July - August 2021 Transformation

American Meditation Institute

Transformation July - August 2021

Bringing Yoga Science to Life

americanmeditation.org

“YOUR CONSCIENCE is a gift for humanity.” BERNIE SIEGEL, MD

We Need Your Help!

Celebrate AMI’s First 25 Years of Service

By Supporting the Launch of Leonard’s Timely New Book, YOUR CONSCIENCE See pages 6-9 to learn why your support is so important

AMI Classes for July - August 2021

YOGA SCIENCE

FOUNDATION COURSE Live & Interactive with Leonard Perlmutter (Ram Lev) A TRANSFORMATIVE & EMPOWERING SELF-CARE PROGRAM ON ZOOM

U NITING M IND , B ODY & S PIRIT INCLUDES 36 TOOLS FOR DEALING WITH ALL OF LIFE! American MEDITATION Institute Bringing Yoga Science to Life

Foundation Course Overview The curriculum for the FOUNDATION COURSE is based on the award-winning book, The Heart and Science of Yoga ® by Leonard Perlmutter (Ram Lev)

Seated AMI Meditation • Mantra Science Diaphragmatic Breathing • Yoga Psychology Mind Function Optimization • Easy-Gentle Yoga Lymph System Detox • Nutrition • Ayurvedic Medicine YOGA SCIENCE––WEEK 1 How to use the mind for the best choices How to create new, healthier habits Understanding pain as an agent for healing Increasing energy, will power & creativity Antidotes for worry, stress and depression AMI MEDITATION––WEEK 2 Systematic procedure for AMI Meditation Diminishing distractions with mantra science Learning the one-minute meditation Building focus, fearlessness, and strength BREATHING TECHNIQUES––WEEK 3 Breath as Medicine How breathing irregularities foster dis-ease Complete (three-part) yogic breath 2

YOGA PSYCHOLOGY & AYURVEDA––WEEK 4 How the mind supports optimal health The power of the present moment Building and healing relationships Introduction to Ayurveda EASY-GENTLE YOGA EXERCISES––WEEK 5 Yoga stretches to benefit: muscles, joints, glands and internal organs Physiological benefits of yoga postures MIND /BODY SELF-CARE PLAN––WEEK 6 The healing power of prayer The practical benefits of contemplation Creating a therapeutic self-care plan for yourself Learning to budget your time Integrating spiritual beliefs into daily life

americanmeditation.org • Tel. (518) 674-8714

Taught by

Leonard Perlmutter (Ram Lev) The AMI MEDITATION Foundation Course was developed and is taught live on Zoom by Leonard Perlmutter (Ram Lev). Leonard is a noted educator, philosopher, Yoga scientist and founder of The American Meditation Institute. He is the author of The Heart and Science of Yoga® and the mind/body medicine journal, Transformation. He is a direct disciple of Swami Rama of the Himalayas. Leonard’s lectures are enlivened by his inspiring enthusiasm, vast experience, humor and clear teaching style. He has taught at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, The New York Times Yoga Forum, Kaiser-Permanente and the U. S. Military Academy at West Point.

A MI MEDITATION: Case Study Results In 2008, AMI conducted a retrospective case study of participants who completed Leonard Perlmutter’s AMI MEDITATION Heart and Science of Yoga ® Self-Care Program.

The findings included these positive, life-enhancing, health-promoting changes: • Significant reductions in stress and fear • Improved energy levels • Reduced cholesterol levels • Decreased anxiety and depression • Increased creative capacity • Diminished or extinguished • Lowered blood pressure • Diminishment of migraine headaches acute and chronic pain • Lowered heart rate • Decreases irritable bowel symptoms • Weight loss • Improved restorative sleep • Enhanced happiness and optimism • Increased breathing capacity

FOUNDATION COURSE Schedule and Accreditation

Medical Accreditation PHYSICIAN ACCREDITATION (18 CMEs) americanmeditation.org/physician-cme This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the Essential Areas and Policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education through the joint providership of Albany Medical College and The American Meditation Institute. Albany Medical College is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

The Albany Medical College designates this Live activity for a maximum of 18 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits TM. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

NURSING CONTINUING EDUCATION (15 contact hours) americanmeditation.org/nursing-continuing-education This activity has been submitted to the Massachusetts Association of Registered Nurses, Inc., for approval to award contact hours. Massachusetts Association of Registered Nurses, Inc. is accredited as an approver of continuing nursing education by the AmericanNurses Credentialing Center's COA.

Registration Includes: Lifelong support, a 20-minute digital Guided Meditation, a copy of The Physiology of Easy-Gentle Yoga, and a subscription to AMI’s Transformation journal.

UPCOMING CLASSES Live and Interactive

On ZOOM with Leonard Perlmutter Founder of the American Meditation Institute

Jul 10 -Aug 14

Saturday Afternoon

1:30 -3:30pm ET, $595.

Sep 11-Oct 16

(6 WKS)

Saturday Afternoon

1:30-3:30pm ET, $595. (6 WKS) Required Texts available at AMI Bookstore: The Heart and Science of Yoga ® The Art of Joyful Living Physicians $895; PAs, NPs: $795; RNs: $695

HEALTH INSURANCE COVERAGE Call us to discuss how your Health Insurance plan might cover this program.

Endorsed by Dean Ornish MD, Bernie Siegel MD, Larry Dossey MD, Dr. Oz 3

AMI Classes for July - August 2021

CALENDAR FREE EVERY SUNDAY A GUIDED MEDITATION & SATSANG LIVE on ZOOM 9:30-11:00am ET with Leonard (Ram Lev) & Jenness Perlmutter A link is on the americanmeditation.org website

JULY 2021 JUL 10 - AUG 14: AMI MEDITATION see p. 2-3 Sat. Afternoons, 1:30-3:30 PM ET (6 wks) Live on ZOOM

JUL 10 & 17: YOGA SCIENCE LAB

see p. 4

Sat. Mornings, 10:30AM-12:30PM ET (2 wks) Live on ZOOM

AUGUST 2021 AUG 2 - SEP 13: GITA/YOGA PSYCHOLOGY see p. 4 Mon. Nights, 6:30 - 8:30 PM ET (6 wks) Live on ZOOM

SEPTEMBER 2021

YOGA PSYCHOLOGY BHAGAVAD GITA STUDY Leonard (Ram Lev) and Jenness Perlmutter

Live and Interactive on ZOOM LEVEL II: In continuous six week installments this course presents the profound teachings of the Bhagavad Gita as a handbook on the science of life and the art of living. If you are seeking a manual or guide for the supreme task of living well in the world today, this ongoing study will provide you practical wisdom, meaning and purpose for your life. Each week Leonard and Jenness will teach you how to reduce stress and confidently enhance your health and creative abilities, while providing you a fresh, positive perspective on all your family and business relationships. LIVE ON ZOOM MONDAY NIGHTS, 6:30-8:30 PM ET, $150. (6 WKS) AUGUST 2 - SEP 13 (EXCL. 9-6); SEP 20 - OCT 25

SEP 11 - OCT 16: AMI MEDITATION see p. 2-3 Sat. Afternoons, 1:30-3:30 PM ET (6 wks) Live on ZOOM

SEP 20 - OCT 25: GITA/YOGA PSYCHOLOGY see p. 4 Mon. Nights, 6:30 - 8:30 PM ET (6 wks) Live on ZOOM

SEP 25 & OCT 2: YOGA SCIENCE LAB

see p. 4 Sat. Mornings, 10:30AM-12:30PM ET (2 wks) Live on ZOOM

YOGA SCIENCE LAB

How to Practice Meditation-in-Action Valerie Chakedis, Mary Holloway MT Prerequisite: Yoga Science Foundation Course

Live and Interactive on ZOOM

“You will receive everything you need, when you stop asking for what you do not need.”

Nisargadatta Maharaj

American Meditation Institute

Bringing Yoga Science to Life July - August, 2021 • Vol. XXIV No. 4 ©2021 60 Garner Road, Averill Park, NY 12018

americanmeditation.org \ Tel. (518) 674-8714 ami@americanmeditation.org AMI is a tax exempt, non-profit 501(c)3 educational organization. Donations are fully tax deductible.

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LEVEL II: In AMI’s Foundation Course, you learned that your thoughts are your most valuable asset. The Yoga Science Lab will help you examine your thoughts and expand your ability to focus your attention. The techniques learned in seated AMI Meditation are applied in every duty and responsibility throughout the day. This process is called Meditation-in-Action. As you experiment with the Truth reflected by your Conscience, you’ll develop decision-making skills that will enhance your confidence in all relationships. As you have already learned, to experience real freedom you must be centered in the present moment, know who you are, and follow your Inner Wisdom. Yoga Science Lab can help you achieve that freedom!

SATURDAY MORNINGS, 10:30AM -12:30 PM ET, $75.

JUL 10 & 17; SEP 25 & OCT 2 (2 WKS) LIVE ON ZOOM

3rd Annual National Conscience Month

ESSAY CONTEST For ALL High School Seniors $2,000. SCHOLARSHIP

January 2022 will mark the 3rd Annual observance of National Conscience Month. Throughout the month Americans from all walks of life will be imagining new ways to celebrate the benefits of using their Conscience to guide their thoughts, words and deeds.

Here’s a special opportunity for high school seniors across the nation!

You’re now invited to participate in a unique and creative way––by writing a short essay about using the Conscience. Think of a real situation in your life––or create an imaginary scenario––in which you allowed (or chose not to allow) your Conscience to guide your thoughts, words and actions. What were the results? Were there benefits? Or unexpected consequences? What did you learn from this experience?

One talented student will receive a $2,000. scholarship, awarded for an original essay of 1,000 words or less.

Submission Instructions: No membership or purchase of any kind is required to take part in the National Conscience Month Essay Contest. Essay submissions should be sent by email to ami@americanmeditation.org. Submissions should be sent as a PDF attachment. Submissions must be received no later than Friday, January 28, 2022. The contest winner will be notified by email. Submissions may be featured by the American Meditation Institute either online or in print in connection with National Conscience Month programming and promotions, and the right to reproduce submissions is reserved by AMI and its sponsors.

For complete information visit: ConscienceMonth.org.

E-mail essays to: ami@americanmeditation.org with name, address, telephone number and the name of your high school.

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And My Soul Also Aches For the Children of Humanity

a

by Leonard Perlmutter (Ram Lev) In the mid 1960s, when I first read the following words attributed to Jesus the Christ in the Gnostic Gospel of Saint Thomas, I had very few experiential points of reference to understand the meaning, emotion and import of what He so passionately communicated.

These are His words: I took my stand in the midst of the world, and in flesh I appeared to them. I found them all drunk, and I did not find any of them thirsty. My soul ached for the children of humanity, because they are blind in their hearts and do not see, for they came into the world empty, and they also seek to depart from the world empty.

Now, as I write this essay in 2021, things have changed for me. I can see more clearly than I could as a child.

Today, I am continually aware of the intense anxiety, pain, dispair, fear and rage in the minds of people all across our nation and the planet. And my soul also aches for the children of humanity. “Isn’t there anything meaningful you can do to bring some positive change and 6

optimism into the world,” I asked mySelf? The answer to that question motivated me to write a new book, YOUR CONSCIENCE––The Key to Unlock Limitless Wisdom and Creativity and Solve All of Life’s Challenges. It will be released on September 7th.

YOUR CONSCIENCE has been inspired by Jesus’s words, as well as my own burning desire to offer humanity a reliable, time-tested scientific template to resolve the seemingly unresolvable personal and global challenges of our time.

My personal list of the challenges I now see all around me is printed on the book’s back cover. It reads as follows: Abortion, Addiction, Aging, Anger, Anxiety, Bullying, Burnout, Civil Rights, Climate Change, Death, Depression, Education, Family, Fear, Food, Government, Greed, Gun Control, Health, Immigration, LGBTQIA, Marriage, Misogyny, Money, Moral Decline, NonTruth, Parenting, Politics, Pollution, Poverty, Racism, Self-Preservation, Sex, Sleep, Stress, Terrorism and Violence.

Yes, without question, we live in challenging times. Whether it is the affairs of the world or a more private struggle that disturbs your peace, solutions can feel elusive. Some days are better than others, of course, when kindness and grace and insight appear––like those brilliant shafts of light we see when the sun pierces a thick cloud. But some days are worse, when fear and anxiety overwhelm, and there is no light in sight, at least not in your corner of the world.

I realize that each of us faces challenges every day, large and small, but as

Einstein so wisely advised, we cannot solve these problems by relying on the same kind of thinking that got us into trouble in the first place. In other words, we must seek a higher knowledge.

I know you are not Einstein––neither am I––but each one of us, including you, already has access to the source of the greater wisdom and creativity we need to solve life’s most difficult challenges. This book has been written to help you discover, assimilate and employ the priceless wisdom that you have access to every moment of every day, by using YOUR CONSCIENCE.

“In your search for life’s greatest treasure, would you look to your Conscience first . . . or last?”

Leonard Perlmutter (Ram Lev)

“YOUR CONSCIENCE”

By Leonard Perlmutter (Ram Lev) coming September 7, 2021

YourConscience.org 7

Your Support Ensures this Loving Wisdom Will be Widely Shared

By Jennifer Masters If you are a student of the American Meditation Institute, you have no doubt heard about Leonard Perlmutter’s new book. YOUR CONSCIENCE: The Key to Unlock Limitless Wisdom and Creativity and Solve All of Life’s Challenges will be published in a few short months, on September 7, 2021.

But do you understand why your support of this important endeavor is so crucial? The short answer is that publishing a book is serious business, and there are serious costs involved—including cover design, layout and typesetting, printing, binding, distribution, and publicity. These costs must be paid before a single book is sold, and as you probably know, most books never sell enough copies to recoup their costs. From a purely dollars and cents standpoint, your financial support is critical to making this book a reality.

The longer answer is much more interesting, and it is all about raising awareness and sharing the Truth.

Despite the financial challenges book publishing presents, AMI—and its 8

nonprofit publishing entity, AMI Publishers—is committed to playing its part in the long tradition of our rich lineage.

For millennia, men and women who have experienced the benefits of listening to the conscience have written and spoken in service to the Truth, ever hopeful that their words will reach the right minds at the right moment. Leonard’s new book, YOUR CONSCIENCE, is an easy-to-understand, extremely accessible addition to this ongoing effort. It is, in fact, the perfect book for this moment in our culture.

This new handbook contains the core of the teachings on the Four Functions of the Mind as well as a number of experiments for readers to try. It’s a “user’s manual” for people interested in learning to coordinate the mind to lead a happier, healthier, and more meaningful life. The key, of course, is learning how to turn down the noise of the ego, senses, and unconscious mind in order to hear and heed your ever-present inner wisdom, as reflected by your Conscience.

In fact, much of the content of this

book may be familiar to you, and you will find it a concise and meaningful refresher on the key principles of our lineage. But YOUR CONSCIENCE was conceived and written to appeal to those with no background in meditation or Yoga Science. These Truths are universal.

When one encounters them for the first time, they feel instantly familiar, recognizable, and True––because they are True.

Yet even in today’s more yoga-friendly world, you won’t hear these Truths shared in a typical yoga or meditation class.

Imagine for a moment if you had learned how your mind works (and how you could successfully train it to make better choices!) when you were still in high school. What if, as a freshman in college you were required to read an introduction to this timeless wisdom and engage in some simple and fun experiments with your fellow students? What if your church or synagogue or mosque offered these teachings to new members?

Just consider how your life might be different today if you had learned earlier about the power of attention, about the mechanics behind the Law of Karma, and about the power to transform worries and self-centered desires into love, fearlessness, and strength.

Of course we know that all roads lead to where we stand, and you learned this timeless wisdom precisely when you were ready to receive it. But now, at this very auspicious moment, your support of YOUR CONSCIENCE will help bring these teachings to a new audience that is also ready to receive it. Given the extraordinary and challenging circumstances of the first two decades of the 21st Century, let alone the last two years, that time is now. One has only to turn on the television for a moment or scroll through Instagram or Facebook to understand why this wisdom is so desperately needed.

So, in our first ever AMI GoFundMe campaign, we hope to raise funds and awareness about this most loving offering. With your help, we can reach people who might not otherwise be exposed to this timeless wisdom. Thank you for consulting with your own Conscience to determine how you can best contribute to this effort. Namaste.

Jennifer Masters is a professional writer who served as book editor for YOUR CONSCIENCE. She received an undergraduate degree in English from the University of Virginia, and a master’s degree in education from the University of Pennsylvania. Jennifer is also a certified hatha yoga teacher with a 20-year personal practice. She has studied Yoga Science at AMI since 2019.

Go to GoFundMe.com/f/YourConscience to donate and help AMI cover the publishing costs. And please help us spread the word through social media and good old-fashioned word of mouth. Your love and attention to this important endeavor is sincerely appreciated.

“What a sad era it is when it’s easier to smash an atom than a prejudice.”

Albert Einstein 9

Invitation to a Journey

by Eknath Easwaran

Not long ago, a young forty-foot humpback whale on his way to Alaska became enticed by the lure of San Francisco. He veered off course into the bay, and once inside, instead of deciding he had made a wrong turn and retracing his wake, he chose to push on to Sacramento. By the time I learned of his plight, he had worked his way into fresh waters and got trapped in the shallows of the Sacramento River Delta––a most uncongenial environment for any salt-water creature, but practically a bathtub for one used to thousands of miles of open sea.

Humphrey, as reporters dubbed him, immediately became a media sensation. Every day, news services carried updates on his predicament around the world, while hundreds of whale-lovers flocked to San Francisco to help the Coast Guard try to rescue him. But Humphrey just kept swimming up blind alleys.

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Finally someone hit on the idea of luring him back to the sea by the call of recorded whale songs. Humphrey began leaping joyfully, splashing great sheets of water to the delight of spectators, and churned toward the open ocean at a good thirty miles an hour. Traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge backed up in both directions as fans got out of their cars to crowd at the rails and cheer. They paid handsome fines, but as one woman told reporters, “It was worth every penny.”

Something in all of us cheers when a captive creature breaks free. We are born for freedom, even if we don’t understand what that means or how to find it.

Somehow we sense that we are not meant to spend our lives in the shallows of pleasure and profit. We are made for vast spaces, to reach beyond boundaries until, as an English mystic put it, we are “clothed with the heavens and crowned with the stars.” We are all born with

intimations of a potential that is much, much grander than anything we can dream of in the day-to-day world.

While Humphrey’s story was unfolding in the daily news, we human viewers had the advantage of a higher dimension. We could look at maps, watch aerial views on TV, and see the entire scene: the narrow confines of the river delta, the broader bay with its narrow passage in and out, the vast expanse of ocean that Humphrey needed to find.

To us it seemed so simple what to do.

But Humphrey had no access to that higher view. All he could have known was that an interesting side trip had turned into a trap. It’s easy to imagine how he must have felt as he found himself alone and boxed in, with no sense of where to turn for help in a situation he could not understand.

I spent years of my early life in what seemed a very similar predicament. At that time I had not the slightest interest in the spiritual life. My days were full with a job I loved, teaching English literature at a great university in India. I had begun to make a reputation as a writer; I had friends with whom to enjoy music and tennis and the quiet pleasures of good company; everything I wanted was flowing into my hands. It was a very satisfying situation. If I had time to think about it, I would have assured you I was happy.

Instead, I found increasingly that on some other level––not physical, not emotional, but within my heart––I felt starved for meaning. Old, old questions began to come unbidden at wakeful hours of the night: Why am I here? What is life for? What happens when I die?

Nothing in my education had prepared me for such questions. Nothing I read could answer them for me. Only when I discovered meditation could I find the higher vantage I needed to see

life whole––and that discovery opened the door to a way of life so much more fulfilling that my days before seem like a dream.

The practice of meditation embodies ideals for a higher mode of living.

Meditation expresses ideals that are universal––ideals that appeal regardless of culture, tradition, or creed.

Meditation has two characteristics.

The first is training attention: learning to focus your mind completely where you choose. This is the essence of genius, but it is not something one must be born with; it is a skill anyone can learn.

Nothing is more practical. When you can direct attention wherever you like, you can do unpleasant jobs with enthusiasm, listen without agitation to criticism when necessary, and stay calm, kind, and clear-headed in a crisis.

Once this kind of sustained concentration becomes natural, it begins to draw together the scattered threads of what one thinks, feels, says, and does.

When you do something with a focused mind, you are completely present––not partly ruminating on the past, partly worried about the future, and currently distracted, as is so common in the rush of modern life. In meditation, when concentration is complete, conflicts resolve, bringing about the complete integration of personality.

The second aspect of meditation derives from the mantra itself––or, rather, from the power that comes from sustained concentration when the word or words open their doors and release their meaning. I can find no better way to put it. The experience is not intellectual, and I am not talking about dictionary definitions; the Truth the mantra reveals simply becomes part of your life, assimilated into your character and consciousness just as the nutrients in food become part of your body.

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In meditation, the mantra represents the Perfection at the center of our being.

In the simplest possible language, the secret of meditation is that we become what we meditate on.

I want to reassure you, however, that none of this happens unless you desire it. No unwanted changes are likely to take place. All that happens is that the loftier desires of the heart grow stronger and stronger when nurtured by the wisdom represented by the mantra.

The essence of meditation, therefore, is revealed by the Psalmist who declares, “The deep calls unto the deep.”

Theologians use this phrase most often to refer to a deep, personal experience of the Supreme ministering to them––from the depths of God’s heart to the depths of their own. A profound experience indeed.

When concentration in meditation is complete, the auspicious meaning of the mantra fills one’s consciousness, just as the impressions of the senses do during the day.

Teresa of Avila calls this entering an “interior castle.” Wonderful things await us there, she says, but we never bother to look in. We may not even know we have a castle because we spend our lives hanging out in the courtyard, trying to enjoy the brief hours of sun, and suffering when it rains.

The simile is perfect. Yet when I was first learning to meditate, I often felt just the opposite too, as if I had been spending my life cramped indoors and just discovered the real world.

Imagine living in one little room all your life! You would forget what the outdoors was like. Gradually you would come to believe there is no such thing; only your room is real. That’s why I say I felt like Humphrey escaping into the sea. Early every morning, while the rest of the world slept, I would open the door 12

of consciousness in meditation, slip inside, and set about homesteading the world within.

Always a reader, I turned to books to get my bearings in this inner realm.

Instead of philosophy and psychology, however, I turned to the world’s mystics, men and women like Mahatma Gandhi, Francis of Assisi, and Teresa of Avila, who had undertaken this journey and written not from theory or speculation, but from personal experience.

I read widely, drawing no distinction between East and West; I cared only whether the testimonies were authentic.

I discovered the Upanishads, and through them my own Indian heritage; Patanjali’s classic text on meditation, the Yoga Sutras, helped greatly in providing the framework my intellectual training required. I read the Catholic mystics, the Buddhist scriptures, the passionate poetry of the Sufis. I discovered that religion has nothing to do with dogma, theology, or anything else that divides; religion is realization: making the truths of the world’s great scriptures a reality in daily life.

Aldous Huxley’s Perennial Philosophy, with its selection of personal testimonies from mystics of all religions, provided my first glimpse that the voyage I had embarked on was not unique but universal. Throughout history, I discovered, men and women of all faiths and backgrounds had stumbled onto a hidden path that led back to this same heartland of the spirit within.

Those paths varied according to creed and culture, but the journey was the same, and all the paths converged on the same land. “The mystics must come from the same country,” Evelyn Underhill wrote, “for they all speak the same language.” That was what Huxley meant by a “perennial philosophy”: the experiential discovery that underlying

the world of change lies a changeless reality that can be realized by any man or woman willing to make the effort.

In this way I discovered other voices, in beautiful passages for contemplation from every major spiritual tradition.

Often they were the voices of monastics, but I found a few who, like me, had chosen not to withdraw into monasteries but to seek a higher reality right in the midst of everyday affairs. I had found a way to bring the ancient art of meditation out of the cloister into daily life.

One of the first discoveries I made when setting out on this journey was that meditation was a kind of bridge between the world within and the everyday world I dealt with during the day. I found a deep connection between the wisdom expressed in the scriptures and the way I conducted myself at home and work. It was a thrilling discovery. Certain skills, such as slowing down and focusing on one thing at a time, deepened my concentration during meditation, and in turn that brought depth to whatever I did during the rest of the day. The mantra became a lifeline, guiding me to the Source of wisdom deep within and then guiding me back into daily life.

Once I made this connection, I began to work on my life as systematically as a professional athlete. And since I am a very ordinary person, I had no difficulty finding weaknesses that needed correction.

To take just one illustration, I had a few habits that could charitably be called self-centered. In fact, they were disrupting my relationships. And I had never been able to shake them off. For one thing, I liked to think they weren’t really all that bad.

As the Perfection I was meditating on took root in my consciousness, however, It gradually ran deeper than those old habits. Then I could look up and see my

precious foibles were no more than weeds preventing some beautiful qualities from blossoming. And that brought the will to pull them out. Some even withered away of their own accord, simply because they were no longer getting nourished by my attention. Meditation was unifying my life.

All this time I was continuing a very full life at the university, with a heavy load of classes accompanied by administrative duties and a good deal of time given over to students every evening.

Making time for meditation was a challenge, but I was benefitting from it so much I made it my first priority. I gave myself one simple rule: “Put meditation first.”

Eventually, the media lost interest in Humphrey once he escaped. But I like to imagine how it must have felt to be free at last, charging out under the Golden Gate Bridge deaf to the cheers of earthbound creatures above him, into the open sea where he belonged.

There’s not much to the continental shelf in northern California, and whales swim fast. Within a few minutes Humphrey would have been in miledeep waters again, with half a planet of open ocean to roam in as he pleased.

Then, free to go wherever he chose, he must instead have felt a silent command: “North. Go north. Go home.” No details, no map, no companions, no guide, just a direction and a desire in response to an overriding imperative from within: “go home!”

It is very much like that on the journey of meditation too. Once you turn inward, the mantra leads you forward in response to a summons from the very depths of the heart.

This need to return to the Source of our being is nothing less than an evolutionary imperative––the drive to realize our full human potential. As Meister 13

Eckhart says, “Whether you like it or not, whether you know it or not, secretly Nature seeks and hunts and tries to ferret out the track in which God may be found.” Something deep within us must find expression beyond the plane of pleasure and profit; that is our glory as human beings.

We need a higher dimension than physical existence to understand our need to find a place in the world. Beyond the familiar plane of biological and emotional needs lies a third dimension of spiritual needs that cannot be denied: the need for meaning, a purpose for living, a place in the fabric of life where we belong.

Because this dimension is part of our very being, we live inescapably in two worlds, the material and the spiritual. To live fully means being at home in both these realms, and that requires a way to bring the deep wisdom of the heart into daily life.

There are many reasons today why

one might choose to meditate––health, concentration, reduced anxiety, deeper relationships, security, serenity, the creative resources for making a lasting contribution. Meditation can help you attain all these goals – or, rather, it provides the path; you will need to do the traveling yourself.

But the path leads much, much farther, as far as you want to go. It opens onto a journey that is literally without end, since its goal is only the beginning of a fully human life.

And the journey holds challenges enough for the most daring adventurer, wonders and treasures that would make Marco Polo’s accounts of Cathay trivial by comparison. It is, without exaggeration, the adventure of a lifetime. If challenges appeal to you and meaning and purpose are what you seek, I warmly invite you to join me.

This Essay is reprinted from “Passage Meditation,” by Eknath Easwaran. © 1978, 1991, 2008 by The Blue Mountain Center of Meditation, Tomales, CA. All rights reserved.

“Why choose to live your life without a vision of the future?

With the Conscience as your guide you’ll see the past, the present and the future with greater clarity.”

Leonard Perlmutter (Ram Lev)

NATIONAL CONSCIENCE MONTH January 2022 • ConscienceMonth.org 14

JENNESS CORTEZ “Demystifying the Masters” HOMER • SARGENT • ROCKWELL • REMINGTON • WARHOL • VERMEER • VAN GOGH • RENOIR • PISSARRO

“Summertime” © by Jenness Cortez, acrylic on mahogany panel 16” by 20” Homage to: Winslow Homer (1836 -1910), “Boys in a Pasture,” Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Winslow Homer’s “Boys in a Pasture,” is a simple tribute to the painter’s two great loves: leisure time in all its forms, and the pleasures of the common sense lives of ordinary rural Americans after the Civil War. His paintings, so unlike the saccharine confections then currently in vogue, were at first mercilessly attacked by the critics, but their honesty and power soon won Homer a devoted following of important collectors. Although his paintings now seem quintessentially American to our 21st century eyes, the influence of Homer’s study of Japanese prints shows up in almost all his compositions, even those as simple as this one. In my tribute to him I chose to add the sweetness of summer to the foreground in the forms of wild berries and ripe watermelon, and I could not suppress the impulse to include a pair of familiar modern comforts: the cell phone and key ring.

JENNESS CORTEZ Jenness Cortez begins her creative process by selecting another artist’s iconic painting to serve as the centerpiece of her own original composition. Depending on her response to that chosen painting, the artist who created it, and the time and culture that gave birth to it, Cortez then becomes author, art director, architect, visual journalist, art historian, curator and pundit as she searches for supportive elements to assist in telling her story. The famous works portrayed in all her compositions are painted with deep respect for their creators, and her careful creative process adds to both the viewer’s understanding and appreciation of beautiful art.

Studio & Gallery • Averill Park, NY • Tel. (518) 674-8711 • Commissions Accepted • JennessCortez.com

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