LISTENING

Place yourself in the middle of the sound. Let the sound carry and direct you following everything that happens. Redirect your attention from hearing things to unconditional and objectless listening and observe the subtle experiencing itself, rather than the experienced things. Follow the invitation inwards, surrendering yourself to the sound of beingness.

We recognize the external world only too well in the form of enticing and dominant ideas about ourselves, the other and the world around us. Our internal self is characterized by simple, impersonal stillness, something we often fail to recognize in the bustle of our daily lives.

Once you transcend your conceptual thinking and place your attention on undefined sound in this meditation, you’ll notice that thinking becomes less persistent, and gradually becomes still, until only an impersonal presence remains.

Don’t dwell on this for too long, or your mind will be eager to claim this as understanding. It is in fact the miraculous, unnameable, that which supersedes and transcends all thinking as our primordial home.

READING

Read this poem, word by word, sentence by sentence and use them as objects of contemplation.

Just as you can listen and look without naming things, you can also read by bringing your attention back to the act of reading itself. Thoughts and feelings will respond naturally. Follow them without dwelling on their content too closely. Observe without judgment.

The poem will speak and follow whatever resonates with ‘you’ as pointers to stimulate reawakening of the primordial self. Surrendering to what is. 

Eyes and ears will open up to the peace and space of unconditional, all-encompassing love. Realize that there is not a ‘somebody’ doing or experiencing that. No one here and no one there. 

Isn’t it amazing?

C O M E   W I T H   M E

I am your lover, 

come to my side,

I will open the gate to your love.

Come settle with me,

Let us be neighbors to the stars.

You have been hiding so long, 

endlessly drifting in the sea of my love.

Even so, you have always been connected to me.

Concealed, revealed, 

in the unknown, 

in the unmanifest.

I am life itself.

You have been a prisoner of a little pond,

I am the ocean and its turbulent flood.

Come merge with me,

Leave this world of ignorance.

Be with me,

I will open the gate to your love.

– Jeladdun Rumi –