Spiritual Circle

Spiritual meditations present wisdom teachings to develop compassion for self and compassion for others. Practices are offered to affirm spiritual beliefs, expand presence, create art, enhance healing, foster prayer, improve meditation, cultivate leadership, nurture awareness, design rituals, and expand personal growth. Two meditative periods without words are woven into the teaching to provide time for integration and reflection. Begins and concludes with a singing bowl.
Music by Music of Wisdom

Transcript

Spiritual circle hello this is Jacob Watson and this is a series of teachings and meditations about the spiritual circle that we all inhabit whether we know that or not we will take a look at the four quadrants the four directions in the native american tradition and the teachings here will be interwoven with two periods of silence no words for meditation reflection and integration first let's acknowledge that we take these teachings first and foremost for ourselves so take my words into your own heart then and only then will you be able to use them eventually to work with other people but for now they're yours this is the way that you take these teachings in and make them your own so that later down the road when perhaps around the kitchen table or at work it's the way that you make them your own so that instead of my words or somebody else's words coming out of your mouth they're yours because you have made them your own so let's take a look first at communication because communication happens at all the four levels all the four levels it happens physically it happens emotionally it happens intellectually and of course it happens spiritually there's a quote i like from the tibetan book of living and dying the most essential thing in life is to establish unafraid heartfelt communication with others and it is never more important than with a dying person so in order to establish an atmosphere for good communication effective communication we want to reduce tension create trust and respect and confidence it's as if you're talking to yourself but there is another person there communication happens at the physical level the emotional level the intellectual level and certainly the spiritual level so body language how you are when you are saying words how your body is located is it supported is it free of distractions do you have a space that allows you to be in touch with the other person and the emotional quadrant are you clean and clear without having some kind of agenda are your thoughts pure are you able to put your own emotions aside for the moment that you are communicating to the other person the intellectual do you have ideas that you freely offer in this the intellectual quadrant are your facts clear are you sure of what you're saying and if not can you acknowledge that and say that you will find the facts with the other person not break the arrangement the relationship but join together to find out the facts and then onto the spiritual is there an essence is there an understanding that you are not alone the two of you or you communicating to a group that there is some other presence we could call it god we could call it the holy spirit we could call it the third person the great spirit but the point is that you two are not alone in your communication so that's a quick view of how communication works in all of the four quadrants all of the four directions i would emphasize here that the four directions the four quadrants is a model of health and the health is in the balance that over time each of the four directions has an equal energy that we give energy in equal parts to each of the four quadrants each of the four directions again the health is in the balance when i take a step back from this model so that i can understand it from a much larger perspective i can see that really it is a spiritual circle that the four quadrants are all contained in one spiritual circle in the meditation time coming up i encourage you to take a look at the four quadrants the four directions in your own life and ask yourself the question how am i caring for myself in each of the four directions the physical quadrant the emotional quadrant the intellectual quadrant and the spiritual quadrant so so so so come gently out of the silence and be kind and gentle to yourself this reminds me of a time when i was about eight years old and my parents had signed up to attend a quaker meeting service after sunday school we could go into the main meeting and join what was already in progress all the adults sitting there facing each other on these hard wooden benches and i remember one sunday coming into the meeting acknowledging the silence taking my place as quietly as i could the silence was immense after the meeting was over one of the elders said to our sunday school class years and years ago in the early time of the quaker meeting the elders had been sitting in silence in their meeting room and native american indians had burst in yelling and screaming and threatening and the quakers didn't move no one got up no one uttered a word they just continued to sit quietly and the indians looked around and left that made a huge impression on me i understood that the quakers had fierce beliefs fierce even perhaps to the point of being willing to lose their lives the silence was that important to an eight-year-old boy miraculously the indian war part of the indian war party got it they understood they turned around and walked out somehow for me in retrospect the indians understood the four directions physical emotional intellectual and they left the quakers to continue sitting in their silence so now these days in our culture in our society unfortunately the four quadrants and the four directions are not valued very much in fact when we look at each of them there's a lot of distortion and misappropriation and misappropriation of energy so the physical quadrant we love our sports figures and our movie stars and pay them accordingly and that puts the physical quadrant way out of balance the emotional quadrant again it's not all right to show your true feelings your true nature your grief your anger your fear and even your love we feature and like in the physical quadrant the physical quadrant we love the culture loves the intellectual quadrant we often pay people according to how many initials that is degrees they have after their name again way too much energy acknowledged in the intellectual quadrant and finally perhaps firstly the spiritual quadrant it's a real challenge in our culture to have a spiritual life a life that people can see and acknowledge religion is suspect in many ways both pro and con and so again the four direction the four direction circle the spiritual circle is way out of balance if we rely on our culture in fact our culture is not going to support the health of balancing the four directions this means that we have to find the resources to support the balance of the four directions ourselves if we're lucky we have some friends colleagues perhaps people at work perhaps people in the neighborhood perhaps family members who can support this but often it is a lonely path and yet it is a path that is supported by all the major faith traditions the wisdom traditions from the past which are thankfully more available to us now than ever before so there is support there in this coming time without words i invite you to find ways to support your health your balance using the four directions the four quadrants how can you find support and energy in this coming gift of time without words see how you can bring health and balance to your life acknowledging the four different areas and how you can support yourself in each area so so so so coming out of this time without words acknowledge your breathing breathing in taking in the fresh air and energy from the universe and breathing out letting go of what you no longer need what you have used up harvested and are letting go of let's now take a look at the four quadrants the four directions in terms of an illness some ill health comes what happens is that it usually addresses the physical quadrant something goes wrong with your body so you have a lot of feelings about it your physical quadrant is compromised in some way you can imagine it shrinking and yet the emotional quadrant expands because you're angry about it you're grieving about it you're grieving about the way your physical body used to work so well and now it doesn't the intellectual quadrant may take a lot of energy because you want to find out you want to use your intellect to find out ways to address the illness ways to heal moving on to the spiritual dimension who are you now that you're living with this illness the spiritual quadrant brings new questions as you perhaps are a new person you don't recognize yourself with this illness activities that you used to take for granted you cannot do any longer again the task is to bring balance to your whole system acknowledge the quadrants the directions that have swelled up in the face of illness and find a way to reduce them and bring balance back to your whole system acknowledge the task here is to bring balance back to your system there are two main ways to bring balance back to your system the first is to use all of your five senses your taste your smell your touch your hearing and most importantly your sixth sense your intuition review the information and the feelings that you're getting from paying attention to your five senses and your intuition after you've taken in the input from these five senses your five senses i encourage you to pay special attention to the sixth intuition or sometimes we call it my gut feeling or what i know but can't explain your intuition the second way to bring balance is to remember that you are one that you are part of the great cosmos the whole universe that indeed you are whole and balanced and you always have been come back to that original state i would call it a state of purity a state even of innocence where you are one you know you are one and in this way we have indeed come full circle so that we come back to our spiritual circle with its serenity and peace i want to share a story with you about when i was in high school and approaching my senior year i needed a half credit in order to graduate and i looked around and surveyed the courses that were available to me and the one that came up as a possibility was a course in religion i had no interest in religion then but it was the half credit that i needed in order to graduate so i took this course it was taught by frederick bigner but i loved the class because mr bigner allowed us to ask the larger questions the questions of the spiritual circle we weren't interrupted and as students we could ask any question that we wanted may your spiritual circle expand and i hope to see you the next in this series of teaching will be spiritual belief blessings to you

Reviews

Thank you for sharing your experiences and teaching

17.08.2021. Noon.
Jacob, dear wise soul and spirit companion. Hello.
Enlightening, instructive and useful transmission.
Thank you.
🌼
Orly
Israel

An incredibly beautiful and profound teaching and meditation, very calming and interesting, well spoken too of course. Overall amazing