by Navjit Kandola
To hear the audio recording of this week’s meditation, click play below. If you’d like to save this meditation for later listening,click HERE.
I’ve just returned from NYC, where a superstorm turned not just the city, but the whole of the east coast upside-down.
No electricity. No phones. Lots of water and damage. Minimal transportation.
People: helpful, neighbourly, kind and open-hearted.
While the aftermath wasn’t as bad where I was staying in the West Village, it felt terrible – terrible because in places like New Jersey and Staten Island, homes and lives had been torn to pieces.
When a disaster hits, we all feel it. And since Sandy slammed into the northeast, the entire nation is stepping up to help put the pieces back together. (In fact, you can donate $10 to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief in support of victims by texting REDCROSS to 90999.)
What can we offer to those who are suffering, alone, or struggling with destruction or violence? When words cannot encompass the vastness of our feelings, we turn to silence. Through this quietude, we can gift clarity, assurance and light to those who need it the most.
For our silent meditation today, let us focus on filling our silence with wholeness, love, light, and compassion.
Take a couple of deep breaths and close your eyes. Breathe into your body – a body you can fill with love right now, with wholeness and being.
Become full. Become light. Become wise.
And as you fill with these energies, begin to radiate them out through your aura from every single cell, towards those people who need it. This energy and feeling can be communicated to them through silence as we sit here together, today.
Sit for as long as you would like to, or until you naturally open your eyes.
Thank you for meditating with me today. As you move forward through the rest of your day, in your silence, in your quietness between words, remember that you can radiate wholeness, light and your blessings into the world through silence.
by Navjit Kandola
Whilst visiting the Naropa Institute in Boulder, CO, I attended a presentation by a Buddhist monk. I remember observing the people in the audience, how they behaved so well for the monk, while only minutes before they’d been jostling each other to get the best seat (i.e. directly in front of him, to be closest to to the source of spiritual energy). At the close of the lecture, we were given the opportunity to meet the monk.
I made my way to the front, wanting to see what all the fuss was about. I wanted to know: was there something real and recognizable within him? Something that wasn’t just hype? The monk asked me for my name, lifted his face, and looked into my eyes. In an instant, I felt like I was looking into forever – and that forever was great, awesome, home, happy, beautiful, all-encompassing. AMAZING! We looked at each other for a few moments and then said goodbye. I took that treasure, that gift, and let it warm my thoughts and ponderings.
They say the eyes are the windows to the soul. They say the left eye is the inner eye, and the right eye is the eye of the world. We either let people “see” us by letting them look within us, or we put up shields and barriers to the inner self.
Today, let us open our eyes and feel the inner light radiating out through these portals and into the world, so that we might truly see.
Take a couple of deep, deep breaths and close your eyes. Breathe into your body, and feel the oxygen flooding your lungs, nourishing you.
On your next inhale, begin to rub your palms together, feeling your hands, and creating a warmth between them. Do this for a few minutes until your hands are warm, and then place them over your eyes. Rest your head into your palms, allowing your eyes to relax.
Now, take your hands away from your eyes, and imagine washing your eyes with light, releasing any tension, tears, or emotions that are being held there. Ask your eyes what color they want now to release any stress, any heartache, loss, or fear.
Maybe it’s the color of sunlight, a beautiful lavender, or the blue of the sky. Imagine that color coming in from the universe, releasing your eyes, allowing them to begin to open again – to see the world as new again.
Take as much color as you like into the iris, the pupil the eyeball, the eyelashes – feel them releasing all the stories that your eyes carry. Take a little bit more color, and when you are ready open your eyes.
Feel them opening to the light. Feel them shining with your inner light, your inner smile and more open than ever before.
by Navjit Kandola
I have a bag full of juicy excuses that get me off the hook.
I know they’re excuses, and they usually congregate around the nether regions of my being (where self-defeating behaviors typically reside).
If I’m willing to be enlightened whilst spouting off an excuse, I recognize that underneath my appeasing words there usually lies a fear of just saying “Yes!” – to life, to spontaneity, or to pushing myself past comfortable habits. My excuses cannot hide the deeper truths that nudge me – that I am engineered to create so much more, love so much more, and especially give so much more from a place of laughter and joy.
Will you join me today so we can meditate on the simplicity of YES, the joy of YES and invoke the mindfulness it takes to say YES?
Here we go.
Take a couple of deep, deep breaths into your body, and breathe in a “yes” breath. Breath into all the trillions of cells that await this sensation, this exuberance, this yes to yourself. Now, breathe out your yes breath.
With each breath, affirm the yes of you, and sense where it resides. Is it in your heart? Your eyes? Your smile? It is waiting to be accessed. Take a deep breath, and open this yes.
What does it feel like to connect to the yes of you? Is it spacious, glowing, or energetic? Merge with this energy until you are ready to take a deep breath and open your eyes.
And now, go out into the world with the strength of the yes inside of you!
Aloha.
p.s. This week I have a special post up on Friday rather than Thursday. Stay tuned!
by Navjit Kandola
Recently I read this line from Iyanla Vanzant: You are as sick as your secrets.
At the Nizhoni School, we spoke of such secrets as “unspeakables” – those things that if uttered or spoken aloud would create all that we fear. Shame, hurt, loss, rejection and so on would pour down on us like rain.
So we vow to keep secrets, we hide poor choices. We flee judgement, and in turn end up covering up whole parts of ourselves. Whether we’ve stolen (gasp!) or masturbated (what!?) or hurt someone (who hasn’t?), the feelings these experiences create can be like straitjackets. And we need to break free!
Here is a way – it’s similar to Catholic confession, which is known for its psychologically cleansing benefits.
Take a couple of deep breaths into your body, and close your eyes. Give yourself a few moments to allow your attention to turn inward, whilst allowing your breath to deepen.
Now, on your next deep breath, ask your Higher Self (your inner voice) to show you an unspeakable or secret that is particularly painful that you need to release.
Breathe, and allow whatever hidden memory or experience that feels shame-filled to come forward. It may be something very simple, or it may be something very buried and deep.
Once you can sense the unspeakable, ask your body where holds this secret/unspeakable that you need to release. Take your awareness to that place in your body, and ask it what color it wants to release that unspeakable, and the all the feelings it evokes. Imagine the color coming in from the universe, directly into the place where the unspeakable is held, and washing it out. Wash out the discomfort, shame, pain, guilt and any feelings associated with this unspeakable.
You can do this. Free yourself, and allow yourself to come into wholeness again.
Take another deep breath into your body, and feel the distance that you are creating between yourself and the unspeakable. Allow yourself to fill your body with new choices, and a sense of self that expresses who you truly are today.
When you are ready, take a few breaths and open your eyes.
by Navjit Kandola
Oh boy – vows.
The words uttered in a moment of passion or slow consideration can – and do – maintain an impact long after they are spoken.
There is not a single person who has not made a vow – a vow of love (“I’ll love you forever.”), revenge (“I’ll make you sorry.”), and a thousand others in-between.
We intend vows as sacred commitments, or agreements of honor… but sometimes, we cannot fulfill the promises we have made. For example, if you made a vow to love someone unconditionally (e.g. when you got married) and you realize you cannot love them unconditionally (i.e. you are getting divorced), doesn’t it make sense to release that vow?
By releasing outdated vows and promises, we empty out spam from our lives and consciousness and return to the integrity of our desires and intentions. Once we reposition ourselves in this way, we can attend to our lives with clarity and confidence.
Here’s a method for clearing out those spam-y vows.
Take a couple of deep, deep breaths into your body and close your eyes. Allow your breath to move smoothly through your whole being, and begin to feel the shift in your consciousness. On your next deep breath, ask your Higher Self (your inner voice) to show you a vow that you need to release now.
It could be something as simple as a promise to a friend, or a vow you made to yourself; for example: “I’ll never give up.”
Give yourself a few moments to see which vow comes into your awareness, and how it feels. Once you have a sense of it, ask your body where it holds this vow. It could be anywhere or several places. It may come as a tingling sensation, or a knowing. Just listen to your body.
Now ask this area what color it wants now to release this vow. Imagine this color pouring in from the universe, directly into that place in your body. Allow it to take as much color as it wants to release this vow.
When you feel it is washed out – take a deep breath and open your eyes.
The light of consciousness can free us – not only from vows of our own making, but also from promises and commitments that we are born into, such as cultural or religious practices. So take a moment to let the light in!
by Navjit Kandola
To sit in silence with others is a very powerful experience.
That we can share of ourselves, and take nourishment while in total stillness and quietude is a profound miracle.
So I invite you to imagine today, as we sit to meditate, that we do it together. Visualize yourself sitting amongst many people, all ready to look within and become absorbed in silence.
Our connection with others can commune unobstructed in this silence – embodying the ways we are more together than apart, more alike than different.
Sitting together in this silence, we feel its comfort, power, magnitude, and nourishment. If we sit in silence long enough, it will deliver us to the sense of belonging and wholeness we seek daily.
If you are ready now, take a couple of deep breaths and close your eyes. Allow yourself to move towards quietude. Feel your inner senses relaxing, moving towards a different direction. A direction that has no sounds or visible qualities of form. Allow your body to relax and feel the companionship of others in this meditation through time and space, as we step gently into silence together now.
Stay in this mediation of silence for as long as you would like. And then, when you are ready, slowly begin to bring your awareness back from that great depth. Breathe into your body, and anchor into the spaciousness. Allow the silence and emptiness to fill you, so that you can move forward as seamlessly and deliciously as the universe.
And when you can feel these qualities, can live these qualities, take a deep breath and open your eyes. This is a brave new world.
