Hi Beauties and welcome to our practical enlightenment meditation, where our theme today is Loving Awareness. And our meditation today is inspired by Ram Dass, who, if you don’t know who he is, he was a wonderful spiritual teacher through the sixties and seventies up until quite recently when he left his body. He was a professor at Harvard and went to India for a while, bringing back these ideas from the east that were very applicable and needed in modern times.
I love how he talks about this concept of loving awareness and connecting to that. And it’s easy in today’s world to get very wrapped up in the labels and the ways that we identify ourselves in the world, things as simple as being a man or a woman, a mother, a sister, or by how much we weigh or what our job title is.
But underneath all of that and beyond the surface is the true self. It is the formless part of you. It’s when you start to connect to the part that doesn’t have forms, going beyond the physicality of your body, the way that your face looks. The physical things that we do in the world. If we really keep distilling it down, there is an essence inside of you. And that is loving awareness.
We can start to identify with that beyond the externals. And this meditation is a really great one to get into that shifting over into your identity. It’s a great one to do in the mornings and the evenings, especially if you’ve had a day, that’s felt like you’ve gotten beat down a little bit. There’s a lot going on in the external world around you and this meditation will help you reconnect back to that beautiful essence. That is the true you. That is the true self.
Let’s get started.
Guided Meditation
Go ahead and please take a comfortable seat. I’m sitting here on the floor. I really like to meditate cross-legged hips on a cushion, a little bit more elevated, or you can sit in a chair with your feet, nice and flat on the ground.
Take a moment to lift your spine. Shoulders back. Let me just take a nice few deep breaths in and out through your nose and just allow yourself to arrive.
Let your eyes, your jaw, your belly, everything start to soften and your body.
Now I’d like you to bring both hands to your heart center of your chest, one hand over the other. As you inhale, you’re going to open your hands out and slightly to the side, like a blossoming beautiful rose.
As you exhale, bring your hands back in and you can change which hands on top of the other. It doesn’t matter so much if you forget, just keep switching back and forth, as you remember, and inhaling again and blossoming out and then exhaling back in.
And as you do this physical motion, I’d like you to imagine that you’re breathing in and out of your heart. Inhaling and letting your hands flower out an open pattern. The breath is coming through the heart and then exhaling bringing the hands back towards heart chakra.
Imagine that the breath is coming out through the heart, exhaling out through the heart again, inhale and lifting out to the sides.
And then exhaling bringing the hands back in towards the heart.
Another few cycles, just like that, keeping all that beautiful awareness now fully in the heart.
Inhaling and exhaling, pulling the hands back in and last cycle, just like that, inhaling and exhaling.
Let your hands come down to your lap or to your knees with your palms facing up, please. And then just continue that nice deep breath focusing on your heart.
Imagine this beautiful pulsation, the beautiful inhale and the beautiful exhale is all being filtered through your heart.
As you’re doing that, and you’re putting all your attention and your awareness on your heart, really expanding the energy there where we put attention tends to expand the energy.
So right now we’re putting our full focus, that beautiful energy of your heart, another few rounds.
Setting the Intention for Today
And I’m going to introduce our intentions today. You can whisper it to yourself. If that feels good after you hear me say it, or you can just simply listen. Keep focusing on your breath no matter what, which way you choose.
I Am loving awareness.
I Am loving awareness.
I Am loving awareness.
I Am loving awareness.
I am loving awareness.
I Am loving awareness.
Let’s keep breathing. Let that start to settle down deep into your being, realizing the truth that who you really are is this formless beautiful energy you are beyond the surface.
You are beyond all the labels, all the numbers, all the ways that we usually identify with in the external world. The truth is this formless part of you. This unique energy within you truly is loving awareness.
Take another few deep breaths. As you’re ready, please lift your hands up in front of your heart. Palms pressed together. Take a moment for gratitude.
I’m so grateful for our journey together that continues to unfold so grateful for our sacred connection. Sending you so much love,
Om shanti om. Peace and love. Namaste.
