What becoming a metaphysician means

MAN AS CREATOR, what becoming a metaphysician means

3 Movements of Consciousness revealing GOD in MAN

There are three movements of consciousness that universally elevate consciousness to reveal God thus initiating, quickening, and bringing about spiritual renaissance.

The first is stilling the mind.

Your mind can be populated with so many thoughts. If your attention is scattered, you leave yourself at the whim and mercy of any number of disturbing thoughts, attachments, and unruly ideas. A state of mental relaxation becomes the object of your desire. Mental relaxation is characterized by being able to give your undivided attention at will to one thing at a time or to one subject at a time. This is the beginning of understanding what stilling the mind is.

If you practice meditation you know that stilling the mind is prerequisite to enjoying communion with your Creator.

There is a wonderful parable from Zen Buddhist teachings that describes eloquently stilling the mind.

It is said that a most intelligent man once came to the Zen Master Nannin seeking answers to the mystery of life. Being a professor of philosophy, the man’s queries about God and meditation were endless. The master listened in silence.

When the man had temporarily exhausted his requests, the master said, “You look tired. Having climbed this high mountain and traveled to this far away place. Come and rest, while I prepare you tea.”

Although his mind boiled with questions, the professor waited while the tea brewed. As its rich aroma filled the room the Master said, “Be patient. Don’t be in such a hurry. Who knows? Even by drinking tea, your questions may be answered.”

At this the professor began to doubt the wisdom of the teacher. He began wondering if his entire journey had been a waste of time. This man seems mad, he thought. What do my questions about God and the divine have to do with tea? Yet the professor was indeed tired, as the master had perceived, and if he was soon to descend this mount he needed refreshment.

The Master brought the kettle, poured the tea in the cup and the tea started overflowing into the saucer. The professor was startled by the clumsiness and amazed when the master continued to allow the tea to flow until the saucer also was filled. Just one more drop and the tea would start flowing onto the table and the floor.

The professor exclaimed, “Stop! What are you doing! Can’t you see the cup is full and the saucer is full?”
Nannin replied, “That is the exact condition you find yourself in.
“Your mind is so full of questions that even if I answer,you don’t have any space to receive the wisdom. Since you entered this palace, your questions have overflowed. This small abode is filled with your questions.
“Return from whence you came, empty your cup and then come. If you are to fulfill your desire to know the great mysteries of life, you must first create a space for them to enter.”

Stilling your mind is essential for communion. It is very difficult to have communion, to have a conversation, whether it is with God or a friend, when there is no time of stilling your mind. For communion, there must be a time of receiving what the other has to give. Stilling the mind is essential to those seeking the revelation of God.

The next step is daily communion with God.

And this is the actual endeavor, once the mind is stilled, to accomplish that we call meditation.

Man has hypnotized himself to believe he is a human being. You are not a human being. You are a soul and your essence is spirit. You begin to know and live this truth as you reveal God in your consciousness and your life.

Meditation is the time and space you make daily for God in your life.

There are many purposes for meditation. Once of them is greater awareness of who you are and your purpose for existence. To be able to experience complete joy and peace is a reason to meditate. To have a greater sense of caring about yourself and other people is also a reason to meditate. To revitalize your mind, your body, and your spirit is a benefit of meditation.

Through meditation you receive answers to your prayers.

Your prayers are an integral part of your well-being. Through every religion in the world there is a form of prayer that is taught. There is also a form of meditation that is to become a part of worship and devotional practices. They are often presented as two separate disciplines. Uniting the two initiates Spiritual Renaissance.

Prayer is aggressive. Prayer is the capacity to state what you desire. Meditation is the skilled, stilling of the mind to receive an answer. A feedback to whatever your prayer is. The qualities of your prayers are very important. You must learn the art of asking the right questions if you expect to receive the right answers. The right questions, you ask are part of the prayer you create.

There is another story I’d like to share with your about prayer that I found personally, as a teacher, insightful, and perhaps you will derive inspiration as well.

It is said that one of the great spiritual Masters, Moses, once came upon a man who was praying. The man’s prayer sounded so strange that Moses stopped.

As he listened, he realized the man’s prayer was insulting to God.
“Let me come close to you,” the man prayed, “and I promise to clean your body when it is dirty. If lice are there, I will take them away. And I am a good shoemaker. I will make you perfect shoes.
“Nobody looks after your needs Lord. I will make sure your needs are met. If you fall ill, I will serve you and bring to you what will cleanse you of sickness. I know how to cook and I will prepare lavish feasts of nourishment for you.”
Enraged, Moses interrupted the man shouting, “Stop! Stop! You heresy. What are you saying? That God has lice on his body? That God’s clothes are dirty and that you will clean them? That God can be ill and have need for food that you will cook for him? Who taught you this prayer?”
Stunned, the man tearfully replied, “No one taught me this prayer. I have not learned it from anywhere. I am very poor and I am very uneducated and I don’t know how to pray. I have made it up from the thing I know.
“Life troubles me very much, so it must trouble God. Sometimes the food I find is not very good and my stomach aches. God must also suffer in this way sometimes. This is just my own experience that has become my prayer, but if you know the right prayer please teach me.”
Filled with compassion, Moses taught the man the right prayer. The man bowed down to Moses, thanking him as tears of deep gratitude flowed form his eyes. The man departed and Moses was very pleased at this opportunity to help another to see his error and learn the correct way to pray.
While Moses slept, God appeared to him in a dream. His voice filled with anger, God said, “I sent you there to bring people closer to me but now you have thrown away one of my greatest lovers. This right prayer you have taught him will keep him from me. He will now only repeat the words you have told him.
“Those words will be a barrier between his spirit and mine. It is not a prayer at all.
“Prayer has nothing to do with law. Prayer is the love. Love is a law onto itself. It needs no other law.
“Know that my servant, with love comes grace. With love comes truth. Truth is the liberation of the spirit.”

Your prayers are important in meditation.

Prayers can be topical. You can pray about hope or courage or love or wisdom or forgiveness.

Prayers can be a query. “How can I be more compassionate with my loved one?” “How can I control my emotions?” “How can I accept change more readily?”

They can reflect a desire for communion with your God, “Dear God, I want to know you. I want to exist with you. I want to be like you.”

They can be thanksgiving prayers, acknowledging what you have received. These prayer transform your consciousness, because it elevates your prayer from the taking prayer of the unworthy to one that truly appreciates being a child of the Creator.

Your prayers are valid. What matters is that your prayer comes from your heart. And your mind. When your prayer comes from your heart and mind, you draw closer to your God. You experience the communion for which you even take the time to meditate.

Once we still the mind and once we experience daily communion with god, we are prepared for the next step of the revelation of God in man.

This is living meditatively.

In practice this is for most the greatest challenge. You will attain times of stilling your mind. You can discipline yourself so that every day, without fail, you spend a specific length of physical time in meditation. To truly live meditatively is a scientific art because it brings the benefit of a stilled consciousness of one who has communed with God into every waking moment.

Living meditatively is the blossoming of spirituality in your existence. It is constant awareness of yourself as spirit, each day. It renews and revitalizes.

There is a parable about a disciple who had been practicing spiritual discipline for some time.

Having reached a pinnacle in his efforts, and feeling unable to move further on the path, he sought the guidance and instruction of a Master Teacher. He arrived at the Master’s abode amid a furious storm. Before he entered the house, the disciple left his shoes and umbrella outside so they would not soil the domain.
Following introductions, the Master asked the disciple, “One which side of your shoes did you leave your umbrella?”
The disciple thought, this is a curious question. He expected one who had achieved mastery to speak of divine matters. To the disciple’s mind the Master should be talking about God, about the Kundalini rising, about Buddha, about chakras opening. And life happening in your head. But this so-called Master was concerned with the most mundane of events.
The Disciple was at a loss and somewhat perturbed. What did shoes and umbrellas have to do with spirituality? How could they compare with the pain he experienced in his present spiritual stagnation?
Asking the questions again, the Master directed the disciple’s attention to his query.
The disciple reflected. Finally he could not remember and could not answer. Who would bother to remember on which side he had placed an umbrella, he thought in disgust.
Failing to answer, the Master refused to instruct the disciple saying, “Then go and meditate for seven more years.”
“Seven years!” the disciple exclaimed. His mind divided by anger born of rejection, and pity born from pain, his mind immediately filled with thoughts of punishment for such a small mistake. Thinking he might sway the Master to see how unreasonable He was being, the disciple said, “I must leave and meditate for seven more years just for this small fault?”
“Faults are not small or big,” replied the Master.
“You are just not yet living meditatively.
“You see, when you live meditatively you know how to still your mind. If you know how to still your mind, you know how to concentrate. You can remember where you put your shoes and where you put your umbrella. You remember that where you put your shoes and where you put your umbrella is just such an act of creation, of spirituality, as praying. Or as meditating.”

The insights of meditation that you gain need to fill your consciousness. They need to become part of your existence and your essence. So no matter where you are and no matter what you are doing, whether you are at peace or in turmoil, whether you are happy or you are angry, you still have the essence of living meditatively.

The Koran counsels us to bear God in mind at all times. I think that is what it is live meditatively.

Part of the awareness born from stilling the mind, meditating, and bringing the spiritual fruits into your everyday life is realizing the beauty of the physical world. This enlightened perspective becomes part of your existence, your consciousness. It guides the way you view events and happenings around and within you. It determines the way you read newspapers, the way you hear conversations, the way you greet a stranger.

You realize that the physical world is in truth a schoolroom, a place for learning. You realize you are here to learn and to teach, to give and to receive, as is each other person. As is each part of creation. This awareness is constant.

You also realize that although you live in a material world, you are not the physical body you inhabit. Rather you, the Real Self as the Hindu teachings counsel, are a soul incarned for spiritual refinement and progression. The more you reveal God in your consciousness, you know who you are and who you are meant to be.

Old thoughts are past. A fresher realization of yourself as spirit begins to permeate your dealings with self and others. You begin to live up to your ideals never doubting the importance of the path you have chosen. Whatever that path may be.

In living up to your ideals you embody creation itself.

In this way, the Creator is reflected in you.

The people you associate with, the places you frequent, the things that you use in your experiences, you choose with care. They are the people, the places, and the things that will assist you in your journey toward enlightenment. They are what you clothe yourself in. All others you leave behind you. They pass away.

To live meditatively, you don’t ever embrace something that is going to hinder the progression of your soul. Or the realization of your consciousness.

You begin to love in a manner that transcends physical conditions and emotional attachments. As you do so in your everyday, waking life you are preparing yourself to receive ever-greater awareness of the love of your Creator. The love of the Creator is not emotional. It is not attachment. It is not physical.

The Analects of Confucius says:

“Exert yourself to achieve your proper merit.
In giving heed to the beginning, think of the end. Then the end will be without distress.
God will lead men to tranquil security. Seek to be in harmony with all your neighbors. Live in amenity with all your neighbors. Tranquilize and serve others.”

This embodies the attitude of one who lives meditatively. They are self aware, not self absorbed. They are constantly as acutely aware of you and your needs, as they ever are of their own for they realize a uniting of consciousness that only comes through stilling the mind through meditation and through living meditatively.

When we can conceive as individuals, and as a group, the Creator so the awareness of the presence of God is omnipresent society will change. It will evolve. What it values will reflect more God-consciousness.

You will know you are experiencing revelation when God is present in the satisfaction of a want, in the dealings with other people and with ourselves, in reading a book or in conversation, in doing a daily task or in meditation, even in times of sorrow and times of gladness. When our conception of God is within us, alive, then we have expanded our consciousness to reveal God.

As the Dhammapada counsels,

“There is no meditation apart from wisdom.
“There is no wisdom apart from meditation.
“Those in whom wisdom and meditation meet are not far from Nirvana.”