On Contemplation

Suggestions, Approaches, and Comments

To approach an item as a subject for contemplation or meditation, there are a few steps that can be helpful. First, recognize that in most cases it takes non-thinking or non-reasoning to get the most benefit and understanding. Second, try to get yourself in to a quiet state of breath and mind. In this situation we use the larger view of heart understanding and universal mind rather than your thinking process. Use the breath and feeling to let thought drop away as best you are able. Then read the item a few times until you are clear about it from a more surface perspective and can hold the thought being conveyed in your awareness. Finally, use this then as the subject for your meditation. With some statements or teachings you may need to break this down line by line, or thought by thought, or subject by subject, and then contemplate the whole. From this you will no doubt get a much clearer perspective.

You use a process of meditation for this. Adding a receptive breath (or posture) can be of help. A receptive (or moon) breath is one focused in the left nostril. In addition, and much more of importance, is your position to the universal mind or guiding being. This speaks always through your heart. By placing yourself in the position of being guided or "spoken to" by this, and by receiving from this, you open the way for understanding and knowing to come. Of course there must be room for this. So you make sure you empty the cup first. That is done by trying to let go of any preconceptions you may have and any "learning" you have about the subject. Rather, let yourself be the absorber and receiver of the univeral intelligence. Feel this come to the surface. By holding the thought or saying or teaching as a framework through which this intelligence will come and fill, you will get what you need and what you have the capacity for at the time of your sitting and contemplating. You do this by being aware of the subject and the letting this go; opening the way for the Real to fill you with the understanding, knowing, and/or experience(s) that are best and most direct for you. Then go on further when you feel it is time to do so. In this manner you may find that reading several pieces or paragraphs or pages is best, and then to concentrate upon one or more is also needed.

Use your time wisely and try not to get caught up only in the consideration as something separate or intellectual, but rather as a tool for application. Look for the situations in which you are able to use what you have gained. Seek guidance in how best and most valuably for you to apply you knowledge and abilities. And seek the tools to further and strengthen your capacities and abilities to convey what you have gained in an inner manner. These things I suggest are just approaches. You may find many others which also work for you, that is if you wish. The key is to "consider", be mindful and aware, and go forward.