For Sun, July 8 Mtg
July 8: NDEs - Life after Life ...after Life ...after Life
[ Updated June 25, 10:00am. ]
- Life beyond materialism. Life beyond matter...
- Selections from videos of “Near-death” researchers, survivors.
June 26: Meditation - The Stillness Launch Pad
[ Updated June 19, 8:30am. ]
- Expansion on discussions begun at previous two meetings (see below).
- Stillness: “It’s just ‘natural Xanax,’ isn’t it? A pill is much easier.”
“Or am I missing something?” Yeaaaahhh... Um, we should probably talk :-) - “Utter Stillness is the altar upon which Transcendence loves to materialize. It is the fertile ground from which soul-nourishments are readily harvested.” —rp adaptation from Raja Yoga
June 17: Meditation and Life are Not Alternatives
[ Updated June 12, 11:10am. ]
We only scratched the surface of a few of the dozen topics identified for the last meet-up(see below). So during the coming week I’ll be devising some additional ways of digging into those - hoping to enhance insights for us all.
A few new topics to interweave:
- Reincarnation - plausibility? does considering it help or hurt?
“Is it any more astonishing to think that I’ve been born numerous times...
than that I’ve been born at all?” —(citation lost)
“Cease thinking you are a mortal being if you would live in unassailable, lasting happiness. Meditate on Divinity within and around you. Do not put off meditating until tomorrow. Tomorrow is fiction. Real YOU surfaces in eternal NOW.” —after P.Y.
June 10: How Yoga Unites Apparent Opposites
[ Updated June 09, 1:00pm. ]
- Location (at least through June), 6:00pm-8:00pm:
Earth Fare, 2965 Battleground, GBO (community room) - Yoga stories: “Science & Love - It’s not an ‘either-or’.”
- The yogi who found Light by putting his wife on altar.
- The deer who leaps to death for love.
- The longest war in history. (You didn’t read your conscription notice?)
- Climb any side of the pyramid. View’s the same at top.
- Search to ends of Earth (at least be will to)?
and finding right next door -.
implications of a universe responsive to our desires. - Willing suspension of disbelief? More like:
“Willingness to entertain possibilities beyond (our current senses),”
e.g., the perceptions accessible to what Bucke calls Cosmic Sense.
- So your meditation’s filled with doubts...
How the devil’s that working for you? (story)
Time Permitting... (else: next week) - If you were a dentist, would making sense out of Bible be like pulling teeth. (story)
- Matter is unreal. Relatively unreal, however... (cf 124)
- Here is matter. There is energy. ...where consciousness? ...where not?
Vivid example from Autobiography of Yogi, Ch. 14, ‘An Experience in Cosmic Consciousness’:
[Notice how in this samadhi or Cosmic Consciousness experience there is near-simultaneous experience of ALL as physical, and also energetic (light), and also consciousness (ever-variegated Bliss) - his perception melting between these varied perspective on the All.]
“My body became immovably rooted; breath was drawn out of my lungs as if by some huge magnet. Soul and mind instantly lost their physical bondage and streamed out like a fluid piercing light from my every pore. The flesh was as though dead; yet in my intense awareness I knew that never before had I been fully alive. My sense of identity was no longer narrowly confined to a body…”
“A swelling glory within me began to envelop towns, continents, the earth, solar and stellar systems, tenuous nebulae, and floating universes. The entire cosmos, gently luminous, like a city seen afar at night, glimmered within the infinitude of my being.”
. . .
. . .
“Suddenly the breath returned to my lungs. With a disappointment almost unbearable, I realized that my infinite immensity was lost. Once more I was limited to the humiliating cage of a body, not easily accommodative to the Spirit.”“(Thereafter) whenever the joy of meditation has returned subconsciously during my active hours, I have been subtly directed to adopt the right course in everything, even in minor details.”
—P. Yogananda
- “Something’s coming...
- I don’t know...
- what it is...
- but it is... ! ”
- —West Side Story
June 3: How to Build an Enduring Meditation Habit:
- Pits, falls, and epiphanies in your host’s experience.
- Recharging your prime motivator(s).
- Overcoming restlessness
- Developing enthusiasm.
- Conquering drowsiness.
- Get life to support your meditation; meditation your life.
What we covered at May 27 meeting:
- Explain the types of experience/evidence that convinced him it was worth committing to the work of a Raja routine.
- Convey what are reasonable expectations for one’s progress and growth over time with Raja practice.
- How to buy in to a spiritual practice without a converting to a religion. What a ‘church of all religions’ might look like...
- Peek at Raja model of the soul’s long-term evolution & meditation. [“God sleeps in the minerals, dreams in the flowers, awakens in the animals, and in human beings knows that he is awake.”]
- By evening’s close have everyone feeling able to launch a beginning Raja practice tonight/tomorrow.
- Hear from group about any nagging questions: things that should be treated soon in a meet-up or perhaps on the Raja Glossary page.
- - - - - - - - - - -
- No one gets frost bite (and that I have enough flannel shirts to go around?).
- We make sure that our time/date/location/HVAC doesn’t become a cause for anyone skipping meet-ups.
- - - - - - - - - - -
- Raja reading: • The Yoga of Jesus • The Yoga of the Bhagavad Gita • Autobiography of a Yogi (orange cover)
Apropos of nothing (and Everything):
Not Required (but essential):
“You cannot get to God by reason...,” the Master warned,
“because Divine Mother has all the wisdom She needs.
Approach Her with love! Then She cannot refuse.”
“A thousand Jesus Christs working for your enlightenment cannot give you to God. You must cultivate the desire for God yourself. No one else can give it to you.”
Draft of:
Feb 07
10:03 am
gro.sevreslla@drahcir 0605-528 (633) (text).