Spiritual Art Blog - *Ed P

How to get in tune with Life

How to get in tune and make your world more enjoyable, insightful and spiritual

We are one Soul among billions on this planet all of whom have a plan for their day today. Most of us human Souls cannot see beyond our own small world. We cannot see how our worlds are orchestrated so we can get in tune with the song that Life is singing around us. Each of us has a part to play in the symphony that is going on around us. Life is the conductor of the magnificent music.

While we need to observe the rules of our society, the objectives of our work and desires of our heart, to have a happy and fulfilling life we need to be aware of the symphony playing around us. Will we play with the tune or will we make our own music? We can do either.

How will you play today? Will you stick to the notes you have in your mind or will you collaborate with the other musicians around you to make beautiful music? Let life lead you, treat life as an exploration of possibilities. That is, do not assume that you will have a definite outcome today. You may have plans and things you'd like to achieve but be flexible with your expectations.

There are times when we have to sing our own song, play our unique tune so that we can be heard and hit the high notes we were born to sing. These are the times we become the soloist in our orchestra, our band of musicians or the group of people we share our lives with.

 

Playing in tune with Life

How do we play in tune with the conductor of Life? We play with love. Love is the music we are here to learn. Love is the music of life. If we can do all that we do with love we will be playing in tune with Life. Love is the source of life, the sustainer and reason for our lives. By doing everything with love we get closer to the originator or conductor of life. With love our song, our work and our challenges will work in tune with the divine music. 

 

HU song

A simple but scared way of getting in tune with Life and Its music is to sing the beautiful love song HU. This helps us connect with our sweet, loving, spiritual self, Soul. In a quiet comfortable place take a few deep breaths to relax and then on your outgoing breath in a long drawn out note sing HU, pronounced like the word “hue”. Do this for up to twenty minutes, every day. Make it a daily practice, treat it as your way of tuning into life every day.

Wishing you love as you make sweet music when you tune in to Life.

*Ed Parkinson

You'll find more articles to help you get in tune with life on the Spiritual Writings page by clicking here

You'll find more info about the HU Song on Eckankar's HU Song page by clicking here.

 

Quotes to Tune in to

"We're using our creativity to learn how to work with Divine Spirit, how to come into harmony with life around us."

Harold Klemp

“Our biological rhythms are the symphony of the cosmos, music embedded deep within us to which we dance, even when we can't name the tune.”

Deepak Chopra

 

"I taught myself to tune in to another person's wavelength, figure out what they were looking for, and try to project that thing back at them."

Wolfman Jack

"Television has created a nation of news junkies who tune in every night to get their fix on the world."

Robert MacNeil

 

“Abundance is not something we acquire. It is something we tune into.”

Wayne Dyer

 

“It's not an accident that musicians become musicians and engineers become engineers: it's what they're born to do. If you can tune into your purpose and really align with it, setting goals so that your vision is an expression of that purpose, then life flows much more easily.”

Jack Canfield

 

“I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in.”

George Washington Carver

 

“Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, something is out of tune.”

Carl Jung

 

“I stay in tune with my family and God.”

Regina King

 

“You must be in tune with the times and prepared to break with tradition.”

James Agee

 

“I don't think about time. You're here when you're here. I think about today, staying in tune.”

John Lee Hooker

 

“Ambivalence is a wonderful tune to dance to. It has a rhythm all its own.”

Erica Jong

 

“To me it's no accident that all the symphony orchestras around the world tune up to the note A. And A is 440 cycles, except in Germany where it's 444. But the universe is 450 cycles. So what I'm trying to say is, I think it's God's voice, melody especially. Counterpoint, retrograde inversion, harmony... that's the science and the craft.”

Quincy Jones

 

“Alas! all music jars when the soul's out of tune.”

Miguel de Cervantes

 

“How cruelly sweet are the echoes that start, when memory plays an old tune on the heart!”

Eliza Cook

 

“We're still dancing to tunes created by men who thought that a thunderstorm was a sign of God's anger.”

Raymond Khoury,

“Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without words, and never stops at all.”

Emily Dickinson

 

“Human beings, vegetables, or comic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible player”

Albert Einstein

 

“To dance is to be in tune with the steps of life.”

Sasha Azevedo

 

“Dance to the tune that is played”

Spanish Proverb quotes

You'll find other quotes that will help you tune into life on the Spiritual Inspirations page by clicking here.

 

To boldly go where I have never gone before

A Star Trek fan and spiritual adventurer told me that he liked to apply the TV programme's slogan to his spiritual life. He changed it from “To boldly go where no man has gone before” to the more personal and challenging sentence “To boldly go where I have never gone before”. It adds adventure, courage and excitement to facing the unknown.

This attitude creates an opportunity to explore new ways of doing things, to make changes and question the purpose of what we do. Every day becomes an adventure. We set off in our ship to explore what life will bring us today.

Where will it bring you?

Is that where you want to go?

Where do you want to go or be?

How will you get there?

Discover new things, new ways of doing what you do,

 

Boldly go

If you died yesterday and then started over again today, what would you do? What changes would you make? What would you work at or spend your time doing? What goals would you set yourself for your new life? Where would you boldly go where you have never gone before?

Why ask all these questions, why make these changes?

They will refresh your approach to your life. The answers will add a bit of excitement and motivation to yourself. You'll discover new things, new ways of doing things and new people. It will revive your connection with life. It will be like starting a whole new life except you have the benefit of having a conscious memory of your experiences and learning from your previous life.

Wishing you love and learning as you boldly go where you have never gone before.

*Ed Parkinson

You'll find other inspirational articles to help you boldly go through life on the Spiritual Writings page by clicking here

 

Boldly Inspiring Quotes

"Learning means making errors. Those who are learning spiritually make errors just the way anyone does when he is growing."

Harold Klemp

“These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five year mission... to boldly go where no man has gone before.”

Gene Roddenberry

 

“A true friend freely, advises justly, assists readily, adventures boldly, takes all patiently, defends courageously, and continues a friend unchangeably.”

William Penn

 

“God has already done everything He's going to do. The ball is now in your court. If you want success, if you want wisdom, if you want to be prosperous and healthy, you're going to have to do more than meditate and believe; you must boldly declare words of faith and victory over yourself and your family.”

Joel Osteen

 

“Life is too short to be little. Man is never so manly as when he feels deeply, acts boldly, and expresses himself with frankness and with fervor.”

Benjamin Disraeli

 

“My parents taught me honesty, truth, compassion, kindness and how to care for people. Also, they encouraged me to take risks, to boldly go. They taught me that the greatest danger in life is not taking the adventure.”

Brian Blessed

 

“Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age.”

James Joyce

 

“Where force is necessary, there it must be applied boldly, decisively and completely. But one must know the limitations of force; one must know when to blend force with a maneuver, a blow with an agreement.”

Leon Trotsky

 

“Live daringly, boldly, fearlessly. Taste the relish to be found in competition - in having put forth the best within you.”

Henry J. Kaiser

 

“Anytime we step out boldly to make changes, we take a chance that we might fail. But the only way to get better is to try.”

Joyce Meyer

 

“You only get one chance at life and you have to grab it boldly.”

Bear Grylls

 

“Plunge boldly into the thick of life, and seize it where you will, it is always interesting."

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

 

“Most of our obstacles would melt away if, instead of cowering before them, we should make up our minds to walk boldly through them.”

Orison Swett Marden

 

“Do not yield to misfortunes, but advance more boldly to meet them, as your fortune permits you.”

Virgil

 

“ 'Boldly going where hundreds have gone before' does not make headlines.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson

 

“Never was it given to mortal man - To lie so boldly as we women can.”

Alexander Pope

 

“We make way for the man who boldly pushes past us.”

Christian Nestell Bovee

 

“You must play boldly to win.”

Arnold Palmer

You'll find other inspirational quotes to help you boldly go through life on the Spiritual Inspirations page by clicking here.

 

How can we make a connection with the Divine in the world around us?

Can we make a connection with the Creator? Is this world made by humans, by a higher intelligence, by the Source of All Life, the Divine or God? If you accept that the world is made by something other than us humans, then for the sake of this article lets call it the Divine. You may call it God, Allah, the Higher Power or something else but for now we'll call it the Divine. 

Can we get in touch with this magnificent creator? If we have a question such as:

What's the purpose of life or even of my life?

Why does bad stuff come into my life?

Why is there such a nasty or nice person in my life?

What happens when I die?

Is what we see real or is it something our mind has put together from what it makes of the world?

And the list of questions goes on and on. 

 

Can we get in touch or connect with the Divine to pose these questions?

For a lot of us we generally make contact with the Divine when we have a problem that needs to be fixed. "Please can you help me get better, get these bills paid, get rid of a problem, etc." Our success rate is a bit hit and miss. It is certainly not reliable. Just because we ask for a solution does not make it appear. Making an appeal to the Divine is usually what we resort to when we have no other options left. Do we need to get to a point of desperation before we try to communicate with the Divine? 

If we had a regular practice where we attempted to make some kind of connection with the Divine wouldn't that give us some insight into how to make that connection when we really need it? 

 

What attitude should we have? 

Most religions believe that the Divine is all about Love. If the Divine is love, then it make sense to use love to make contact with It. If we look for the Divine with a sense of love and if we can generate a feeling and attitude of love within us we are more likely to be able to connect with the love of the Divine. If we are both speaking the same language it is easier to communicate. The language of the Divine is love.

Look around at the beauty we have in this world, at the love we have from family and friends, at the gifts we have that allow us to participate in life. All of these are from the Divine, we have a lot to be grateful for, we have a lot of reasons to have that feeling of love for the Divine. With that feeling of love for the source of all life we will begin to use the same language as the Divine and so we can make a better connection with It.

 

How do we go about connecting with the Divine? 

We need to take time each day to make this connection. We should set aside fifteen to twenty minutes where we won't be disturbed. Sit or lie somewhere with your back straight, take a few deep breaths and relax. 

Now think of something or someone you love. Something that will bring the warmth of love to your heart so you are in a positive frame of mind.

It can be useful to use a word or sound you value as sacred or loving to help keep your mind focused on making this connection. You can say or chant this word slowly on your outgoing breath. The word could be the name of a spiritual leader, guide or saint. It could be your name for the Divine or a word that makes you happy. You can chant the word out loud or silently within yourself. You can also spell out the word letter by letter. 

Do this when you find your mind wandering off in a direction you don't want to go in. You may start thinking about a problem or issue and get upset or emotional. This is the time to chant your word so that you bring your attention back on opening your connection with the Divine. 

 

Light and Sound

As you sit there quietly your mind will throw up thoughts on what is going on your life. Just observe them and let them drift past. While your eyes are closed at some point you may notice a glow or light on your inner screen. You may see small lights like stars, flashes or glows. These can be a variety of colours, some of the colours can be more beautiful than anything you've seen in the outer world. 

At the same time you may hear sounds. Not just the sounds around you but sounds within your. Some people hear sounds like a train, a jet, a whistle, a choir or an orchestra. 

The light and the sound sometimes come together to create a scene in your imagination. Let this develop and see where it goes. It could become a pleasant experience in a beautiful place or it may develop into an insight into a situation you are currently dealing with. If it is a pleasant, interesting or insightful experience continue with it but if it becomes nasty, destructive or painful start singing or chanting your sacred word to bring your attention back to the Divine. 

 

Spiritual exercise

Spend about twenty minutes doing this each day. This new spiritual exercise is very like any new physical exercise. It will be difficult at first but as you stretch your spiritual muscles you will become more agile and flexible. In the beginning it will seem like you are making no progress but with practice after a month or two you may notice that you are now a little more insightful, thoughtful and content. You may have received an insight or two on some topics affecting your life.

It's a good idea to have a note pad or journal by your side during your spiritual exercises so that you can take note of the insights you receive. Otherwise the insights can vanish when we finish our contemplation like a dream does when we get out of bed after a sleep. 

 

Divine Connection

The Divine uses sound and light to connect with us. This is why watching for the inner light and listening for the inner sound is so beneficial. While we may not get a definite message through the sound and light, their presence in our contemplations and spiritual exercises confirms that we are beginning to make a connection with the Divine. 

As you open this channel of communication with the Divine you may notice that the sound and light appear in your outer life. I sometimes notice a sparkle or small star in my field of vision as I work or go about my daily life. The sound can sometimes arrive in a variety of situations. I take these to be a positive sign, that I'm now more connected with the Divine or the Life-force. There may be a message within the situation or just a reassurance that life is as it should be at this moment.

This is what works for me, it may be different for you. After all we are all individual Souls and our connection with the Divine will be unique to us. However we connect with the Divine we need to do it regularly so we can open a channel between us. A regular spiritual exercise or contemplation is a great way of doing this.

Wishing you love, light and sound in your connections with the Divine.

*Ed Parkinson

You can find more ways of making a connection with the Divine on the Spiritual Writings page by clicking here.

 

Inspirational Connect Quotes

"There's a spiritual bond that connects all Souls: human, animal, and lower forms of life."

Harold Klemp

“Since you cannot do good to all, you are to pay special attention to those who, by the accidents of time, or place, or circumstances, are brought into closer connection with you.”

Saint Augustine

 

“The best music happens when you have a personal connection to it. That same philosophy can extend to the instrument you hold in your hands: if a guitar means something special, you're bound to do great things with it.”

Frank Iero

 

“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That's because they were able to connect experiences they've had and synthesize new things.”

Steve Jobs

 

“I work really hard at trying to see the big picture and not getting stuck in ego. I believe we're all put on this planet for a purpose, and we all have a different purpose... When you connect with that love and that compassion, that's when everything unfolds.”

Ellen DeGeneres

 

“Grandchildren are the dots that connect the lines from generation to generation.”

Lois Wyse

 

“Creativity is the power to connect the seemingly unconnected.”

William Plomer

 

“The thing I loved the most - and still love the most about teaching - is that you can connect with an individual or a group, and see that individual or group exceed their limits.”

Mike Krzyzewski

 

“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men.”

Herman Melville

“Self-discipline is an act of cultivation. It require you to connect today's actions to tomorrow's results. There's a season for sowing a season for reaping. Self-discipline helps you know which is which.”

Gary Ryan Blair

 

“Walking is magic. Can't recommend it highly enough. I read that Plato and Aristotle did much of their brilliant thinking together while ambulating. The movement, the meditation, the health of the blood pumping, and the rhythm of footsteps...this is a primal way to connect with one's deeper self.”

Paula Cole

 

“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.”

Chief Seattle

 

“The next time you feel unworthy, inadequate or inferior, remember that these experiences have nothing to do with humbleness, any more than lowering yourself to connect with another individual has to do with humbleness. There are no lower or higher individuals in the perception of a humble person. There are only souls. There is only love.”

Gary Zukav

 

“The calm mind allows one to connect with the inner self, the Soul, the very source of our being. That's where the music lives. That's where my music comes from.”

Clarence Clemons

 

“A great attitude does much more than turn on the lights in our worlds; it seems to magically connect us to all sorts of serendipitous opportunities that were somehow absent before the change.”

Earl Nightingale

 

“As we get past our superficial material wants and instant gratification we connect to a deeper part of ourselves, as well as to others, and the universe.”

Judith Wright

 

“Solitude is the place where we can connect with profound bonds that are deeper than the emergency bonds of fear and anger.”

Henri Nouwen

 

“Your intuition will tell you where you need to go; it will connect you with people you should meet; it will guide you toward work that is meaningful for you - work that brings you joy, work that feels right for you.”

Shakti Gawain

 

“My dream is that people will find a way back home, into their bodies, to connect with the earth, to connect with each other, to connect with the poor, to connect with the broken, to connect with the needy, to connect with people calling out all around us, to connect with the beauty, poetry, the wildness.”

Eve Ensler

You can connect with more insightful quotes on the Spiritual Inspirations page by clicking here.

 

Take Time to be Spontaneous

We need to take time to be spontaneous. By that I mean allow yourself time to do something unusual or out of the norm. If we have a tight schedule where we have to be in a particular place at a certain time it doesn't leave time to be do something different or even for making mistakes. Doing something out of your usual routine is a bit like making time to make mistakes. Be a adventurous, take a risk, explore. 

 

You can do this at any time you like.

Explore a new way home.

On your way home, take a detour, go to a place you have often wondered about.

Go up a path or lane you've been curious about.

Start a conversation with someone who interests you.

Go to an exhibition, show or gallery you wouldn't normally visit.

Get up and out earlier so you have time to explore something new.

Stay back late to see how things change from day to evening or night.

Have tea, coffee or a meal in a new or different place.

Ask someone different to help you with a project or problem.

 

Meet a little bit of your fear

You can use your sense of adventure to face your fear, even of it is just a small part of your fear this will give you the confidence to take the next step. For example, if you have a fear of heights you could go to a public building or shopping centre which has high stairs possibly with glass walls where you get the feeling of vertigo. Just go a few steps beyond the point you are comfortable with. It might be scary but you'll also have a sense of achievement at having met a little bit of your fear. 

 

Go with the flow

Recently a good friend and I went to a funeral of an old school mate. We travelled together to our school mates home where the ceremony was taking place. After the ceremony and mixing with the family and friends we left to go home. As we went around a roundabout to get onto the motorway back home, my friend asked, Would you like to go somewhere to get something to eat? I said yes and he went around the roundabout again but took the exit to a seaside town. Neither of us knew the place but we were willing to go with the flow and see where we'd end up.

When we got there we parked by the sea and went for a long walk on the beach where we had an enjoyable chat. It had been a number of years since we had spent such a long time together. Later we had dinner in a lovely restaurant and headed home as it got dark.

 

Being spontaneous

It's good to take a break from what is "normal" in life. It adds a bit of excitement, an adventure into the unknown and we can make some new discoveries. We may discover the curious lane way is a dead end, the new route takes twice as long to get to our destination but it passes some useful or interesting places.

Being spontaneous can:

Make life exciting

Add adventure to your day

Help you learn new things

Help you meet new people

 

We can be spontaneous but we must also be responsible. We can have fun but not in a way that will hurt others because we will pay for what ever we do. What we sow we reap. We must allow ourselves the time to go in different directions, explore new things, get to know new people. We may make mistakes but we decide what mistakes we make and how far we go with them.

So, how will you be spontaneous today?

Wishing you fun, adventure and love in whatever way you become spontaneous.

*Ed Parkinson

You could be spontaneous now and visit the Spiritual Writings page by clicking here

 

Inspirational Spontaneous Quotes

"We are learning to work with intuition, which actually is Soul giving us gentle guidance to make our life better."

Harold Klemp

 

“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them - that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”

Lao Tzu

 

“Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.”

E. E. Cummings

 

“Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity.”

William Wordsworth

 

“Success isn't a result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire.”

Arnold H. Glasow

 

“Courage and willingness to just go for it, whether it is a conversation or a spontaneous trip or trying new things that are scary - it is a really attractive quality.”

Alanis Morissette

“Ultimately spiritual awareness unfolds when you're flexible, when you're spontaneous, when you're detached, when you're easy on yourself and easy on others.”

Deepak Chopra

“All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without benefit of experience.”

Henry Miller

 

“Never say never. The things that you don't plan are the best. I'm a very spontaneous person.”

Lindsay Lohan

 

“The way to my heart is by being truthful and spontaneous.”

Michelle Trachtenberg

 

“Real laughter is spontaneous. Like water from the spring it bubbles forth a creation of mingled action and spontaneity - two magic potions in themselves - the very essence of laughter - the unrestrained emotion within us!”

Douglas Fairbanks

 

“You must plan to be spontaneous.”

David Hockney

“Genuine happiness comes from within, and often it comes in spontaneous feelings of joy.”

Andrew Weil

 

“Adults often assume that most learning is the result of teaching and that exploratory, spontaneous learning is unusual. But actually, spontaneous learning is more fundamental.”

Alison Gopnik

 

“My life is spontaneous and things just kind of happen.”

Harry Connick, Jr.

“Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must first set yourself on fire.”

Fred Shero

 

“If the mind is calm, your spontaneity and honest thoughts appear. You become more spontaneous.”

Chade-Meng Tan

“To write a book about improvisation is partly a contradiction in terms. Improvisation is spontaneous. It's in the moment.”

Sally Schneider

 

“Being spontaneous at times is a must. Being spontaneous all the time is a crazy person.”

Ryan Hansen

 

“Somewhere in your career, your work changes. It becomes less anal, less careful and more spontaneous, more to do with the information that your soul carries.”

Ben Kingsley

You could be spontaneous now and visit the Spiritual Inspirations page by clicking here.

 

Be mindful of your mind

We need to be mindful of our mind as it can dictate to us how we behave towards others, how we work and what we should expect from life. For the most part our thinking dictates how we react to and deal with our lives. If we look to logic as the only way to working things out in our mind this can cause problems for us. While logic is a very useful way of discovering things, it doesn't always work. We also have our imagination, intuition and the flow of live to help guide us on our journey. 

If we just use logic in our thinking we can end up with a very rigid structure to our lives. It can be like a prison, where life goes in very predictable ways to our logical set of rules and then repeats itself week after week, month after month. Logical thoughts can be the dictator of our life.

We have to allow space for our creative imagination. That divine spark within us which loves to play, be creative and make the most of any situation. Our imagination shows up in our lives as daydreams, brainstorming and exploring ideas with others, or saying to our selves "I wonder if...". The "if" could be a new way of doing something, a way of seeing the issues solved or a playful game of trying out impossible things.

 

Logic can be a dictator

Another reason we need to mindful of our thoughts is because they can block out our loving, happy higher self, Soul. Our logic can be like a dictator, saying that it's rules are the only logical rules, so ignore all other influences in your life. Our mind has a lot of convincing logical arguments as to why we should go with its rules. Once we agree that logic is the correct set of rules that we will run our lives by, we then eliminate any ideas our imagination or intuition suggests to us. When we receive a suggestion from either of these sources, we say "They are not logical, so to my mind they can't work".

 

Mind your Opinions

Our opinions are another part of our mind which we need to be aware of. Opinions are like a series of boxes into which we put everything we come across in life. For example, we meet someone from Africa, Europe, Asia or the Americas, in our mind we put them in a box. Our Africa box could be made up of pictures of lush jungle, famine, disease, wonderful animals, landscapes and people. Europe could be industrialised cities, classical and ancient architecture, cultural events and occasional wars. These are not true reflections of these places but they are what we know about them. Our limited knowledge limits the vision of our opinions. However we still use these opinions on a regular basis because they help us assimilate information. When we hear of an event in a particular place we assemble all our opinions and use them to get a picture of what is happening.

For example, if we hear that Paris is hosting a week of fashion, in our mind we see the Eiffel tower, we think of designer brands we know, we may think of the French language and how it sounds.  We see models walking on a cat walk. 

The fact that it is a fashion show for hand bags in an exhibition hall twenty miles south of Paris where models won't be use to display the bags. As you read the more accurate description of the event your opinion and vision of it changes. Did you notice that?

These pictures or opinions we have can be wrong and limiting. They only show us one vision yet we look on them as true and we use them to view our world. 

 

Unfortunately we have free will

We are Soul with a mind and body learning about ourselves, life and  love. Unfortunately we have free will which is the cause of our sometimes tough and difficult life. When we look at things with our mind, we sometimes see opportunities where we think we can get something easily, without much work. We know in our hearts or Soul that we are cheating someone out of their rightful property but because our mind can see an easy way of getting it and we want it, we then go ahead and take it. We now have the pleasure of having this thing but someone else is suffering because we cheated or stole it from them.

 

The law of karma

The law of karma is in constant operation and our good and bad deeds are added to our spiritual score card. If we steal something we will have to learn how it feels to have something stolen from us. If we hurt someone we will then need to learn how that hurt feels. If we do something nice for a person, we will have that gift returned to us so we can know how it feels. We go through life doing good and bad things all of which return to us to show us how our actions affect people. We are learning by doing.

When we get to the point where we are aware of this law of karma and how it works, we then become mindful of what we do in life. We discover that the way to live life without incurring karma is to do things with unconditional love. That is, we do things without expecting anything in return. We don't force our way through anything, we go with the flow of life and let it guide us to where we should be rather than where our mind thinks we should be.

 

How to catch our intuition

If you'd like to catch more of your intuition here's how you can do that. Generally our intuition is the first to respond to a situation with an idea of how to deal with it. Soul, the source of our intuition, lives in the moment and has a full view of all aspects of our lives. It knows what is best for us and its suggestions are usually the best for us.

However when our mind receives the intuition, it will take it and examine it. It will apply logical rules to it and see if will work logically. If it isn't logical the idea can be dismissed or else an adjusted more logical version will be offered to us as the best solution. This is how our mind corrupts our intuition. If it isn't a logical solution it will adjust it to be logical or ignore it as impossible. 

To keep our intuitive ideas pure, we have to be very sharp and aware of when these ideas come to us. As soon as we get an intuitive idea, we have to keep it as it is and stop the mind from changing it to something more logical. It takes time and practice to catch our intuition before our mind changes it. Being aware of our thinking process and finding the source of the original idea is how you find your intuition.

After a while we will become more aware of the intuitive ideas that come to us as we go about our lives. When we use these suggestions we begin to see how good they are for us, even if they don't make logical sense. With practice these ideas from Soul, our true happy loving selves, begin operating on a regular basis in our lives. As a result our lives usually become easier, happier and more in tune with the flow of life.

Wishing you a happier and more loving life as you become more mindful of your mind and more aware of your intuition.

*Ed Parkinson

If you want more insights into the mind and intuition visit the Spiritual Writings page by clicking here

 

Inspirational Mind Quotes

"The secret of a balanced life is to live each moment in the right spiritual frame of mind."

Harold Klemp

 

“Don't limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, remember, you can achieve.”

Mary Kay Ash

 

“Life is one big road with lots of signs. So when you riding through the ruts, don't complicate your mind. Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy. Don't bury your thoughts, put your vision to reality. Wake Up and Live!”

Bob Marley

 

“To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one's family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one's own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him.”

Buddha

 

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”

Aristotle

 

“A woman's mind is cleaner than a man's: She changes it more often.”

Oliver Herford

 

“You cannot have a positive life and a negative mind.”

Joyce Meyer

 

“The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.”

Terry Pratchett

 

“Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.”

Mark Twain

 

“Happiness, true happiness, is an inner quality. It is a state of mind. If your mind is at peace, you are happy. If your mind is at peace, but you have nothing else, you can be happy. If you have everything the world can give - pleasure, possessions, power - but lack peace of mind, you can never be happy.”

Dada Vaswani

 

“There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.”

Sophia Loren

 

“Learning never exhausts the mind.”

Leonardo da Vinci

 

“You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”

Marcus Aurelius

 

“Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming.”

John Wooden

 

 

“Don't follow any advice, no matter how good, until you feel as deeply in your spirit as you think in your mind that the counsel is wise.

Joan Rivers

 

“For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

“Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.”

Khalil Gibran

“The mind is the limit. As long as the mind can envision the fact that you can do something, you can do it, as long as you really believe 100 percent.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger

 

“Great thoughts speak only to the thoughtful mind, but great actions speak to all mankind.”

Theodore Roosevelt

 

“People tell you the world looks a certain way. Parents tell you how to think. Schools tell you how to think. TV. Religion. And then at a certain point, if you're lucky, you realize you can make up your own mind. Nobody sets the rules but you. You can design your own life.”

Carrie-Anne Moss

You can entertain your mind with more insightful quotes on the Spiritual Inspirations page by clicking here.

 

Mindfulness, what is it and how can it be of benefit to us?

Mindfulness of where we are, how we feel, what we are doing, who we are with, and making the most of the moment can be a major benefit to us. We are able to deal with life moment by moment making the most of where we are, who we are with and enjoying, learning from or exploring what is happening now.

 

Definitions of Mindfulness

Here are two definitions of mindfulness:

- from Wikipedia::

Mindfulness is "the intentional, accepting and non-judgemental focus of one's attention on the emotions, thoughts and sensations occurring in the present moment", which can be trained by meditational practices derived from Buddhist anapanasati.

- from Google:

A mental state achieved by focusing one's awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one's feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique.

 

What it is and how to use it

Mindfulness or living in the moment has to do with being here, now. Being mindful of our current situation and observing what is going on around us. Focusing our thoughts on where we are now, dealing with what is happening now. 

We are not looking forward at what might happen nor are we looking back at what has happened. We are working with what is happening now. We are not distracted by the past or concerned by the future. Our focus is here, doing the best we can at this moment, in this situation.

 

Understanding our thoughts

Mindfulness also means accepting our feelings as they are without trying to change them because we think, or "they" say, or society says they are not acceptable. That may be the case but we need to explore them ourselves, understand them, where they originate, how they affect us and how we can change them if we want to. 

They may be negative and that's fine but keep in mind that our negative thoughts are within us, they are in our inner world and they influence our inner selves. The anger, hate or vengeful thoughts darken our world, not the world of the person we wish evil towards. Our negative thoughts make our world a negative place.

Understanding our thoughts helps us understand our thinking, why we think the way we do and how that affects us and those around us. Our thoughts are the product of our mind and to have a positive life we have to be mindful of the thoughts we think as they are the lens we use to see our world. If our thoughts are negative, our world becomes negative and if they are positive our world is positive. When we change them from negative to positive, we change our world to a positive world. We are victims of our own thoughts and being mindful of them can help us move to a happier place.

 

 

What would love do?

If we find that there is a negative attitude or thought within us towards something in this moment we can ask, What lesson can I learn from this? Where is the love? or What would love do here?

If unconditional love was a person, what would it do now? How would it react to the person or situation I'm dealing with? How would it handle this? What step would it take next?

If we get any ideas from this way of thinking, we can try them. They may seem alien to us, even out of character for us but it could be the change the situation needs so that it can heal or improve in some way. When we take this step of kindness, we may not do it very well, after all this is the first time we have tried it. It's like riding a bicycle for the first time, we are going to make mistakes but if we keep at it we will eventually become good at it. In taking this new direction, we learn a new skill and we help sort out an old problem.

 

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is another part of mindfulness. If we hold on to the memory of a wrong which happened to us, if we are angry because of that wrong, this thought or memory is like a thorn in our side. It is a pain we carry with us. If we can take that wrong, look at the lessons we can learn from it and then move on with our life, it will be like plucking the thorn from our side and discarding it. We forgive but we don't forget the lesson. The lesson has taught us about that kind of situation or person so that when we meet a similar one again we will be better able to handle it. We won't let the thorn catch us again.

 

Mindfulness, what is it and can it be of benefit to us?

Mindfulness is all about being mindful of where we are here and now. Being aware of where the attention of your mind is. Practising this state of mind helps us become aware of our thoughts and focuses our attention on what we are doing now. We do the best we can with the skills and facilities available to us at this moment.

Two of the exercises to improve our mindfulness are to ask ourselves, What would love do in this situation? The other exercise is to practice forgiveness. These help us clear the negative thoughts from our mind and make our inner worlds a more positive place.

The benefits include being able to live in the moment and focus on what we are doing now. We do the best we can and with the practice of an attitude of love and forgiveness we make our worlds a happier place for us and those around us.

Wishing you love and happiness in your practice of mindfulness.

*Ed Parkinson

You'll find more insightful articles which can help your mindfulness on the Spiritual Writings page by clicking here

 

Mindfulness Quotes

"The secret of a balanced life is to live each moment in the right spiritual frame of mind."

Harold Klemp

 

“Mindful meditation has been discovered to foster the ability to inhibit those very quick emotional impulses.”

Daniel Goleman

 

“In Asian languages, the word for 'mind' and the word for 'heart' are same. So if you're not hearing mindfulness in some deep way as heartfulness, you're not really understanding it. Compassion and kindness towards oneself are intrinsically woven into it. You could think of mindfulness as wise and affectionate attention.”

Jon Kabat-Zinn

 

“We need enlightenment, not just individually but collectively, to save the planet. We need to awaken ourselves. We need to practice mindfulness if we want to have a future, if we want to save ourselves and the planet.”

Thich Nhat Hanh

 

“Mindfulness is a quality that's always there. It's an illusion that there's a meditation and post-meditation period, which I always find amusing, because you're either mindful or you're not.”

Richard Gere

 

“We apply our effort to be mindful, to be aware in this very moment, right here and now, and we bring a very wholehearted effort to it. This brings concentration. It is this power of concentration that we use to cut through the world of surface appearances to get to a much deeper reality.”

Sharon Salzberg

“You have to keep challenging yourself. I've always tried to do that, and I'm not saying I've always been successful. Maybe I've rewritten the same song; it's inevitable, but I've always been mindful of taking the writing somewhere else. You can't stick in your little comfort zone.”

Paul Weller

 

“Mindfulness helps us freeze the frame so that we can become aware of our sensations and experiences as they are, without the distorting coloration of socially conditioned responses or habitual reactions.”

Henepola Gunaratana

 

“In charting our course to the future, we are mindful of our path from the past.”

Brad Henry

 

“It takes a little bit of mindfulness and a little bit of attention to others to be a good listener, which helps cultivate emotional nurturing and engagement.”

Deepak Chopra

“We are mindful of desire when we experience it with an embodied awareness, recognizing the sensations and thoughts of wanting as arising and passing phenomena. While this isn't easy, as we cultivate the clear seeing and compassion of Radical Acceptance, we discover we can open fully to this natural force, and remain free in its midst.”

Tara Brach

 

“Be mindful of the very moment you are living. Start exactly this second. You don't wait until the children get out of the house or when the sun comes out. Create something better.”

Alexandra Stoddard

“Awareness is the key to everything. I think it's important to be aware of how you feel. How do you feel after you exercise? How do you feel after you eat something? I try to be mindful of the food I'm putting in my body, the products I use, and what I put in or on my body.”

Lauren Bowles

 

“Yoga is about compassion and generosity towards others. It means being mindful of the world around us.”

Christy Turlington

 

“The best anti-aging advice I've ever received? Drink a lot of water and have a plant-based diet. I also do mindful meditation with my daughter every day. It takes ten minutes. I think reducing stress plays a big part in anti-aging.”

Carolyn Murphy

“There are certain ways in which I cultivate awareness, both through mindful yoga and taking care of my body and taking time to actually drop as deeply as possible into stillness, into whatever is unfolding in the present moment.”

Jon Kabat-Zinn

 

“We never know all the facts and the more we're mindful of how we deal with people, the more opportunity we have to evolve.”

Mary McDonnell

 

“With mindfulness, you can establish yourself in the present in order to touch the wonders of life that are available in that moment.”

Nhat Hanh

 

“Buddhist mindfulness is about the present, but I also think it's about being real. Being awake to everything. Feeling like nothing can hurt you if you can look it straight on.”

Krista Tippett

 

“I'm a praying atheist. When I hear an ambulance siren, I ask for a blessing for those people in trouble, knowing that no one's listening. I think it's just a habit of mindfulness.”

Geraldine Brooks

You'll find more inspirational quotes to help you mindfulness on the Spiritual Inspirations page by clicking here.

Inner Gifts

We have some wonderful divine inner gifts but we are so busy and involved in our outer physical lives that we don't allow ourselves the time to recognise or use them. Our outer world is distracting us and keeping us away from the beauty and gifts within us. This lack of insight is hurting us but we don't seem to know how to overcome it. Here we'll look at just three of our inner gifts and a few techniques which can help us make use of them.

Our inner treasures include, 

Our imagination and its ability to travel where ever we want on this planet or any other we can imagine. 

We have a range of friends, advisers and guides who we visit regularly when we think of them and drift off into daydreams with them. 

Using our intuition we have access to greater wisdom and insights than what our minds can hold. 

 

Imagination

This can be useful when we are faced with a problem which we can't find a solution for. A good technique for dealing with a problem is to imagine it being solved. Go to a place where the problem no longer exists. Enjoy the feeling, look at the circumstances. Then look at how you got there. What needed to get done, how did this happen? By seeing the problem solved, we can get some idea on how to solve it. Having this idea or image in our mind also gives us the belief that the problem can be solved, that there is a solution. Now we just have to work our way through the process of finding the solution. 

 

Inner Friends and Guides

Our inner friends and guides tend to be people we generally don't have physical access to because of where they live, the fact that we may not know them well enough or they may have died and moved on to the inner worlds.

There are many stories of people having an inner relationship with a beloved relative or friend who has died. They maintain their friendship in their imagination and dreams. They have conversations, play games and have adventures together. This is particularly true of children as their minds are not so focused on the outer world. As they grow older the regularity of their time together lessens but in times of trouble and danger the inner friend often appears to assist or console them. 

Some people in their adult lives actively use their inner friends and guides for consultation and advice. I regularly have conversations with my inner guide, Harold Klemp. We have conversations about anything and everything that is going on in my life. During our discussions I often get ideas on how to deal with situations and issues in my life. Every day in my contemplations I will ensure I meet Harold even if it is just to say Hello. He is a writer and during our time together I often get ideas for articles like this one which I write most weeks. He is one of my most valuable inner gifts.

 

 

Intuition

Have you ever come up with a bright idea, one that solved a problem you were having difficulty finding a solution for? All of a sudden this wonderful idea comes to your mind. Where do those ideas come from? Yep, they are from within ourselves, another one of our inner gifts. They are not the result of us using our logic or mind to come up with an answer. It is an intuitive solution which arrives to help us sort out something in our lives. 

This often happens when we not even thinking about the problem. When we are relaxed, taking a snooze or doing some mundane job where our imagination drifts off and bumps into a solution. It's another one of those inner gifts we often receive but don't recognise.

 

Sleep on it

Another exercise which uses our dreams to find solutions is the “Sleep on it” technique. "Let's sleep on it" is good advice when you've reached a point where you're not sure where to go next on a project. In the morning when you come back to it, the next step can be obvious, where yesterday there was no definite resolution available.

Overnight, as we slept, we were able to explore the project from different views. We could try different ways of going with the project and seeing the results. As our dream worlds are so much more flexible than our outer physical world, we can rewind or start again and try a different way. In the morning, while we may not remember the dreams we can see the next step in our project quiet clearly. This inner gift can have big benefits in our outer world.

 

What we discover

When we start using these wonderful divine inner gifts we discover that we are more than our physical body, more than our outer world with all its beauty, benefits, problems and pain. We are a creative spark of imagination, we are Soul with a physical body. With this insight we begin to realise that we are not chained to our outer world and its circumstances. We now have an inner sanctuary where we can find peace, wisdom and love as well as solutions to the issues we face in our outer world.

 

Our inner gifts

Our inner gifts include:

Our imagination and the wonderful places it can take us.

Thinking from the end where a problem is solved can help us see solutions

Our inner friends and guides are happy to chat with us and offer suggestions and ideas to help us in our outer life.

Our intuition is another inner gift which with practice we can access as we need to.

Our dreams can also be a source of solutions when we take the time to "sleep on it".

 

I hope this article has unwrapped some inner gifts which you can make good use of in your life.

*Ed Parkinson

If you'd like more insights into your inner gifts visit the Spiritual Writings page by clicking here

 

Inspirational Inner Quotes

"Soul, a particle of God, is blessed with the gift of creative imagination, which finds a solution for every problem." 

Harold Klemp

 

“Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.”

Steve Jobs

 

“Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.”

Golda Meir

“Happiness, true happiness, is an inner quality. It is a state of mind. If your mind is at peace, you are happy. If your mind is at peace, but you have nothing else, you can be happy. If you have everything the world can give - pleasure, possessions, power - but lack peace of mind, you can never be happy.”

Dada Vaswani

 

“In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.”

Albert Schweitzer

 

“Unconditional love really exists in each of us. It is part of our deep inner being. It is not so much an active emotion as a state of being. It's not 'I love you' for this or that reason, not 'I love you if you love me.' It's love for no reason, love without an object.”

Ram Dass

 

“When we meet real tragedy in life, we can react in two ways - either by losing hope and falling into self-destructive habits, or by using the challenge to find our inner strength. Thanks to the teachings of Buddha, I have been able to take this second way.”

Dalai Lama

 

“Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.”

Saint Francis de Sales

 

“Whatever we are waiting for - peace of mind, contentment, grace, the inner awareness of simple abundance - it will surely come to us, but only when we are ready to receive it with an open and grateful heart.”

Sarah Ban Breathnach

 

“It is not the end of the physical body that should worry us. Rather, our concern must be to live while we're alive - to release our inner selves from the spiritual death that comes with living behind a facade designed to conform to external definitions of who and what we are.”

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

 

“I believe there's an inner power that makes winners or losers. And the winners are the ones who really listen to the truth of their hearts."

Sylvester Stallone

 

“Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression.”

Isaac Bashevis Singer

 

“Success isn't measured by money or power or social rank. Success is measured by your discipline and inner peace.”

Mike Ditka

 

“Follow your inner moonlight; don't hide the madness.”

Allen Ginsberg

 

“Inner peace can be reached only when we practice forgiveness. Forgiveness is letting go of the past, and is therefore the means for correcting our misperceptions.”

Gerald Jampolsky

 

“I'm happy to report that my inner child is still ageless."

James Broughton

 

 

“Two qualities are indispensable: first, an intellect that, even in the darkest hour, retains some glimmerings of the inner light which leads to truth; and second, the courage to follow this faint light wherever it may lead.”

Carl von Clausewitz

 

“Your mind knows only some things. Your inner voice, your instinct, knows everything. If you listen to what you know instinctively, it will always lead you down the right path.”

Henry Winkler

 

“The real spiritual progress of the aspirant is measured by the extent to which he achieves inner tranquillity.”

Swami Sivananda

 

“The simplification of life is one of the steps to inner peace. A persistent simplification will create an inner and outer well-being that places harmony in one's life.”

Peace Pilgrim

 

You find more quotes about our inner selves and gifts on the Spiritual Inspirations page by clicking here.