 |
 |
| |
| Departments |
Home
Columns, Special
Topics & Features:
The Columns:
Angels, Guides, &
Loving Spirits:
Angel Blessings:
with Dr. Doreen Virtue
Ask Valerie Morrison,
Internationally
Acclaimed Psychic
Trust Your Vibes
By Dr. Sonia Choquette, PhD.
Internationally Acclaimed Psychic Healer & Author
Astrologer's Notes:
Carin Martin,
Astrologer
Donna Cunningham, MSW, Astrologer
Basil Fearrington,
Astrologer
Diana Stone,
Astrologer &
Huna Shaman
Jeff Jawer
Astrologer
Glenn Perry,
Astrologer
Ray Merriman,
Financial Astrology:
MMA Market Week
Noel Tyl,
Astrologer
Daily Aspect Calendar
by Care
MoonWatching with Dana Gerhardt and Friends
Creating Bridges:
The Spiritual &
Philosophical
Act of Power
Discovering the Key to Living Your Sacred Dream
by Lynn Andrews
Avant-Gardening:
Insights
by Frank & Vicky
Giannangelo
From The Heart:
Alan Cohen
Teachings from the Western Mystery Traditions: The Esoteric "Paths of Return"
by Jacquelyn Small, Eupsychia
Spirituality in Daily Life: by Bhikshuni Thubten Chodron
The Conscious Column
by David Ault
Spiritual Mastery
for the 21st Century
Dr. Gwen MacGregor
Pearls of Wisdom:
with Care & Aeon
Encounters on the
Shaman's Path with
Dr. Hank Wesselman, PhD.
Anthropologist, Zoologist, Author, Shamanic Healer & Teacher
The Divine Human
by Ornesha De Paoli
Awakenings
by Karen Johnson
Worshipping by Wondering with
Sankara Saranam, MA Founder of the Pranayama Institute
A Woman's Beauty
by Robin Rice,
Shaman & Author
Wisdom Walks
In Circles
Margaret Lewis,
Shamanic Practitioner
The Awakening Generation
by Ann Marie Judge
Crystals, Minerals
& Gemstones
My Love of Crystals, Minerals & Gemstones
by Raven,
Raven Crystals
Divination Systems:
Be Your Own Oracle
By James Wanless, Ph.D.
Creator of the Voyager Tarot Deck
In Practice:
Juliet's Marketing Wisdom
by Juliet Austin, MA Marketing Coach, Author & Consultant
Kabbalah:
Kabbalah Revealed:
Rav Michael Laitman, PhD, Kabbalalist
"Letters from Heaven:" Spiritual Guidance from
the Hebrew Alphabet
by Avigayil Landsman
Numberscope Forecast
by Vincent J. Barra
Pet Care:
Dr. Carson's Holistic Animal Care
by Dr. Kathleen Carson, D.V.M.
Tarot:
Moment to Moment
by Gigi Miner
Author, Tarot Consultant, & Teacher
Reviews:
Tarot, Cartomancy,
Oracle Decks,
Books, & Software.
by Bonnie Cehovet,
Tarot Master
Humor:
Wake Up Laughing.Com:
Swami Beyondananda
Features:
Blessings & Messages
Event Calendar
Historical Notes & Data
The MetaPersonals
Opinion-Editorial
News Briefs
Symbols, Seals,
Amulets & Talismans
The What in the
World Department
Trivia & Life's Other
Novel Moments
Interviews:
Watch for Upcoming Announcements
Healing & Alternative
Health:
"Spirit and Practice
of the Wise Woman
Tradition"
By Susun Weed
Tai Chi & Qigong
by Bill Douglas
The Holistic Mystic,
by Lonny Brown
Medical Intuition: Tune
in to Your Body and Improve Your Health
by Caroline Sutherland, Sutherland Communications
Transformational Healing through the Violet Flame!
by Eva Kettles
Herbs for Health
with Kami McBride
Lose Weight Permanently: Stop the Endless Cycle of Dieting
Rena Greenberg,
Practitioner of Neuro Linguistic Programming & Hypnotherapist
The Directory
The Book Nook
Archives:
Past Issues
|
|
|
|
|
|
Creating Bridges: Spirituality & Philosophy:
From the Heart:
Everything I Need to Know
about Meditation, I Learned
from my Jewish Mother
|
|
|
by Alan Cohen |
|
|
When I first began meditating I tried to convert my mother. But Jewish mothers have arsenals of truth that young meditators can’t begin to penetrate.
“I already know how to meditate,” she told me firmly.
“Really?” I asked incredulously. “How do you do it?”
“I sit at the window of my apartment with my coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other,” she explained. “Then I just look out at the world going by, and my mind don’t function. I don’t think happy thoughts, and I don’t think sad thoughts. I don’t think any thoughts - it’s the best part of my day.”
Now, many years later, I recognize that my mother was far closer to real meditation than I was. In her own way she had mastered her intellect- something I am still trying to do.
It is said that prayer is talking to God, and meditation is listening. You cannot listen if you are talking. You cannot access a divine frequency if you are flooding the psychic airwaves with mental chatter. If chatter worked for you, you would not need to meditate. But you do.
At a time when I felt troubled about a relationship, I attended a lecture by a Buddhist monk. He made a statement that shook my world and has helped me many times over. He said, “Since all of your troubles exist only in your mind, the only place you can solve them is in your mind.” A Course in Miracles teaches that although we think we have many problems, we have only one: We believe we are separate from the Source that created us. When we reunite with that Source, suddenly everything else we thought was such a problem evaporates.
The best way I know to make troubles evaporate (besides watching Star Trek reruns) is meditation. In meditation we shift frequencies until the meaningless ranting of the fearful self fades to nothingness, and we sit in the presence of love, where we were all the time, but did not know it because we were tuned to an inferior program.
Yet simply sitting for twenty minutes or hours with eyes closed is not meditation. What you are doing inside makes all the difference. If you sit and think for the whole time, you are not meditating. How do you know if your meditation worked? By the amount of peace you feel when you arise. Master metaphysician Joel Goldsmith recommends that you meditate until the meditation takes over. When you get to the point where you feel so good that you would rather not arise, you have arrived at the place meditation was meant to take you to.
If the Jewish Mother Meditation is valid,- and it is - any activity that takes you beyond your intellect and connects you with your spirit is a good meditation. If you write, paint, dance, play music, or engage in sports, you know there is a “zone” you enter where the small sense of self disappears and Something Greater moves through you. That sense is far closer to the truth of who you are than the one who is trying to succeed. You cannot try to succeed and succeed at the same time. As Yoda suggested, “Try not. Only do.”
The best doing proceeds not from a sense of doingness, but from beingness. You cannot legislate how beingness looks; it can show up through any form. I had severe judgments about my mother smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee, but the irony was that she was at peace with those activities, while my judgments were keeping me from the peace I was trying to teach her to attain. So the first step to real meditation is to drop judgments. You have no idea how someone else should live; indeed you have enough questions about how you should live. So let God be God in whatever form God chooses, and give God permission to be God in you, as well.
One of the reasons we love to be around children, pets, and spirited elders is that they are delightfully free of tyrannical intellect. They are not at the mercy of belief systems that tell us we should be other than they are. They are not trying to think their way through life; they are having too much fun to have to figure it out. That’s why Ben Williams noted, “There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face.” Imagine that life is a big puppy trying to lick your face; the only reason you don’t enjoy it more is that your mind is elsewhere. To get your mind realigned, invite it to think in harmony with Spirit, which is always affirmative and has a greater investment in celebration than complaint.
It’s been over 30 years since my mother taught me the Jewish Mother Meditation. Since that time she has gone to heaven and I am still learning to deal with a restless mind that tells me all kinds of things that simply aren’t true. When it’s my turn to meet mom in the afterlife, I will thank her for her spiritual insights. And if I find her sitting with a cup of coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other, I shall not be at all surprised.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Alan Cohen,
Author
|
 |
Alan Cohen is the author of the best-selling "The Dragon Doesn't Live Here Anymore," the award-winning "A Deep Breath of Life," and the acclaimed "Why Your Life Sucks and What You Can Do About It."
This August join Alan in Maui for his life-transforming Mastery Training.
For information on this seminar and a free catalog of Alan's books, tapes, and seminars:
Phone:
1•800•568•3079
or visit: www.alancohen.com
email: admin@alancohen.com
or write:
P.O. Box 835, Haiku, HI 96708.
|
 |
You'll find it in
The
Directory!
|
|
|
|
|
