Welcome.
My name is Evangelos.
Today we're going to be doing one of my favorite meditations.
It's called Unraveling the Onion or unraveling the layers of the onion.
And the onion here is a metaphor for you that you're composed and comprised of different layers,
Physically,
Emotionally,
Mentally,
We have all these layers.
And in meditation,
We want to get to the center to the core of our being,
Which some have described as love or spaciousness,
Openness.
I'm sure many of you have peeled an onion,
There's different types of onions.
And when you get to the center of an onion,
You get to the pearl of the onion.
And the pearl is the golden part of the onion.
It's the sweet part of the onion.
And similar to yourself,
There is a sweetness that is sometimes hidden from yourself.
So in meditation,
When we bring awareness to our inner being to our inner self,
We get to that sweetness.
And when you get to the pearl of the onion,
If you break that tiny pearl apart,
You'll see that there's nothing in the middle,
Just vast,
Open,
Expansive space.
And when we get to that place,
We experience an inner peace,
An inner calm,
An inner stillness.
And so we have various ways of getting there.
And this is just one of the many ways that we can get to the center of ourselves.
You may have had this experience being in a very large,
Peaceful room like a meditation hall that doesn't have a lot of things in it.
You could also have it when you're on a cliff overlooking an expansive ocean.
You can do this meditation sitting or laying down,
And sometimes you can experiment and do it standing up.
We want to bring creativity to our meditations at times.
They don't have to be so static and rigid.
We're not dogmatic at four ways to freedom.
We want you to make sure that these meditations work for you.
So in this meditation,
We're going to start with the eyes open.
And eyes open represents a relationship to the outside world.
So you may be coming in from work or from a conversation with a family member or a friend or may have had an intense experience.
So we're going from the outer world to our inner world,
Our inner being.
So we're going to start first with the eyes open.
Please be comfortable.
You don't need to be rigid or holding yourself too tightly.
Rest naturally.
Rest with a straight spine.
Rest into your breath.
Just feel your breath at the nostrils.
So we're going to start this with the eyes open.
And then we're going to start with the eyes open.
So we're going to start this with the eyes open and we're going to bring awareness to our sense of smell.
See if you can smell something really far away.
See if you can smell something really far away.
If you can make a distinction.
So if you can smell something close to you.
Then we're going to switch from smelling to hearing.
Bring awareness to what you're perceiving through your ears through sound.
Can you hear a sound really far away?
Really bring all of your awareness.
Are you in the city?
Are you in the country?
So then bring awareness to what you hear close to you.
Maybe it's your breath.
Maybe it's a pet in the room you're in.
And then bring awareness to your eyes.
And notice something really far away from you.
What's the furthest away from you that you can use your eyes to see?
So if there's a window,
You'd be looking out the window.
What's the furthest point away from you that you can see with your eyes?
All we're doing is paying attention to our senses.
And then start from this furthest point,
Like a telescope,
You're bringing it closer.
You're bringing the focus of your gaze of your eyes closer to your body.
And so you're just looking straight ahead,
Looking a few feet away from you,
Even if you're looking into space,
Keeping your head straight,
Looking a few inches from your nose,
A few centimeters,
Pulling the focus closer to yourself,
And then closing your eyes.
And then bringing awareness to the outer shell of your skin,
To the epidermis,
To the hairs,
Simply feeling if you can sense a breeze on your skin,
Bringing awareness to the outer layer of the onion of self,
And then removing the skin and dropping into your muscle structure,
Bringing awareness to muscles from the top to the bottom of your body,
And then removing the next layer of the onion,
The muscle,
And the muscular structure,
And going into your bones,
Simply being aware of your bones from top to bottom,
The next layer of the onion of self,
And then removing the bones and going into the organs of the abdomen,
Bringing mindfulness.
How many organs can you be aware of?
It's your body.
Are you aware of your body and what it does and where things are?
And if you don't,
It's okay.
Just as many organs as you can be aware of.
And then going to the next layer of the onion,
Removing the organs,
Meaning that we're removing our awareness from the organs,
And then we're dropping into our blood and nervous system,
And then removing the next layer of the onion,
The blood,
And the nervous system,
And simply being aware of your brain,
And then bring awareness to your feelings,
And then letting go of those feelings,
And going to the next layer of the onion,
The contents of your thinking mind.
Just notice how thoughts think themselves,
Images are imagining themselves,
Stories just being stories,
And now removing feelings,
Contents of mind,
Removing the brain,
And going into spaciousness.
Your body,
Your emotions,
Your thinking mind are mostly vast spaciousness.
We can call that vast spaciousness pure consciousness or pure mind,
Being at the center of the onion of your being.
What is it like to be pure consciousness?
Where you look at the looker,
Where the perceiver and perceived become one,
Where the watcher is not a separate watcher,
Nor is there anyone watching you.
Just allow yourself to dwell in the vast open spaciousness in the center of your being,
Where you are aware of loving awareness.
And just stay there for 30 seconds,
And wiggle your toes a little bit,
And your fingertips,
Palms together at the heart.
May we go to bed today,
Having achieved the only success that really matters,
Falling asleep with peace,
Spaciousness,
Openness,
And love in our hearts.
Namaste.
