Learn To Meditate - Meditation Podcast

Meditation is an extremely simple process. It follows three distinct steps; we start with the superficial, scattered mind, we then progress by virtue of our hearts concentration - to deeper, analytical thinking and finally from this very deep thinking we enter into intuitive states, revelations, "I know this is right" feelings or extremely vivid goals or intense creativity or spiritual dreams. When thinking stops and intuitive experience takes over, this is meditation.

How are we supposed to have clear life goals if we do not know why we are here? Wisdom requires not thought but experience, it always feels very simple as it is a revelation of our real self. It is a meditation experience.

Simply put, if we allow ourselves to be thinking negatively, to be caught up in hate or anger or restlessness and worry, then we are going to view the world through that state of mind. It is as if we are wearing a pair of glasses that warps our vision in a negative way.

It is a journey of the opening heart and the letting go of all that binds it. For our journey a vehicle is necessary. This vehicle has four wheels and they need to be perfectly balanced. The wheels of our vehicle are our body, vital (emotions), mind and heart.

A valuable person is one who believes that he/she can do anything. With no fear of new tasks there is enormous potential and the possibility to learn quickly, quietly and efficiently. This is the basis of Positive Learning and lies at the heart of a meditation lifestyle. Positive Learning utilises chunking or designing a simple step-by-step process that paces a skill into smaller achievable tasks.

Sometimes we wonder about the decisions we make. Are they from the mind or the heart? We might ask - 'Is this a decision that is unveiling my highest possible destiny or perhaps just an easy, comfortable solution that fits into my outer life?

The journey for every thought is from gross physical or material desire to love in all its flavours: from romance to real wisdom or truth.

The great masters have always talked about gratitude as the great opener of the heart. That by offering gratitude we actually increase the hearts receptivity. What a wonderful opportunity we have with such a simple dynamic as a thank you.

As we release ourselves from the outer constructs of ourselves what naturally radiates from the inmost recesses of our existence is the lightness and freedom and joy of the real the kingdom of heaven within us that defines our real and eternal nature. Is it not also uncanny the fact that when we are in the dark we feel ourselvesFree Learn to Meditate - Meditation Society of Australia imprisoned, enslaved that even though our conditioning usually paints freedom as the ability to have any material or physical need immediately fulfilled the reality of the darkness is that far from freeing it enchains us.

It is very easy to philosophize and talk and muse about all kinds of deep spiritual perspectives, but from the point of view of our actual spiritual progress, what we be is the most important thing. That is, how we live our spirituality.

In this class you will understand the roles of the ego and the soul and learn to discern your inner voice. The single most asked question we have come across is "how do I tell what are the messages of my ego and those of my soul?" To be true the ego and the soul have an existence within each other and so there is a measure of blurring between their realities but for the purposes of this class, let's separate them at their poles, so that we might more easily understand their nature and where they overlap.

It is impossible to feel unhappy when we are offering love for real joy is the result of the flow of love. There is no more 'in-nature' a state, no closer to heaven, in fact, heaven's singular characteristic is the constant offering of love. To be sure, heaven wishes nothing more than to flow through each of us, empowering and inspiring us with the infinite, spiritual force of the universe.

How to direct your spiritual life effortlessly to more and more of your so-called "outer life"

The human ego is a wonderful tool, but can also leave us in a wonderful mess. It is very common for those studying spiritual philosophy to feel that their intellectual understanding is a spiritual truth, but this is a particularly dangerous trap! Everything understood must also be realised.

Most of us have spent our lives living 'outside' of our real nature. We often have confused the desires of our body, ego and intellect, with the divine wishes of our soul. If you just reflect upon for a moment the way we habitually walk anywhere currently, you might be aware that most of the time, we are thinking about another place we want to be, or things we have to do, or any number of extraneous thoughts. We rarely are conscious of the present moment, and our heart and soul in the process of walking. Meditation, our spiritual life, seeks to redress the balance. It seeks to deepen every moment of our lives with the richness of experience of our own heart.

There are so many chains that we drag around with us. Chains that might be attached to the heaviest, most cumbersome loads but we struggle on, fighting against our own very nature most of the time, because we simply do not know how to, or fear, letting go.

Explore the energy within the universe and look at 'string theory' and how it relates spiritually.

I was happy, but I was not getting any happier, and I had no idea how to increase my happiness.

We find ourselves having trouble getting new inspiration or enthusiasm. We sit to meditate and without inspiration our meditation might become a bit of a day dream, or we could find ourselves nodding off to sleep. We need to continuously look for ways for our meditation to evolve, ways to increase our enthusiasm and inspiration.

We'd really like to thank you for letting us into your spiritual life and we hope that you have enjoyed the classes so far. How you can live your spiritual life most effectively

Learn about constructive and destructive negatives. In the next few classes, we are going to talk about some of these, namely guilt, anger, fear and more. The one thing you will notice is that negative qualities are energy black-holes, they drain us very, very quickly by taxing our attention and focus and diverting us from the energy-giving divine within us all.

In the last class we started a process of investigating some of the anchors, negative thought patterns that weigh us down and create considerable drag in our spiritual journey. We have begun to find that 'so called' negative thought patterns can have positive intentions, but the problem is usually in us procrastinating with the action we should be performing. One of the most destructive of all negative thought patterns is anger. It can lead to aggression, acts of violence, wars. When we are angry we do not listen, we react without thinking, we feel unsafe, alone and threatened. Our lives can become hellish if we are often angry, especially for those that are unable to have an outlet for their anger, not to mention those that do have an outlet - for often it is the less physically powerful that receive the brunt of anger's violence.

When we speak of fear, we speak of the most profound of all negativities. Profoundbecause fear is the root of all negativity, and because it most clearly exposes us to the most powerful of all dangers, the loss of awareness of our real self, our soul. It is the ego that fears, not the soul. It's ultimate fear is to lose itself. This is why death scares it so much. It is sure it is all there is, so death means extinction. It also fears what it perceives to be separate from itself. Other people. Nature. The Wind. A storm. Fate. Animals. Even ones own soul. The soul knows that we are not separate from each other. We are one. So why should we fear? The soul says there is nothing to fear. Even time or death are but manifestations of our eternal experience.

The birthday is an extremely important day to the spiritual aspirant. Whether we realize it or not we do arrive at a particular time and place for a specific reason. There is nothing random about you being born on the date and time you were born.For this reason we should treat our birthdays with real reverence.

There is a great deal of benefit to be derived from simply listening in almost every dimension of life but in particular in the spiritual life. To listen is a requirement for any spiritual evolution. It is the foundation of change. Without listening we cannot transform ourselves. It is listening that keeps us young and flexible. And it is not listening that ages us and makes us stagnant and unyielding. To listen to another is the first doorway to the flow of love between you. To listen to oneself is the doorway to the infinite flow of love within and between all things.

Depression is a very serious condition. This class is not designed to be a cure-all for everyone, but it is hoped it will help inspire with a spiritual approach. Many times people with depression will feel helpless to change their current state, as though there is no point or that no-one can help. Depression often follows anger and helplessness. We quite often are literally beating ourselves up. Many times people that suffer from depression are extremely intelligent, very sensitive and compassionate people. Their sense of helplessness parallels the same spiral people suffering from anger travel into resentment and stress related illnesses (mentioned in class 22- Anger).

For the last few classes we have been talking about so-called negative qualities. To summarise all negatives are really just the bludgeon of change. Every negative quality is actually just a wall we hit as the last stop before we learn and grow. It was the Dalai Lama that said that there isnt a big problem that did not start as a small one. This is true of all pain. Believe it or not, there is not a thing that happens in the world for no reason. Just as if a child was about to burn himself by putting his hand into a flame, an adult would yell and grab the child from harms way. The child might cry with the shock of being yanked to safety but most of us would say that that pain was necessary so the child would learn and grow. "Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional." Anonymous So it is for us exactly the same. Each so-called negative that we experience remains negative while we experience it as a negative. For the child, we all say to the child look you were so lucky, we saved you from being burned. We try to teach the child that the pain was actually a positive experience because now it has learned and it will act differently. If this works the child will forget the pain of being saved, he will act differently and the lesson will be learned. If it did not get the lesson properly it might feel angry or resentful at the pain the adult that saved it inflicted and not learn a valuable lesson. In effect, the child would allow the pain to be swallowed down and fester inside the child, in resentment or anger.

For many to live in bliss is a fantasy. To be happy is not seen as a permanent state but as a kind of fleeting moment, a gift that fate might offer from time to time. Some people even think of too much happiness as being slightly delusional or uncaring for those that are suffering. It is simply unimaginable that a person could live free from suffering, free from the occasional nightmare, free from anxiety or pain, free from any or all negativity. But to live in bliss is possible. Not only possible but inevitable. Our most natural state is actually blissful. Many of us think we naturally are in a struggle with life, that we have to fight against fate, that we have to take what we need or we will be left behind. The opposite is true. We are naturally really happy beings. Our experience of fate is dictated by our choices, by our thoughts and intentions. The universe is actually incredibly abundant. It is only that we have created a series of illusions that stop us from experiencing our real blissful nature. To be very simple about this, the universe is love manifest. Stop for a second and get that. Make sure you understand that sentence. The universe is love manifest. When we experience this, we are blissful. When we are caught thinking the physical images that love projects through are the reality, we are not. It really is that simple. Our problem is complicating our lives. With every complication we give more credence to the illusion than to the reality.

Roger walked into what was sometimes known as 'The Lost City' and was immediately struck by the level of suffering. This was not one or two homeless and hungry, this was tens of thousands of lost, lonely and painful souls. There were those bankrupt, those ostracised for their colour, religion, their weight or lack of weight, their ugly faces or scars or criminal record, their sexuality, their violence, their mental illness, their lack of education. There were people everywhere, in everyones faces, most were barely conscious from a cocktail of alcohol and drugs and petrol and paint cans. Everyone was on top of everyone and all they seemed to want was distance. A mess of urine and faeces littered the landscape but mostly it choked Rogers breath. He could barely breathe without feeling he was going to vomit. Involuntarily already he had dry wretched but had been able to hide it feebly behind a movement of his hand. He stared away not because he meant to, but because he physically could not get his eyes to look. He had never seen anything like it. This lack of human dignity, lack of human self-worth. Then he recognised a face, a shining light, a nerdy, gawky looking girl he recognised from high school. She caught his eyes immediately and smiled. There was nothing at all attractive about her physically but in this place she exuded warmth and presence. All the suffering people around her seemed to gather another breath as she walked past.

One of the finest instruments given to us at the start of our life here on earth is our wonderful and complex mind. From the point of view of our meditation life the mind can be a blessing, but, if not properly trained, a profound hindrance. Its main feature is its malleability. This is also its problem. It can be made to believe anything. Indeed, it can even believe that it is in charge. It is programmed by its own thoughts, its own creation, and the more a thought is repeated the more likely it is to be believed. The mind is a master of habit. A habit is a thought pattern that requires no decision making process. For a computer this would be called a program. We program our mind by repetition. Just reflect for a moment how powerful this is. Just by repeating a thought pattern over and over, firstly it becomes a habit (so we no longer make decisions about it) and most often it becomes a belief, no matter how wrong it might actuality be. It is as though the mind is on automatic and it programs itself by the things we repeat to it. Its actually amazingly ingenious. With this very same process it creates an ego, which is really nothing more than a bunch of habits and repeated thoughts about what has happened - our past, and what might happen - our future. The ego exists only in the minds past and future. Whenever we observe the mind we see this play of time. The ego does not understand what exists in the now. The mind has very little to do with the flow of love in the present moment. However, the heart is completely in the present moment, which also contains within it the entire universe and all of time, i.e. eternity. From the present moment the heart in the flow of love projects out through the mind in intuition, inspiration and creativity. The mind and ego should really be a mouthpiece of the heart, but most often it gets so carried away with itself and its own noise that it completely shuts the heart out. It tries to make us believe that it is the only reality, and attempts to do this by always keeping us thinking about the past or the future, and never experiencing the present moment where it does not understand who it is.

In the spiritual community, a common theme is of getting stuck. We wonder if we are on the right path, whether we are working at the right job, if we are doing what our heart is telling us to do, whether our friends really understand us, whether we should move from our current location in the city to in the country with the cows and the forests, or from the country to the city, or from this city to another city. We wonder where our soulmate is, or if this is our soulmate? Whether we should be Buddhist or Hindu or Christian or Muslim or this sect or that cult.

We have become the kings and queens of prejudgement. There is so much information for us to take in it is almost a prerequisite for sanity that we develop methods of screening out the unimportant. The only thing is that the media, advertising the sounds and sights of the illusion are shouting all the time at us in CAPITALS TELLING US THAT WHAT THEY ARE SAYING IS VERY IMPORTANT. Sadly, we believe them and we start to filter out the wrong things. We start to believe it is really an imperative to be rich and famous and have power over others. We really do think that the terrorists are everywhere, that to be in fear is a normal state and that we need a facelift or botox to retain our worth. Even more than this, we become the experts of categorising so as not to experience a thing fully. If something does not have a name it does not exist. We look at things and measure and analyse their surfaces and mistake that for their reality. 'O he is gay, or she is too young, or too old, or too fat. He is a druggie, an alcoholic, hes divorced or bankrupt' do you see what I mean? These dimensions of prejudgment are so insidious that we begin to be bored with everything because we have prejudged everything. We have seen it all. The reality is that we have actually experienced very little.

Many of us are under the misapprehension that happiness is defined by a constancy of laughter, an absence of conflict and a lack of pain. But it is actually a much different beast, or should I say dove. Laughter without connectedness is just empty comedy, it does not last. Harmony without understanding and love is just a low form of tolerance. And no pain with no love is just a vacant existence. 'It is far better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all' (Tennyson) The real definition of happiness from a spiritual perspective is very simply about connectedness. The more connected we are with each other, nature and God the happier we will be. This happiness is about lasting fulfilment. It is not imprisoned by one or two emotions. At its highest, real and full happiness encapsulates them all. It is a little like the perfection of nature itself. It changes. Often. Some days there are cyclones, some there are tornados, often it is sunny and calm, at other times it is rainy. Every day, though, has its perfection. Every moment is faultless. Every emotion, every feeling is an expression of love the more love, the higher it will be and the more connected it will make us. As we have talked about before, pain is like this. Even anger at its highest can make us happy. Most emotions that we call negative, however, are usually about disconnecting us from each other, it is only at their absolute positive pole that they become obviously loving. I have a friend who felt the most love in her life at the funeral of her son. She was extremely sad and in pain, but there were moments were she felt immense love and connectedness. It was the saddest and happiest and most connected time of her life. Many women speak of childbirth as the most significant moment of their lives. A time of the greatest pain, but also, perhaps the most love, the most connectedness, the most happiness. For most sports people, the ultimate experience often comes at the apex of the most pain. The runner, the gymnast, the ballet dancer tell of pushing through pain to effortlessness and blissfulness. Or to be even more mainstream, if you have ever done a fun-run you will know the pain and the bliss. Many artists feel they have to have pain for them to be creative. That their best works often comes at the time of most pain. Many people that have major tragedies occur in their lives, such as an accident or other near-death experience, recall these events as turning points, often as epiphanies of great connectedness or love. Others have got very angry about an inequality or injustice and that anger has fuelled a flow of love and connectedness that became immediately immensely powerful. This oneness is born in anger but immediately is transformed via determination into the flow of love that creates enormous happiness. Some people argue that Christ was not happy being crucified, but in that great pain, I would contend, came his moments of highest connectedness and greatest happiness. To be really happy does not mean there are not events that from an outsiders point of view look painful. The happy person sees all of them as expressions of love and is therefore happy. The point is that to be truly happy we need to fill every moment, every emotion with the highest love, the highest connectedness. This is actually the nature of God if you think about it. Being omnipotent means you are involved in every thing, every experience, the difference is God is always connected and knows it, and is therefore ultimately blissful, but also full of pain.

The difference between meditation and hypnosis is very stark. They both use very similar entry techniques, to relax and calm the mind and become concentrated and peaceful. They are both very powerful self development tools, but that is where the similarity ends. In my experience of hypnosis the focus is on the subconscious, and in understanding and reprogramming past negative learned behaviours. We enter into very deep concentrative states where we are able to replace bad habits and negative thought patterns from the past with positive, inspiring thought models for the future. Often just becoming aware of a negative thought habit is enough to dismantle it. Hypnosis makes it apparent again that lots of what we have programmed into our subconscious can be extremely detrimental. It makes us recognise that just because we repeat a thought doesn't make it true, but that is exactly what our subconscious assumes. I have seen examples where people have recognised compulsive eating habits as a means of hiding oneself or subconsciously taking oneself out of the dating game so as to be free from being hurt in relationships. Or of smoking or drug addictions as a means of punishing oneself over some form of guilt or self-hate. There are so many scenarios where unless we explore our subconscious we keep burying these extremely negative behaviours. Hypnosis is an extremely powerful tool for dealing with the past, and by dealing positively with the past it can help create very positive futures. Affirmations can be a form of self-hypnosis where a word or a phrase is repeated over and over as a means of reprogramming our subconscious. They are the most powerful when one is focussed and concentrated but are effective even amidst the hustle and bustle of worries and anxieties. A simple affirmation, such as calm down, calm down can be very effective. More powerfully with silence and full concentration, I love and forgive myself might be an affirmation that very simply changes our world. In meditation the focus is on the heart and the soul and the present moment. We leave the past and future and put all of our attention on now. In the 'now' in meditation we feel expanded and connected with one another and every thing, in calm peace. It is the flow of love, the giving and receiving of love that lies at the heart of meditation. Meditation simply accepts the past and in that way releases itself from its talons. Whatever has happened, has happened. They are only thoughts and they do not control us. They are simply released if they are destructive and celebrated if positive. It does not usually attempt to reprogram past thought patterns or behaviours rather through the infusion of love in the meditator, it is felt that new, higher thought patterns naturally develop and old habits are released or transformed. In my view, meditation is the simplest and most effective method of spiritual development. Unlike prayer where we lay out what we believe we need and do all the talking, meditation hands over the process to our heart and soul, or in some cases to God, and says you do the talking and I will listen. Sometimes in hypnosis it is hard to be clear on what our primary focus should be, on what we need most and so we may be directing ourselves to issues that are not important for this moment. In meditation we realise that by listening and having faith in ourselves, we can be directed and guided the most effectively. Because hypnosis is grounded in the past it is only able to clear obstructions to our future. Meditation, however, being in the now, the only place we are actually transformed, can work to help us actually evolve now. In this way we simply release our destructive past and elevate the thought patterns, the creators of our future.

What is the masculine energy of the universe and why is it so important? What is a warrior spirit? Since we are all a mix of masculine and feminine energy, we can benefit from a clear understanding of the highest vision of masculine energy, whilst in the next class we will explore the feminine. The displays of masculine energy are most raw in ancient, more primal societies, where the man was the keeper of boundaries, the hunter and provider of food, the physical strength behind manufacture and the imagination of the innovator and creator. The masculine energy is like fire. When it is used properly it is creative, practical, benevolent and visionary. When misused it can burn and destroy in egoic anger and/or resentment. To be a warrior does not mean that we are stupidly brave or recklessly courageous, it means that we act with complete confidence and faith in the dialog of our spirit, with the voice of our conscience. Reason takes second place to the masculine warrior who acts decisively and with clear purpose. One listens to ones heart, reasons with objectivity and intelligence, and then acts. Sometimes to others, this may seem illogical but to the warrior there is a duty to the authentic self first and reason second.

The displays of feminine energy are most evident in the mother. Even in these times the mother is the best example of both conditional and unconditional love. In conditional love the mother loves the child if the child does as she commands. Such as becoming a doctor or a lawyer and not going out with that kid from down the road. In unconditional love it would not matter to the mother if her child killed everyone in the street she would still be there at the jail with the knife in the cake saying its not my johnnys fault, it was that Johnson kid that was the bad one. Masculinity and femininity are as important as each other, although in our patriarchal society masculine energy has been valued more in the past. Now and into the future that is necessarily becoming balanced. Real femininity has little to do with feminism, nor does it have much to do with the traditional wife and mother model of the 1950s. Real femininity just like real masculinity is more about the flow of love. Feminine love is compassionate, nurturing and benevolent, but more than anything it is connected. Authentic feminine love walks in anothers shoes easily. It is coupled as one. Real feminine energy understands deeply the concerns of not only one another in the human family but in every soul, animal, plant and mineral. Its deep empathy vibrates through the hearts of all. The mother energy is that which loves us no matter what we do. This is the highest, most divine love of all. A child needs this perfect love that the mother energy uniquely displays. We all need to know that we are children of the universe and that we are being loved no matter what. This is the most necessary of all forms of love and it is only the mother energy that innately shows this. All of our problems in the world stem from this energy not being received. We need to practise receiving and the first is from our mother earth. Whether you believe it or not the truth is there is a Mother Nature energy that is constantly loving us and caring for us. We only need to sit for a moment in nature and offer our gratitude to the earth to feel her feminine unconditional love. But more than this we need to feel the mother energy in the universe, the air, the moon, the stars all around us and inside us we are being loved. If we are lucky enough to have parents that have cared for us, then it will be evident there too. With the reception of love everything starts with gratitude. Even with our parents, if we are able to offer our gratitude their divine feminine love will shine through. Their empathy, their connection with us is very spiritual and the cord it flows along is founded in the feminine energy of both parents. The mother is present in every one of our actions, underlying every step with a connection to the universe that says to us that we are always being helped, we are never alone. Just as a child might tempestuously say to leave me alone, the mother waits patiently and unconditionally to help wherever she is allowed. The highest feminine energy increases the flow of love in the universe with unconditional oneness and understanding.

Our addictions are usually caused by us not being loved in the way we want to be loved. As you know, to have perfect love we must begin with trust and faith in the thing or person we are loving or being loved by. Often when we are caught by addictions we have lost trust and faith in so many things or people that we rely on our addiction to show us the unconditional love we so desire. What in our lives does not judge us, does not expect anything of us and is always there like a donut to love us and give us that wonderful, warm feeling of being loved. For the food addicted, the humble donut may just be the only entrance to unconditional love in their life. Often a food addiction comes at a time when we feel that we cannot trust or have faith in others and even more so, ourselves. You will see the same pattern emerging with alcohol or drugs or cigarettes. These things do not judge us. We can lock ourselves up in what we think is our safe, little cocoon of our addiction and feel that we are being loved - but in actuality the opposite is unfolding.

Condition less. Everything ends in love.. We have discussed in previous classes the concept that every idea, every action, every thought ends in love. More than just love - it is unconditional, divine love. As an example, let us say that we are learning to play the piano. Initially our body has to learn to place our fingers correctly, our feet to comfortably push the pedals and so on. As we progress, it is our mind that has to learn to focus and concentrate so as to play the piano without distraction and to learn the most effectively and efficiently. Next, there will be aah moments of the heart where the piano is being played more intuitively and creatively with the heart. Finally, we realize that the highest experiences that we have in playing the piano are when they become effortless, where we are being powered by the universe or God and both we and the piano are instruments. This final stage comes about as a result of the flow of unconditional divine love. You can reflect upon everything you do and realize that the same process is taking place. It might be as simple as walking the dog, or as seemingly convoluted as your career or goals at home. For us to be more likely to be in the highest flow of love we must first understand that one of the most powerful components of this highest love is that it is unconditional. This may sound trite but how many things do you do unconditionally right now?

TREE of LOVE.. We each are unique. There is not one of us that is not treading a path different to the next. That is what is so perfect and so interesting about our journeys. Having said that, our experience of love has some interesting similarities. It might surprise you to realise, for example, that along the path to real unconditional divine love, for many of us there may also be fear and mistrust. Whether we realise it or not we are all growing into a state of perfect and unconditional love for all things and every one. This is how we evolve and grow and perhaps the only thing in our lives that we really have no choice about. We have no choice because that is what we actually are. The deeper we dig, the more we find our real nature is that of an unconditional flow of love. To come to this realisation might take many life times, many years but eventually we must all realise that there is an inevitability about our journey and that is that we are all growing into becoming unconditional love. That is the nature of the universe, the nature of God, that is the nature of us because we are the creators of the universe, we are God and we are all one.

Our world is geared towards victims and most of us feel that is what we are. We are victims of the events of our life, we 'deal' with life, 'struggle' through its trials and tribulations, for 'life was not meant to be easy' - we have to work hard to get what we want in our 'dog eat dog' world. We are the victims of our bodies. Have you ever noticed a baby when they soil their nappy in the beginning, they have no idea it was them that did it? Our body is too young, we poo in our nappy and then we smile or act as if it is not our fault - we are the victim. We just poo, we don't really know how or why it happened but we are sure someone will clean it up. As time goes on gradually we are able to show the baby that it is them that is making the mess and they are obliged to poo responsibly. But still we are victims of our bodies. Our bodies are decaying and wrinkling and sick, dying and sad. We need less fat here and more muscle there, our bodies are never pretty enough or strong enough, again we are the victim. Then we are old and pooing in a nappy again. We are the victims of our circumstances. Our parents did not give us enough love or opportunity or money. Our school did not have good enough teachers or enough facilities or was too crowded or too backward. And every politician, every government will tell us that it is not our fault, that we are victims of the last government or the peoples of another country, or the global economy and everything is about to be ok, now that they are in charge. We are victims of their lies, of their incapacity to fix all of our problems. We are all victims every night on the news. We hear about all the victims, all of the people that died or who are sick or who are worse off than us. All the people that were bullied or murdered or stepped on or over. Where is the good news - the wonderful things that happen to 99.99% of the people 99.99% of the time? No, what we are told over and over again is we are victims, we have been victims or we are about to be victims.

We all know the importance of physical exercise and diet for our physical fitness. We all know it is important to be mindful, to be aware of the thoughts we are thinking and to try and be more positive mentally. But real spiritual strength is something we generally do not understand. We see inspirational people who seem able to, no matter what the calamity, sail through with calmness and equanimity, even taking such events as lessons or blessings. They seem strong, serene in their certainty, powerful in their sureness.How do we become strong, what muscles need to be exercised for us to be spiritually tough?

Douglas Adams, author of the “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy”, proffered the whimsical view that the answer was 42, and whilst way back in class 2 our view on the meaning of life was presented it seems poignant that we should revisit this important topic in this class 42 with respect to Mr Adams. In class 2 the idea was introduced that rather than ask what the meaning of life is, we should just consider what moments in our lives have been meaningful so far. Once we spend a moment a two reflecting on this, we realise that every meaningful moment is a moment of love and that everything we do, every endeavour, every art, sport, every music, every thing in the end becomes an experience of love. The simple purport is that to be in the flow of love, giving or receiving love without conditions or expectations or obligations, is the highest thing we can do with our life. We realised that all suffering comes from our distance from the flow of love and all happiness from our immersion in it.

Many people that meditate make all sorts of judgements about their practice of meditation and their levels of material prosperity or financial success. Whilst it is true that meditation creates the mental and spiritual environment for a more balanced and whole person, this does not have any direct correlation to our world’s judgement of success. In fact to be really ‘successful’ or authentically ‘prosperous’ has very little to do with our old paradigms which may be more about being rich or famous.

There is an idea of heaven, of perfection in another place and time, as some kind of Garden of Eden where everything is flawless and nothing ever goes wrong and there is no suffering. But what about the idea that what we have here and now on earth is heavenly but out of ignorance we choose hell? The Garden of Eden scenario is born out of the idea that we are visitors, temporary inhabitants of this strange land with no real express purpose other than to be drifting through to our real final static unchanging destination, heaven. That we are sort of victims of a creator’s wish for us to be readied, to be made perfect, for our real life in the thereafter. That this world is imperfect and full of suffering for some grand reason we don’t quite understand but we will totally comprehend when we are sitting in the clouds free from all misery whilst somehow being oblivious to the suffering of the poor wretched souls still here.

Authentic love Kobi loaded up his gun, adjusted his glasses and helmet and jumped down from the tank. As he ran towards the shot up wall of the small disused school in front of him, he thought for a second of his boys, Kai – the eldest, would have been at school in Melbourne right now, it seemed another planet away. He stopped and gazed through his sights for the enemy and not for the first time, wondered. He wondered why? How? How had it come to this and why do we still fight like this? It felt surreal in that moment, for just then he saw the ‘enemy’ climbing a tree behind a building looking for ‘him’. Or anyone like him. He had no helmet, no glasses, his gun was more of a rifle, but what struck Kobi more than anything was that he was a child. He could be no more than Kai’s age but most likely was younger. He was skinny and malnourished and wearing a scarf over his head, but Kobi could still see his eyes and they immediately haunted him, scarred him. There was so much hate and so much soulless fear.

It turns out that we do not so much have to search for change but let go of our resistance to it. You see, change is a constant. It is natural. There is a flow to our evolution. It is always there, the more we resist it, the more difficult our lives become. There is a natural flow and a natural pace to that change. Our impatience is another form of resistance, telling the universe it is too slow or too fast and it is not to be trusted. We feel we need to inflict our own timeframe, so we disconnect from loving the universe from the natural flow and try and force things in our way and schedule.

Is suffering really necessary? If this is heaven as many say it is, how then can we be free of suffering? In Sunirmalya's opinion, the masters of the past might be famous because they suffered so much and offered freedom from suffering after death, but he contends that if heaven is here now, then we have to deal with suffering and our attachment to it.

The iconic tag of Nike from the 90's was 'Just do it'. This advertising line did a few things, it told the public that the Nike corporation was interested in its customers being more driven, more ambitious to achieve not only their sporting goals but their life goals by doing more.

As spiritual seekers we are often quite hard on ourselves. In these next two classes we are going to talk about being kinder, specifically the body and the mind whilst in class 50 we will be discussing the ego. To be clear though, even though we will be talking about the body, mind and ego, these are actually just labels for different aspects of the soul. In reality everything is soul, these are just distinctive aspects of the soul we are already familiar with.

Many times spiritual seekers put themselves inadvertently in conflict with themselves. The ego is an example of this. Many feel that the ego must be conquered or supressed or even completely disregarded or ignored. As though, for some reason, the ego was a mistake and we have to do all we can to ignore or overlook or disown it. The ego is not a mistake, it is not a hindrance, it is not a curse, the ego is our life’s curriculum of ‘doing’ for the expansion of our ‘being’. The ego is actually probably the most important aspect of us in this life and it is an absolutely awesome design. It tells the story of how we think about ourselves and our universe. Everything is mirrored in our ego.

In the world of meditation, TM (Transcendental Meditation) is Coca Cola and Mindfulness is Pepsi. These two ubiquitous brands are everywhere meditation is taught. They both use famous personalities to sell their product and to surreptitiously emphasise that theirs is the ‘real thing’.