Gratitude

This is a guided meditation which - using a visualisation - leads you to stillness through focussed awareness of the breath and the energies involved (Prana and Apana) and leads on to observe the attitude of gratitude. This track runs for 21 minutes and 28 seconds in a male English voice.

Transcript

Keep your eyes closed,

Start to observe the breath.

Feel the in-breath entering,

Reaching through to the lungs.

Feel the oxygen reaching from your lungs into the blood stream.

Then as you breath out,

Feel the waste products of metabolism reaching to the lungs,

Turning to carbon dioxide.

Then as you breath out,

Leaving the lungs.

So as you breath in,

The air enters,

The body takes the oxygen it needs and as you breath out,

The body wants to release the waste products of the metabolism.

This converts to carbon dioxide,

Enters into your breath and leaves on the out-breath.

So as you breath in,

A positive energy enters,

As you breath out,

A tiredness leaves.

Positive energy that enters as you breath in is called prana.

The tiredness that leaves as you breath out is called apana.

You feel the positive energy of prana entering on the in-breath.

You feel the tiredness of apana leaving on the out-breath.

You visualize this now as a white smoke entering as you breath in,

As a dark smoke leaving as you breath out.

You just focus on this interplay of energy.

White light entering,

Reaching through to your lungs,

Reaching throughout your body.

As you breath out,

A dark smoke,

A tiredness leaving,

Escaping back into the atmosphere.

Breath in,

White light enters.

Breath out.

Dark smoke leaves.

Keep feeling your body being filled with the white light each time you breath in.

Keep feeling any tiredness escaping from your body via the dark smoke as you breath out.

You just connect your awareness to this breath,

Seeing it entering as white smoke,

White light.

Seeing it leaving as dark smoke.

You continue to watch the play of the breath,

White smoke entering,

Dark smoke leaving.

You connect more and more to this breathing.

White smoke enters as you breath in,

Dark smoke leaves as you breath out.

You feel the thoughts fading away.

You realize the thoughts just bring stress.

And the simplicity of the breath brings you back to your inner state of peace,

Your natural state of peace and of stillness.

As you breath in,

The white light continues to enter.

As you breath out,

Dark smoke continues to leave.

You connect more and more to the breath and you feel more and more the stillness that grows in the mind,

The sense of peace that grows in the mind.

You connect to this sense of peace and you continue to allow the thoughts to flow away,

Realizing they have no importance.

The thing that has true importance is connecting to your inner sense of peace.

And this comes naturally when you simply observe the in-breath,

The white smoke entering.

When you simply observe the out-breath,

The dark smoke leaving.

You connect more and more to the breathing.

You connect more and more to the breath.

The real sense of stillness,

Of peace grows.

You watch each in-breath,

You watch each out-breath.

As this sense of peace and stillness grows more and more within you,

As the thoughts fade away,

As you enjoy observing the breath,

You feel a beautiful golden light within your heart awakening.

You feel warmth growing from within the heart,

As it is there,

The heart is opened.

And you feel from deep within your heart that the true secret to constantly feeling content,

The feeling of santosha,

Contentment within.

The true secret to this is to constantly feel gratitude.

You realise that the choice to feel happy doesn't come from without,

From everything that changes in the outside world.

Sometimes happiness comes,

Sometimes sadness comes,

But the choice to truly be happy comes from within yourself.

From a place deep within your heart where the external world can change as much as it wants,

But where you keep happiness from deep within.

You decide that you want to be happy no matter what happens in the outside world.

And you do this primarily by creating an attitude of gratitude deep within your heart.

You realise and feel that it's up to you,

The thoughts that you send to the mind.

There are blockages in your heart,

Only negative thoughts will exist within the mind.

But if you open your heart and allow for gratitude to flood in,

Only positive thoughts can be sent to the mind,

And a feeling,

An attitude of more and more happiness,

A permanent happiness can be created.

And you make a solemn vow to yourself to constantly feel gratitude within.

To take the decision to feel happy no matter what happens in the outside world.

And we go on a journey,

A journey to develop an attitude of gratitude within the heart and within the mind.

We start with our very first memories,

You go back to being a baby.

Those few memories that you have within are more feelings than thoughts.

And you start to awaken from your heart a feeling of gratitude.

Those first people that clothed you,

Protected you,

Sheltered you,

First people that fed you,

You start to allow the feeling of gratitude to awaken here.

You feel gratitude melting into the chamber of the heart that's been hidden.

You continue to allow the heart to soften and melt.

So you remember these first instances.

And then as you grew slightly older,

Again those that fed you,

Clothed you,

Showed you love,

Affection,

Warmth.

As you grew older still into a small child,

Those that showed you love,

Those that protected you,

Again those that clothed you,

Fed you,

Helped you to take your first steps.

You see that as you grew slightly older to a slightly older child still,

Again those that helped you to become independent,

Enjoying more than your first steps,

Those that helped you to understand more about the world,

The first ones to show you affection.

You remember the good things and you allow them to flood and fill your heart.

And I guess again as you carry on growing older into an even bigger child now,

Those that helped you on your path of education to learn,

Those that continued to feed you,

Clothe you,

Help you to become more and more independent.

Then as you grew older still,

Those that loved you,

The first friends that you made,

That cared about you,

Hugged you when you were sad,

Enjoyed,

Shared with you when you were happy.

You feel gratitude growing towards all these beings,

Towards the fact that love exists,

Towards the fact that you were protected,

Fed,

Clothed,

Sheltered,

That someone loved you,

Cared about you,

Showed you friendship,

Protection.

Then as you grew older still,

Ready to step out more independently into the world,

As you started to become a young adult,

Again those that showed you,

Helped you onto your path,

Those that helped you to become truly independent,

Those that became your new friends,

And old friends that stayed with you,

Those that truly helped you on your new path in life,

To help you stand on your own two feet,

And the new friends that showed you caring,

That filled your heart.

You remember all of this and you allow gratitude to grow more and more within.

You continue to allow your heart to flood with feelings and thoughts of gratitude.

You allow your heart to grow larger and larger,

And you allow for more and more light,

More and more love to enter your heart,

As it remembers more and more things that you have to feel gratitude for.

You remember from here to where you are now,

Every single act of gratitude,

Act of love,

Act of happiness that you've ever been shown,

Everything that's ever happened in your life that's made you smile,

Made you feel cared for,

Made you feel happy.

You remember every kind word you've ever heard,

Every smile you've ever received,

Every person that's ever helped you,

Every selfless act of love you've ever received,

Every hug,

Every positive emotion you've ever felt in your life.

You allow your heart to fill with light and to remember all these positive things,

Feeling you more and more.

You allow your heart to fill with light and to remember all these positive things,

Feeling you more and more.

Continue to remember all of the positivity you've ever received,

All of the friendships you've ever felt,

The hugs,

The kind words that you've ever received,

And the chambers within the heart open more and more as you allow for the positivity to grow there within.

You continue to remember and feel all the things that have happened that you have to be grateful for.

And you allow this feeling of gratitude to swell within the heart,

You allow for the gratitude to grow more and more,

For your heart to feel lighter and lighter.

And you make a promise to yourself that whenever you need to feel positivity,

The second you feel any negativity creeping up within you,

You'll simply close your eyes and remember from the day you were born till now all the things that have happened in your life that you have to be grateful for,

All the kind words you've ever heard,

The acts of friendship you've received,

The smiles,

The happiness,

The friendships you've developed,

You allow for your heart to grow more and more in light,

And you allow your heart to feel completely light.

You rub both palms together,

Taking warmth into the palms,

You take the bottoms of the palms over the eyes,

Bringing warmth back into the eyes,

And then you slowly move your hands away,

Slowly opening the eyes,

Just getting them used to the light once more,

Keeping the feeling of gratitude within you,

The feeling of the light within the heart,

Growing more and more,

Softening the heart.

Reviews

Voice is very soft spoken which forces me to listen intently. I enjoyed the visual aspects as I was guided through elements of breath work, and heart coherence.