Home
|
Home |
Benestrophe is a path of action. We meet in groups where we share our experiences, do processes, and have fun. We dance, sing, play, and share healing touch. Trust in the miracle of Love allows us to acknowledge fear’s illusion. When we surrender to the mystery of Life, Love is the power to which we yield. When we live in gratitude and experience Sacred Relationship with all that is, we humble ourselves before the Self-organizing energy of Love.
What allows us to read these words is not just the letters within them, but the spaces between them. Without the spaces, distinguishing one word from another would be impossible, and our effort to read would be an exercise in confusion. So it is with our lives. The body that is always active quickly burns out. The mind that is always noisy leads us into chaos.
When I am truly alone, I’m one with all.
Brother David Steindl-Rast
In this bustling, noisy world, the nourishment we receive from silence cannot be overestimated. Just as our bodies are fuelled by the food we eat and the air we breathe, our minds require silence in order to find peace. Just as lack of nutritional food and sufficient oxygen leave us physically weak and mentally impaired, constant inner chatter causes us to lose touch with our center.
Stillness is the first requirement for manifesting your desires, because in stillness lies your connection to the field of pure potentiality that can orchestrate an infinity of details for you.
Deepak Chopra
Silence opens the gateway to the Heart. Silence brings the peace that awakens the inner strength to bypass reaction and move to response. Unless we take the time to nurture conscious contact with the Love that resides in our Heart, we lose our way. We forget that the illusions of the mind, which tempt us into fear, pride, and judgment, are not what they appear to be. When we turn inward in prayer and meditation, we find in silence a steadiness that allows us to see Life anew.
Through the practice of meditation-the purposeful quieting of the mind-we gain skill at withdrawing our focus from those external situations that clamor for our attention. When we meditate, the hold of our conditioned thinking and feeling is loosened. We observe the way our minds work, while breaking the sense of identity with ego that has led us to experience our thoughts and feelings as who we are. In meditation, we touch a vastness that no words can adequately describe.
Of all the ways we have at our disposal to get in touch with our Source, meditation is perhaps the most easily accessible. For the purpose of seeing what is, meditation knows no equal.
Meditation is like a big, broad-gauge train with a powerful engine, which gradually lays down a track into the depths of our consciousness.
Eknath Easwaran
Through meditation, we contact Love in a new, purer way-not as a feeling evoked by something or someone outside ourselves, but as an essence that is ever-present within us. Just as practice in yoga, dance, swimming, or driving a car ultimately results in the ability to do these activities with grace, practice at contacting the essence of Love within us results in an expression of Love that is graceful. A quiet mind is a powerful mind.
We begin meditation by assuming a comfortable position that allows our spine to be straight. When we sit in meditation, we do so with the intention of detaching ourselves from the ceaseless flow of ideas and dramas invented by the mind. Meditation involves no force, but the gentle application of attention to a chosen focus.
Our focus can be the rising and falling of the breath, a sacred sound or mantra, or an image or symbol. At first, we may be able to hold this focus for only a few seconds at a time. That’s fine. The purpose of practice at the early stages is to observe how the mind works and to experience ourselves as its observer. As we become more skillful, we enter the silence with greater ease, and maintain our focus for longer periods of time.
I have known you all my life and I have called you by many different names. I have called you mother and father and child. I have called you lover. I have called you sun and flowers. I have called you my heart. But I never, until this moment, called you Myself
Emmanuel
When the mind wanders, we neither suppress nor indulge our thoughts, but simply acknowledge them as thinking and release them. In meditation, we treat the mind with Love, seeing it not as an adversary to be conquered, but as a small child who has not yet learned self-discipline. We do not empower our thoughts and desires by pursuing them or seeking to deny or suppress them. Instead, we acknowledge them and return to our chosen focus. Thoughts become like leaves flowing past us in a rapidly moving stream. Meditation shows us that thoughts, themselves, have no power if we choose not to identify with them.
The more we meditate, the more we see that we have choice over our experience. When our worldview is clouded by anxiety, depression, or dissatisfaction, seeking conscious contact with Love through meditation soothes and centers us, allowing us to choose what thoughts to embrace and what thoughts to release.
By beginning our day with a short meditation of about twenty minutes, we develop the habit of Self-observation. As anger, doubt, fear, and desire arise in response to certain conditions, we remember that the choice for both joy and suffering lies within us. Conscious contact with Love dissolves our judgments and defenses. In this way, meditation becomes more than a practice we do at a specific time in a specific way. It becomes the state of mind from which we live our lives.
With frequency of practice, the mindfulness we experience when we sit in silence carries over into daily living. We find that simply being aware of our choices allows us to shift contexts, to move from fear to Love, from doubt to Trust, from pessimism to optimism. As we get into the habit of reaching beyond fearful contexts to loving contexts, we experience a sense of empowerment that has nothing to do with the desire for control.
The power and authority which liberates us can only come from within ourselves.
Anonymous
When desires arise in the course of our day, we can acknowledge them in the same way we do when we sit in meditation. We can make the same choice as to whether to give them further attention or to go on to other things. When aversion is experienced, we can recognize it for what it is and invite Love to melt our resistance. When judgment enters our mind, we can look within for the insight that returns us to a state of Love. When fear, impatience or irritation come up, we can practice loving ourselves in their presence. In this way, we become free of the mind’s illusions and the Heart’s Reality guides us.
In meditation we quiet our thoughts and listen for the silence; in prayer, we express what is in our Hearts. When we have troubles, confusions, needs, or desires, we can offer them to the all-powerful Love within. Through prayer, we take the situations of our lives from ego’s controlling grasp and turn them over to the wisdom of the Heart, which trusts without condition. When we learn to pray, we learn that we are never alone with our pain.
The purpose of prayer is to bring heaven and Earth together.
Marianne Williamson
Prayer is also a means to affirm that which we wish to remember, and a means by which we offer our heartfelt Love and gratitude for a universe full of miracles and the life through which to experience them.
While we pray for ourselves and others in times of need, prayer need not involve a petition. Whenever we are in touch with Sacred Relationship, we are in a state of prayer. Likewise, when we are in touch with Nature, we are living prayerfully. When our relationship with Love becomes a constant awareness, prayer becomes a way of life.
We can pray while sitting, standing, walking, or driving. Posture is not important. The reason prayer is traditionally associated with getting on one’s knees is that in prayer, we become humble. In prayer we enter into Relationship with something beyond the scope of our human mind. The empowerment we experience from such an alignment is unlike the sense of power we accrue by virtue of our own efforts in the world.
What is prayer but the expansion of yourself into the living ether.
Kahlil Gibran
Some of us may resist humbling ourselves in this way. Perhaps we associate praying with a religion we have rejected. Perhaps we see it as petitioning an external God that our minds have outgrown along with Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy. Perhaps we would like to believe in the power of prayer, but simply cannot overcome our doubt. These feelings are expressions of a mind clinging to the illusion of control.
Due to the belief we have in our technology and our experts, many people pray only as a last resort, when fear or pain becomes unbearable. For some of us, the mind’s resources must be exhausted and our own strength depleted before we can truly reach out to the infinite Source of Love.
While belief in the effectiveness of what we are doing makes prayer more potent, such belief is not a prerequisite to praying. All we need to do is suspend our active disbelief enough to make a sincere effort. Prayer doesn’t always work in the way we think it should-it is not like dropping coins of desire into a cosmic vending machine which then instantly yields up precisely what we have ordered. Prayer, however, always does make a big difference in our lives.
Without prayer, I should have been a lunatic long ago.
Mahatma Gandhi
Prayer has real power. Through it, we are healed on many levels. Anyone who prays regularly can give evidence to support this. Actual research, conducted according to strict scientific methods, has shown that prayer has statistically significant ramifications. When we pray for ourselves, others, and our world, we are doing something valid and Real.
We cannot truly know the power of prayer until we experience it for ourselves. A lack of belief does not have to be an significant problem. Establishing a conscious contact with Love provides us with an experience that supports Trust in prayer’s effectiveness.
When our prayer takes the form of petitioning, our petition is more effective if we ask for the strength or wisdom to meet our challenges, rather than asking for the challenges to be removed. We are not omniscient; our ideas about the solutions to our problems are limited by our lack of knowledge. There is purpose in the circumstances of Life that we cannot see. Thus, when our prayers get specific- when we pray for this particular job or that precise outcome-we are assuming a knowledge far greater than we possess. We should instead pray for the means to take care of our family, the guidance to find a solution, or the release of our own anger, rather than dictate the terms we find acceptable.
Pray not for a lighter load, but for stronger shoulders.
St. Augustine
There exists little difference between getting what we ask for and coming into peaceful acceptance for not getting it. Invariably, what we seek is something intangible, such as Trust, joy, serenity, fulfillment, courage, confidence, strength, or release from our burdens. The other items we pray for are simply means or situations that we think will bring these qualities or situations into our experience. But we never do know for sure what outcomes our requests will have if they are granted. Love does know what the outcomes will be; when we pray with this fact and this sense of humility in mind, we open the door to infinite possibilities in our lives.
The more we experience inner silence through these states, the clearer we become. By making prayer and meditation an integral part of daily life, we make inner peace a daily priority. We develop the habit of mindfulness, which brings us more fully into the moment. We drain away the power from our conditioned reactions, enabling us to open to the intuitive promptings of the Heart. Just a few minutes at the start of our day and at bedtime makes a huge difference in our ability to stay centered and to remember Love.
The mind is a creature of habit. Training the mind is like training a pet. Establishing a routine that it understands makes our practice easier. While we can pray and meditate at any time and in any place, it is helpful in the beginning to set aside a specific time and place for prayer and meditation.
If we always go to bed at 11:00PM, that is when we will feel sleepy. If we always eat lunch at noon, that is when we will start to feel hunger. Likewise, if we meditate at the same time each day, our mind and body will acclimate to that rhythm and respond to the cues we give ourselves to relax and become quiet.
The world is not to be put in order, the world is order incarnate. It is for us to put ourselves in unison with this order.
Henry Miller
First thing in the morning and last thing at night are the times that work best for many of us because they do not require us to interrupt ongoing activities. However, a housewife might choose a time right before the kids come home from school; a student might choose a midmorning break; someone who works the night shift might choose 9:00 in the evening, just before they get ready to leave for the job. The time is a personal matter.
Meditating in a special place-a place we don’t use for reading or watching television-helps because our minds come to associate this place with the experience of entering the silence. Some of us choose to set up a small shrine to invoke the sense of a sacred space. Many of us include a representation of planet Earth-a small globe, a marble replica, a picture of Earth taken from space, or even a chunk of soil to remind us to pray for more than our own individual concerns. Some of us have special pillows we sit on or shawls we wear only for prayer and meditation. None of these things are essential, but they can help set the mood.
Great compass ion is the root of all worship.
Dali Lama
We may choose to light a candle, burn incense, or hold a crystal to create a mindset that we associate with meditation and prayer. We do what works, remembering that short, simple, regular practice works better than elaborate rituals we won’t be able to maintain. Simplicity is key because it protects our practice when we are busy and short on time, allowing us to bring prayer and meditation into our lives when we need them most.
Devotion is the emotional expression of our highest Self. The form our practice takes, be it yoga postures, formal prayers, meditation, or ritualistic actions, is simply a focusing devise and nothing more. If we keep this fact in mind, allowing a deep and Heartfelt experience of Love to fill us, our practices will never be dry or difficult. Whether our focus is the rising and falling of our chest as we breathe, a sacred mantra, or something else, allowing that focus to be the vehicle through which we contact and express Love makes our practice rich and powerful. Through discipline, we quiet the mind, and through devotion we know the fullness of the Heart.
Only he who can make himself a servant is ready to receive so great a thing as truth.
Sister Devamata
The Love we contact through prayer and meditation is not the same as the love we feel for certain individuals with whom we have positive interpersonal relationships. Rather, this Love is a Divine Love with no particular object-a Love that simply is. Whereas human love can be explained, the devotion of divine Love defies justification.
In human love, our sense of special-ness is often strengthened. In devotion, we lose sight of selfish desires and merge into the experience of ourselves as Love. This direct experience of Oneness expands our sense of Love from exclusive to unconditional. Losing ourselves in devotion to Love, Life, or whatever we choose to call it, our Hearts open to the Perfection of all that is. When devotion fills us, we need little else.
The mind seeks a cure for loneliness by searching outside ourselves. Even when we are physically alone, our mind continues its chatter to whatever audience we have conjured up for ourselves inside our heads. Often, such chatter is negative and reinforces that which we do not want. If our prayer and meditation do not yield the peace we had expected, we need only consider the percentage of time we spend in conscious contact with Love versus the percentage spent engaged in limiting mental chatter.
Our desire for approval and control is the real source of loneliness. When we allow that desire to consume us, it determines our actions. When we establish prayer and meditation firmly within our lives, Love’s sustenance is ever available to us. Through it, we establish a relationship with ourselves that is always there to guide and nurture us. Our fears, angers, and resentments are robbed of the power to determine the course of our lives. We discover a spaciousness that allows Love’s intuition to guide us.
Guidance takes many forms. Some people experience intuition as a 'small voice.' Other people experience it as a clear sense of knowingness. Sometimes it is strong, like a hunch that bursts into the midst of whatever rational process is going on. At other times, it is gentle-a quiet certainty about exactly what the next step should be. Sometimes guidance arises as a tightening in our bodies that tells us to slow down, that there’s something we’re missing. Occasionally, it propels us into the realm of symbolism, where things noticed become omens that give inspiration, confirmation, or even precognition.
The miracle comes quietly into the mind that stops an instant and is still.
A Course in Miracles
The common denominator among all these expressions of intuition is non-rationality. When we function intuitively, we bypass the normal, analytic reasoning process. There is no weighing of factors, no sense of figuring things out. Knowingness is inexplicably there.
Because of intuition, we need not fear the Heart’s giving away the store whenever the mind is not vigilant. If we honor our intuitive wisdom, we never deplete ourselves with giving or make self-destructive choices that go against our best interests. The Heart has wisdom. The Heart is not mindless. It simply thinks intuitively.
Loving action often seems to make little sense in a world caught up in the illusion that approval and control are supremely important. We experience numerous impulses to act lovingly, but, too often., we squelch them because our minds are full of fear. The Heart says yes! but the mind quickly drowns it out with a barrage of rationalizations for no!
Courage is fear that has said its prayers.
Anonymous
When we choose loving responses to unloving situations, we go against the grain of our minds. Such actions are a clear demonstration of our own relinquishment of the need for approval and control, our own choice to elevate Heart over mind. This takes courage.
When prayer and meditation open us to inner guidance, the courage to follow that guidance comes also. Prayer and meditation alter our lives by altering our consciousness. The mind makes choices based on self-serving fantasies that are often fuelled by fear. The Heart, on the other hand, knows the Reality of Love. Prayer and meditation show us Reality, and when we see Reality, we gain the courage to choose it.
Over and over in the course of these Steps, the phrase Benestrophe is being here now has come up. With each Step, we open to a new dimension of the power contained within this phrase. Meditation brings us into the essence of being here now, and being here now, regardless of what is happening, brings the stillness of meditation into our experience of Life.
The surest test if a man be sane is if he accepts life whole as it is.
Lao Tzu
Whenever we embrace the moment with awareness, we make our lives a prayer. When we taste Life from a place of judgment and resistance, we choke on its contents; when we sip deeply from Life’s cup, savoring the flavor in all situations and circumstances, we are nourished beyond our wildest dreams.
Wholeheartedly embracing Step Eleven dramatically changes our perceptions of how things are. Supporting whatever we do with prayer and meditation brings us deeply into Truth. Through prayer and meditation, the part of ourselves that is limited and reactive expands into something wondrous that is loving, giving, and unafraid. The spiritual concepts and ideals we find attractive blossom into wisdom that guides us, serves us, and gives us the courage to act with the Love required to turn catastrophe into Benestrophe.
We seek through prayer and meditation to expand our conscious contact with Love, asking only for inner guidance and the courage to take action.
Share about a time when you experienced the power of prayer. How did your intention add to that experience?
Gratefulness is the heart of prayer. How has gratitude influenced your prayers?
Describe a time when you felt you were given inner guidance.
What role does silence play in your life?
What benefits have you received through meditation?
How does quieting your mind enhance your ability to make conscious choices about your life?
What disciplines have had an impact on your practice of meditation?
Tell about a time when you felt empowered by prayer.
Contrast romantic love with spiritual Love.
Give an example of how your Heart has opened as a result of the process of expanding your conscious contact with Love.
Tell about an insight that came to you during prayer or meditation.
What have you done to create a space in your life for prayer and meditation?
Share an experience that demonstrated Love’s guidance in your life.
How often do you meditate? Describe the processes you use.
Share about an instance when you took loving action.
Describe the difference between knowledge that comes from intuition and knowledge that comes from the mind.
Share about an instance in which loving action required courage on your part.
Enlightenment is any insight that expands one’s consciousness beyond its present limits. Give an example of an enlightenment you’ve had.
Happiness is the reflection of an open Heart. What role does meditation play in opening your Heart?
Coming from your own experience, how would you define the phrase conscious contact?
Share about how taking the Eleventh Step has changed your life.
|
Home |