Open The Window To Liberation With Meditation

Access your inner knowing and open windows to vistas of liberation. Join Dr. Shefali Tsabary in exploring the rising of consciousness through the conduit of meditation. Arrive in this moment and unleash the power within yourself.

Transcript

Hi everyone.

Welcome.

It's Dr.

Shafali.

I cannot tell you enough.

I can hardly contain.

Not my excitement because excitement is pedestrian.

You know I get excited by a good cup of coffee.

So this is not excitement.

This is I don't know whether I have a word for it.

It's a deep and humbling promise that I made to myself that I will one day do this.

That I will be able to.

.

.

Oh getting on emotions.

That I will one day able to create a community.

That I will be part of a community that is created because I don't believe I've created anything.

That we'll get together once a week and do this.

And what are we doing?

We are going to learn the ultimate art of shedding the external and looking internal.

The feeling I have right now that this moment is actually the fruition of a dream had eons ago.

Certainly decades ago.

Is this moment.

You are part of the fruition and culmination of a longing and yearning that I have had for decades.

You do not understand how epic this moment is for me.

So I get to thank you.

Because you rose up and you are here.

We're doing this.

Even if you drop out tomorrow and next week it'll just be Arty,

Susie,

I and Goldie.

You know four of us and Sandra five.

It's okay.

Right now we're 103 and I know there's almost 250 of us registered for the meditation part of it.

This moment cannot be underestimated.

Just the fact that all of us put aside what we are doing today to show up to meditate,

To prioritize meditation,

To learn the art of quietude and stillness and be intrigued by what it means to be in breath,

In presence,

In the here and now,

In the body.

I thank you.

There are no words for me to measure and quantify and contain how deeply humbled I am that you are allowing me to have this dream come true right here,

Right now,

January 12th at 9.

08 p.

M.

Eastern.

My dream checked,

Done,

Manifested and you are part of it.

So I thank you.

The reason why this has been a dream for my life,

For my vision,

Is because I know how difficult something like this is in today's world.

This meditation,

This idea of mindfulness,

There's simply no time for it and the fact that we have now built up enough consciousness for people to understand that no,

No,

No,

Wait a second.

I have to go check this out.

This may be the key to my suffering,

To the end of my suffering.

This may be the answer that I have been looking in every parenting book,

In every marital handbook,

In every guru out there.

This might be the answer and I'm here to tell you in my life there has been no guru,

No teaching,

No inspirational video,

No quote,

No poem even by Rumi or Gibran or Hafiz or Thoreau that has moved me,

Brought me to my knees,

Brought me to the destruction of all false ideas and therefore opened the window to vistas of liberation unimaginable as meditation has.

I have no compunction selling this to you,

Proselytizing shamelessly.

Why?

Because I'm not selling you into dogma.

I'm not selling you to follow someone.

I'm not selling you a systematic idea created by man.

I am selling you your power to access your inner knowing.

This is why I can do it ruthlessly,

Shamelessly,

Unabashedly.

I have no fear.

I can look in the face of anyone who says but I have a religion but I have a practice already and I'll go so this has nothing to do with religion.

You can have every religion in the world fear not.

This takes nothing away from your life as is.

It simply teaches you how to access your inner knowing in a way that you have never experienced before and this is why I can sit here and say yeah come meditate with me.

I dare you to,

I demand you to,

I need you to,

I believe in it so much because bar none nothing has taught me what you come to learn from me.

Nothing,

Whatever is in my books has only come from the rising of consciousness through the conduit of meditation.

This is how powerful a teacher,

A revolutionary leader it has been in my mind and this is why I thirst to teach it to you more than I thirst to write another book.

If I can teach one of you the secrets of what this has given and taught and revealed to me it would mean more to me than if you came to me and told me I have a happy family now because of your books.

This because this the power that this has this technique of meditation to unleash within you and therefore within communities on a global level is unparalleled.

This is why I can sit here and do this.

This is why I am so excited today.

This is why this is an epic moment so thank you for taking your growth seriously.

This shows me that you are beyond the tantalizing ideas that you are now at a spiritual level that is ready to go deeper.

So kudos to you.

I'm so proud of you and proud of all of us rising together to arrive at this moment.

For those of you who may not know me well I am Dr.

Shafadi and I have been a practitioner of meditation since I have I was blessed since I was 21 and a half.

I came to America to California to a school called the California Institute of Integral Studies.

Integral meaning the integration the holistic perspective that we are more than just body we are more than just mind and we are more than just spirit it is the integrated whole.

So the school unbeknownst to me was a school that that integrated Eastern philosophy and Western psychology which is what I teach today and this school blew my mind open because it taught me that psychology the knowledge of the self on the psychological level is so scant is so sheer is so fragile it's good it's amazing to have psychological knowledge we should all have knowledge of our psyche but the true knowledge the essence of our self can only be revealed through a direct experience that goes beyond mind and the technique to get you to the direct experience of yourself is the technique of meditation there is only one technique one technique to take you to the direct experience of your authentic self meditation you are here to learn the most direct technique to take you to your authentic self congratulations you do not understand what a pivotal step you have taken to change your entire trajectory of this and many more lives I am so excited for you as this is the first session I will just lay out a few principles but you know me I don't know how to do anything small and I will probably give you a voluminous amount of material but that's just my style but this is just the first introduction to who I am how I came to this practice why this practice is important and the very basics of it we have 52 weeks together we are going to learn how to go deeper and deeper in understanding from wisdom mind and meditative heart together there's a lot of time but there's a lot to cover because most of these ideas as we saw on Tuesdays from Tuesdays lecture is in a new language you are now learning a new language so give yourself time to all of 52 weeks if you have to to go deeper and deeper with the teachings when I first started meditating at 21 I learned the technique called Vipassana meditation VIP a SS a NA the word meaning insight having insight it was allegedly the original teaching by the Buddha when he attained enlightenment by which he attained enlightenment this is just one way to meditate many Buddhists meditate in different ways this is just the VIP hasna meditation way many Buddhists meditate in other ways many Catholics meditate in other ways many mortal beings just without a religion meditate in other ways transcendental meditate meditation practitioners meditate in different ways so you have your pick of the the table you have your your your choice in the garden of what flower you want to pick what appeals to you what teacher appeals to you and go with that technique this may not work for you and that's fine but go find your flower go look for your garden go find your teacher because you need one to learn the man master what it means to meditate the style can change but the fact remains that the technique of meditation will remain stalwart ugly the only direct way to experience the authentic self there is no other way except meditation this is a unilateral fact and every meditator will will nod their head and we sound dogmatic and rigid and conditional so be it for some things in life it just is rain is rain so meditation is that way when I started I started with the past now at the age of 21 and a half I went for my first retreat which was 11 days long it is a silent retreat their centers all over the country and the world these centers run only on dana which is donation you can give a dollar you can give zero you can get a thousand they feed you they keep you and they teach you no dogma no god no sect no cult no leader really just the technique of meditation there is no leader here there is no religion this is all about letting all that go and entering a direct experience of yourself so when I went at 21 and a half can you believe a naive immature little girl suffice it to say I was blown away like I think I had a psychic breakdown totally I was just completely a puddle on the floor because I was exposed to the idea the the phenomenal concept that all that I had been thinking till now was a construction was a conditioning just before I went for meditation I believed something was true within a few days of meditating I was like it's not true it's not true that shift from knowing something to realizing that you know nothing you know those who've been with me for a while is a highly disconcerting experience I've referred to it as the no man's land my poem in the book the awakened family the last poem is called shedding skin shedding light it's that process of shedding and molting what you know to enter only what you don't know who wants to do that painful so I lived in that state of discombobulation and I begged to leave the meditation center but I didn't drive in those days so I felt embarrassed to ask for a ride but in my telepathic messages to the teachers I was like can I leave can I leave can I leave because I could not bear the skin that came off it was painful my skin was literally molting and everyone is like meditating and chanting and doing their thing and breathing and I'm like my skin has just come off do you understand no one picked up my telepathic messages and I had to stay and endure the entire 11 days I literally was like this I had my watch and I would be like oh oh thank God it's the third day and it's 902 right and I would meditate for a few minutes and I'd be like thinking it's now 902 p.

M.

And I'd be like what it's just 906 a.

M.

Like only three minutes have passed since my last look at the watch torture meditation I realized holy cow it's not a feel-good thing you don't feel good when you meditate so any of you who think that you're gonna feel good out of this like leave now it is torture but I after day four and my skin is raw and bruised and I'm experiencing such intense discomfort of sitting with my own damn boring self hour after hour after hour I began to realize that I was feeling lighter and I was like but I'm tortured how can I also feel lighter and then you meditate some more and you meditate some more and then you realize oh the torture is not because there is any real torture the torture is because I'm holding on so desperately to that skin that is now shedding oh that's the torture oh that's the attachment this teacher has been talking about I'm attached to all that has not been serving me that was the torture so on day five day six I was like can I let it go should I let it go but what if there is like nothing left like what if no butterfly forms after this what if I'm just like left in that pool in the in the cocoon what if I'm the only one who doesn't fly out a butterfly so I held on and the skin longed to molt and I held on and this is what you're going to do you're gonna do the same thing it's gonna feel like torture but I'm here to offer it's not torture it's torture because the old ways are shedding and then on the eighth day I release and on the ninth day the skin is finally evaporated and then on the tenth day I'm not yet a butterfly but I am a new self and when I left the meditation center on the eleventh day back into the real world after 11 days of silence I did not fit in I felt like I had descended from the planets and I was in on a new earth and earth I really did not appreciate it anymore that I wasn't so sensationalized by any most not so it wasn't attractive anymore but but I want to live here but I don't like it anymore and I see the unconsciousness all around me but now I'm feeling different but no one's recognizing that I'm different you know what I'm talking about this is the price we pay for consciousness and I didn't know how to fit in and I was acutely uncomfortable and I felt attacked by everybody because they didn't understand and appreciate the new earth I had just seen but then slowly as I integrated I began to understand that it wasn't for them to recognize me oh but for me to implant myself further in my consciousness it's because I was just a floating petal right now beautiful petal but just a floating one in the wind that any gust of unconsciousness had the power to lead me astray and instead of being resentful at the gust of wind I realized oh I need to go find my garden I'm in the wrong place and that's when I began the earnest quest for searching for my garden my people my teachings and I never stopped since book after book and teaching after teaching and practicing after practicing and experiencing for myself the birth of a new being which I then realized changes anyway every moment and living in the space of newness in presence in impermanence non-attachment became the new language I know how hard my life was before meditation I know how much I suffered before meditation with ideas about what kind of woman I needed to be and what kind of person and I had boxes and cages and pretty bows on them but but just very rigid definitions and labels about checklists and things but I even though I was suffering that was familiar to me and when I went through the process of raising consciousness even though I knew that was suffering it was so hard to let go and you are at that place right now as well you will know that you have been suffering and here comes a path out of suffering but because it's a new path you're not gonna let go the old ways this is just human nature we have been suffering there is a way out of it but because the way out of it is too foreign and alien and strange you're not going to pull yourself out of suffering but I'm here to tell you that this tug and war this discomfort the sense of feeling alien isolated alone out there fragmented floating leaf in the wrong garden is the way of the spiritual warrior your task is not to be dissuaded your task is to keep moving forward knowing we are here your garden is here and together now if you firmly take root and lie down that floating leaf rest assured this is your tribe and we will together find a way to grow oak trees of great majesty together but the process of raising consciousness is arduous it's tenuous it's highly lonely highly highly highly acutely greater loneliness will come with this process and and sometimes loneliness desperation fear paralysis a desire to reverse everything and regress back because that was familiar yes the path of raising consciousness is nothing but treacherous because nothing worthwhile comes easy it just doesn't you can flow with it but it's still not easy because what is going to be asked of you is against what you have traditionally been been taught it's against every habit you have had so I am disclosing upfront that I went through hell to shed my skin and I'm still shedding I still have layers of conditioning that refused to melt they are here to stay they are loyal to me my my my dear techniques of self-sabotage of procrastination of lack of self-worth of putting myself down oh these are dear ways of being they don't want to leave I still have a lot to let go but I have been letting go for the past 22 years and it's been nothing but worth it and this is what I want to offer you no matter whether you start at 50 or like I did at 21 because consciousness has no time to begin except in the now there is no time don't look at me and go oh she's been meditating meditating for 22 years you could start today and overtake us all and it's not a race it's about where you are right now so do not look at timelines and age consciousness only rises when it is meant to it will not rise a moment earlier so the fact that you are here at this point in time is exactly when your consciousness should rise many of you may think that it is about feeling good I've already debunked that this is not about feel good I'm not interested in making you feel good I don't care about your happiness really on some level I care about something far more pervasive I care about your deep connection to yourself because once you're deeply connected to yourself all secrets of divinity are revealed the Buddha itself the enlightened state is within you and when the enlightened state is within you you only have no choice but to be in a gross and embarrassed state of overabundance that's just the concomitant fallout of knowing yourself in the divine way not through dogma not through mind not through cult not through religion through the direct experience of your authentic self you have no choice but to be over abundantly joyful over abundantly energetic over abundantly on fire this is just going to happen I'm so excited for you but it's not about feeling good in the moment it's about actually just learning to be with yourself now if yourself doesn't feel good doesn't feel good this about you it is also not meant to be done in ideal settings I don't care if you're sitting in in the middle of a parking lot right now I don't care if you're sitting with five children staring at you and all of them on screens right now I don't care if you're huddled on the pot in the bathroom right now I don't care if you're lying down in bed with a glass of wine right now it doesn't matter the state around you no longer is going to matter to us the only thing that matters is your ability to be in your as is as is so my challenge for myself to do this meditation every Thursday was to show up in front of you as my as is so I have no makeup on nothing zero results I'm sweating already nothing nothing nothing because I want to show up as is because the fundamental premise of meditation is to show up as is no judgment no adornment no resistance no embellishment as is as you are so if I showed up here all dolled up and with my necklaces which I'll keep for Tuesday and my makeup which I'll keep for Tuesday I'm working against the premise of meditation now on Tuesday we'll play with form and I can dress up and sure but this is about formlessness this is about entering divinity this is about complete unadorned as isness so as I was deciding to show up without makeup of course the ego roars but it's going to be recorded but what do people think but you're gonna look like a ghost I'm not even looking at myself right now I'm just looking at the camera you're gonna but let me see okay so I look like a ghost it is what it is but the ego was beguiling me and seducing me to go back to form no Shivani go do your hair go get your makeup done go wear pretty clothes the ego wanted me to stay in form what do people think self-doubt you're not going to be good enough emotional paralysis fear and the ego wanted form because that's the power and privilege of ego don't be grudge ego that's what you go does best that's the job of the ego so as my ego rose I looked at it straight in the face and I said I know you I know you you want me to only marry form you don't like when I'm in formlessness because it terrifies you because you have no place no room no no bed to sleep on to languish around to take the entire space in my mind by because when I'm in formlessness as isness just the as isness of the human spirit ego has no room and ego gets terrified and ego with sabotage just like it did with me and just like it does with all of us ego is the false self it's the mask it's the inauthentic self now I'm not saying when I put on my makeup or wear my jewelry I'm inauthentic no but I'm clearly playing with form and we should play with form because we are informed enjoy form do up your hair as I say go get your Botox send your kids to mainstream school even yell at them for getting a D grade but know at the back of your mind that that's all form it is not reality so you can play with form and it's still authentic as long as you know you're playing because now this what we're about to embark on on Thursdays this is the core teaching showing up without persona showing up without ego showing up without adornment without form daring to be in the as isness when I do my annual summits evolve I often have the fantasy of asking the whole audience like on a Saturday afternoon or Sunday for like a few hours can all the women just show up without a stitch of makeup without any adornment but I always hesitate because I don't want to put any demand on anyone but wouldn't that be so great if we women especially gave ourselves the permission to show up without the mask because the practice of meditation teaches us that the as is ness must be inhabited more than form and if our life is more in form than as is ness we will constantly suffer so I'm going to talk a little bit about meditation and then we're gonna meditate for a few minutes today and experience a little bit of what this could be like so thank you for allowing me to shed my persona and my mask and show up ghost like I love it so freeing I didn't have to get ready at all I just had to be downstairs doing my thing and then come up so great others have to go get ready 20 minutes earlier this is lovely lovely lovely lovely okay so I'm gonna send you a PDF which outlines everything such a pretty PDF I have made for you it's called opening the awakened heart how do we open the heart on Tuesday nights we talk about the awakened heart from wisdom mind but on Thursdays we have to open it Thursday's is about the practice of opening Thursdays is actually the core teaching of this course I know I added it on as a bonus add-on if you wanted but it's really the core and the reason I gave it as an option is because people are scared of meditation people think it's something religious so it's something cultish so it's something too hard well it is hard but it's not that it's not academic it's not dogmatic it's hard in a different way it's hard because we simply don't know how to sit with the self that's how hard that's why it's hard because the tragedy is we don't know how to be with ourselves so in this PDF that I send you I just want to read it out I ask why should you meditate why should you meditate why except that you're engrossed suffering and you need to find a way out of suffering but besides that you meditate because your mind is untamed you do not understand or perhaps you do how untamed your mind is I mean I think you guys understand because you're on our self you are self-aware you sit with yourself and you watch how you do you could be washing the dishes and you were completely unaware when you were washing dishes or you drove somewhere and you completely did not pay attention you just got from here to be on automatic without paying attention or you took a shower like I've done many times and like did I put the soap I don't remember so our mind is untamed wild as can be and just by our not being able to control to seize to galvanize to harness our mind you do not understand how much power you are just throwing to the wind throwing to the wind today I burnt myself because I was not paying attention so I put my hand where it was not supposed to be on the surface that was hot three fingers and I was like lovely you are not paying attention and I put the ointment but all day long it was searing pain and I cannot tell you how deliriously happy I was today because I was sitting and talking I did an interview at one and a client at two and other meetings and the pain was throbbing but you know why I loved it because I was half in the conversation and half on my pain in the body in the body feel it I had no choice but to be in the present with that pain I was in the present like I haven't been for days I thank the burn I said thank you so much because I was not present you didn't do anything to me life didn't do anything to me I was grossly in my own fantasy I knew exactly when I got burnt ah you were in some tripping fantasy somewhere far away in Bhutan that's how far we had gone in some fantasy of doing some work in Bhutan I was like lapping it up and I burnt myself and when things like this happen when our children misbehave when we scream at them when we stub a toe when we fall in when we burn our hand when we forget our keys these are not serendipitous moments these are moments that you need to say thank you thank you because I was not present and I am now going to be present our minds are a territory that we have not even begun to charter and by fact of this you will forever live a life of a victim because you are a victim of a mind that is yours but is in control of you in mind that is yours that you have never explored so I write why should you meditate well only to tame your untamed mind to steady your unbridled thoughts to harness your chaotic focus to galvanize your squandered energy how much energy did you squander today how much how much time did you and I don't like to say waste because time is expansive and limitless there is no waste but really how much time was just spent on garbage on doing that was mindless busy busy busy you were busy but full of rubbish full of garbage full of nothingness just empty doing for the sake of keeping busy half of our days and minds energy is spent on mental and physical garbage and this is why we don't manifest and this is why we live in anxiety and this is why life is hard because we have taken our mind the most powerful powerhouse and wasted its energy on garbage things like even things like worrying about your child's future how is my child going to survive his rejection what am I going to do tomorrow does the person X like me am I loved am I wanted does my boss like me what are my child's career be such legitimate questions such garbage things like this now in meditation I will teach you how you can choose your thoughts how you can deliberately harness your mind that your mind doesn't go to thoughts based on the future ever and if they do go like mine went in into Tibet then the universe with bang because your universe is so kind to you that it'll burn you and say hey you come back now and even if your mind goes to the future you can bring it back and certainly if your mind goes to the past you don't waste any time then you go past come back to the present and your mind will be so honed can you believe that for the most part you'll be able to stay in the present it will not happen besides with medication only with meditation this is the power of meditation you don't go to the future if you go to the future you're rudely interrupted by the universe or yourself and you bring yourself back and if you go in the past you bring yourself back because when you meditate now your awareness is in direct competition with your mind's digressions till now your mind could digress at will yes at will except if you have a deadline of your discipline person and you want to get an a-grade or you want to get a stellar or something then you harness your mind but a mind are in idle is a digressed mind but what I'm offering you is that in meditation in idle it is the most powerful mind because you've learned to harness it because awareness is in direct competition now with digression you know how amazing that is going to be in your life when awareness is in competition with all the garbage your awareness is going to say uh-uh can't go down that path can't go down that one or that one and you teach your children that right so I teach my daughter I understand you're sad but maybe you can stand on the platform and the train can be your sadness and now let's just watch your train and the train can be a long train take all day long watching this train but the train is the sadness and you are on the platform that's what meditation teaches you that you get to be on the platform you get to stand on the cliff you get to watch you get to sit in the park you don't have to go with the feeling anymore or the thought you get to decide do I want to jump on that train so I teach my daughter just because the train is passing you don't have to jump on it you can watch watch watch watch watch for a few days and then maybe you know what I want to give in and I want to go sleep in one of the bunks of the train of sadness okay but now you're making a choice and just by fact that you're making a choice you have unlimited power so to harness your chaotic focus to galvanize your squandered energy to vitalize your atrophy power to coalesce your splintered self to feel the feelings without needing to react to merge into the present moment to awaken to the here and now to accept the is-ness of life this is the teaching to accept the as is-ness of life the as is-ness of unadornment un-un embellishment as is noise noise sweat sweat dogs dogs poop poop diarrhea diarrhea a distraction distraction we're not looking for sanitization and aesthetic beauty here we are looking to enter the as is-ness of your life messy chaotic dirty noisy unpredictable and falling apart at the seams yes that is the nature of life life is beautiful but it's highly unpredictable messy it looks chaotic tsunamis tornadoes thorns on roses can nothing just be a rose can't anything just be beautiful why does a chocolate cake have to be so bad for you but this is life full of duality there is nothing antiseptically clear and clean so this practice only this practice through the examination and witnessing of your breath and sitting with yourself you will learn after 52 weeks for sure you will be teaching me how to accept the is-ness of life if you do this with me every week you will be teaching us how to accept life as is and if you learn to accept life as is the power you will unleash to manifest your next is-ness will be immeasurable you just have to take my word for it to appreciate the unknown fullness of stillness stillness is the scariest thing for people right to just sit we're just gonna sit so in the middle of a subway when I'm just like okay I've had enough of New York and then I'm like I'm waiting for a seat the minute I sit in the seat I'm like I'm gonna sit and I can feel people looking at me and I'm like I'm just sitting right you sit anywhere in the middle of a board meeting in the bathroom under the shower dishes right my husband is talking to me sometimes I'm like okay now I need to just sit and he's like but I'm not finished talking I'm like but I am NOT assimilating I need to sit middle of a football game middle of a restaurant you sit sitting happens anywhere people have this mis ideation that you sit under the oak tree you know in Oprah's estate by the ocean or you sit at a meditation center well you sit like the ascetics in India in a cave and starve yourself bullcrap okay that's just the way to not meditate the Buddha said the middle way the middle way is not too severe not too lavish meaning wherever you really are just start sitting don't look for ideal conditions people say you know okay I better join a center join a class of course you need direction but notwithstanding the fact that meditation happens anywhere all the time 24 7 no conditions necessary no perfect posture no perfect look no perfect guard no perfect beard and burgundy robes no none of that you as is are a meditator ready now the fear is to sit in stillness isn't that a tragedy that we cannot sit in stillness with ourselves that we are our own most ominous threat because I tell people I'm just asking you to sit with yourself you know just like by yourself befriend yourself sit with yourself but that's so scary what I can't write in my journal I can't talk to a friend I can't sit with you I can't talk no what is the fear of naked sitting with yourself you don't have to be naked be naked doesn't matter sit with yourself what is the fear the fear is that there is no self I mean there is no self as I told you on Tuesday but they believe that the no self is nothing is vapor and I'm here to say that the no self is empty of labels judgments and one title one form but it is full so these are esoteric words right now I accept just hear them the emptiness of self is feared because people believe it is nothing there is no enough there is no being in the emptiness who am I in that the desire to be an eye is so great that we don't sit in emptiness when we meditate enough we understand that it is in the emptiness that there is fullness of self so we meditate to appreciate the unknown fullness of stillness the unknown fullness of stillness you do not know this fullness of stillness yet to sit at the cutting edge of impermanence to experience the stunning beauty of transience to enliven oneself to the now to come into one mind one body one spirit so will you meditate a few minutes with me we will meditate for just a few minutes in this first class on your breath as I said before people meditate on a chant people meditate on an object people meditate on a symbol people meditate on a form the Buddha taught to meditate on no form on your breath because he wanted you to meditate wherever you went so you could say oh I forgot the chant or you could say oh I forgot the idol or you could say oh you know the conditions aren't there my teacher isn't there the Buddha wanted you to meditate at all times he said guess what I will make them meditate on the breath because the breath is going with them wherever they go and there is no excuse so the Buddha offered perhaps the most elegant tool to enter the south the breath and before we meditate on the breath let me tell you about why the breath the purpose of the breath it is phenomenal and maybe you won't understand it right now but in a few months you will be blown away by the elegance of meditating on the breath you will be blown away by the significance right now these are going to be words to you but wait for a few months so why the breath because the breath is impermanent and my teachings and are all based on impermanence it is in the here and now it's in the here and now it's yours no guru needed no Buddha needed it's you who is the Buddha it's organic natural it's not imposed it's not artificial it's the bridge between the external and the internal between the form and the no form it is life-giving yet transient that which sustains you is impermanent if that which sustains you is impermanent for you are impermanent therefore life is impermanent if that which sustains you is air if that which sustains you is air which is not form therefore you are not form you see now through the practice of meditation on the breath all that I say on Tuesday will begin to make sense if what sustains you is breath where's the breath do you see breath can you give form to breath I defy you to give color form label texture to breath you can't because breath is formless so if that which sustains you is formless how can you be not formless just by extrapolation of that which you are dependent on your entire life depends on something formless therefore you are formless just by that breath is interdependent with your thoughts and feelings when you're thinking things that are exciting your breath will change in pace it is directly intimate with your mind with your feelings it shows you cause and effect cause and effect cause and effect you see you see it is air empty of substance full of life it is it continues and then it is no more it is the way it is when we focus on the breath all of life's inherent nature will be revealed to us this is what you're about to experience on Thursdays okay I'll be ready to meditate we're only gonna meditate for three or four minutes don't be afraid okay I would put on music but that's not my style because this is about the brutal unembellished unadorned experience of stillness no music sorry no chanting sorry I won't even talk we're going to enter the breath so let me show you how I do it and you got to do it don't be cheating and looking at me okay okay don't be scared Rebecca it says you and your breath it's that which is happening anyway you're just gonna be conscious of it nothing to be afraid of it is happening anyway I'm just asking you to be connected to it that's it that's all we're doing it's the most beautiful thing most necessary thing to do to enter the present moment the breath so we're gonna close our eyes sit any way you like I'm not a strict or rigid authoritative person that says you know sit like this and do that I'm like sit with whichever way that you like I don't care just sit I typically keep my palms open just to remind me that I'm open that I'm non resistant that I'm here I have nowhere to go I have no defense I'm here to receive I'm here to give I'm all hands on deck so that's why I leave my hands open but you can close them sometimes I close them too it doesn't matter just relax yourself and then I will close my eyes when I close my eyes I take now this is hard to understand a little bit if you've never meditated before so try to get what I'm saying I take right but I'm not really physically taking anything but I I collect my energy my mental energy and I focus by just like when you focus on on a piece of paper when you stare intently you've taken all your mental faculties to that paper you take all your mental energy and you take it to your breath now there are many ways to breathe you can breathe through your nostrils you can breathe in the chest area because we're starting out we're going to take the energy to the chest okay so I will close my eyes and I'll take my energy very gently and lovingly collecting the flowers in the garden together like very lovingly this is not about like come here with me and go meditate and breathe then you're going to be anti meditation this is about taking gently taking your energy and taking it to the the breathing that occurs here see because I'm starting here because this is like a very robust gross big area it's not subtle so all of us can do it rising and falling like and you can artificially do it at first and we just go on the chest okay let's do this people four minutes no talking if your mind wanders it's okay just say hey friend come back to the back to the back to the back normally I I'll help you with sayings like get back on the breath but today right now I'm not going to we're just gonna experience silence three minutes let's do it close your eyes you you you you you you three minutes there is so much to talk about meditation that we're gonna have to be careful that we don't talk a lot Shafari and actually meditate but there's so much to teach about the practice and then there's so much to practice in the practice so I hope that 52 weeks will be enough to get us to do both this is the start of something I can unequivocally guarantee more than I can guarantee anything in my life will change your life but you do not understand I send every client I can to meditate like that's my recommendation what's your recommendation value to meditate it is revolutionary and if even one of you takes this on just for 52 weeks one of you comes every for the whole 52 weeks the work has been accomplished so I will leave you with this the greatest teaching of meditation the greatest teaching forget peace and gratitude and compassion what meditation teaches is the way to get there when you meditate you get there all the time you don't have to think of gratitude you don't have to think of compassion you don't have to think of empathy you are that because when you meditate it is the way to that peace is not the way to meditation compassion is not the way to meditation harmony is not the way to meditation meditation is the way to these things but the greatest gift of meditation is the acceptance of the as is I start every lecture saying that the acceptance of the as is is the first place to change your life when we focus on the breath this is how meditation does it on Tuesday I will teach you about the concept of acceptance but in on Thursdays you see how the practice of focusing on the breath teaches you acceptance of the acid when we focus on the breath watching it rise and fall in its natural organic raw state and we're just allowing it we're reminded to accept the as is because we're just allowing the breath that's why I like the breath more than I like and I know I'm just comparing right now doing things in form but I compare I'm biased I like the breath more than a chant or something contained because the breath is natural so if I can learn to witness and allow my breath and I allow and I allow and I watch and I'm an economist and I don't judge and I don't react I'm suddenly learning in real time to accept the as is direct experience of accepting the as is it's no more an idea it becomes your reality you see the breath asks us not to judge it you can't judge breath like if you judge breath then you are highly judgmental person your breath says I am it is what it is I am who I am accept me accept me accept me in the now acceptance of ourselves and ourselves in our as is state is the key to freedom now the reason we don't like ourselves is because there's an inner critic that is whipping our ass sorry and it's driving us crazy because our parents do not accept them themselves in their glory and divinity so they didn't accept themselves we don't accept ourselves we don't accept life that's why we're infinitely in in in hell in anxiety and stress and pushing gratitude in an artificial way doesn't work that's why manifestation doesn't work because the first step of manifestation which is never taught in books like the secret is first accept the as is live in abundance of what you have first and then manifest the next vision acceptance of ourselves and ourselves in our as is state is the key to freedom and meditation teaches us that whatever it is first accept don't resist don't judge remove all internal barriers within you just accept it just accept it so easy say repeatedly it is what it is it is what it is it is what it is later we will learn what to do about it proper action cannot come from reaction it can only arise out of the acceptance of the ass is simple and profound acceptance acceptance is not passive subjugation of your present reality it is a bold and daring act a choice to see the situation differently it is to see what is happening as not happening to you but with you and for you you were part of the creation you are part of the reason it exists therefore it occurred to teach you something except this except the teaching that's what I mean don't accept the husband beating you up except the teaching of why you are there in that position in the first place because your unconsciousness brought you here therefore only a shift in that toward consciousness will take you out only then will the teaching fade and things of the outer reality will change so your task of the week is to stay on the breath through all your tasks on the breath on the breath on the breath your kids are screaming the dog just vomited your husband's being a pain your wife is nagging you the boss is in a bad mood and you're like on the breath you're talking you're cleaning you're bathing but you're on the breath the inner eye is on the breath the outer is doing the outer but the inner is on the breath through all your tasks return to the breath the breath the breath and as you breathe accept the as is repeat it is what it is non-resistance non-judgment this task will be your task perhaps for the next 52 weeks start now on the breath on the breath on the breath stay on the breath thank you everyone I'm just gonna sit here for a few minutes while you can bid each other farewell and good night stay on the breath so that I'm gonna do on the back up it's a music breath is formless so are you now maybe that Tuesday teaching of formlessness makes a little more sense on the breath when you greet people now don't say hi say on the breath stay on the breath don't go into mind no questions stay on the breath thank you everyone everything is impermanent so we can leave each other enjoy it's okay I know I don't want to leave but we gotta leave I'll see you next week I am

Reviews

Incredible intro to the work. I have never heard a teacher lay it out quite the way Dr. Shefali does here, so effectively.

Thank you so much, Dr. Shefali!
I learned about conscious parenting from you. You are so wonderful. I am very grateful to you for bringing us these insights. Now I want to tattoo it is what it is on my hand. But I wrote it in pen first and rethought that idea. Lol I’m tracking what you’ve put down. So grateful for the tips and tricks to keep my head in the game. I’m such a believer in straightforward thinking and acting, but I wasn’t ready for this coming from you. It was both refreshing and unnerving. Then it became eye opening and I felt like I understood more of the teachings I’ve been getting bits and pieces from since I started my awakening journey just a few years ago. I’m 41 and I feel so new. I have 2 biological kids and 3 step kids that all have different needs. I’m a wife also. It’s a lot to juggle. And I feel like I didn’t know what I was asking for when I signed up for having another family(aside from my initial family, I mean). I’m learning to step back and find me in all of this so I am less overwhelmed and can actually be of service to my family. After retiring from the military it has been a whirlwind because I’m figuring out who I am now that I have no affiliation with that life but I’m a family woman now full time and that requires so much of my attention. I’ve lost me and I’m trying to get me back. Thank you for helping us gals find our way to us again. 🙏🏾🌸🤗❤️ You are doing Gods work Dr. Shefali!! I just love your name. Thank you again.