Intention and Meditation

How interesting life can be, particularly when we recognize the Divine whisper of Truth.

Earlier today I was in a mini-retreat with one my teachers, Rev. Patrick Cameron.  He said something that jumped into my awareness and clarified for me something that I do and know.  But he put words to it that made so much sense.  He said that when he treats now that he starts from a place of purpose.  He gets clear on why he is here, and everything else unfolds from there. 

That thought and moment stayed with me until it was time to log into Second Life.  As you may know each evening I go into Second Life and spend time in spiritual community, facilitating a meditation as a part of my spiritual practice.  Tonight's meditation that came to mind was to be silent, focusing on breath. 

But then, as I was settling in and getting myself into that 'space', an idea came to mind.  What if we meditated on the idea of purpose and intention?

To set the context I shared a few thoughts on values and intention.  A value is a personal principle, standard, or quality.  Values are some of the most powerful motivators we have.  Our values add a lot of fuel to the creative process, and are often quite central to the intention we set.  If we are unaware of our values our ability to get clear on our purpose, and to be motivated by it, will suffer.  On the contrary, learning about our values is something that provides a deep and holistic support to our experience.

The question then becomes, how to understand what our values are?  We all want something.  Everyone has desires and aspirations.  However, that 'want' can sometimes be unclear or unknown.  Or worse still, wants can be unacknowledged when we do not take the time to ask ourselves, what do I want to be?  What is my life's purpose? 

And through this comes the idea of intention.  But it is important to first ask oneself, what do I want to be?  Once you know what you want to be, then you can ask yourself what do you want to do?  In turn, it can become very interesting when our intentions conflict.  For example, what if you want to take a trip to an exotic location but are scared about getting sick from a tropical disease?  Such conflicting intention should be a prompt for us to examine our intentions, decide which one we want, and then focus on that.  In my previous example I expect most would set the tropical disease down as a belief that needs to be released and  focus on the desire to travel.

With a knowing of the limitless potention of the Divine and that thought creates, and believing that the Divine Power is within yourself, it's then time to know exactly what you want.  The final thought before starting the meditation was that if any were present did not know their purpose then they should pray, or hold a knowing, for clarity and focus on their purpose. To ask the Divine to let you know what your purpose is a great question I think. It's like asking, how can I serve, how can I help? Do you think the Divine is going to ignore such questions? I think not.  With this premise and context set we then meditated upon our life's purpose, our intention. 

As is always the case when the meditation is done I invite those gathered to share their experience if they feel comfortable.  The sharings from the circle were stunning.  I felt honoured to be a witness to such insights and realizations from those who had turned up this evening.

Of the many comments and questions a couple are with me still as I write this weblog.  Someone asked, does the Divine acknowledge unfulfilled intentions?  My response to that is that our thoughts, our intentions, are always imprinted upon the Divine and thus creating.  However, if there is a delay in a demonstration (our intention not showing up) then this simply means we are not ready; that a thought or belief needs to be neutralized and replaced with a new idea based on Spiritual Truth (a topic for another blog methinks).  Another spoke of the peace they felt as their awareness was drawn to a book of theirs that is currently being printed.  And as I heard her speak it was clear to me that her emotion of peace was like the Universe providing this signpost that was saying, "Yep, that's good work...keep it up."  Emotions are a wonderful indicator of when we are living life's purpose.  If you feel unhappy then perhaps it's time to work on your values and intention.  And if you feel great and at peace all the time the chances are that your choices are lining up behind who you are meant to be.

And to think, this all came from a single comment shared by someone earlier in the day.  This whole event was completely unplanned, but it felt wonderful to behold.  But then, my life's purpose is to inspire and support the transformation of consciousness.  Is it any surprise then that the Universe should inspire as it did today?