Karmic Muscle Group: Compassion and Awareness
Today’s Exercise: Visualize World Peace
[Note: this exercise will take 15 minutes in a quiet tranquil place. This exercise occurs in a sequence or “stages” so stick to the order of the mental inquiries set out below.]
- Find a comfortable, quiet place to sit.
- Take 3 minutes to consider the conflict and chaos of the world. Try to visualize this chaos as it is happening and try to locate where it is happening.
- While you are sitting there, realize that hundreds are dying and being tortured. Try to imagine what it is like to killed or tortured. Think of their fear and pain.
- While you are sitting there, realize that hundreds are starving and their children are dying while people in their own nation have more than enough food.
- While you are sitting there, think about mountains of waste that are being created and the harm that is being done. Think of sweat shop workers and miners whose lives are in jeopardy.
- Inhale deeply and exhale deeply. Repeat this process several times.
- Now imagine that you knew every person on the planet personally. You knew their families and what they care about. Think about sharing a meal with them and helping them repair their homes.
- Now imagine that every thought that every human action that ever caused harm in the world was born of a thought. It was born of the thought of having to have more. It was born of the the thoughts and beliefs of the origins of the world. But most of all, it is born of the thought that human beings just like you, who feel what you feel, are some how “other”, “not me”, “enemy”.
- Spend five minutes visualizing a world where every person realizes that they share the same DNA, the same basic concerns for family, prosperity and freedom. Visualize a world where suddenly everyone wakes up and realizes that everyone just wants to be happy and healthy.
- Visualize people recognizing that the road to peace is not based on complexity, but outrageous simplicity of basic human nature. [hr]
Training Note:
Conflict, all conflict is based on mentally identifying other people as “other” or “not me”. We might use nationalities or religious affiliations as the identities of “otherness”, but in the end it is always simply made up in our minds. Human beings are simply creatures. They are no different that monkeys or sheep in that they share the same basic DNA, the same basic biological processes, but have an absolute addiction for fiction and fantasy. We are the only species that does not kill for survival, but for ideas The road to peace is paved by letting go of the complexity of our thinking and find our way back to a simple mental oneness. If we take an interest in others and come to know they we almost never hate them. We find common ground and that leads us to understand our sameness.[hr]
Karmic Benefits:
- Understanding Why Humans Behave So Badly: if you strip away the drama, human beings are really quite simple. We want to be safe, we want to be happy and we want to be free. We need each other to survive and this would seem to be a simple task, but it is intensely complex. We live in the ever-expanding consciousness of justification and have an infinite capacity to rationalize our wants and our needs. This pension for fantasy causes us to fabricate perspectives that justify murder, rape and slavery. Human beings can rationalize anything. Understanding this phenomenon frees us from our own mental concoctions that cause us to hate or become indifferent to others.
- Transcending Complexity: over time we build layer upon layer of reasons why things are they way they are. This can become so complex that we become trapped. The truth is that we are simple beings that need basic things that are in abundance so long as we are not justifying to ourselves why I should have it all and you should have nothing. If all relationships were face to face and one-on-one we would have few enemies and we would want good living for everyone because we knew them and they were our friends. That is pretty simple.
- Unconcealing Empathy: Human beings are naturally empathetic. This is an amazing phenomenon. We see ourselves in others and can feel what others feel even though we do not necessarily share the root experience that is causing the other to feel a certain way. Babies do this. When one baby cries, others will cry in shared upset. Over time, we harden ourselves thinking that we cannot take any more heartbreak. When we do that, we become the source of heart break for others. Better to remain awake and sad for others than to become indifferent and part of the problem.[hr]
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It May Be Fiction, But It Is One Heck Of A Karmic Workout.
Read The Lotus Blossom, D. M. Kenyon’s fictional account of a teenage girl who turns off her cellphone and enters the very real, but mystical world of Budo warriors. Humorous, irreverent and heart-wrenching, The Lotus Blossom is an unforgettable tale of a Midwestern teenage girl’s transformation into a budo warrior in the midst of the turmoil of the Information Age. Available in all digital formats, paperback and soon to be released in hardcover.
Available at : Amazon.com Smashwords.com Barnes & Noble [hr_shadow]
Share Your Experience:
Leave a comment when you have completed the exercise.
