Carpe Diem #1131 meditation

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Do you meditate? Do you know "agape", the love of the Lord as he radiated to His disciples at the last meal before His trial and crucifixion? That strong love you can feel as you meditate. Meditation is not only something we learn from only the Eastern religions and spiritual movements, it became part of our Western philosophy too. Meditation helps you to focus and come in close contact with the spirituality of nature and the Cosmos. Meditation can give you the peace you need in your life.
I think everyone of us mediates and I believe that everyone has his/her own way (and reasons) to meditate.
To me meditation gives me the peace of heart I need. It makes my mind clear and silent. It helps me to bring that silence into my mind. As you all know I am a very busy person, not only through my work, but also through being your host here and through all the things I love to do. Than there are days that my mind and heart cannot become in peace or silence ... than I meditate.

This is what Paulo learns during his pilgrimage to Santiago and I hope to reflect that here this month while we are walking the Road to Santiago on the virtual highway. Isn't it wonderful that we can enter the whole world through the Internet? We can visit libraries at the other side of the globe, we can visit places and countries everywhere on our planet just by "walking" the virtual highway.
A while ago we visited for example Shikoku Island to walk the once in a lifetime pilgrimage of Buddhists along the 88 temples of Shikoku. We have visited a big part of the European countries. We have conquered the steppes and the taiga of Mongolia and Russia. We traveled along the Trans Siberian Railway without leaving our home, just by "walking" the virtual highway.

The Road to Santiago

This month we are on our way to Santiago walking the Road of Saint James, finding our roots of spirituality, finding the silence and the depths of our heart and mind ... awesome.

As Paulo and Petrus (his guide) are on their way to Santiago they use several exercises to find their deeper grounds. And today I love to introduce to you another wonderful exercise we can do ourselves. This exercise is called "The Blue Sphere Exercise".

The Blue Sphere Exercise

Seat yourself comfortably, and relax. Try not to think about anything.

1. Feel how good it is to be alive. Let your heart feel free and affectionate; let it rise above and beyond the details of the problems that may be bothering you. Begin to sing softly a song from your childhood. Imagine that your heart is growing, filling the room – and later your home – with an intense, shining blue light.

2. When you reach this point, begin to sense the presence of the saints (or other beings) in which you placed your faith when you were a child. Notice that they are present, arriving from everywhere, smiling and giving you faith and confidence.

3. Picture the saints approaching you, placing their hands on your head and wishing you love, peace, and communion with the world – the communion of the saints.

4. When this sensation becomes strong, feel that the blue light is a current that enters you and leaves you like a shining, flowing river. This blue light begins to spread through your house, then through your neighborhood, your city, and your country; it eventually envelops the world in an immense blue sphere. This is the manifestation of the great love that goes beyond the day-today struggle; it reinforces and invigorates, as it provides energy and peace.

5. Keep the light spread around the world for as long as possible. Your heart is open, spreading love. This phase of the exercise should last for a minimum of five minutes.

6. Come out of your trance, bit by bit, and return to reality. The saints will remain near. The blue light will continue to spread around the world.

This ritual can and should be done with more than one person. When this is the case, the participants should hold hands while they do the exercise.

It's a wonderful way of meditating. I will bring you the comfort, peace, love and silence you need to break loose from your daily life. You just have to try it to experience it. It's really awesome.

Meditation ... I love it!

Blue Sphere

magic experience
surrounded by a blue sphere
I find my peace

© Chèvrefeuille

deep silence
closing my eyes
the blue sky

© Chèvrefeuille

What a wonderful experience this was. I hope it will inspire you to create haiku, tanka or an other Japanese poetry form.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until January 27th at noon (CET). Have fun!