Posts Tagged ‘Mantra Meditation’
BE-DO-HAVE REVISTED
Excerpt From Relationships That Work: The Power Of Conscious Living
- By David B. Wolf
In setting and accomplishing life goals from a paradigm of conscious living, the equation begins with being. Often we specify the have part of the equation, then do the work of achieving the goal, but neglect to be. For example, suppose I am thinking, “If I have the right companion then I will live the life I desire and I will be loved, appreciated and affectionate.” In this mode focused on having, the process moves to doing things that we believe make sense to achieve the goal. This could mean going to bars, parties or perhaps to work or church—all with the intention of acquiring what we don’t have. Be-Do-Have on the other hand begins with experiencing ourselves as loved, contented and fulfilled. With this consciousness we attract into our lives relationships that enhance our being. Experiencing love, power, beauty, clarity, vitality, radiance and confidence is not dependent on having any particular relationship or external result, although we do invite and attract relationships and successes that enrich the full experience of our being.
Be-Do-Have consciousness is joyful, contented and powerful from the start. Living these qualities, I naturally do the things that joyful, contented and powerful people do—with the result that I have things that joyful, contented and powerful people have. Being compassionate, loving and confident, I naturally act in ways that compassionate, loving and confident people act—and thus I have what compassionate, loving and confident people have. The salient point about Be-Do-Have is not that it culminates in have, but that it originates in be.
Be-Do-Have is always in effect, whether we are conscious of it or not. If I am being depressed, fearful and irritable, I will do what depressed, fearful and irritable people do, and have the sort of relationships and life results that depressed, fearful and irritable people have. If I am being trustworthy, powerful and spirited, I will do things that trustworthy, powerful and spirited people do, and have the corresponding results, such as extraordinary success and rewarding relationships.
While doing and having flow from our being, they also enrich our being. Thus, being powerful, trusting and determined, I act with power, trust and determination. This activity in turn enhances my experience of being. It is not that my being was incomplete before the activity; this a dynamic process where being energizes doing, and doing nourishes being. Activity is generated from inspired being, not from a place of need.
In the Do-Be paradigm, I am in a mindset that believes “In order to experience the qualities of my being, I need to do such and such.” That is different than Be-Do, where I am living from the consciousness of “I am complete and whole; I am inspired to do these activities, which naturally intensify and augment my experience of being.”
Because spirit is transcendent of matter, and because the self is more powerful than material coverings, it is possible to choose the qualities of our being at any given moment—whatever the intricacies of those coverings. By doing some clearing work, by pulling weeds and watering flowers in the garden, we can prepare the field and thus make it easier to choose being. (Without minimizing the value of this work, the choice to be is not dependent on the clearing and watering work we have done beforehand.)
For example, before conducting a seminar, part of my preparation is to do mantra meditation for about ninety minutes each morning. This helps me to feel strong, clear and connected. Sometimes that doesn’t happen, for whatever reason. I know that chanting before the start of the seminar day is very helpful for me to experience myself as focused, spontaneous, confident and connected; but if it’s 9 a.m. and the seminar is about to begin, and I haven’t chanted yet, I am not willing to use that as an excuse not to be fully clear, present and connected. Whatever my preparation work has or hasn’t been, I can choose to be weak or powerful, foggy or clear, defensive or open.
SATTVA AS A BASIS FOR SATISFACTION
Excerpt From Relationships That Work: The Power Of Conscious Living
- By David B. Wolf
As spiritual beings, a balanced and complete life includes cultivation of spirituality. Research has shown that spiritual practice correlates positively with better physical and mental health. Building spiritual habits entails scheduling time for spiritual practice, whether in the form of prayer, meditation, reading, attendance at congregational gatherings, silence or time with nature. If spiritual life is relegated to something we do if there is time after responding to our emails or completing household chores, it won’t happen.
A spiritual program that has worked for me for the past twenty-five years begins with rising early, by 4 or 5 a.m. This practice is itself invigorating. When I don’t do it, I definitely feel the difference. Another staple of my spiritual diet is about ninety minutes of early morning meditation. I have found that mantra meditation is most effective for me. The senses are centered around the mind, and mantra chanting engages several senses and abilities—including hearing, speech and touch, if the mantra is counted on beads such as a rosary. This makes it easier for our minds to focus on the vibration of the mantra. A mantra is a sound vibration that frees the mind (“mind” is derived from the first syllable of “mantra”) from material entanglement, from the modes of rajas and tamas, and elevates our existence to the spiritual platform. We have explored how we create our life with our words, and how our mode of speech determines the atmosphere of our internal and relationship world. Attentive mantra chanting is another means to spiritualize our life through sound vibration.
Jill Bormann has conducted research on mantra meditation with various populations including military veterans. She describes meditative time with a mantra as a “Jacuzzi for the mind. It’s something you can use to focus and calm yourself at a moment’s notice, and it doesn’t require money, it’s non-toxic, it’s inexpensive—a person just needs to practice it and make it a part of their lives.” Jill and other researchers have found that regular recitation of selected mantras significantly helps manage psychological distress and increase life satisfaction. The veterans with whom she worked chose from a variety of mantras from diverse traditions, such as Ave Maria and Ohm Shanti Rama.
My personal favorite mantra for meditation is one of India’s most beloved, The Maha Mantra, which goes Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare / Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare. Quantitative group and single-system research conducted by Dr. Neil Abell and myself has shown that chanting this mantra correlates with reduced stress and depression as well as with increased sattvic qualities such as peacefulness, fulfillment, emotional balance, mental clarity and sense of life purpose. Recitation of this mantra has been shown to be compatible for realization of our spiritual identity, supporting us in connecting with the innermost stratum of the living soul.
People are sometimes surprised that I spend more than two hours per day in direct spiritual practice, thinking that this would not leave sufficient time for other endeavors and projects. My experience, for over a quarter century, is that if I don’t devote at least two hours a day to activities such as chanting and reading spiritual literature, that connect me directly to spirit and to the source of my existence, then I actually have less time and energy to do things. My spiritual practice vitalizes and strengthens me, fills me with a sense of urgency about life, of not wanting to waste a moment. Also, spiritual practice, or sadhana, helps me to view and experience all my efforts in relation to God and spiritual development.
Each type of food has its characteristic mode. With reference to diet, sattva guna is complemented by foods that require a minimal amount of violence to obtain. Thus a vegetarian diet tends to increase our sattvic consciousness. There is a Buddhist aphorism— ahimsa paramo dharma—non-violence is the highest virtue. After witnessing the slaughter of an animal, Leo Tolstoy wrote, “This is dreadful!…that a man suppresses in himself, unnecessarily, the highest spiritual capacity—that of sympathy towards living creatures like himself…” To help us cultivate empathy and actualize refined spiritual consciousness, awareness of what we consume is vital.
We are influenced by the people we associate with, perhaps more than we realize. Developing sattvic habits and refining our character is facilitated by developing close relations with others who are similarly committed to the cultivation of self-realization. If we want to grow, to play a big game with our lives, it helps to surround ourselves with people who will support and challenge us to be the best that we can be. These are true friends who will not sell us short, and who actively encourage us to live in excellence. Just as a medical student will closely associate with other medical students to help achieve his or her goal, just as a businessperson interacts with other businesspeople, so an aspiring spiritualist seeks out the affiliation of like-minded spiritualists.
Jacuzzi For The Mind: The Sound Of Transformative Communication
I get to chant my rounds!
The morning after a 3-day transformative communication course I conducted in Brooklyn, I encountered a woman who had just completed the seminar. She was excited and had an experience she was eager to share with me. In the spiritual community where she lived she had taken a vow to chant daily a prescribed number of mantras on beads. She exclaimed, “This morning I realized that I don’t have to chant my rounds! I don’t have to chant my rounds!” Her exhilaration filled the air with a sense of liberation. Seeing me puzzled as to why she was happy to give up her vow, she went on, “I get to chant my rounds! I get to chant my rounds!” She then explained how that morning she had begun to finger her beads and chant a few mantras. For the first time in her decades of experience tears flowed from her eyes while chanting. For the first time her attitude wasn’t “I have to chant my rounds.”
Authentic mantra chanting and high-level communication practices are two complementary vehicles through which we can utilize sound vibration to realize our spiritual identity and connect with the innermost stratum of the living soul.
A genuine mantra is a potent transformational vibration. “Mantra” means spiritual sound vibration that extricates the mind from material entanglement. Jill Bormann has conducted research on mantra meditation with various populations including military veterans. She describes meditative time with a mantra as a “Jacuzzi for the mind. It’s something you can use to focus and calm yourself at a moment’s notice, …it doesn’t require money, and it’s non-toxic… a person just needs to make it a part of their lives.” My personal favorite mantra for meditation is one of India’s most beloved, the Maha Mantra. Studies have shown that this 16-word mantra reduces stress and depression and increases qualities such as balance, fulfillment, and sense of life purpose.
In our programs we focus on transformation through communication. Awareness of how we use sound to influence our consciousness and environment is a powerful approach to personal and interpersonal development. In the beginning was the word. Just as the divine creates with sound, we can productively examine what we generate in our life with our sounds.
For example, to what extent do we build roadblocks to effective communication through responses that convey messages of invalidation, disempowerment, or self-absorption? This might take the form of unnecessarily advising or warning, shallow praise, avoidance of vital issues, or prematurely giving solutions. Effective listening is essential for the creation of the sacred space that is crucial for life-enriching relationships. Such listening focuses on what the other person is saying- not what we’re saying to ourselves about what the other is saying. In our expression we can consider the degree to which we communicate from fear, neediness, and insecurity, as opposed to purpose, joy and inspiration. Through three days of intense immersion in transformative communication the mantra yogini shifted her consciousness from “I have to…”- burdensome, obligatory, and mechanical- to “I get to…”- vibrant, inspired, and fresh.
