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Welcome to OneLife Ministries. This site is designed to lead you prayerfully into a heart experience of Divine Presence, Who is Love. While it focuses on Christian teaching, I hope persons of varied faiths will find inspiration here. Indeed, "God" can be whatever image helps us trust in the Sacred, by whatever means Grace touches us each. Please share this ministry with others, and please return soon. There is a new offering daily. And to be placed on the daily OneLife email list, to request notifications of new writings or submit prayer requests, write to briankwilcox@yahoo.com .
Blessings,
Brian Kenneth Wilcox MDiv, MFT, PhD
Interspiritual Pastor-Teacher, Author, Workshop Leader, Spiritual Counselor, and Chaplain.
You are invited to join Brian at his fellowship group on Facebook. The group is called OneLife Ministries An Interspiritual Contemplative Fellowship. Hope to see you there. Blessings.
Quote
There is no question that meditation, at least when it is practised with a view to interior silence, can be a peculiarly effective means of quieting the mind. However in itself it can only bear fruit at the level at which it is practised, namely, the psychological. If
the level
of the ātman [Self, True Self, Christ Self] is not one peculiar to itself, but rather underlies all the levels of being, then it can be found at whatever level one may start from. But when one attempts to tie it down to one particular level even to that of the non-mental and the suprasensory then one has simply mistaken a substitute, or one of its images, for the ātman itself.
*Abhishiktānanda (Dom Henri le Saux). The Further Shore.
Spiritual Teaching
A lady had a precious necklace round her neck. Once in her excitement she forgot it and thought that the necklace was lost. She became anxious and looked for it in her home but could not find it. She asked friends and neighbors if they knew anything about the necklace. They did not. At last a kind friend of hers told her to feel the necklace round her neck. She found that it had all along been around her neck and she was happy. When others asked her later if she found the necklace that was lost, she said, 'Yes, I have found it.' She still felt she had found a lost Jewell.
*David Godman. Be As You Are: Teaching from Ramana Maharishi.
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The story above shows our state. Yesterday, I wrote of the True Self, the Atman, the I am we are. Now, this all sounds esoteric, or mystical. But that is not true. The reason relaxing into the True Self feels so unnatural, is we have chosen to see and live so unnaturally. Then, we believe to experience who we truly are is not normal is abnormal. Rather, in deep meditation, or just one moment of relaxed, unanxious awareness, our True Self shines forth. Our spiritual practices do not get us anywhere we are not already, they only clear the obscurations for our true Light to shine.
If I am who I am, then, I am that at any level of awareness. I do not have to have any spiritual experience, as an additive, to experience this blissful knowing. Spiritual experience is another label. Do you think this is a spiritual experience when you lift your face to the warm Sun? No. Then, if you said spiritual, would it change the Sun, or your experience of the Sun? No.
Then, speaking of spiritual can help us, but in itself the Truth is the Truth, neither religious nor nonreligious, neither spiritual nor nonspiritual, neither metaphysical nor nonmetaphysical. The pure Awareness of the Love you and I live in, well, such we find to be the most naturally, blissful enjoyment possible in this life.
Responding
1)The True Self arises, or shines forth, through surrender. Contrast this with seeing our spiritual path as getting something, as acquisition, rather than seeing something, or receiving something.
2)I offer again the same mediation exercise from yesterday, and a new one. You may choose one or both. The first is from "Fundamentals of Dozgchen Meditation," by Alexaner Berzin (2001). See www.berzinarchives.com .
Pure Openness Meditation (Dzogchen)
To avoid distraction from sensory cognition, we meditate in total darkness and total silence with three immovables...:
A. immovable body - with body straight, hands either in the meditation pose in our laps or lightly resting on the knees
B. immovable senses - with eyes neither closed nor wide open, but gazing naturally in front
C. immovable mind - not actively thinking, with no thoughts of the past or future, and with no analysis.
We just rest in the present moment of awareness, fresh and uncontrived, without being self-conscious about what we are doing. In other words, even if a thought arises, we do not follow it out.
Verbal thoughts simultaneously arise, abide, and cease. When we focus on that happening, we reach the "space in between verbal thoughts," which is the situation in which we can recognize [mental] habits.
The meditation method, however, is not simply to stop verbally thinking by applying restraint or discipline. The simultaneous arising, abiding, and ceasing of moments of verbal thinking occur automatically. No effort is required to make that happen. Nevertheless, we need effort to recognize it and to stay focused on it with understanding. Otherwise, with mental wandering, we follow out thoughts, or with mental dullness, we fall into a daze and understand nothing.
*Based on my studies of this method from Mahayana Buddhism, I recommend the observation of the formatiion and dissolution of all sensory form. This is not an analytical meditation, but one in which you simply recognize the Spirit, the Word, in all phenomena. Here, there is no spiritual or unspiritual - indeed, no labels at all, for anything. This means, not labels that are solid; phenomena is seen as the movement of Life in varied forms. Also, you may practice this with eyes wide open, partly open, or closed.
I AM Not - I AM Meditation
Enter into quiet meditation. Let arise the identities that label you to others and yourself. With each one, interiorily reply, I am not that. Place the stress on I am. After a while, you will be in a state of pure awareness. Rest there, in the I am, the True Self, where you and God are mingling eternally in Love, in the Word, with the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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*OneLife Ministries is a ministry of Brian Kenneth Wilcox, SW Florida. Brian lives a vowed life and with his two dogs, Bandit Ty and St. Francis, with friends and under a vow of simplicity. Brian is an ecumenical-interspiritual leader, who chooses not to identify with any group, and renounces all titles of sacredness that some would apply to him, but seeks to be open to how Christ manifests in the diversity of Christian denominations and varied religious-spiritual traditions. He affirms that all spiritual paths lead ultimately back to Jesus Christ. He is Senior Chaplain for the Charlotte County Sheriff's Office, Punta Gorda, FL.
*Brian welcomes responses to his writings or submission of prayer requests at briankwilcox@yahoo.com . Also, Brian is on Facebook: search Brian Kenneth Wilcox.
*Contact the above email to book Brian for preaching, Spiritual Direction, retreats, workshops, animal blessing services, house blessings, or other spiritual requests. You can order his book An Ache for Union from major booksellers.
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