're actually doing the meditation ,it's very cool as you do this breathing technique you'll notice it some point that, it will feel like a light is surrounding you and melting off the negative energies. it will feel like, it's melting off the stresses, it will feel like, its burning away the things that are troubling you.
You don't even need, to think about that, it will just happen, automatically for you.
What also its really cool about this technique is that, you just follow your breathe if your mind is really busy and you're thinking of all kinds of other things, stuff that you have to do, maybe you have to pick up some groceries after work, don't let it distract you, like technology does it and continue to follow your breathe.
You're not ignoring those other thoughts, you’re just concentrating on your breathe right now.
After about 2 minutes you can stop and you'll discover that you'll feel much better, that's because you've only been focusing on your breathe, which helps you naturally hit your base rhythm, which will allow you to connect with spirit.
(Credits and reading: Spirit Guides by B.Robertson)
