Karma Builder: Today's Karmic Workout – Create A Day Of Rest
Today's Exercise: Create A Day Of Rest
[Preparatory Note: this exercise works best if you can do it for an entire day, but if you cannot, you should try to do it for at least 2 hours. In the ancient times before the internet, not even slaves worked every day. In nearly every religion there is the concept of a Sabbath, or a day of rest and reflection. As human beings immerse themselves further and further into their own virtual lives, we find ourselves incredibly busy and yet producing very little of true value for ourselves. Older members of our society remember when things were different, when at least one day was reserved for church or temple, family gatherings and a reprieve from busy-ness. This allowed people to clear out their minds and reset their stress levels back to zero. The Sabbath was not just necessary for the worship of gods, it was necessary for the well-being of people.
Modern human beings are in a perpetual state of busy-ness. This is simply not healthy on a variety of levels. We neglect our family bonds. We neglect our need for real rest. "Real rest" means no cellphones, no televisions, no video games. It means to create a complete break from stimulation so that the mind can regroup. It means taking the time to engage your physical life with your bare hands and an unprocessed mind. It is to find the real you in the real world, if only for one day a week.
This is perhaps the most difficult Karmic Workout to date because to do this exercise you are going to have confront the virtual storm cloud the dominates your existence. Just to contemplate a day of rest, for some, is exhausting. A flood of things will come up that will threaten the time you would designate for this exercise. But you must confront one very important fact: the things that would displace a day of rest are really not that important. Not only are they not important, but they are probably trivial in comparison to taking a day to spend with your family, honor your ancestors, contemplate your life or other wise separate yourself from the hamster wheel of life. We have lost our ability to engage in true repose and it is killing off our humanity. Even if you don not want to, do this exercise anyway at least once.]
Set aside a period of time for real rest, ideally this would be a whole day.
Do not use electrical devices of any kind during the designated period unless it is a medical device needed for your survival.
Turn all communication devices off. You get bonus points if you go "full Amish" and not use any electrical devices in your house at all from sun up to sun down.
Stay home or go on a planned outing that does not involve technology other than transportation. If you travel, try to walk or ride a bicycle, but if you must drive do not listen to the radio. Picnics are perfect for this exercise.
Set aside at least one hour to consider the well-being of yourself and your family. This can be a conversation with family members or neighbors.
The day should be marked by gratitude for your life and the lives around you. Locate your compassion for family and friends, but for yourself as well.
If you find yourself thinking about work or projects, start your breathing exercises and clear you mind.
Training Note:
Modern people have almost no capacity for stillness and repose. This is not the natural state of humanity, but rather, a condition state of agitation that we have programmed ourselves to live with. Do not expect that this day of rest will necessarily be serene and comforting. In fact, you find it to be torture as you grapple with boredom, anxiety for not mentally tending to all of the trivial matters that you are attached to. A true day of rest takes practice. But like anything worth being good at, rest and repose become part of our skill set when we work at it.
Karmic Benefits:
Stand Down: without realizing it, you are being pounded with stimulation all day long and have almost no time consider what it all means. This mass of information causes us to rely heavily on our rational processes without allowing our intuitions and emotions the opportunity to digest the meaning of information. This can lead to a disconnect between our emotions and intuitions on one hand and our intellect on the other. The problem for a human being is that we are designed to use all of these process and not just some of them. Taking a break from the onslaught of information gives our mind time to adjust and balance itself. This makes us stronger and lends clarity to our understanding of the world.
Tune In: you can have a to-do list a mile long and be intensely focused on your email and text messages streaming through your mind and still be utterly unaware of what is happening in your life. Life happens in a physical world. Life does not happen in sound-bites or graphic displays of razzle-dazzle, but we get confused when we have immersed ourselves in too much abstraction. Breaking from the delusional world, even for a short period of time helps us preserve our perspective.
Make Repose Important: we kid ourselves about how important busy-ness is. It is sad, really, when you stop to think about it and we almost never stop to think about it. We do not set aside time to disengage for the fizz of our trivial lives. We do not take time to contemplate. If viewed from a distance the human race looks like a species caught in a collective hallucination. Returning to a base of natural consciousness is essential for mental balance and to the resolution of emotional and rational complications that can grow into large problems if left untended.
It May Be Fiction, But It Is One Heck Of A Karmic Workout.
Read The Lotus Blossom, D. M. Kenyon's fictional account of a teenage girl who turns off her cellphone and enters the very real, but mystical world of Budo warriors. Humorous, irreverent and heart-wrenching, The Lotus Blossom is an unforgettable tale of a Midwestern teenage girl's transformation into a budo warrior in the midst of the turmoil of the Information Age. Available in all digital formats, paperback and soon to be released in hardcover.
Available at : Amazon.com Smashwords.com Barnes & Noble
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