Most people come to meditation thinking, or even fearing, that it is difficult. No matter how much some people rave about the benefits of meditation, many think it would be easier to relax by merely playing a sport, reading a book, grabbing a drink, watching TV, or doing any number of things that don’t require much effort.
Life is an amazing journey. Once it starts, we are in for countless experiences which will forever affect us one way or another. How we choose to think will always be the single most important factor in determining the quality of our lives. It is crucial to realize and acknowledge that our experiences are simply just that, our experiences.
Simply put, there are certain aspects of life which absolutely must be under our control in order to live life to the fullest.
Wealth is your birthright. It’s everyone’s birthright! The silver spoon was in your mouth on the day you were born. You may not realize it because you think that to have riches you need lots of cash or financial holdings - or a genuine silver spoon - but this is a very limited and distorted way of thinking about wealth. Being rich doesn’t necessarily mean you have a pile of $100 bills, a stack of gold bars, or a mink coat in your closet.
In Newton’s mechanical view of the cosmos, the universe is thought of in terms of particles whose behavior can be known and predicted at any moment in time. It’s like balls on a pool table: If we have the information that describes the force of a ball as it strikes another (speed, angle, and so on), then we should be able to predict where and how the one that has been struck will travel. And if it should hit other balls in its journey, we’ll know where and how fast they’re traveling as well. The key here is that the mechanical view of the universe sees the smallest units of the stuff our world is made of as things.
“Love, compassion, and tolerance are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.”
The essence of all religions is love, compassion, and tolerance. Kindness is my true religion. No matter whether you are learned or not, whether you believe in the next life or not, whether you believe in God or Buddha or some other religion or not, in day-to-day life you must be a kind person. When you are motivated by kindness, it doesn’t matter whether you are a practitioner, a lawyer, a politician, an administrator, a worker, or an engineer: whatever your profession or field, deep down you are a kind person.
Ultimately, each one of us experiences spirituality according to our individual values. In other words, if your highest value is your family and your children, then you’ll feel that your highest calling is to raise a magnificent family. President Kennedy’s mother, Rose, provided an obvious example when she said, “I looked at child rearing not only as a work of love and duty, but as a profession that was fully as interesting and challenging as any honorable profession in the world, and one that demanded the best that I could bring to it.” Raising her children was her spiritual quest.