Knowing yourself is, all at once, the most complicated and simplest of exercises. Simple because it requires being still … going within to find your true self instead of the person society has created … yet it is incredibly complicated as well, because virtually every second of every minute of every day there is some THING that we are reacting to. It could be as simple as a smell as you’re walking down the street, or a sideways glance from someone at the grocery store … or as profound as a confrontation, or jealous suspicion.

Each one of these instances causes a reaction within us, whether we are aware of it or not. All of these reactions start us spinning, like a rodent on an exercise wheel … we carry one reaction into another reaction into another reaction. By the end of the day, often times, we aren’t even reacting to what is actually going on!

So how do we stop spinning??

Well, daily meditation helps … It has the ability to at least give you one moment out of your day where you actually feel centered. That way, when you start reacting to outer influences, you are more aware of when these instances occur. If you truly want to know yourself I would recommend starting with daily meditation … because ultimately there is much more to the process.

To truly begin to allow your true self to unfurl it’s natural splendor, you must be able to keep your heart open at ALL times. Every time we start reacting to any number of things in my life, we close our heart.

So to constantly be open means that we never start reacting. Can you see why I suggested starting with daily meditation?? That seems like an awful lot of work!

Truly though, once you start meditating daily and it becomes a habit … keeping your heart open starts to become natural, instead of feeling like work. It becomes such a way of life that anything else almost seems like slave labor … because we do become enslaved to our reactions. They RULE US … until we teach ourselves otherwise.

When we are living with an open heart at all times? That is how we become connected to God at all times … and there is no greater joy in life … in fact, that IS the meaning of life.

* If you would like help in learning how to meditate daily … The Chopra Center is currently conducting a 21 day meditation challenge. The daily meditations are each only about 15 minutes and are very easy to follow. Here is a link … Chopra Meditation Challenge.

** Additionally … meditation is not something that is exclusive to any one religion.  I consider myself a Christian as a core, for example … that is what I was raised with, and the faith I maintain.  When I meditate, I am spending time with the God that I have known my whole life … and I would assume the same would be true for anyone … God loves you, so God is not going to reject you :-).
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Picture credit: Lisa Pena.

This post comes as a result of meditating on the quotes from my prior quote, “The astonishing light of your being“.

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Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.

We all are loved by God, and NO religion or person has a monopoly on it. Every single person on this planet is loved equally by God … SO many are cut off from God because they are told they don’t belong. God loves everyone … we ALL are beautiful creations … we don’t need to cringe when we hear the words “God”, or “religion”, or their judgments … God LOVES us all!

There is no requirement to change in order to be LOVED by God, or to LOVE God. God is LOVE, and LOVE is God … period. There is no one who God loves more than anyone else … there are only those who choose to LOVE more … to love God more, and consequently then to love each other more. In doing so, we grow closer to God … and know God.

By opening our hearts, and minds to God (free of boundaries like religion, or social trends); by LOVING God … we are exactly where we are meant to be. If we maintain that openness, never allowing any person or event to make us close our hearts, we will be guided by God to be who we are meant to be.

In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.

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