proof of anti ageing properties of meditation

This is the same 96 year old saying a bit more about the different way she now feels about stillness

meditation and children

Its no good doing anything but go with the flow when the day is in full swing and the grandchildren want YOU to make plasticine dragons; no good then trying to retreat into meditation, you have to get right in there and bother about the other things you think you should be doing.  It is possible that meditation in the morning and evening make it less likely that you will tear your hair out or start running away.  Actually I like plasticine dragons, don't you?

meditation and anti ageing

I pick up my old friend, a 96 year old lady and listen as she tells me about her experience of stillness.

It has come as a surprise to her after years of striving and of struggling against the difficulties, accidents and incidents which have come her way.  She talks about putting down the strife and finding that just being is perfectly alright; even more than that, it is just perfect.

meditation with the Brahma Kumaris

Not many other early risers driving round London but there were red traffic lights all the way to Global House, the hub of benevolent activity which is the World Spiritual University of the Brahma Kumaris.  The Dalai Lama would have laughed as I negotiated my way over bumps at some speed which curiously are called traffic calming  only to be stopped over and over again! That was the first lesson.   I parked opposite the centre and ran in, up the stairs, shoes off to join in their morning meditation.  Time then, about 4.25 am, a bit later than I had hoped but it was those traffic lights.  It is an amazing thing to join and to realise that all over London, all over the world, as dawn breaks, there are people meditating. It is tangibly benevolent, tangibly steady, tangibly kindly, tangibly still and you can feel it.  Somewhere near you, there will be someone meditating, a lot of them will be wearing white and are worth getting to know.

challenge, make a BK frown

Spending the afternoon with the BK's meant that my smile got wider and wider.  You have met them previously in this blog; they are the early rising smiling variety of meditator and I love them.  Here is a challenge, if you meet one, you should see if you can maintain a serious unsmiling face for more than 5 minutes and, even more of a challenge see if you make a BK frown.
My challenge tomorrow morning is to get to Global House for the 4.00 am meditation.  In order to do this, I may go to bed soon!

Meditation and forgiveness

Sometimes you get cross! it is just part of the process but you have to get over it quickly, really quickly before it steals into your heart and leaves a mark.  You know it has left its mark if, when you think about the person or the event afterwards, you still feel it and maybe don't want to see that person or go to that place.
Meditation helps if you let it, but it isn't any good thinking that just because you meditate, you can hold on to negative emotion, that just means that you are hanging on to your own identity.  And being identified is just what you are trying to get over, you are trying through your meditation to become a passer-by.  You also really want to be friends with everyone, and you need to start by being friends with your enemies.

Grandparents and Meditation

It isn't an East/West thing, or a North/South divide, it's deciding where your real home is.  If you think that this beautiful but changing, extraordinary and miraculous world, but a world which is subject to good and evil, is governed by birth and death, that's what you get.  You get the wonder and the joy but you get the evil and death as well.  If, and it is a big if, you get a glimpse of something bigger, stronger, stiller behind it all, you are promised that the double nature of all the world of appearance won't grip so hard.  Reaching an age where most of the celebrations for friends are big birthdays, funerals and comparing notes on grandchildren, it seems really important to connect with this other world as often as possible.