Meditation Methods

6 Rahmat 163 B.E. – June 29, 2006 A.D.

I’m subscribed to a health newsletter, it covers various subject related to personal health. Today’s newsletter contained a short article on meditation. The gist of the message was simple; one doesn’t need a lot of props to meditate. Candles, incense, cymbals or crystals aren’t necessary, all a person needs to do is set quietly and clear their mind. Just set for a few clear you mind and focus on your breathing, that’s all that’s necessary to meditate.

If a person wants to learn to meditate, you don’t have to go to a bookstore or a library to find the books. Do a Google search on meditation methods and look for something that suites you. Meditation is as old as humanity itself, so there are many methods to choose from and so all you have to do is find one that fits into your life. If you want to take a class then take a class there are some inexpensive courses on meditation. Whether or not you take a class or follow a specific model is up to you the individual.

I meditate by chanting the Greatest Name, but the method any one uses to meditate is a personal choice. I don’t think the method is as important as the practice of daily meditation. Set aside some time each day morning, noon or at night. Find a quite place, find a method you are comfortable with and just do it. Do it every day and see what meditation does for you. Keep a journal about the experience. If you’re not sure which method is right for you, then experiment with different methods, doing a method each week until you find the one that you’re comfortable using.

Every Breath

3 Rahmat 163 B.E. – June 25, 2006 A.D.

I read The Hidden Words of Baha’u’llah and with every breath I take, I inhale eternity and interconnectedness. The essence of divine unity flows through these pearls of sacred wisdom. These are the poignant echoes of love reverberating across my soul. This is the inner essence of all the holy books. I read The Hidden Words and with every breath I take, I inhale the perfume of reality.

In 1858, Baha’u’llah revealed The Hidden Words, while he walked on the banks of the Tigris River; while wrapped in meditation. Divided into two section, part one “From the Arabic” and part two “From the Persian”, the book contains nuggets of splendor.

The Last day of Light

19 Nur 163 B.E. – June 23, 2006 A.D.

The last day of light, now that sounds like it should be the name of a science fiction or fantasy short story or poem instead of a blog entry. However, today is the nineteenth day of Nur, whose English translation is Light and, since there are only nineteen day in the month of Nur or any other Baha’i month for that matter, technically the title is correct.

OK, I’m in a good mood this morning. I’m feeling optimistic and when I’m feeling optimistic my sense of humor becomes interesting, which also explain the title of today’s blog entry. Anyway, I just came back into the house from backing my car out of the garage. From where I’m sitting I can look into my garage and see all the stuff in there. Yes, I left the garage door open. I left it open because my mother wants to get stuff out today. So from where I’m sitting I can see what’s going on and if she needs help in moving anything out, but my mind and my words wander off the subject.

The month of Nur ends at sunset this evening and the month of Rahmat (Mercy) begins. Tonight after sunset or tomorrow morning or afternoon the Feast of Mercy will take place. When and where the Feast takes place depends on the local community. I’m looking forward, as usual, to attending Feast. This Feast I’m picking out the scripture readings and another person is planning the refreshments. That is one of the beautiful things about Feast; two different families can share in hosting. There are three parts to Feast (1) the spiritual portions, (2) the business portion and (3) the social portion.

Whenever I attend Feast, no matter what feast it is or where, there is always a spiritual feeling to the entire feast. The sacredness of the occasion isn’t confided to just one portion, but is carried over to each one. The atmosphere is set up in the spiritual part of the event through music, reading the writings of Baha’u’llah, the Bab and ‘Abdu’l-Baha, and prayer. I think the thing I like best about attending the Feast is that everyone is always glade to see you, it doesn’t matter if you attend every month, just a few times a year or if you’re a visitor from another part of the country or the world. Everyone at feast is always glad to see you.

Morning Thoughts

18 Nur 163 B.E. – June 22, 2006 A.D.

I don’t want to write anything this morning. I want to play games instead, but that isn’t going to get any of my projects complete. So far this morning I’ve posted three short items to the group project that is due next week in my AIU course and I’ve posted a few paragraphs to my writing.com blog. That’s it! My heart just isn’t into writing today.

In fact, the only thing I really want to do this morning is play games either open cell or bookworm. I don’t want to do anything else, but playing games isn’t going to get any thing completed. Playing games only puts off the inevitable. I suppose I could give in and play a game or two, but if I play bookworm it won’t be a short game. As for open cell, when I play that’s slow as well because I attempt to see what the results of each possible choice will be. I simply don’t have time to give into temptation today.

I’ve go another paper due in EDU622 on Saturday. I have to work on it a little bit each day or spend all evening Friday and all morning Saturday working on it. I don’t do my best work that way. I have to get most of the paper complete before then, so that the only thing I have left is to put the paper together. Then there is the group project that’s due next week. I have to do a little bit of research on my part of the paper, in addition, I need to go back online at AIU and post to the class discussion board. I posted my completed discussion board project yesterday, but I have to respond to the posting of one or two other students today.

In addition, I’ve got a rewrite to work on and a novel chapter to complete. I don’t have time to play games. I get too involved with the games to let myself play them today. Writing this has help a little bit. I’m a little more willing now to write than I was before. So I think I’ll post this, then go and finish my morning prayers, before getting to work on anything else.

The First Day of Summer

17 Nur 163 B.E. – June 20 – 21, 2006 A.D.

It’s the first day of summer, Summer Solstice, Midsummer, the longest day of the year and the shortest night in the Northern hemisphere. Summer Solstice, Winter Solstice, Vernal Equinox, and Autumnal Equinox mark the Earth’s season and all relate, in some way, to a religious celebration somewhere on the planet. Even those of us who don’t celebrate a religious holiday today, use the Summer Solstice to mark a transition between seasons.

Since the Winter Solstice, in the northern hemisphere, the days have gotten longer and longer, while the nights became shorter and shorter. This situation now reverses itself and the hours of darkness will slowly expand over the next few months until the seasons come full circle and the process begins again. While in the southern hemisphere the process is precisely opposite, of what it is in the north.

The Earth orbits the sun, the season’s change, while humanity makes love and fights wars. A never-ending circle it seems, but eventually peace will come to the planet. World peace, like the change of seasons is inevitable. Peace on Earth is not a pipe dream, but the culmination of a long and natural process. Humanity itself is being transformed; it’s becoming a citizen of its own planet.

Father’s Day

14 Nur 163 B.E. – June 17 – 18, 2006 A.D.

It’s Sunday! It’s Father’s Day! There are several articles in the RJ on this theme, Dear Abby’s annual Father’s Day column, Steven Kalas’ Human Matters column, the comics, so on and so forth. All the articles are interesting and thought provoking, all well written and all bring me face-to-face with issues concerning my own father.

First, a little background, my parents were divorced when I was young. I have memories of my father before the divorce. I remember sitting on his lap while he read me the Sunday Morning comics. I remember sitting on the front porch of our house in Blackwell, Oklahoma and talking to my father in the evening. I remember going to the Kay County Fair with my father. I remember the family going to Burbank to visit my Grandmother and while we were there, I went to a little one-room schoolhouse. I do not remember every seeing my father again after the divorce.

I always wanted to see my father again one more time, but it’s too late now. He has passed into the next world. How do I know he’s dead? I read his obituary in a copy of a newspaper I retrieved from an archive, while looking for his name on the internet. I always wanted to see my father again, I always wanted to hear his voice one more time, I always …. I never got the chance. I will never be able to do that in this world, maybe in the next.

I have memories of my father, memories like old photos play across my mind. Memories are all I have of my father now, still snapshots of happy times spent with my father in them. There are lots of things I don’t know about my father, there are lots of questions I never got to ask my father, I never got to hug him one more time before he died. I miss my father I miss the closure of not seeing him one last time.

I have no doubt that I will see him again when I cross the bridge into the next world. His soul survived the death of his physical body; my soul will survive death of my physical body. I will see him again in the next world, I will hug him again, I will tell him I love him again. The one thing that I’m not sure I’ll ask him is why? Why I never saw him again after the divorce? I probably won’t ask the question because that may not be an issue then.

The only thing I can do now is say a prayer for the departed. I can pray for my father’s soul as it ascends through the worlds of God. Those are my thoughts on Father’s Day, June 18, 2006.

Interesting Dreams

12 Nur 163 B.E. – June 15 – 16, 2006 A.D.

I has several interesting dreams last night. I didn’t get to bed until about 10:30 or 11:00 p.m. on the 15th. When I did get to bed I didn’t sleep straight through the night. Dreams kept waking me up. These were complicated or long dreams, all of them were short quick dreams. I don’t remember all but I do remember three or four of them.

The first dream that wake me up was the sound of glass breaking. It sounded like a window being broke rather than a glass falling off a table. After the dream woke me up, I realized I hadn’t taken the telephone into the bedroom with me, so I got up. I walked through the house looked at all the windows, none of them were broken and then I checked to garage door to make sure it was closed. I got the telephone off its charging cradle and took the phone into the bedroom.

In the second dream, I knew that I was asleep but I was chanting the Tablet of Ahmad. This is the first dream I’ve had in which I chanted the Tablet of Ahmad. Usually if a say a prayer in my dreams it’s the Remover of Difficulties. I woke up and then went back to sleep, again I found myself saying a prayer in my dream. The next prayer I was saying was the evening prayer I recite before I go to bed at night.

In the last dream, I was setting at the computer typing. My mother said it was too dark around the computer, so she brought two lights for me to use. She said the lights on the stand I keep next to the computer desk for coffee and water. One of the lights was small, with a white and pink lacy shade. The other was a large desk lamp, the type that has an adjustable section for the bulb so that you can aim the light any place you want. She set lights on the stand, I plugged them in and then my mother turned one on while I turned on the other.

Anyway, those were the dreams I remember. None of the dreams was bad dreams they were just intriguing. When I remember a dream after I wake up, it means the dream was significant in some way. I suspect, because of the prayers and the light, that these dreams are of spiritual significance.

A fascinating side note here, when I was sitting on the divan attempting to listen to the morning news, I dozed. While I dozed, I had a dream. In this dream, my mother brought a dish of salad into the living room for me to eat. The salad was heaped on a small plate, maybe the saucer to a coffee cup, when she handed to salad to me none of it fell off the plate onto to floor. The salad contained various green veggies and croutons, but didn’t have any type of dressing. What I found out of the ordinary about this dream was the fact that none of the salad fell off the plate. If I put a salad that big on a saucer in my waking life, the salad would be all over the floor.

Virtue Cards

8 Nur 163 B.E. – June 11 – 12, 2006 A.D.

A couple of years a go I got a deck of virtue cards. Each card has a virtue on it such as moderation or reliability. In addition to the virtue, the explanation or definition of the virtue, it has a picture of an animal, which represents the virtue, and a scripture verse. On the back of the card is a list of activities a person can do the practice that virtue and a sentence or two a person can say to help practice the virtue.

I thought I’d lost those cards, but recently I found them again. Not sure, how I intended to use them when I originally bought them, but now I’m going to use them as prompts for blog entries and poems. The Virtue Project, Inc. (http://www.virtuesproject.com/
) put out the cards. The set of cards I own have a 1997 copy write date. I think there is a book that goes along with the cards, but I bought only the cards.

This is how I choose a virtue card to use as a prompt.

1. shuffle the deck of cards
2. cut the cards
3. spread the cards on a table
4. close your eyes
5. pick a card
6. read the information on the card
7. begin a free write on the virtue, this can be a 5, 10, 15, 20, or 30 minutes free write.

Solitary Reflection

4 Nur 163 B.E. – June 7– 8, 2006 A.D.

Every one needs some time for solitary reflection, a place to go off by oneself pray, meditate and read the sacred writings. The spirit needs refreshed everyday, the soul needs fed everyday, and this is what one can accomplish through solitary reflections. Every individual is different when it comes to finding a time, place and a way to meditate. Some do it of a morning and others of an evening. Some write their thoughts in a pen and paper journal, while others type their thoughts into a word processor.

There are certain aspects of solitary reflections time that are common to everyone who practices this form of meditation. There is stillness, tranquility and being alone with one’s thoughts. I suspect part of the problem in the world today is lack of solitary reflection time. It is something one must choose and then find a way to achieve. It is something that needs planning and in many cases a lock on the bedroom door.

A good time for solitary reflection is midnight. Midnight is a time when the household is usually asleep or resting. Midnight is a good time to be alone with oneself and with God. True not everyone can do Midnight Meditations, but the time one chooses is not as important as the action of solitary reflection itself.

I like midnight myself. I like to take my prayer book, my journal and a book of scripture onto the patio. Once on the patio, I say some prayers, usually starting with a prayer of protection. After I say a few prayers, either I set meditating or I begin reading some passages from the sacred book. After I read from the sacred book, I’ve chosen then I write something in my journal. Sometimes I review the day’s activities and sometimes I just set there looking out across the backyard. When I’m finished I say another prayer and then I go to bed.

Solitary reflection shouldn’t take very long. I usually give myself about an hour, but sometimes the session is shorter and sometimes longer. The length of time depends on a number of things. It isn’t how long one takes for solitary reflection that is important, but the act itself. This act connects a person with their soul or spirit and with God. If a person keeps a journal then one can record the affect of the experience and any thing else that occurs during that time alone.

Tuesday’s Child

2 Nur 163 B.E. – June 5 – 6, 2006 A.D.

I’m a Tuesday’s child, what that means is that I was born on a Tuesday and according to the old nursery rhyme I’m “… full of grace.” I just reread the Mother Goose rhyme Monday’s Child. It’s an interesting verse, its rhythm is smooth and its rhyme doesn’t sound forced when read out loud. I have fond memories of this particular nursery rhyme for a couple of reasons. First, I remember both my Mother and Grandmother reading it to me. Second, it was the first poem I memorized.

Monday’s Child

Monday's child is fair of face,

Tuesday's child is full of grace,

Wednesday's child is full of woe,

Thursday's child has far to go.

Friday's child is loving and giving,

Saturday's child works hard for a living,

But the child born on the Sabbath Day,

Is fair and wise and good and gay.

As I reread the poem, I counted the syllables in each line; the syllable count is 7 – 7 – 7 – 7 – 9 – 9 – 9 – 8. I looked at the rhyme scheme; the rhyme scheme is a – a – b – b – c – c – d – d – e – e. This is an easy rhyme to learn and it’s fun to read. This isn’t the first time I’ve reread this rhyme, I reread it at least once or twice a year whenever I get to feeling nostalgic. This is my favorite Nursery rhyme.

Each time I reread this poem, I notice something different about it, today I noticed the several spiritual attributes mentioned in the version of the poem I remember. Grace is the only spiritual attribute I’m interested in right now, but what does it mean when someone is full of grace. I don’t remember either my Mother or my Grandmother telling me the meaning of grace. Of course, I didn’t ask what it meant so I guess they didn’t think I wanted to know. I wonder how many children hear this poem and wonder what grace means. I wonder what answer a parent gives when a child asks the question, “What does grace mean?”

When I go to a thesaurus to find other word’s for grace I’m given the following list: elegance, refinement, loveliness, polish, beauty, style, poise, charm, kindness, kindliness, decency, favor, mercy, mercifulness, charity, benevolence, clemency, leniency, blessing, prayer, thanks, thanksgiving, adorn, embellish, enhance, beautify, decorate, ornament, dignify, honor, favor, and distinguish. These words don’t actually tell me what grace means, but they do give me something to work from when writing a poem about grace. To find what the word means, I have to go directly to a dictionary.

When I go to http://dictionary.reference.com/ I’m given several meaning for grace, all of which refer in some way to beauty, elegant movement or have spiritual significance. To find what day you were born on go to http://www.bethanyroberts.com/MondaysChildIsFairofFace.htm or http://www.hugkiss.com/birthday/monchild.html.

Saturday Cleaning

18 Azamat 163 B.E. – June 2 – 3, 2006 A.D.

I cleaned out my e-mail bulk folder today. This is the first I’ve gotten to the bulk mail folder in a week. Usually I do this folder once a day, but its been an interesting week. I’m not sure that interesting is the right word here. I don’t know what’s been wrong this past week, I just haven’t wanted to do anything, but play games. Consequently, I have to go through lots of e-mail and, at the very least, clean out the bulk mail folder. I suppose I could do a mass delete, but that would mean I wouldn’t catch anything that’s not supposed to be in the bulk folder.

I can’t say I haven’t did any writing this whole week. I’ve managed to post to my writing.com blog approximate once a day, but I’m in a blog contest and I am required to respond to a leading entry each day. I don’t want to put off responding daily because contest is only about three week long. Besides I’m attempting to stop procrastinating and this is a good chance to practice immediate action.

Anyway, back to the yahoo bulk mail folder. Some mortgage company sends mail dated Mon January 18, 2038; this ensures that their e-junk is always on top of the queue. Maybe I should send them a thank you note, these I can delete without even opening them and that saves a little time. I’m not going to respond to their offer, so there is no use reading them. Unfortunately, the rest of the e-junk isn’t that easy, becomes sometimes there offers I accept.

Other offers I don’t open are those that don’t have a senders address or a subject line. In addition, there are specific subject lines that I won’t even look at. All these aside, the rest of the e-junk is, at the very lest, interesting. By interesting, I mean that it does one of two things. It makes me either laugh or it arouses my curiosity. The one’s that make me laugh or arouse my curiosity I will look at even if I don’t accept the offer. If someone is creative enough to come up with a funny or interesting subject line, they deserve rewarding by me reading their e-mails.

It’s a good thing I did go through the bulk mail folder, because I found several e-mails that weren’t junk. This happens sometimes, I’m not sure why, but it always pays to go through the e-junk to see what’s in that folder. When I find a e-mail that doesn’t belong in the folder I move it to the inbox for reading.

However, going through the bulk folder is boring, extremely boring even when I find e-mails that don’t belong there. Usually before I get to the end, I want to do a mass delete. I’m to that point now, but I’m not going to do a mass delete. I’m going to go ahead and check everything in the bulk mail folder. It’s a good exercise in discipline, if nothing else.