Prayer Of The Dark Night (Sahasrara)

       As little children our prayers probably went a little something like, "Bless Mommy, Daddy, Sissy, and keep Fido safe since he has to sleep outside."  A very endearing supplication from an innocent little heart to God's ears somehow gets warped when that tiny child grows.  The adult prayer tends to go more along the lines of, "Please help me get a better job, bless my finances, make my spouse act differently, bless me with more, help me lose weight, I need, I need, I need, I want...."  Everyone has the right to pray however they choose, but what is the purpose?  What IS prayer?  Prayer is more than just a time to beseech a power higher than ourselves for what we need and desire, it is a time to align ourselves with all of creation and its greater good.  When we come before the God of our understanding we are humbling ourselves to our will and saying aloud that our life is exactly the way it was meant to be at that moment for whatever lesson we were meant to learn; it is trust.  It is love; knowing that we will be taken care of the way that the birds of the air and the beasts of the field are cared for.  Sometimes we ask for healing that doesn't come, but I think what we must understand is that once we come to God in prayer there is a way to set our inner spirit in line with our God spirit.  Prayer is our conscious connection to God and we must pray in an authentic way to truly make a difference in our own lives.  That means not turning to God when we need something, but turning to God when we want to be with someone.  When we realize that prayer is not about our words to God, but rather about our life WITH God then prayer becomes energy medicine.
       Our highest energy center, Sahasrara, is the source of enlightenment and spiritual connection to all that exists.  It is the realization that we are pure awareness, emerging through the confines of the physical body, ego, mind, and intellect.  Like a single drop in the ocean, we are a part of something in which we are contained and encompassed into every expansive aspect of consciousness.  Through this connective awareness we can live with devotion, not obsession, kindness, faith, inspiration, prophetic knowledge, and removed illusions.  Our connection to the wisdom of what is sacred  enables our symbolic sight, vision, intuition, healing, and a quality of trust that transcends human fears.  The spiritual crown empowers us beyond what our physical limitations know because we somehow remember who we were before we became this human that we see in the mirror.  Our souls are not bound by space or time and our bodies are merely an energy ladder that, as we learn to climb it, connects us with the divine Creator of earth and heaven.  When our spirituality is out of balance we tend to lean towards cynicism, closed-mindedness, depression, fatigue, migraines, materialism, frustration, boredom, sleep disorders, and mental illness.  In our darkest night the truth is calling to us, beckoning for us to come towards the light and learn what has been known for all of eternity, to see what can only be seen by those who seek, and to drink what our souls have been thirsting for since the moment we were born.
       This depression can sometimes arise out of what Saint John of the Cross called the "dark night of the soul," or spiritual awakening.  He believed that in some instances people needed to break away from the church in order to seek their own spiritual development and form a fully conscious bond with the Divine.  The development of strange new fears, the absence of meaning and purpose, and a deeper longing for knowledge brings about a spiritual crises in even the most devoted of Christians.  We have a natural longing to touch something that can transcend human restriction and release our fears.  We long to hope and dream, to be devoted to something that is greater than ourselves.  We need to be responsible for what we create in life, to discover the great power of our spirits, and live in service to all of life.  We desire to act and think through wisdom, in the knowledge that religion is a group experience and spirituality is an individual experience.  Akin to the last rites/extreme junction of the catholic church we need to come back to nothingness before we find everything.  Where we realize that there is no beginning and no end, release our regrets, complete our unfinished business, and recall our souls.  We must live in the present moment and know that we are part of the Divine.  I honor the Divine within me and seek to understand and learn from my life experiences.  I cherish my spirit and listen to the wisdom of the universe as I seek experiences that nourish my soul.  I trust my intuition, let go of attachments, love and accept myself, and move in grace.  I am grateful for all of the goodness in my life.  I am at peace.
What are you praying for?

"God is love, and he who is in love is in God and God in him."
-Meister Eckhart

Watching Stones

       I don't particularly feel like being inspirational today, in fact I might even want to just sit here and be a little indolent.  And I think that's okay.  My brain is tired from learning and growing, and my body is exhausted from the work.  The results that I am constantly striving to achieve seem daunting at times, and right now is no exception.  I am at a place where the road I am on has many turns in the path that beg to be traveled.  I feel the need to tour every trail, to see it all, to know it all...but for right now I am weary.  I will sit here and rest for a while, and I will not feel guilty about it.  I know that the clouds will rain again and the sun will continue to shine and nourish, but I cannot keep chasing the wind for the roots that wish to grow to this spot.  The earth beneath me right this moment is what I need in order to strengthen my core, and this moment is all there is.  One day I will get up and continue down one of the many winding paths before me and I will be grateful for the opportunity to journey.  But right now I am thankful for the shade and repose.  Rest, relaxation, inactivity, slumber, quiet, calm, tranquility, composure, serenity, PEACE.  Life moves so quickly that we feel we must keep up.  There are times to wake and work to be done and meals to be eaten and items to be cleaned, people to care for.  But right now I need to care for me.  I need to NOT move as quickly as my environment.  I need to sit with my legs crossed and look above the swirling chaos of life to stare at the still stars and constant moon.  Once I slow down to a zero pace I can see how busy even the earth is.  Clouds blow by, birds sing and flit, ants toil away, and even squirrels busy themselves with the gathering of what they probably don't need.  At an even slower pace than that I can begin to see the energy emanating from a slowly reaching tree, the flower lifting its face towards the warm sun, and the rock as it breathes and bathes in its environment.  I must lay here, like a stone, and just watch.  Observe, view, gaze, contemplate, survey, regard, behold, and study until my mind is full and my head is tired.  Then I will breathe in and close my eyes to allow myself to be nothing but a thing existing.  Once I am only that, only being right there right then, then I know I have arrived.  When I am thoroughly rested I will once more pick up and start out on my travels.  The journey ahead may still appear ominous, even disconcerting, but the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time.
Why rush?

A Perfect Circle- Eat The Elephant