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Simplicity
Meditation
©1995 Frank Sant'Agata
Guided
Visualization
These
meditations are best experienced by recording them on tape or
reading to a group
in a slow peaceful voice with pauses. It may be also helpful
to include soft, meditative
instrumental music in the background.
Focus your attention on the world you have come to call home.
See your days parade by. Become aware of all the tasks, the chores,
the routines they contain. Some of these activities invoke comfort
as you enjoy doing them. Notice which activities you do because
they give you joy or produce a loving feeling. Other activities
cross your mind that may not be your favorite ones. They may
cause you to feel anxious, or, they may invoke a feeling of regret
or dissatisfaction, perhaps even resentment. Note which ones
you do because you are expected to do them, because you fear
the consequences of failing to do them, or ones that you do because
you think you are supposed to. Now, look for tasks you undertake
because you have always done them before, or ones that have become
such routines or habits that you don't even think about why they
are a part of your life.
Seek for one of the tasks that causes particular discomfort or
that you wish you no longer had to attend to. Try to determine
what it was that prompted you to begin doing this activity however
long ago it was. If the reason was expectation, obligation, acceptance,
achievement, money, tradition, family beliefs, your need for
acceptance or love from an individual or group, of any other
form of fear, feel free now to give it up. If love was the reason
for taking up this activity which now appears to cause only regret,
what can you do to change your thoughts about it, to get reconnected
to that love. Don't give up the action, simply see it differently
and do it with love as though you were doing it for God, for
in reality, you are.
Now look at where you live, your home , its furnishings, the
things you keep around. Look at your possessions, all the accumulations,
collections, treasures, clutter, nick nacks, books, decorations
and so on. Why do you have them? What are they for? Who do they
serve? Is there anything around that is there because you feel
obligated to keep it? Does anything exist because of habit, tradition,
expectation, to please someone whom you fear would not like you
if you did not have it? Do any possessions represent your need
for acceptance or love from an individual or group? Then these
things are targets for letting go of the past; for forgiving
yourself; and becoming freed from yet another prison.
Become aware that all material possessions and day to day activities
share but one Holy purpose. They are to teach you something.
When you have learned all they were intended to teach you, they
should be passed on to others who have perhaps different lessons
to learn from them. See if there are things that no longer give
you joy to behold. Perhaps it is because your lessons are completed
with them. Now can they go back into circulation. The right recipient
will come your way when this is to come about. So it is with
tasks. Let go of each thing that is not done with love and exchange
it for an expression of love, and an opportunity to be in a peaceful
state of mind. Even mundane tasks can become devotions of love.
In so doing, your lessons are learned. Let go of any guilt that
may have arisen from this introspection. Everything that you
have done and everything that you have in your possession is
there for a purpose. It was not accidentally acquired. There
are lessons learned and lessons yet to learn and these things
are with you for the purpose of learning. Seek to find the teachings
and then one by one let them go. In valuing not the valueless,
don't overlook the valuable. Look on each task, and every thing
with a fresh perspective and use them all with love.
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