Wednesday 21 June 2017

Soul Garden Meditation



What exactly do you want to achieve in your life?

When I ask this question I typically get one of two reactions.  Either a person immediately tells me a dream they have, or they stumble around mentally and find it difficult to come up with an answer at all.

If you fall into the former category, and immediately know what it is you wish to achieve that is probably a very good start.  I say "probably" as quite often people are absolutely convinced that they know what they want to achieve, but what they REALLY, deep inside, want is something very different.  Maybe it really was the right dream earlier in your life, but we all evolve and our dreams change as we change.  Or sometimes, for many different reasons, our true dream morphs into something else as it passes from our unconscious to our conscious mind.  We think it is one thing, but deep inside it is something else.  So even if you believe you know exactly what you want you should still attempt the following exercise.

If you find it difficult to come up with an answer, it is very important to find out what it is.  Unless you really know what you want to achieve, how do you expect to get there?  How do you know you are moving in the right direction?

Make sure you are alone and that nobody will interrupt you, then try this exercise.  Don't worry if the first few times you try it you don't feel, see, or take in the things I am telling you to be aware of, as each time you practise this you will find it becomes easier to go deeper and get greater benefit.

Lie down and close your eyes.  Breath deeply and slowly.  Focus on your breathing.  Listen to the sound it makes.  Notice that thoughts try to come into your head to take you away from this meditation.  Notice, but don't focus on them.  Don't give them power by trying to stop them or getting irritated about them.  Just notice they are there but ignore them.  Keep focussed on your breathing.  In ... Out ... In ... Out.

Keep doing this until you feel yourself completely relaxed and at peace.

Now allow your focus to go deep inside and then straight down.  Feel yourself at one with Mother Earth.  Notice the warm, comfortable, loving feeling that comes up from the depths of the earth and fills you as you do this.  Allow this feeling to expand through your whole body.  As you do this, feel yourself expanding with it.  Your true inner spirit is now filling your body and going beyond.  It is filling the room you are in.  Allow it to keep expanding.  Now it is filling your entire home (or the building you are in).  Good!  Allow it to keep expanding beyond.  Now it is filling the town you are in.  It is growing even further.  The country.  The world.  Expanding beyond the world, to fill the solar system.  Beyond the solar system to encompass the whole of the Milky Way.  Recognize that now you are one with the Infinite Spirit.

Lie still, just basking in and accepting this new Universal Spirit "you".

Come back to yourself, your inner spirit.  Know that you are "you", but that the Universal Spirit is within you.

This is an exercise I recommend whenever you begin a meditation of any kind.  You can even do this by itself and will reap tremendous benefits if you do it regularly.

You are now ready to begin today's meditation.  Know that you are looking for the goals you have in your life.  Take that knowledge with you and then see yourself opening a gate and entering a garden, the garden of your soul.  See what this garden looks like.  Is it overgrown?  Is it the opposite - almost a desert?  Is it filled with beautiful flowers?  Is it filled with fruit and vegetables?  Remember what you first saw when you entered the garden and be ready to write this down in a notebook after your meditation.

No matter what your soul garden first looked like when you entered it, now see flowers, trees, bushes, fruit and vegetables growing there.  Even if before they were withered and sorry looking, now they are fresh, lively, and beautiful.  As you look at each plant in your garden allow it to speak to you and tell you what it is.  Again, be ready to write this down when you finish your meditation.  Be open to whatever message each plan in your soul garden gives you.  You may feel that you need to water some of the plants.  Do so if this is what you feel.  You may find some that are threatening and are clearly weeds.  If this is what you feel, pull them out.  Do whatever you feel your inner spirit is telling you to do, remaining open to the messages it is receiving.

When you have finished wandering through your soul garden, go back to the gate, open it, and walk back up the path that is taking you back into your daily life.  Focus again on your breathing.  In ... Out ... In ... Out.  Lie there relaxed and observing your breathing.  Slowly, when you feel ready to do so, open your eyes.  Smile.  Then sit up.  Your meditation is over.

Write in your meditation journal all that came to your during this meditation.  If you don't have a meditation journal, see if you have an empty notebook of any kind and make it your meditation notebook.  If not, then just write today's meditation on any blank paper you have to hand.  Later, buy a notebook, ideally one with a pretty cover, one that makes you feel good when you look at it, and that is now your meditation journal for recording what happens, what you feel, what images and ideas come to you each time you meditate.  Why didn't I tell you to do this before I took you through your meditation?  Because your mind will use any excuse it can to stop you meditating to improve yourself, and one way it may do this is by telling you that you cannot meditate yet as you don't have a meditation journal!

Look at what you have written.  Do clear goals appear?  Often, they do.  But also it often takes more than one meditation of this kind to make those goals clear.  Don't give up.  Keep doing this meditation regularly until you have identified your true inner goals.

Once you have those goals, great!  You can now take the right steps to begin achieving them.  But also keep returning and examining those goals, as they will change as you change.  Use this meditation regularly and ensure you stay on track.

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