21-Day Meditation Experience

Day 22 - Achieving Wholeness “This a wonderful day. I've never seen this one before.” ― Maya Angelou  Today we enjoy a special guided meditation to show us that wholeness isn’t a concept to understand or an idea to believe in. Wholeness is the experiential reality that your life is inextricably connected to everyone and everything else in the universe. There are no sharp boundaries in your consciousness that separate you from universal consciousness. You are that wholeness. Thank you for inviting us to travel this road with you, and may you be a light to the world. Daily Journal 1. Was there any particular experience of gratitude or grace during this course that had a profound transformative effect on you, a kind of “ah-ha” moment? 2. Write the ways in which you feel your life has become more whole since beginning this Meditation Experience. 3. Describe your vision for a life lived in complete grace. 4. Use this space to reflect further on your experience today.

Day 21 - Seeing with the Eyes of the Soul “Living in constant love and gratitude is the essence of spirituality.” – Akemi G In today’s meditation, we learn to see others and the world with the vision of grace and love. We call this "seeing with the eyes of the soul," because when your deepest self recognizes its essence in another person, it experiences love. When your true self sees itself in an object, it experiences beauty. When we see with the eyes of the soul, we find our pure self everywhere. Daily Journal 1. Make a list of people who have a natural habit of seeing situations in a positive light and bringing out the best in the people around them. Describe their qualities – perhaps it comes from their kindness or lightheartedness – and how you might be able to adopt them for yourself. 2. Close your eyes and bring to mind three people you will see throughout your day today. Visualize them as pure light and feel this connection from your soul to their soul. Journal about your experience and set the intention to remember this feeling when you see them today. 3. Take a moment right now to see yourself with the eyes of the soul. See your own inner light as pure and untouched by any difficulty or concern. Write about how this makes you feel. 4. Use this space to reflect further on your experience today.

Day 20 - The Highest Love Is Grace “Love is such a deep gratitude. When you are truly in love with life, every breath you take is gratitude.” ― Bryant McGill Today’s meditation shows us how to harness the power of gratitude to guide our spiritual transformation. We are used to relying on our ego mind to make major life choices, but the vision and guidance of our separate self is always constrained by our past and our limited understanding that sees the world in terms of differences. The guiding grace of our higher self is not restricted by the past or our limited knowledge. Grace sees the differences in the world as integrated parts of one wholeness.  We feel this grace personally as a kind of divine love. This loving state of grace connects us, fulfills us, delights us, transforms us, and awakens us to that elevated state of divine consciousness.  Daily Journal 1. Write about a time when you felt transformed by someone’s love. Perhaps you were a child and didn’t even realize it at the time. Think about how that unconditional love and acceptance allowed you to grow in ways you wouldn’t have otherwise. 2. Now, compose a short letter of gratitude to the person who gave you unconditional love, and thank them for showing you the power of grace. 3. List three people you feel are messengers of grace in your life. Describe how you will let them know this. 4. Use this space to reflect further on your experience today. 

Day 19 - The Path to Total Transformation “It is only through thanksgiving that I can become myself." ― Kallistos Ware In today’s meditation, we provide the necessary tools of transformation on the path to grace. As we navigate the ups and downs of daily life, with the mix of positive and negative situations at work and home, we need two tools to help us turn our practice of gratitude into a real state of grace: knowledge and experience. Knowledge provides the understanding and vision of how grace manifests, and direct experience gives us the personal validation that makes it real in our lives.  Using the tools knowledge and experience with our practice of gratitude ensures that our path to grace is real and practical. These tools allow us to transmute all of our life experiences, positive or negative, into a genuine life of grace. Daily Journal 1. Write about three times in your life where you felt guided in the right direction, even though you didn’t understand why. Reflect on the wise and loving intelligence behind that guidance. 2. Now describe three times in your life where you suffered a great loss or setback, only to see that this unwelcome experience matured you and made you a wiser and more compassionate person than you were before. 3. Journal about a difficulty you are currently experiencing, and list the possible gifts or positive outcomes that can emerge from it in the future. 4. Use this space to reflect further on your experience today.

Day 18 - The Rewards of the Higher Self “You will never accept gratitude as a solution to your problems, until you have reached acceptance.” ― Shannon L. Alder In today’s meditation, we explore the benefits of living from your higher self. Living from your higher self means your sense of identity is rooted in your inner awareness rather than your separate self, or ego, which is oriented toward objects of perception. The higher self is who we are. It is our self-awareness and so it is always with us. The reward of the higher self is a life liberated from the demands, fears, and limitations of the separate self or ego mind. Practicing gratitude and appreciation helps to keep awareness aligned to the higher self because we remain focused on the unifying and uplifting qualities of consciousness, instead of allowing attention to get trapped in differences. Daily Journal 1. Write about how practicing gratitude has lessened or removed feelings of isolation, stress, under-appreciation, or dissatisfaction in your life. 2. Describe how you feel ego might still be blocking your full expression of gratitude. It could be through feelings of entitlement, envy, selfishness, self-pity, or resentment. 3. Pick one of these ego obstacles to gratitude from Question 2, and list at least two active steps for overcoming it. 4. Use this space to reflect further on your experience today.

Day 17 - Making Grace a Way of Life “All that we have and don't have is a grace.” ― Mac MacKenzie In today’s meditation, we go beyond the mere behavior and attitude of gratitude, and let gratitude and grace become our way of being and living in the world. In the past, feelings of grace may have been rare and fleeting moments. To make grace permanent, we need to establish gratitude as a habit, so it becomes your default mode of relating to others. When gratitude is the natural way you approach life, it is no longer an activity you try to remember to do. Gratitude is simply how you express who you are and how you feel. The practice of gratitude naturally and invisibly becomes a life lived in the state of grace. Daily Journal 1. Looking back over the past few weeks since the beginning of our Meditation Experience, consider how the practice of gratitude has improved the quality of your life. Write about any ways in which it might have brought more trust, love, surrender, kindness, or faith into your daily experience. 2. Write about the most productive acts of gratitude that have increased grace in your life. 3. Now, note one area in which you feel you could improve your practice of gratitude. 4. Use this space to reflect further on your experience today.

Day 16 - The Hidden Secret of Being “Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.” ― Thích Nhất Hạnh In today’s meditation, we explore how the practice of gratitude reveals the hidden qualities of our awareness: wonder, joy, and beauty. As grace connects us to the hidden truths of Nature, we are really discovering the essence of our expansive liberated self. Gratitude awakens these dormant gifts of our unlimited self and makes them powerful forces of positive change in our lives. As our self expands through gratitude, our concerns, anxieties, and insecurities become small and insignificant, while our experience of joy, freedom, beauty, and compassion continues to grow. Daily Journal 1. Write about something in your environment right now that you are grateful for, but have never fully recognized before. It could be something as simple as the satisfying click of the keys on your keyboard or the effortless way your chair swivels. 2. Remember a time when you were alone in nature, in which you felt unbounded and free. Elaborate on what that experience felt like. 3. Set aside two minutes right now to simply be – no words, no interactions, no activity. Feel your inner self expand, and afterwards write about what this experience was like. 4. Use this space to reflect further on your experience today.

Day 15 - Seeing the Big Picture, Becoming the Big Picture “True wisdom is being able to say 'it is what it is' with a smile of celebratory wonder on your face.” ― Eric Micha'el Leventhal Living in grace is for everyone, not just for those who feel called to a secluded life of prayer and devotion. Grace is everywhere all the time. To fully live in the state of grace only requires that we allow our true self to shine forth.   In today’s meditation, we learn that we attain this state by simply being it, which means we naturally and effortless live an open life of gratitude. That is how we become a complete person. We embody a life in grace by acting from a spirit of generosity and wholeness.  Daily Journal 1. Write the names of anyone you have been more generous and kind toward in the last two weeks, since the beginning of this Meditation Experience. Describe how these situations came to pass. 2. Make a list of three circumstances in your life that you would like to be able to accept or surrender to. Most likely, these will be situations you feel the need to control or be in charge of. Write about how learning to find gratitude in the situation can help you let go or surrender. 3. Now call to mind three experiences in which you were generous or able to surrender, and describe how that felt. 4. Use this space to reflect further on your experience today.

Day 14 - Gratitude Brings Compassion “We are all of one light on this one Earth, and loving humanity makes all the difference.” ― Michelle Cruz-Rosado Today’s meditation shows us how expressing gratitude easily leads to compassion. We all know that to be spiritual we are supposed to be compassionate, but with all the negativity and injustice we see around us, it’s easy for our egos to feel justified being judgmental and critical. However, when you find reasons to feel grateful to someone, you are bridging the gulf of separation between the two of you. You can’t be thankful and resentful at the same time. That connection you feel when you are thankful is your shared humanity – it is the ground of compassion. A compassionate heart is accepting and forgiving not only to others, but to yourself as well.  Daily Journal 1. Write the names of anyone with whom you don’t always see eye to eye with, but would sincerely wish to be kind to. 2. For each person, describe at least one admirable quality you appreciate in them. Let that feeling of appreciation suggest a gesture of kindness you can make to them. 3. For each of these people, write something you share in common and how that can be a bridge of compassion. For example, perhaps you both have an elderly mother you worry about, or share a passion for a particular cause. 4. Use this space to reflect further on your experience today.

Day 13 - Succeeding through Gratitude “Having contentment and gratitude in the present moment is the surest way to achieve success.” ― Bryant McGill When grace guides our thoughts and actions, our success will be fulfilling and meaningful. Today’s meditation shows us how the practice of gratitude can guide our success in an intelligent and compassionate direction. This type of success is different from the ego-driven success which seeks to hold, control, and keep the object of desire as a way to feel better about itself.  However, if your success is driven from gratitude and grace in your heart, then you are connected to your true self and your success always feels complete and fulfilling. Daily Journal 1. State your idea of personal success in terms of inner qualities. For example, characteristics such as self-confidence, truthfulness, integrity, respect, loyalty, inner peace, insight, or creativity. 2. Write about three moments in your life when these qualities were called upon and you showed them. 3. Journal about three situations in the past where you could have better represented these positive qualities. Now, describe what you could have done differently to turn the situation around. This is key for positive change in the future. 4. Use this space to reflect further on your experience today.