Okay,
Welcome back to the Spiritual Recalibration Series.
Thank you for embarking on this series and opening yourself to a new way of being.
My name is David,
And this is Session 23,
Divine Reverence.
Find a comfortable seat in a space where you can allow yourself 20 minutes or so,
Undistracted,
To focus just on you.
A quick reminder,
To get the most out of this series,
Please be sure you've listened to the Welcome Session,
Session Zero.
Here we go.
I was reading about,
It's actually come up a couple times recently,
The four virtues,
The four virtues to invite a divine existence.
One of those virtues,
These are the virtues of the ancient philosopher Lao Tzu,
And one of them is reverence.
The first one is reverence.
Reverence is reverence for all living things,
For all of life.
Wishing no harm,
Wishing no harm to any living being,
To any living thing,
Including yourself.
So I thought it was nice,
Either last time or a few times ago,
Kind of touching on the topic from the mind and the body and the spirit level,
And so I thought I'd try that again as I was thinking about reverence.
And so starting with the body,
Seems to be the one that's right here at the beginning.
So how do you do no harm and wish no harm at the body level?
And just thinking about yourself,
Thinking about your own person at the body level.
Depriving the body of what it wants and what it needs and what it's asking for,
Depriving it of sleep,
Of rest,
Of time to simply be,
To not do things,
To not be moving,
To not be exerting.
Like,
What's the opposite?
I was thinking just this morning,
So what's the opposite of doing harm,
Or maybe wishing harm?
The word that came up was adore.
So what if we adored our body?
It seems like when you adore something,
You certainly couldn't wish it harm.
So I was thinking about what choices we might make.
What choices we might make when we adore this body.
What we choose to eat,
What we choose to drink,
When we eat,
When we drink.
And when we,
You know,
And just,
You know,
Aesthetically,
When there's something about our body that we're thinking about,
That we,
You know,
That we want to change,
Do we do that from a place of,
Do we initiate that change from a place of reverence?
Can we do it that way?
As opposed to,
I need to fix this thing,
Or get rid of this little,
This little bit of fat over here,
Or something like that.
Because it doesn't look the way I want it to look,
Or doesn't look like something.
And it's wonderful to have,
You know,
To have goals.
You know,
We all want our body to look a certain way,
And that's,
That's okay.
But I think it's about,
When it comes to reverence,
You know,
It's about the place from where we do that.
And at the mind level,
Where reverence came up,
The word that,
It was because I was thinking about something else.
The topic was,
For this short meditation here,
This week,
Was almost guilt,
All by itself.
The idea of guilt.
And maybe we'll still do that.
But it seemed like it came right up when we're talking about reverence at the mind level,
Because we think about doing harm,
Or wishing harm.
I mean,
Guilt,
I was listening to something just,
Just this week.
It's how we punish ourselves.
Guilt.
I thought that was an interesting,
A really interesting idea.
I'm going to get really curious about that.
You know,
We all have,
We all,
We were all introduced to guilt at a very young age in one way or another.
And I was playing with this,
When my,
For those of you who are parents out there,
Parental guilt is a real thing.
You're just like,
You're just not doing enough,
Or you're just like,
You know,
You lose your temper or something,
Something happens,
The milk just spills,
And you just,
You were not in a place where you were ready for that milk to spill at that,
That moment,
And you just,
And then,
You know,
10 minutes later,
Or at night,
In bed,
You're thinking,
And then the guilt sets in.
It's how we,
So when I heard that,
It's how we punish ourselves.
It's like a self,
Guilt is a self punishment.
That doesn't feel like reverence.
So getting curious about guilt,
How we can,
How we can have reverence at that level,
Letting go.
And then at the spirit level,
And we think of this,
We think of spirit,
We brought this up last time,
However,
Whatever that word means to you,
That third leg of the stool,
That other,
That other aspect,
Beyond the body and the mind.
Even if that's even for you,
If what's feels most relevant for you is simply your own highest potential.
And at the spirit level,
We talked,
It was a while ago,
I think,
We were talking about the idea of oneness.
And the example that came up is if so,
If I'm if I'm over here,
And I'm me,
And you're over there,
And you're you,
Then clearly,
You're you and I'm me,
Right?
So that's different,
We're different.
You're over there.
And I'm and I'm here.
But so with the idea of oneness,
What is it that's the same,
And the and the idea that came up in the example was peace.
Well,
If you're cultivating your peace,
And I'm cultivating my peace,
My inner peace and your inner peace,
The peace is the same.
So if you cultivate yours,
And then then it's going to be more,
It's going to be there.
It's kind of like the idea of world peace.
What if everyone gave themselves this kind of time,
Every person on the planet just spent quiet time,
Focused focus on cultivating inner peace for five minutes a day,
What would the world look like?
I've heard that before.
But so the thing that's the same is the peace,
The happiness.
So when it comes to reverence,
I was just thinking about life and in all of life.
So if it's if it's peace,
Or happiness,
Or reverence,
Or life,
There's something to all living beings that's the same.
And you start to so seems like that's at the human level,
It's all living beings,
That's plants and animals,
Too.
There's life there.
So when you start thinking about that thing,
That's the same,
This life that is the same,
It starts to become really hard to wish harm.
Like I was listening to I was,
I read somewhere,
I forget where it was,
I wish I could say where I,
Where I quoted where the quote is from,
Or maybe it's not even a quote.
But it was like,
You're reading a book,
And you're outside,
And a little bug starts crawling across the book.
Well,
Let it be because the world needs more readers.
Now,
So it starts,
You even start to think about little things like insects differently,
And plants and such.
Okay.
So anything else on reverence?
I think,
Yeah,
Let's do a show,
Let's just do a short little short little visualization about this short little meditation on this.
So if you're sitting in a chair,
Make sure your feet are flat on the floor.
So you can,
I can help you with a nice upright spine.
If you're in a chair,
It's always good.
Sometimes it's good to have a little something,
Something in your low back to help you to help you support you in a nice upright spot.
If you don't have one of those,
Maybe sometimes you can even just scoot a little forward at the front edge of the chair and see how your posture does on its own.
But sitting upright really helps uplift your energy.
Close down the eyelids gently,
If that's comfortable for you.
Make sure the eyes are soft behind the eyelids.
I'd invite you to relax your jaw,
Just allow the breath to flow naturally.
Allow your tongue to fall away from the roof of your mouth.
And behind your closed eyes,
Allow yourself to be in the most beautiful setting that you can imagine outdoors,
Whether that's by the ocean or in the mountains,
By a stream or in a meadow or by a lake or a pond.
Place yourself there in the most beautiful sitting for you.
And see the sky,
The most beautiful sky you can imagine,
Whether it's sunrise or sunset,
You choose.
With all of the colors of the sky.
No matter where you are,
Surround yourself with flowers,
Flowers of all different colors,
So that you can smell the fragrance of the flowers,
The most beautiful fragrance you can imagine.
And allow yourself to feel the breeze,
The wind,
On the most pleasant temperature you can imagine with the most beautiful breeze.
Allow yourself there,
Here,
In this most beautiful,
Colorful setting.
See if you can tune in to the beauty,
The beauty itself of all of this that surrounds you.
Let the scene go,
But hold on to the beauty.
But hold on to the beauty.
Can you turn that beauty inward towards yourself?
This inner beauty,
Can you allow that beauty to extend beyond yourself to all of life,
To all living things?
In pure reverence for all living things.
Allow yourself to be here,
Just a few more moments.
Now take a normal breath in and out.
Prepare to come back to the space where you are.
And when you're ready,
You can open up your eyes or stay like this for as long as you like.
