As I mentioned in a previous post, I find that public spaces are very intense for me, but today I had a breakthrough, inspired by someone who was filled with joy at seeing the joy in others.
I’m finishing my Christmas shopping still. As I entered the mall today, I was guided through a meditation that made the entire shopping experience a joy. I’m pretty sure this qualifies as a miracle!
Here is the meditation:
See a ball of white light within yourself.
Now see a ball of white light within each person you pass. Realize the equality of all beings. Keep that in mind.
Now, on the exhale, think Giving.
On the inhale, think Receiving.
Notice how much everyone has to give. Notice how much you have to give.
Notice the source of the giving.
Do any thoughts arise about taking from others being wrong?
Connect to each individual. Recognize their common source. See the inner light.
All the effortless giving and receiving comes from one source–Love. Think of all the goodness in the universe being breathed in and out of each individual as it is breathed in and out of you, all coming from the same source.
Do you feel a willingness to receive from your source?
Can you feel how effortless, powerful, and loving giving can be?
Giving and receiving are one. Giving and receiving are love. They are equal.
Now play with it. Receive before you give, on the inhale. Then give on the exhale. So looking at any person at all, first receive, and then give.
Switch back and forth between giving first and receiving first–whenever you sense your energy needs to rebalance. Giving and receiving are equally loving.
Notice any judgments about the individuals you see. Is there one worthy of pity? Do you think that one is so lacking? See now how much he has to give. See who he is, truly.
Look at all the faces, their variety, their beauty their expressiveness, the light within them.
Give and receive.
Receive and give.
Notice that one over there who seems to have more than you do. Can you receive? It is very easy for us to give what comes easily to us. Each of us has something unique that comes effortlessly through us–some lack of resistance that anyone open to receive can join with.
Can you feel that? Can you feel the wholeness right under the surface?
Focus on the particular kind of effortlessness that flows easily through you to others. This is the only reason for the particular–a means to return to the awareness of wholeness. Use it.
Give your effortlessness. Receive the effortlessness of your brothers and sisters. Integrate and accept the variety. Share the variety. In and out.
Now return to the bright light.
See tendrils expanding out of it. Notice how the awareness of it expands as focus is honored, as the mind learns how to stay in vulnerability, openness and appreciation.
Now breathe into and out of the webs of relationship among individuals. Feel the wholeness, the love, and the stability there. Giving and receiving. Receiving and giving.
Now look at supposedly lifeless objects. Notice the life there. Feel the dance of the molecules, the vibration. Giving and receiving. Receiving and giving.
Feel the harmony. Feel the union. Feel the basis of all. Feel the only thing there is. As you stay tuned into the expansion, you experience this expansiveness with others.
As you experience the expansiveness with others. you see the expansion in them.
Giving and receiving are one. All are one.
***
Being guided through this helped me stay in presence and appreciation. Now, after the experience, I am still guided to that giving and receiving breath when energy seems imbalanced or when my thinking (especially thinking related to people and relationships) is confused.
If you are reading the Love’s Beginning book, here is the next post:
6.5 The Truth of the Whole
Love's Beginning 