You can listen to this guided visualization in two ways.
You can sit on a chair,
Ideally an armchair,
So that you can rest your hands either side of you.
Or you can lie down and just imagine you're sitting on a chair.
It works equally well both ways.
If you are in a wheelchair,
Make sure your back is well supported.
And if you're lying down,
Allow your arms to lay by your side,
And make sure your head and knees are supported by pillows or cushions.
So either sitting on your chair,
Or imagining that you are sitting on your chair,
Just imagine that your chair is on a beach,
Sitting on soft,
Warm sand.
There is a light breeze cooling your face and body,
And you are watching the sun slowly sinking towards the horizon,
Dropping through thin bands of cloud,
Illuminating their layers in hues of gold and red.
Incidentally,
You can also listen to this meditation sitting in a wheelchair on a real beach,
Or anywhere else,
Watching the real sun going down.
Allow both your feet to feel the floor beneath you,
And imagine your toes are nestling in the sand.
Place both your forearms on the arms of the chair with your palms facing down,
Or down by your side if you are lying down,
And allow any tensions to drop away from you.
Let any tension in your forehead slacken,
And your jaw relax.
Give your toes and fingers a wiggle,
And allow any tension in your arms and legs to drop away.
Now take a deep breath in through your nostrils,
And imagine the breath is coming from the seat beneath you.
And breathe out with your mouth slightly open for about 3 or 4 times as long as you are in breath,
And allow the stale air to leave your lungs.
And as you are breathing in and out in this manner,
Just imagine sitting there admiring the splendour of the sunset,
And paying attention to the in and out blow of your breath,
And the in and out blow of the waves on the seashore.
Music Music Music As you were doing this,
If your thoughts wandered away from the in and out blow of your breath,
And the lapping of the waves,
That's OK and completely normal.
Now bring your awareness to the points on your body where you and the chair or bed touch.
And on the next few in breaths,
Just imagine that some of the atoms from where the chair touches you form tighter bonds with the atoms of your clothes or your skin.
And at the same time,
On the next few out breaths,
Just imagine that the atoms from your clothes and skin form a tighter bond with the atoms of the chair.
Music Music Music Become aware that despite the massive gravitational pull of the sun,
The earth's gravity is the perfect strength to keep you grounded and safe,
But weak enough that you can easily raise an arm or a foot at any time you like.
At the same time,
The earth's gravity is just the right strength to hold the air that you and all other plants and animals use to breathe.
And the sun's gravity is the perfect strength to keep our home planet in just the right orbit to make life on earth possible,
Rotating around its homestar in the Goldilocks zone,
Not too hot and not too cold.
Be mindful that it is the perfect and delicate balance of these two cosmic forces that allows you to be listening to this meditation and imagining you are on a beach watching the sun go down.
Music Although these gravitational forces are fixed,
We can alter our notion of them.
Whether you are sitting on a chair or lying down,
Very slowly rotate your left hand so your palm faces upwards.
Notice how this subtly alters your bond with your chair or your bed.
Now allow your right hand to rotate too so the palm is facing upwards,
And notice the bond slacken still further.
Then gently rotate both hands so your palms face downwards again and feel your bond with the earth plane strengthen.
Be mindful that both gravity and consciousness are made of the same essence.
Be mindful that the material world that you inhabit and observe has three dimensions.
Above you is the air and sky,
And below you is the earth.
The above cannot exist without the below.
And at all times throughout your life,
You are poised as the connecting consciousness between the earth below and the whole cosmos above.
The above and below represent the first dimension.
And to one side of you there is the left,
And to the other the right.
And neither the right or the left can exist without the other.
The left and the right give us the second dimension.
The third dimension is comprised of what is behind you and what is ahead of you.
And as spirits incarnated in the vehicle of the human body,
We are blessed with the ability to navigate around these three dimensions.
What's more,
Our gift of self-awareness allows us to travel freely around these dimensions with our mind alone.
We can imagine walking forward to dip our feet in the sea or to go for a swim.
We can imagine going backwards towards palm trees to get some shade.
We can bury our feet further into the sand or jump up to catch a beach ball.
Our hotel might be over to our left,
And the smells from a restaurant whappening in on the breeze from our right.
All our five senses of sight,
Hearing,
Smell,
Touch and even taste help us navigate our way around this three-dimensional world.
And this three-dimensional world floats along the fourth dimension,
That of time.
So as the sun sinks into the horizon and its last rays illuminate the clouds,
It signifies the end of another day.
The sun,
Of course,
Isn't really setting at all.
Your chair,
The beach you're on and the sea in front of you are rotating at around a thousand miles an hour away from the sun,
Giving the illusion that the sun sets.
So as dust falls upon you and darkens into night,
You are rotating towards a new sunrise.
And what will make the day ahead the best ever is your thoughts as you head towards slumber and your thoughts as you awaken into the next day.
So welcome to the material world that we live on and in,
And to the views on the notion of up and down,
Of above and below,
Left and right,
Ahead of you and behind you,
And how these three dimensions float along the fourth dimension of time.
So open your eyes slowly and allow your awareness to come back into your world.
Give your toes a wiggle,
Your fingers a wiggle.
Just lift your feet slowly from the floor and the palms from your armrests.
Look up above you and down to the floor.
Rotate your head gently to the right and then gently over to the left and now back to the centre again.
Look straight ahead of you and imagine the room behind you.
And welcome back to the amazing material world that you live in.
