Hello there,
I'm John.
Welcome to this meditation to lead us into a genuine deepening of intimacy and love in our lives.
I want to invite you just to take your favourite meditation sitting position,
A nice upright posture perhaps.
So I want to invite you to notice if you have tensed up with the idea of trying to meditate,
That you've got an idea of what you're supposed to feel,
Of what it's meant to be like and an experience that you're supposed to have.
So can I invite you to smile at yourself and let's let that go.
Let's be here now and let's just feel in through the senses.
So you're aware of the room around you just with your felt sense and close your eyes if you want to.
You can allow your breath to be full and easy but we're not pushing the breath in any way.
Notice that you're aware of your physical sense of self,
Feeling into your physical sense of self,
Your feet on the floor,
Yourself sitting on the cushion,
The uprightness of your posture,
Your hands in your lap or on your knees,
The straight energy up through the spine but rising without force,
How that comes up through the neck,
That your ears are level with your shoulders and that your face is soft,
That you're aware of your throat area,
Your chest area,
Your abdomen and if it feels right for you,
You're also aware of your groins,
Your reproductive system,
Your excretory organs,
The feeling of your body,
The feeling of life in your body,
Being aware of any sounds that you can hear,
Noticing if you are reactive to the sounds that you can hear,
Reactive to my voice in any way and instead of trying to change that,
Allow the noticing and just letting that go a little bit,
Aware of the light coming in through your eyes,
Whether your eyes are opened or closed and inviting you now to notice where the sense of felt sense of the body,
Sound,
Light,
Meet within you.
Notice that they meet before your mind,
Into your consciousness,
Allowing yourself to settle there.
You're aware of the taste in your mouth,
The scent of the room or the air in your nostrils,
All five senses.
Also aware of the faculty of your mind in the same way,
Noticing any gripping,
Pushing,
Pulling in the mind and just seeing the mind from your deeper consciousness and allowing things to be just as they are.
It's the seeing that matters,
Resting into consciousness,
Resting into awareness,
Fully here in the felt sense of your body,
Aware of the space of the room around you,
Aware of your emotions and in the same way,
Noticing the pushing and the gripping and allowing the,
Oh yes,
Of awareness,
Not making any extra effort in your body,
In your face,
In your throat,
In your holding of the mind or your feelings and just deepening into the sense of wholeness.
I want to invite you to notice if there's a gripping in you towards somebody that you love,
Your significant other,
One of your children,
Friend,
Someone else that you love and just notice if there is a push,
A pull,
A sense of tightness and just allow the,
Oh yes,
Of awareness to meet that,
Not trying to change anything.
The seeing is the first major step.
Notice as you see what you see,
If this causes reaction within you,
Shame or blame within yourself or wishing that the other were different and again,
Instead of going into that,
Just the deep quality of,
Oh yes,
Of awareness and now allowing that deep awareness to notice if there's any gripping or pushing or pulling in relation to yourself,
Of your idea of self,
Of who you're meant to be,
Of what you've been told you're supposed to be,
Of who you want to be and if there is again,
The awareness and so we have all this awareness,
Awareness of your body,
Awareness of your senses,
Awareness of the room,
Awareness of yourself in deeper presence and awareness of yourself not in reaction,
Effortless awareness and so I want to invite you that if there is any gripping with yourself,
Then instead of trying to change that,
You allow a sense of ungripping within yourself,
An opening of your inner hand perhaps,
We might say,
At the level of the deeper awareness.
We're not egoically trying to change ourselves,
We are allowing ourselves to be held in the light of awareness that simply is,
You give yourself back into what is.
There's no effort in this,
There's no wishing or hoping,
There's just an allowing and just notice your sense of awareness,
Of self,
Of embodiment,
The sense of your heart,
Perhaps you feel a sense of being loved from within,
Sense of intimacy in your own life in this present moment,
Giving yourself back to life,
Letting yourself be in life,
Held by life and by love,
Fully embodied,
Present,
Radiating from within,
Illuminated with intimacy and love and awareness and from this deeply steady place,
Ungripping your sense of the other person,
Letting them be held in their own life,
Not a rejection or a pushing away,
But simply allowing them to be in life,
To choose their own journey,
To follow their own heart,
We ungrip,
We give them back into life and by doing so,
It's almost like strings on a guitar or a violin,
We need space between us and in that space,
There is the possibility for life,
For intimacy,
For love,
For variation,
Not just holding to one note over and over again,
All the strings tuned the same,
Trying to fit in,
But allowing our own music our own music and the music of the other,
We are not giving them into the light of awareness,
They are simply in the light of awareness,
We are not giving ourselves into awareness,
We simply are in the light of awareness and we allow this to be tangibly felt in every atom of our physical being and we're aware of our centered consciousness,
Our deeper awareness and we rest into this,
We feel perhaps the sympathetic vibration of ourself with our other person,
How beautiful that is or we notice that there is discordance and so we will allow space for deeper tuning to take place from awareness,
This is so different from trying to control and push ourselves and each other into ideas of who we're supposed to be,
This is being in life with ourselves and each other,
Inviting you now to let go of any ideas that you're holding around you,
To let go of your awareness and to simply rest for a moment in being and just allowing your normal sense,
Your daily sense of awareness,
Becoming aware into your body,
Perhaps moving your fingers and toes,
Moving a little side to side and just gently allowing this practice to find its way into your life,
Taking with you what you need from this practice and I just want to invite you to use this practice daily if you need to within your relationship with self and others,
And if you do,
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