The Power of Now (Access it through the body)

I recently decided to reread Eckhart Tolle’s famous book “The Power of Now”. It had been probably six years since I last read it and as with most great books it was equally fulfilling the second time although in entirely new ways. One of the things that really stood out for me in this second reading is his focus on the body’s energy field, which is a significant overlap in his teaching with the practice of using Mandala Time. For Tolle, an essential way to escape compulsive thinking and enter into Being is to focus your attention on the energy present in the body. 

 Tolle states, “To become conscious of Being, you need to reclaim consciousness from the mind. This is one of the most essential tasks on your spiritual journey. It will free vast amounts of consciousness that previously had been trapped in useless and compulsive thinking. A very effective way of doing this is simply to take the focus of your attention away from thinking and direct it into the body, where Being can be felt in the first instance as the invisible energy field that gives life to what you perceive as the physical body.”

Tolle goes on to ask his readers to direct their attention into their body and poses the question, “Can you feel the subtle energy field that pervades the entire body and gives vibrant life to every organ and every cell? Can you feel it simultaneously in all parts of the body as a single field of energy?” 

 This is a question I too would ask you as you meditate with Mandala Time. It is my experience, as well as many others, that Mandala Time can be a fast-acting catalyst for experiencing the body’s inner energy field. Tapping into this energy field and experiencing its pleasant effervescence, is where real transformation happens and where you begin to experience the full benefits of a mediation practice. 

While softy focusing your eyes on the Mandala during mediation, keep a portion of your attention on the inner body. Part of the reason for doing this is to continue to relax and release tension. But the result of that is you will begin to feel your body’s energy field more and more as tension dissipates. Feeling the energy in every cell can be quite pleasant and an attractive alternative to focusing on the incessant, mostly useless thoughts of your mind. 

Once you’ve learned to tap into your bodies energy field and know what that feels like, you can continue to keep part of your attention there throughout the day. When you lose it, simply do a quick Mandala Time mediation to regain it. The benefit is that you continually practice taking your conscious energy away from compulsive thinking and into the body, into Being. 

The more energy you remove from compulsive thinking and place it into Being, the better life gets. Test it for yourself, and as you do, come back and tell us about it by commenting below.

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Energy (The Alchemical Gold)

An exploration of the Subtle.

You may notice fairly quickly when you meditate with Mandala Time! that your perceptions of the Mandala change, the colors shift and the shapes move. This is direct feedback that your consciousness is changing to a more meditative state. While that occurs you may also experience an effervescence in your body. It may feel like a pleasant vibrational energy is welling up within you. It will be subtle but allow yourself to open up to it. Allow it to grow and blossom within you. Explore its nuances and enjoy the feeling. It is the gold of transformation.

If you can relax enough and allow the vibrations to spread throughout your body you will be laying the groundwork for transformation in your life. Experiencing your own energy in this way is evidence that you are rewiring. Which means you are slowly removing your automatic conditioned behaviors (Karma) and increasing physical vitality. Changing unproductive habits and patterns will become much easier with a consistent meditation practice that includes a deep energetic experience. It will likely also improve sleep and overall health.

Meditation is an exploration of subtle feelings. Its about setting the mind aside and getting in tune with your body. Be curious about how subtle and refined your body sensations can go. Be curious about how much you can relax and how good it can feel. Get acquainted with every cell in your body. It is a subtle but amazing adventure.

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Meditation (It's All Good)

There are many resources including books and scientific studies that provide plenty of data related to the benefits of mediation, so you don’t need me to list all of it here for you. Likely, since you are reading this blog, you have been interested in mediation and already know what benefits you are looking to achieve. However, I will recommend a book that I think covers a lot of ground on this topic; “Becoming Supernatural” by Dr Joe Dispenza. It does a great job of tying the Eastern understanding and perspective on mediation to the latest Western scientific research. In his own mediation retreats and seminars, Dr Dispenza utilizes scientific equipment to understand the depth and effects of his students mediations so through his teachings he continues to gather scientific data on the effects and benefits of meditation. The list of which is long and growing.

So aside from the physical, health related benefits, of which there are many, for me, one of the most important and beneficial side effects of mediation is how it changes your relationship to your thoughts. Most of us are subject to a standard process related to thoughts which, more or less, goes as follows - a thought arrises which produces an emotion that results in us taking a fairly immediate action. (An aside - the root of the word emotion is motive, which is related to movement. Emotions cause movement or action. A further aside - action done without consciousness creates karma, or what we call consequences in the West. A topic for another time.) Where was I? Right, most of us react immediately to our thoughts. But mediation, for a number of reasons, creates some space between you and your thoughts, and therefore your thoughts and the resulting emotion. The most basic reason for this is that as you meditate you are actually practicing not reacting to your thoughts. You sit, focusing on a Mandala, thoughts arise, and you stay sitting and focused until your mediation is done. Don’t underestimate the impact of this! This is a huge step towards freedom! Freedom from being bullied by your brain, freedom to choose what emotions you feel and act on. In short, mediation enables you to chose happiness.

How does this work? Being in a meditative state makes it much easier not react to your thoughts and emotions. By giving you the ability not to react to your thoughts, a meditative state takes you out of your default mindset and into a very special place where you can generate skills and break habits and patterns you just can’t in your standard mindset. You rewire yourself in mediation and the results are nothing short of wondrous. Little by little, you will begin to not take your thoughts so seriously and the less seriously you take your thoughts the less of them you have. Things that used to trigger you will blow through you like a sudden breeze and be gone. A mind that was typically occupied with thoughts of dreading the future, ruminations about what people think of you, constant judging, and regrets about the past, will start to get quieter and quieter. All that time and energy spent worrying will now need to get replaced and you get to choose! The less and less you are on a reactive autopilot mode in relation to your thoughts, the more and more freedom you have to choose how you feel and what you want to do with the energy you have freed up. (This is part of how mediation gives you more energy.) It’s a great problem to have. In fact, it’s not a problem, its liberation, it’s freedom. It’s all good.

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Mandala Meditation for Kids

Just a few minutes of “non-doing” can make a big difference. What is non-doing ? To define that let's start with doing. From all directions kids are bombarded with stimulus; video games, action movies, and YouTube videos. This is all fun stuff to a point, but it becomes an issue when children become reliant on that level of stimulation to feel happy and alive. It’s the same for all of us. Our reliance on excitement, drama and or high adrenaline means we are prisoners to it. It’s just like that old adage - it’s the little things in life. So how do you get there? How does enjoying the little things become part of your, or your child’s, life? The good news is this is one of the bigger side effects of meditation or as it is sometimes referred to, non-doing. Just a few minutes of meditation, effective meditation, can enable all of us to bring the perspective of stillness, non-doing, and peace into our lives.

With brief 2 - 5 minute Mandala Time meditations, you and your children can experience a deep sense of calm, and let’s call it “okayness”, with just being. Experiencing this regularly will result in an increased ability to sit still, focus, and concentrate for your children. The need to be running from zombies, blowing things up or watching crazy people doing crazy things on YouTube will subside to a certain extent and believe it or not, this means more freedom. This is what the term “liberation” is referring to. Because you are free from the dependence on a relatively small category of high stimuli activities, you are free to do and enjoy so much more. Even the little things, which are freely offered here and now and in every moment.

Providing this tool of Mandala Mediations at a young age provides children the ability not to build the deeply engrained patterns of behavior adults have to work hard to extricate themselves from. You are offering them more freedom from their emotions and the ability to live more conscious lives.

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Two Minute Meditations Add Up (Maybe Even Multiply)

One of the great things about meditation is that it builds on itself. This means that you don’t have to sit for twenty minutes to gain the benefits of twenty minutes of meditation. Two minutes here and five minutes there throughout the day has the accumulative effect of twenty minutes of mediation. The challenge for beginners is achieving the meditative state quickly enough to realize the benefits in brief segments. With Mandala Time! you can achieve a meditative state within seconds enabling you to benefit from quick rejuvenating mediations throughout the day.

You can know you’ve achieved a meditative state by the visual effects you see while focusing on the mandala during meditation. Often, even on the first try, people see an interaction or shifting between colors of the mandala which typically happens within seconds of starting the meditation. As soon as you start to experience visual changes in the mandala you know you have entered into a deeper more centered state. (See the blog post “Why Visual Meditation is More Effective” for more info on this).

Any amount of time you exit the state of doing, doing, doing, with its emotional ups and downs and become centered, you begin to rewire. With each mediation you start to loosen the grip your automatic behaviors have on you. Which means gaining, little by little, freedom from your compulsive behavior. You create a little distance between you and your emotions, you and your habits and you and your cravings. This means more freedom. This means the ability to live more consciously instead of reactively. This means you slowly but surely turn down the volume of chatter in your head until one day there will be a moment when you notice the birds singing, the breeze blowing through the leaves, and the scent of flowers. And for that moment, its more than enough.

Try two to five minute mediations at your desk throughout the workday for two weeks and you will notice wonderful benefits. Comment on this blog and let us know how it goes!

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