“Life is a challenge, meet it!
Life is a dream, realize it!
Life is a game, play it!
Life is Love, enjoy it!”

 “You have it in your power to make your days on Earth a path of flowers, instead of a path of thorns.”

“You must be a Lotus, unfolding its petals when the Sun rises in the sky, unaffected by the slush where it is born or even the water which sustains it!”

“Service is the highest spiritual discipline. Prayer and meditation, or knowledge of scripture, cannot help you reach the goal as quickly as service can. Service has a double effect, it extinguishes the ego and gives bliss.”

My thoughts-
Sri Sathya Sai Baba’s words are beautiful, inspired and form images often used in meditation. That said, I have a different take on meditation than that stated above which I want to share here for your consideration. Baba says “Service is the highest spiritual discipline. Prayer and meditation, or knowledge of scripture, cannot help you reach the goal as quickly as service can. Service has a double effect, it extinguishes the ego and gives bliss.”

I agree that service is the highest form of  spiritual discipline. In my understanding , meditation on behalf of the planet, world and humanity IS a high form of service, service through meditation.

As a group we meditate regularly together to bring in the light on behalf of sending it out to the world in need. We focus, for example, on Haiti, the Gulf leak, world peace, or simply hold the space open for the light to go where it is needed.

Esotericists believe that our fundamental task is to handle energy rightly; the energy streaming through us, the energy which is us and all kingdoms of living things and the energy that makes our environment. Energy that effects any aspect of energy effects the whole. As our consciousness of these subtle energies grows the effect of our minds and thoughts and emotions and actions have upon them also grows. Meditation is an interchange of energies and can be directed to where there is great need. Energy follows thought. Empathy, compassion, peaceful action, allowing and not clinging are other energetic ways of directing energy in service to the whole.

The late 18th to 19th century English poet William Blake put it like this “For not one sparrow can suffer and the Whole universe not suffer also.” Blake also wrote “To see the world in a grain of sand…” and “Energy is eternal delight.”

What matters is the perception that we are all in this together, one for all and all for one. Meditation is a service to  both our own growth for highest good of all and in the service  to humanity and the planet’s growth for the highest good of all.

What are your thoughts on this, is meditation a service?

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“I think perhaps I have gotten more out of life than it contains.”  Natalie Clifford Barney

I believe it is possible to get more out of life than it contains. how? By living in awareness, in conscious alignment with the unseen realms of spirit that is all around you and one with you.

Life is so much greater than what you can see. What we see is infinitesimal compared to what we don’t see but can know. How? We can know, to some extent, through meditating, journaling, creativity, sounds and music.

What do you think about it?

photo courtesy of Gary Brenemen  http://www.astrobirdphoto.com/

The reasoning behind this conference was the dream of Dr. Andrew Weil, MD, professor, author. he developed the integrated approach to healing at the University of Arizona School of Medicine , (I attended  UofA as an undergrad) and  through this conference he presented a new field of psychology/psychiatry and treatment for  conditions of mental health called Integrative Mental Health.

About 700 people from all over the US and Canada were  in attendance. The presenters were the cream of the crop leaders in their respective fields. The  Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine, National Institute of Health, UCLA, Harvard, U of Minnesota were represented among other institutions.  It was a feast for the heart, brain and spirit of everyone I had the pleasure to meet there.

Today I will share some videos made by one the presenters, Dr. Dan Siegel, MD , psychiatrists, brain researcher and scientist , author, speaker, on the faculty of  UCLA , Co-Director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center, and Director of Mindsight Institute, and all around fun and brilliant guy!

Researchers say laughing opens us to new connections  occurring  within our brains.  Get ready to laugh and learn about Mindsight. Mindsight is what Dr. Dan learned on his incredible journey into the brain to discover how the mind moves along its waves. Yes folks, the mind and brain are not the same.

Dr. Dan Siegel’s latest books
Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation

The Mindful Brain: Reflection and Attunement in the Cultivation of Well-Being

Not yet released- The Mindful Therapist: A Clinician’s Guide to Mindsight and Neural Integration

One of his early books where he introduces the brain and it’s functions  as he was seeing them in a new way, pre Mindsight books out recently, pub. in  2001- The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are

Some links of interest:
2010 Integrative Mental Health conference, Phoenix, AZ

University of Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine , Tucson, AZ

Mindsight Institute , Los Angeles, CA