Meditation for the Love of It Quotes

“When men imagine a female uprising, they imagine a world in which women rule men as men have ruled women.”
― Sally Kempton, Meditation for the Love of It: Enjoying Your Own Deepest Experience

“The Kena Upanishad says that the Self "shines through the mind and senses," which is a poetic way of saying that it is the power of the Self which allows the mind and senses to function. So the eternally conscious Self is what makes us conscious. Essentially, it is light.
At times when our inner vision becomes pure enough to let us see through the layers of psychic debris that thickens our consciousness and make it opaque, we realize that everything is actually made of light. We understand that we are light, that the world is light, and that light is the essence of everything. This is why so many people's experience of touching the Self are experiences of light - visions, inner luminosity, or profound and crystalline clarity.”
― sally kempton, Meditation for the Love of It: Enjoying Your Own Deepest Experience

“here’s where it gets confusing. In spiritual life, the same word is used to describe both the archetype of the divine Guide and a human teacher—who may or may not be enlightened. In India, your music teacher, your Sanskrit teacher, or even your biology teacher might be addressed as guruji, because all teachers are considered worthy of respect. In the same way, in spiritual life, you may first meet the guru-principle through a teacher or mentor who happens to be a fairly ordinary human being with some spiritual knowledge. In Sanskrit, one name for this kind of teacher is acharya, meaning “the one who instructs.” The therapist who introduces you to deep breathing, the yoga teacher who takes you into your first meditative shavasana, and the author of your favorite meditation book are all important for your practice at different stages. (And any of them, in traditional India, might be addressed as “guruji” or “respected teacher.”) Different acharyas can provide particular kinds of instruction. If you’re a serious student, you’ll learn to recognize who can help you at each stage, when to stay with a teacher despite doubts or resistances, and when it might be time to move on.”
― Sally Kempton, Meditation for the Love of It: Enjoying Your Own Deepest Experience

“Exercise: Basic Mantra Practice with So’ham Sit in a comfortable, upright posture and close your eyes. Focus on the flow of the breath. Gently and with relaxed attention, begin to think the mantra So’ham. Coordinate the syllables with the breathing— so on the exhalation, ham on the inhalation. Or simply think the mantra to yourself in a gentle, relaxed rhythm. Listen to the syllables as you repeat them. Allow your attention to focus more and more fully on the mantra’s syllables. Feel that each syllable is softly dropping into your awareness. Gently tune in to the energetic sensation that the mantra creates inside. When thoughts arise, as soon as you notice yourself thinking, bring your attention back to the mantra. If your attention wanders, bring it gently back to the mantra. Little by little, let the mantra become the predominant thought in your mind.”
― Sally Kempton, Meditation for the Love of It: Enjoying Your Own Deepest Experience

“Suppose a soft glow appears behind your eyes. Very gently you bring your attention to the light. You don’t try to hold it or cling to it to make it stay. You just softly move your attention close to it. (Often, the best way to do this is not to observe it frontally, but as if you were watching it from the side.) Perhaps you gently breathe into it and let the breath merge your awareness into it. Or you explore it. How does it look? What is its texture? What do you see or hear? You might also try shifting your perspective. Instead of feeling that you are outside this vision, observing it, imagine that you are inside it. With a sound, imagine that you are hearing it all around you. Letting yourself be with an experience allows you to move much deeper into your inner field. Perhaps there is a sensation of expanding awareness, but the expansion stops at a certain point. You can let yourself linger on the edge of that expanded awareness, sensing the subtle texture of the consciousness that is expanding, or you can enter the field of consciousness that stretches within you, unfurling itself to the inner senses. The way to enter it is to become it. It’s not your physical self that becomes the expanded awareness, of course. It’s your mind-sense, your subtle self. You become it by identifying yourself with it. First, you identify yourself as awareness, as attention. (For some people, this may mean quickly going through a process in which you disengage from identifying with your body, perhaps thinking, “I am not my skin, my bones, my blood, or my organs. I am not my senses, my breath, my mind, or my thoughts. I am not my emotions or my sensations. I am Awareness. I am energy.”) Then you move as awareness into this subtle field within yourself, as if you were a snowball picking up more snow as you roll.”
― Sally Kempton, Meditation for the Love of It: Enjoying Your Own Deepest Experience

“iccha”
― Sally Kempton, Meditation for the Love of It: Enjoying Your Own Deepest Experience

“The most important principle to understand about meditation is this: we meditate to know ourselves.”
― Sally Kempton, Meditation for the Love of It: Enjoying Your Own Deepest Experience

“The mountain is the mountain, And the path unchanged since the old days. Verily what has changed is my own heart. —KUMAGAI[8]”
― Sally Kempton, Meditation for the Love of It: Enjoying Your Own Deepest Experience