Manifestation, Metta, And The Mind With Papaji

In today’s session, we contemplate the quote, ‘If there is peace in your mind you will find peace with everybody. If your mind is agitated, you will find agitation everywhere. So first find peace within and you will see this inner peace reflected everywhere else. You are this peace.’ – From H. W. L. Poonja a.k.a. Papaji, an Indian sage.

This track is taken from my course, ‘Daily Contemplations For Living An Examined Life’, available now via my profile.

Transcript

Hello,

And welcome to the session.

I invite you to take a seat,

Or lay down,

And get yourself comfortable.

You can close down the eyes if you wish,

And take a deep,

Slow breath in through the nose and out through your mouth.

And just gently begin to open your mind to today's quote.

To contemplate the words with a free and open and supple mind,

To welcoming possibility and expansion and growth,

And to allow yourself for the next few minutes to just sit and be with whatever arises.

In a moment,

I'm going to share with you a quote to contemplate,

And then we'll sit in silence for a minute and just let it percolate.

And then we'll talk about that quote and see where the discussion leads us.

Today's quote comes from the Indian spiritual teacher,

H.

W.

L.

Poonja,

Also known as Papaji.

If there is peace in your mind,

You will find peace with everybody.

If there is agitation in your mind,

You will find it everywhere.

First find peace within,

And you will see this inner peace reflected everywhere else.

You are this peace.

If there is peace in your mind,

You will find peace with everybody.

If there is agitation in your mind,

You will find it everywhere.

First find peace within,

And you will see this inner peace reflected everywhere else.

You are this peace.

So this quote invokes two separate and interconnected lines of reasoning and thought and contemplations.

The first one is a discussion of manifesting reality,

Thoughts becoming real and seen in other people and in the world.

And the second is the concept of the inner peaceful nature of the self.

So we'll address these in turn and then interconnect them.

It's abundantly clear to me that if you approach the world and other people in a certain mood or mind frame,

They respond in kind,

Or at least it influences them.

Countless studies have shown that people are influenced by other people in multiple different directions,

Based on words,

Actions,

Music,

Substances,

Implications,

Rules,

Just their presence.

Someone's smiling,

Someone's saying something in a certain tone versus someone frowning,

Saying it in a sharper tone.

All of these things impact those around us.

If someone upsets you,

Consider their mood.

They've upset you probably because they're in a bad mood.

Then you take that mood and extend it outwards.

There's this idea of passing it forward.

There was a movie and a book about it.

The idea being that you do something good for a person and they do it,

Something good for two people.

Those two people do it for another two people and extends outwards and sort of the idea is they can help change the world,

Pay it forward,

Pass it forward.

But this is more true and is constantly happening on a subconscious level.

If I go outside and smile and wave to the person I see coming on versus if I frown and glare and swear at them,

Or even not say anything directly to them,

I'm just in a huff.

You feel that energy.

You feel it radiating off them either way.

You know there's certain people or places and vibes that just sort of uplift you.

You have people that can open up a room that are just this sort of magnetism of joy and peace and connection and love and other people that just resonate and radiate this vitriol,

This pain,

This depth of despair.

You're impacting the people around you.

There's an analogy of a king who wanted to know about a distant land and he sent two advisors off.

He told the advisors to report back and one advisor reported back that the land is full of lovely,

Engaged,

Happy people.

Welcoming,

Prosperous,

Great to trade with.

The other one comes back saying and reporting saying,

Well where I went they were rude and obnoxious and mean and you know we should attack them.

And then the king revealed that he sent them both to the same place and it turns out that the one that reported that we should trade and be open and you know diplomatic ties to this country was a warm and open and welcoming and accepting person.

The person who wanted to go to war was themselves troubled,

Depressed,

Negative,

Jaded.

And I suppose without going into the depths and the implications of mental health and I suppose to another extent sort of free will and choice.

I guess what this quote suggests to me if there's peace in your mind you will find peace with everybody.

If there's agitation in your mind you will find it everywhere.

First find peace within and you'll see this inner peace reflected everywhere else.

You are this peace.

This quote makes me want to do my best to to share and be the peace I want to see in the world because I know that if I project peace outwardly I get it back and that it's this resonance.

I'm nice,

They're nice and we vibe upwards you know into heaven on earth to take it to an extreme.

But if I put out negativity the people respond negatively and now we're in this down mood.

And obviously this isn't a binary decision.

Things can break the pattern and you know real world events happen good and bad.

So we're sort of taking this ethereal quote into the present.

But if you can be peace internally,

If you can develop that inner peace because it's saying to find that peace within yourself and that itself is a whole practice and a whole process.

You know every meditation,

Every spiritualism is about finding that peace in some capacity.

Sitting with the self,

Sitting with the void,

Sitting with God,

Finding the true nature resonance.

Nirvana,

All of these things,

Enlightenment.

Find that peace within yourself,

Project it outwards,

It will come back to you,

You are that peace.

I'm not saying you need to be enlightened to feel peace within the world but you could move towards it,

Towards that place of peace.

Rather than being cranky could you at least be neutral?

And on the other side of things if you can interpret something as neutral or as positive rather than negative make that choice to do so.

Was that person being mean or were they just busy?

That reframe giving people the benefit of the doubt is life-changing.

Reframing all ambiguity towards neutral or positivity.

Just making the assumptions like okay I don't know what's going on in that person's mind I'm going to assume good has boosted the joy and resonance I feel coming back from other people because I'm assuming that they're feeling good most of the time they are or at least they're neutral.

I project that positivity to them,

They resonate off that,

They project it back to me and now we're vibing on a higher love meta-based frequency as opposed to sitting in this wallowing of despair and upset and angry and tense and sort of worried about one another's motives and all this sort of stuff.

Obviously be safe,

There are some people in some circumstances that you do need to be guarded for but that certainly is an extreme minority.

Find the peace within,

Do the practices that I've put out,

That other people have put out,

That you yourself have found,

Sit in that place of peace and then project it outwards.

This is sort of going into a meta-meditation practice,

A loving-kindness meditation,

Saying to other people,

To yourself,

May you be free of ill will,

May you be free of suffering,

May you be full of loving-kindness,

May you be happy.

And just sitting in that space of love,

There's something there.

So if we bring it to the second part of this quote,

You are this peace.

There is a belief in the spiritual practices,

In the religious practices and I think you can find this place within that you are a place of peace.

I don't even think you need to invoke any sort of spiritual practice,

I think you can actually find this from a secular perspective too.

Now I have my own certain spiritual and religious beliefs but I also like to find the non-spiritual answer and I think the peace that we can find non-spiritually,

Practically,

Is the peace of the present moment.

This moment right now is all that exists.

The future hasn't come,

The past is gone,

Be here now sort of thing.

Right now in this moment chances are,

Actually,

You're at peace.

It's just your mind is ruminating on the future or on the past or on things that may or may not have happened or could happen or all of this thing we get into this trap of craving and pushing away and sort of tension.

But this moment right now is peace.

If you can sit in the presence of the current moment,

Resonance,

Power,

Acceptance,

The self,

Then take that to the world and project that outwards.

That's almost like a spiritual service to the world.

If I can give you my presence,

If I can give you,

Gift you this present moment,

What a gift,

What a gift to give someone.

That's a thought for another talk I think but let's combine this together now.

If there's peace in your mind you'll find peace with everybody.

If there is agitation in your mind you will find it everywhere.

First find peace within and you'll see this inner peace reflected everywhere else.

You are this peace.

If we can sit in the peace of the present moment of ourselves and you know if we're spiritual with God,

With holy energy,

With Shiva and Shakti,

With whatever space or place that our practice evokes.

If we can sit in that place and then see and project that outward and see it in other people,

They see it back in us.

Everyone is vibing at a higher frequency and that's a service that the world needs.

So I encourage you to find that peace.

Find the peace in your mind and then you'll find it with everyone,

Everywhere.

And if there's agitation you'll find it everywhere.

So first find the peace within and you'll see this inner peace reflected everywhere else.

You are this peace.

So let's just sit for another minute in this space of contemplation and allow this space of inner peace to wash over us and in turn over the world.

So well done.

This brings us to the end of the session.

At the bottom of your screen you'll find the option to view the classroom or to ask a question.

Before moving on I invite you to take a moment to click through and share your insights.

Read the answers from the other students to hear my replies.

Remember to start your responses with Papaji or to restate the quote.

In this case,

Peace of the present moment,

So we know which one you're referring to.

This is an opportunity for deep learning,

Further introspection and insight,

So please don't miss out.

I look forward to seeing you in the next session.

Thank you.

This track was taken from my course,

Daily Contemplations for Living an Examined Life.

It's out now on Insight Timer and available via my profile.

I invite you to join in.

Reviews

I did do this lesson in the course and it was just as good the second time. This is something that came late in life for me to learn but has definitely changed my life overall. Thank you for the constant reminders Namaste. Happy new moon!