Davidji's Blog, page 82

The Power of the Four Immeasurables

“Always first draw fresh breath after outbursts of vanity and complacency.”

-Franz Kafka

The Power of the Four Immeasurables

As we head into the final weeks of the year, and reflect on all the highlights and lowlights of 2013, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Many of us will be hosting family; some of us will be visiting family; others will spend this time in hermit-like self-reflection. And for many of us, we will immerse into a blend of all possibilities.

This time of year brings lots of comparison and judgment as we look around at everything that’s happened and didn’t, things we have and don’t have, all the people in our life, and all the circumstances that have unfolded over the past 12 months.

As we spend time with friends and family, we may find ourselves asking, “What happened to me this year?” “Where is my life going?” “Why do I feel this way?”

If we are in an abundant space, then we are in celebration and sharing mode. If we are in a constricted space, we may be feeling waves of sadness, turbulence, or overwhelm. It’s important to feel, to honor those emotions, and to recognize that somewhere we have moved out of balance. But, we can make a subtle shift and still honor how we feel. And in time, we come back into balance and move to a more abundant, whole, and heart-based expression of who we are.

One of the most powerful shifting tools in my life is the cultivation of bodhicitta – pronounced bo-dee chit-tah, a Sanskrit word, which literally means awakening that which is conscious. In Buddhist thought, bodhicitta is defined as a heart-based state, essentially having a mind that strives toward awakening and compassion for the benefit of all sentient beings.

Among the many methods of cultivating Bodhicitta in our life is contemplation on an ancient Buddhist teaching known as the Four Immeasurables, or in Sanskrit, the Brahmaviharas – (pronounced brah-mah vee-har-ahs) and according to the Buddha, cultivation of the Four Immeasurables has the power to cause the practitioner to be shifted into a Brahma realm – or a divine state.

The Four Immeasurables are:

• Immeasurable Loving-Kindness or benevolence

• Immeasurable Compassion or rooting for another’s suffering to end

• Immeasurable Joy in the good fortune of others

• Immeasurable Equanimity or mental calmness, composure, and evenness of temper especially in a difficult situation.



We can cultivate our bodhicitta each day by weaving the Immeasurables into the fabric of our BEing. Right before our morning meditation, spend two minutes (30 seconds on each Immeasurable) making them personal.

Start out by closing your eyes, taking a long slow deep breath in, effortlessly release it; and then drift your attention to one person who could benefit from your benevolence – see them in your minds eye, and radiate it out to them; then drift your attention to one person who could benefit from your from your compassion – see them in your mind’s eye and radiate it out to them; then drift your attention to your heart and feel the joy at the good fortune of a friend or relative…stay in that space and let it settle in. And then begin your meditation practice – daily meditation will awaken your equanimity.

Don’t keep the Four Immeasurables a secret. Share them with everyone you know this holiday season. And before you begin your holiday meal, the sweet collective you’ve assembled can open their hearts and radiate the Four Immeasurables out to everyone they know. Remember…we transform the world by transforming ourselves. So let’s begin our bodhicitta transformation right now and don’t forget to join me on LIVE! from the SweetSpot on Hay House Radio!

Blessings and peace. See you in the gap!! –davidji

PLEASE BE PATIENT WHILE THE VIDEO LOADS

Join me for one of my upcoming events!

Discovering Your Dharma

April 3-6, 2014



Secret’s of Meditation Healing Immersion

May 8-11, 2014

Weekend Meditation

“No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.” – Taoist Proverb

Hello Spiritual Warriors!

Enjoy your weekend of recapitualtion and self-reflection. This is a wonderful opportunity to embrace what is serving you and release the things that aren’t.

See you in the GAP! Peace.-davidji

PLEASE BE PATIENT WHILE THE MEDITATION LOADS

Join me for one of my upcoming events!

Set Your Course for 2014!

SOLD OUT

January 23-26

Masters of Wisdom and Meditation Teacher Training

SOLD OUT

March 17-23

Discovering Your Dharma

April 3-6



Secret’s of Meditation Healing Immersion

May 8-11

A Time for Reflection

“People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering.” – St. Augustine

What do you see when you reflect on the choices you’ve made this year?

Do you go back to your highlights? Your lowlights? Your laughter-filled moments? Your pain-points? Actions you took? Or things others did?

Reflection is powerful – it helps us see where we’ve come from. It allows the concept of co-creation to clarify as we realize nothing happens without our participation.

Even when we think, “he or she did that TO ME”, we realize we are co-conspirators in every breath, thought, word, and action – as well as all the breaths, thoughts, words, and actions of those in our lives.

As we reflect back on the past eleven and a half months, a great place to start is making a few lists. Take some time over the next few weeks to hunker down and REFLECT on:

• Your five most significant moments of 2013 – the moments that defined your journey and the trajectory they created

• Your five most important decisions of 2013 – the choices that reinforced past decisions; the choices that refined existing decisions from the past; and the choices that created new directions.

• Three people who came into your life in 2013 and helped raise your vibration

The answers to these 13 reflection points will help you realize where you are right now. They’ll help you to see more clearly about what really did happen this year and more importantly, how you got to where you are. We all get to move in any direction we choose – and when we can see the seeds – whether we planted them; another person scattered them around us; or the universe dropped them on us – we need to remind ourselves that WE ARE THE MASTERS OF EACH MOMENT.

If you love the direction that your life is moving toward – apply more pressure to the accelerator and keep moving. If you don’t like the direction where things are heading – you get to stop and shift. And your answers to the 13 reflection points will help you move from where you are to where you want to be.

So as we sit 20 days away from a clean slate of 2014, let’s get busy visioning & dreaming where the next magnificent year will take us. Remember, where attention goes, energy flows – - – and what we place our attention on blooms and blossoms and grows and thrives. Where we drift our attention away from, withers and diminishes, and ultimately fades into the ether. Yes indeed, we are the masters of each moment. Join me today on HayHouseRadio and we’ll reflect together!!! Peace. -davidji

PLEASE BE PATIENT WHILE THE VIDEO LOADS

Join me for one of my upcoming events!

Set Your Course for 2014!

January 23-26

Masters of Wisdom and Meditation Teacher Training

SOLD OUT

March 17-23

Discovering Your Dharma

April 3-6



Secret’s of Meditation Healing Immersion

May 8-11

Weekend Meditation

“There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.”  - Nelson Mandela

Happy Weekend Spiritual Warriors!

PLEASE BE PATIENT WHILE THE MEDITATION LOADS

Join me for one of my upcoming events!

Set Your Course for 2014!

January 23-26

Masters of Wisdom and Meditation Teacher Training

SOLD OUT

March 17-23

Discovering Your Dharma

April 3-6



Secret’s of Meditation Healing Immersion

May 8-11

Celebrating the Messengers of Peace

“Whatever comes, let it come,

what stays let stay,

what goes

let go.”

-PAPAJI

 

As we begin the month of December, we celebrate all the teachers, coaches, Masters, gurus, rishis, and guides who have graced the world with light and love. Some of the most profound messengers of peace, awakening, and truth have graced the planet for thousands of years; and as we have evolved and grown over the years, we have resonated with differing voices and different messages depending on where our paths have journeyed.

Whether its an ancient master – such as Patanjali, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Jesus, or Adi Shankara- who touched you deeply with spiritual guidance; or a modern teacher – such as Thich Naht Hanh, Eknath Easwaren, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, or Joel Osteen- whose voice resonates with your vision of life, each of us is making important decisions each day based on the wisdom we receive and interpret.

The blissful teachings of Yogananda, the compassion of the Buddha, the awakening of Christ consciousness, the transcendence of Yogi Bhajan & so many others all flow through our awareness when we carve out our spiritual time. But we need to go deeper. We need to see the teachers around us in every moment.

Every difficult conversation we have includes someone who is teaching you something about yourself. Every trying situation contains an opportunity for deeper self-reflection and learning. Every irritant, heart-break, frustration, disappointment, fearful moment, and sadness is a teacher.

The author Carlos Castaneda stressed this when his archetypal character Don Juan said, “a warrior who stumbles on a petty tyrant is a lucky one.”

My own personal experience has taught me that the guru rests inside. The answer to every question we could ever ask sits lovingly in the silence of our heart waiting for the right moment to emerge. We need to understand how to tease it out…how to allow spontaneous right thought, speech, and action to flow from us with grace and ease at the perfect moment. And that starts with allowing the stillness of the universe to become your stillness.

By quieting down … powering down … for only 5 to 30 minutes a few times a day, we create the space…the opportunity for the teacher to “arrive” with each constriction, overwhelm, or less-than moment. Coming from a place of stillness and silence, we are wiser, less reactive, less conditioned, more creative, and more intuitive – so we are more likely to respond to life rather than knee-jerk to it.

So today, let’s celebrate the teachers and the teachings that have helped to make us who we are. Let’s honour every teacher who has helped us mold the personal play-doh of our life. Let’s pay tribute to our parents, and the caregivers who brought us into this world; our teachers in kindergarten straight through graduate school. Our coaches, doctors, clergy, bosses, and all the authority figures that have pointed us in a particular direction. Our schoolmates, work colleagues, loved ones, and the members of our support groups. And of course, those with whom we have a grievance, the petty tyrants, the nagging experts, the oil & water relationships that challenge us to be better versions of ourselves.

The key to mastering the ancient wisdom teachings is making an internal shift that transforms your intellectual knowledge into inner wisdom. And that comes from seeing the teacher in every moment…in every breath…in every conversation…in every interaction…and in every self-reflective moment. When the student is ready, the teacher appears. And it is this acknowledgment merged with a daily practice of stillness & silence that will awaken your inner student, your inner teacher, and your inner healer.

Join me  LIVE! from the SweetSpot  on Hay House Radio today and every Wednesday at 3p PST/6p EST…radio for your soul.

Keep opening to the present; keep dying to the past; and keep meditating. I’ll see you in the gap! Peace. -davidji

PLEASE BE PATIENT WHILE THE VIDEO LOADS

Join me for one of my upcoming events!

Set Your Course for 2014!

January 23-26

Masters of Wisdom and Meditation Teacher Training

SOLD OUT

March 17-23

Discovering Your Dharma

April 3-6



Secret’s of Meditation Healing Immersion

May 8-11

Weekend Meditation

“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.”

-Thornton Wilder

Gratitude, gratitude, gratitude…

Happy Thanksgiving Weekend Spiritual Warriors!!!

Peace. -davidji

PLEASE BE PATIENT WHILE THE VIDEO LOADS

Join me for one of my upcoming events!

Set Your Course for 2014!

January 23-26

Masters of Wisdom and Meditation Teacher Training

March 17-23

Discovering Your Dharma

April 3-6



Secret’s of Meditation Healing Immersion

May 8-11

Manifesting Your Dreams

“Your imagination is your preview of life’s coming attractions.”

-Albert Einstein

“Ask and you shall receive; seek and you shall find; knock and the door shall be opened.” Luke 11:9

Yes Spiritual Warriors! We’ve arrived at the final step in our month of Setting our Course – manifestation…knocking…the step that moves you from good intentions to the unfolding of your destiny.

We’ve walked through the critical steps of 1) letting go of what no longer serves us; 2) gaining clarity on what we want; 3) planting seeds in the fertile soil of our heart & now we need to 4) lean in the direction of our dreams as we let go of outcomes.

This is the birthing part of the manifestation process that we have been cultivating since my first blog of the year. We are coming down the home stretch of 2013 and where we are right now becomes the platform…the foundation for every seed that’s birthed in 2014.

You have your dreams and visions – you’ve set your intentions…and now it’s times for reflection and asking the core question, “What will it take? What trait – what skill set – what divine quality will I need to awaken to shift me from where I am to where I want to be?”

This requires honesty and your willingness to shine a bright light on all the shadowy areas of your life. Through honest reflection, we are able to see what we need and don’t have right now. This is where you get to awaken the sleeping god or goddess that rests within. This is where you get to invoke your divine archetype to help you:

Break out of being stuck,
Find your next gear, and
TAKE the step

And it is TAKING THE STEP that keeps the motion and momentum flowing so that your manifestation process unfolds with greater grace and ease. When we drift our attention on awakening our archetype to support us in taking the step, then we are not alone…we are not leaping into the void by ourselves…we are not in blame mode or complaint mode. Cultivating archetypes over the past decade has allowed me to consistently manifest skills, characteristics, traits, and qualities in my life that I didn’t know were there. But they were – they were simply dormant so I was unaware.

Once I surrendered – in a challenging moment – to birthing my inner Winston Churchill, my inner Hillary Clinton, my inner Alicia Florrick, my inner Deepak Chopra, my inner Lebron James, my inner Thich Naht Hahn, my inner Arianna Grande, my inner Suze Orman, my inner Thor, my inner Louise Hay… it was then that my growth trajectory expanded and my manifesting reached new heights.

Before you go into silent meditation today and every day for the next week, ask yourself this question, “Who can help me move from where I am to where I want to be?”

Identify a challenge in each of the five realms – physical, emotional, material, relationship, and spiritual – and call upon the quality that would help you overcome it. Then call upon archetypal figure, person in your life (living or dead), mythical character, or “rockstar” that resonates with you. And then breathe that person into your awareness, invite them into your very being, and live your actions as if they were a part of who you are.

By awakening the god or goddess in your womb – you will expand your sense of self, find new qualities that you didn’t even know you had, and cultivate the best version of you. Join me today on LIVE! from the SweetSpot or in person at Set Your Course this January (link) and we’ll shift our lives from where we are to where we want to be. In the meantime, I’ll see you in the gap! Peace. -davidji

PLEASE BE PATIENT WHILE THE VIDEO LOADS

Join me for one of my upcoming events!

Set Your Course for 2014!

January 23-26

Masters of Wisdom and Meditation Teacher Training

March 17-23

Discovering Your Dharma

April 3-6



Secret’s of Meditation Healing Immersion

May 8-11

Weekend Meditation

“From a small seed a mighty trunk may grow.” – Aeschylus

Happy Weekend Spiritual Warriors!

Let’s plant seeds from a place of abundance; let’s dream big and grow into our dreams; let’s have the patience as Lao Tzu said, “to wait until your mud settles and the water is clear. Till the right action arises by itself.”

Peace. -davidji

PLEASE BE PATIENT WHILE THE MEDITATION LOADS

Join me for one of my upcoming events!

Set Your Course for 2014!

January 23-26

Masters of Wisdom and Meditation Teacher Training

March 17-23

Discovering Your Dharma

April 3-6



Secret’s of Meditation Healing Immersion

May 8-11

Planting Seeds

“To see things in the seed, that is genius.” – Lao Tzu

Hello Spiritual Warriors!! Throughout the month, our attention has been on Setting Your Course for 2014. We’ve let go of what no longer serves us. Nature abhors a vacuum – so releasing non-nourishing thoughts, words, and behaviors has made a sweet open space for us to fill with more nourishing aspects of life. Then we gained clarity looking at our dreams through the lens of the Five Realms – our physical, emotional, material, relationship, and spiritual unfoldings as we move through the world.

And now it’s time to plant the seeds of our evolution. Our intentions are those seeds, which determine the vibration of our existence – the fabric of our lives. So what seeds shall we plant? Now that we have gained clarity, the act of seed-planting is that step that puts our dreams out into the universe. When we plant seeds that come from our heart…then our manifesting will flow love into the world…uplift our soul and raise our vibration. When we plant seeds that come from a poverty consciousness, a lack mentality, or a constricted viewpoint then our whole physiology and emotional energy reflects our limiting beliefs. It’s easier to see it in others – often we are too close to the situation or caught up in years of conditioning and we don’t realize WE are the constriction. When our attention is on the “what ifs” of life rather than the bigger picture, our thinking becomes petty; our view becomes narrowed; and we start to “play small.”

When we truly believe that the best is yet to come and we are willing to embrace uncertainty, then we open the door to the unknown where the magnificence of the universe supports our BIG dreams.

My dear friend, the Dutch yogi and Vedic teacher Rosalinda Weel has written extensively about the process of manifesting our dreams; she has taught thousands to dream big and accept that there is a gentle unfolding as we GROW INTO our dreams. We often think we want to have all the abundance of the universe RIGHT NOW!! Today!! But realistically, we aren’t prepared for cataclysmic change all at once. If we dream big and then purposefully step into our dreams as we grow, then we open our selves to new, rich, fresh unfoldings as we fill our dreams with grace and ease.

This is why planting seeds is so important. There is an incubation stage where all the millions of pieces of our dream need to come together – this allows a stronger foundation to develop slowly, so that blossoming can occur on firm footing. It serves nothing in the universe to plant your seeds and have them grow into giant trees over night. We need to experience that moment where the sprout breaks the soil, gently unfolds, rises to the sun, and begins to strengthen. That is the magnificence of planting seeds…as they grow, we grow; as they evolve, we evolve, and in so doing, we develop new dreams, new directions, new visions, and ultimately new dreams – which we can slowly grow into as well.

Let’s plant seeds from a place of abundance; let’s dream big and grow into our dreams; let’s have the patience as Lao Tzu said, “to wait until your mud settles and the water is clear. Till the right action arises by itself.”

Planting seeds is all about knowing what you are planting and giving the universe permission to unfold your dreams with grace and ease. Join me this week on Hay House Radio at 3p PST/6p EST and we will plant some amazing seeds together. I’ll see you in the gap!! Peace. -davidji

PLEASE BE PATIENT WHILE THE VIDEO LOADS

Join me for one of my upcoming events!

Set Your Course for 2014!

January 23-26

Masters of Wisdom and Meditation Teacher Training

March 17-23

Discovering Your Dharma

April 3-6



Secret’s of Meditation Healing Immersion

May 8-11

Weekend Meditation

“Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.”

- George Bernard Shaw

Happy Weekend Spiritual Warriors!

Let’s spend this time seeking the clarity from within that will illuminate the path to which we seek.

Peace. -davidji

PLEASE BE PATIENT WHILE THE MEDITATION LOADS

Join me for one of my upcoming events!

Set Your Course for 2014!

January 23-26

Masters of Wisdom and Meditation Teacher Training

March 17-23

Discovering Your Dharma

April 3-6



Secret’s of Meditation Healing Immersion

May 8-11