Episode Transcript
Hello, and welcome to the Spiritual American. My name is Dr. Ann O'Hare and I'm your host today. We're going to be talking about what is the answer. to the number one question that people have. And in the title, it says meditation 101, the answer to the question, who am I? This seems like a bigger topic than one can cover in 20 minutes, right? But what I'm going to do is I'm going to give you an abbreviated version of our first lesson of Rajoga knowledge, which is that I am a soul. And we're going to cover that. And why is that, uh, the number one question? Maybe we're not asking it on a day to day basis. We're very caught up in our, you know, Beadaholique. But sometimes in different times in our life, we may have questions about the purpose of life or the meaning of life or who are we or things like that. And when we meditate in Raja Yoga meditation, we're meditating on the truth of the self. So and the truth of the self is independently true. So for instance, I am a soul. So what's a soul? We're going to talk about it in a minute. But the soul, I am a soul. whether I'm thinking I am or not, right? Cause um, there's, if anyone has ever seen like a dead body, right? I'm going to go into it, but let me, let me finish the introduction. So we're going to talk about what is the soul. I'm going to give the introduction and then we're going to talk about how this works in meditation. If you saw the last episode, we talked about it a little bit. but I'm also going to talk a little bit more about the qualities of the soul and the reason why meditation works, like how, how it can work for us and help us to heal and get better from some of the suffering that we have in our mind. Right? So the first lesson, you are a soul. So what is a soul? The soul is a living being, a living energy, living consciousness. So if anyone has ever seen a dead body, which is the example I was going to give before, if anyone has ever seen that, uh, it's very clear that someone's not there. Like if I'm looking at grandma's body in a coffin, let's say, I'm clear. I mean, even as a child, I'm remembering my own childhood. If I saw somebody, you know, in, in the Christian tradition or the Catholic, they show like an open coffin. You see the body there. Right. So like I would see the body there and I would be like, even as a child, I understood intuitively that grandma isn't there. Like the body's there, but grandma's not there. So there's some understanding intuitive understanding that The body is different from the self, let's say. So in Raja Yoga meditation, we're starting to understand this knowledge, the understanding of the self. Who am I? I am a soul. I am living consciousness. And this is the body, my body. But I'm not the body. I am using the body. I'm very close to the body. I know some people, sometimes people get nervous when people say I'm not the body. Technically I'm not, but I'm always in it. So it's like, I still have to acknowledge the importance. So it's not like I'm negating or going against the body. I'm just saying the soul is the energy that moves the body, right? Like there's an impulse that says, move your hand. It's not the hand. It's something is moving the hand. Right. Right. So, the soul is living energy, living consciousness. The soul knows it's alive, I know I'm alive, like I never would not know that I'm alive. Uh, we have all these experiences as human beings. Uh, here on earth in time and space, we have families, we have many, many, many, many experiences, which is the great blessing of nature that we get bodies and we get to play our parts here. When we talk about meditation and what we're trying to do is we're trying to realize and trying to get in touch with how it feels and what it means to be a pure, loving, powerful soul. peaceful being, maybe I'm not feeling loving and powerful and peaceful, like throughout the day, right? And that's why we need to study and we need to work on ourselves to heal and empower and serve like the, like the slogan of this podcast. The first step is to practice. I am a soul. So in meditation, I'm sitting quietly and I'm saying, I am a soul. And this is my body. I am the living consciousness. The other thing to imagine is a point of light. And if you see behind me, there's a point of light on the wall that represents the soul. So you can imagine a point of light, like in the forehead. Maybe you've heard of the third eye. What the third eye basically means is that the living being is living in the body or living using the body, but the living being You can imagine a point of light. Is the soul actually a point of physical light? No, but you can use it to imagine that there's this point of consciousness here. And I am that peaceful, silent point of consciousness. My original nature is peace. My original nature is love and power and innocence and purity and knowledge. wisdom, happiness. Those are my original qualities. So the qualities of the soul, why do we need to know the qualities of the soul? Just like when you meet somebody, their personality, right? That's what stays with you. When you meet somebody new, you don't think, oh, wow, they were tall. You might say it if they're really tall, but generally you comment or you remember how they made you feel or their feelings or how they are like their personality. Wow. They were nice. They were nice. Oh, that was a cheerful. He's kind of cheerful, right? Like their qualities that they're showing. So the original qualities of the soul, peace, power, purity, love, bliss, happiness, wisdom. Those are all our original qualities. Now, why am I mentioning this now? Because when we meditate, so the question that we're answering is who am I, right? Who means like the qualities, right? So I'm sitting quietly in meditation and I'm just reminding myself, yes, I'm here. I'm a human being. I'm on earth. You don't, when you meditate, you don't forget like who you are in life. Sometimes when we think about meditation, it might be a little scary for us, especially in the West. And again, this is a spiritual American. So I'm talking to people who maybe weren't so interested in those kinds of things before, but are open to maybe trying something. And so in Raja yoga meditation, it's really all about you. And it's all about you and your mind and the truth about who we are as souls. So when I'm practicing this meditation, I'm just reorienting myself. I'm not forgetting my whole life. I'm just considering the eternal truth of myself as well. It's like I'm adding on. I'm not negating. I'm adding to my knowledge of myself, right? So I was just thinking about the Bible, like. In the New Testament, there's living in the flesh and living in the spirit. It's kind of like that. You won't forget like your life, but you're considering now that I also have a spiritual reality. So in meditation, I'm sitting quietly. I'm not thinking about my ordinary life because I'm usually thinking about it so much. And now I'm just thinking, I am quietly sitting here, the point of light, the peaceful shining star in the center of the forehead. And my original nature is peace. It's actually very simple. And the other name for Raj Yoga meditation is easy Raj Yoga. And what is Raj Yoga means? So Raj means the highest and yoga means peace. union. So the highest union is you and your higher self. So everybody's trying to get better basically. So just make it very simple. It doesn't have to be like this unattainable thing. We just make it very simple. We're all trying to be peaceful. We're all trying to get better and improve. We're trying to improve our behavior. We're trying to improve our relationships. And I'm here to say that this is the way to do it. That I'm remembering and paying attention to my spiritual self. I am reminding myself that my nature is peaceful. And just like we had in the last episode, we were talking about the daily routine, like getting up in the morning and practicing meditation. First thing, if you haven't watched that recommend, go back and watch the last episode, which is the spiritual daily routine. It goes through what to do throughout the day, a little bit of discipline, right? So getting up first thing in the morning and prioritizing my mind and my heart and reminding myself of who I am. I shared this in the last episode, but I'll say that. What is the benefit of doing this, right? What are the benefits of, uh, practicing this meditation? Well, one of the benefits I experienced, and I shared this in the last episode, like I said, was about, after about two weeks of practicing, I experienced a huge relief of anger, like anger left me. I've heard this from other students as well. Another, Benefit is that you, people, I've heard people say, I'm sleeping better. I'm having a better day. I'm more relaxed. I'm less reactive. I have more confidence. This is after just practicing for a week. So there really is a lot of benefit. And then. I'm going to get a little philosophical and then I'll leave it at this. Um, we're going to do in this podcast, we just started, I just started, but I'm going to be sharing many, many aspects of this knowledge with the intention of making it very easy to understand, very practical and not so religious in a sense. Like just, you know, It doesn't have to be, it can just be common sense or, or like, it could just be practical. You don't have to change your life to be spiritual. I feel like I want to say that again. You don't have to change your life to be spiritual. You are already a spirit. So, That's the philosophy of this. It's like you're, you're already a soul. It's just a matter of realization and attention. Anything we pay attention to is going to have an impact on us. Anything we pay attention to, we're going to become more like. Like any kind of a study, if I'm studying to be a nurse like I am nurse, or if I study to be a doctor or something like that, the more I study, the more I pay attention, the more I'm going to identify with that thing. Yeah. So, if I say that I'm a spiritual being, my original nature is peace and love and happiness and I keep working on that. And then, you know, as I said, there's going to be more and more pieces of this knowledge that get, that get shared here, like practice with an open heart. And I pay attention to these things. Little by little, I'm going to start to act like that. I can't even tell you, I mean I can, I'll try now to tell you what this has done for me in my life. I think I've had a typical American background, and this is why I named the podcast The Spiritual American. I grew up in a household where education was very highly valued. Uh, and also, you know, growing up and getting a career and making money and things like that were very highly valued. So I grew up being very action conscious, like, and results oriented, action conscious and things like that. I wasn't so in touch with my feelings or. What I really wanted or what meant something to me. And it didn't seem like there was that much opening for that in my upbringing. And I don't blame anyone for that. It was, everybody did what they thought to be right based on what they grew up with. Right. So growing up. I was a very big people pleaser and although I was very successful in my career in a sense and successful externally, internally, I wasn't very successful in personal relationships and I was always searching. It's funny. I wasn't searching for God or anything like that, but I was searching because I wanted to get better. I wanted to learn more about myself. So I studied, you know, yoga and Tai Chi and, and astrology and basically anything I could get my hands on psychology, all of it. And I came to this, this, uh, practice and this knowledge at 40 years old. So I think I had a pretty good, I mean, I got married, I was divorced. I have a one child that, you know, a typical American, at least my age group life. And so, what has this done for me? Well, I was able to transform all the aspects of my life, which were already fine, like there was nothing really grossly bad in my life, but I was able to transform it in such a way that now I can share with you with complete sincerity that every aspect of my life right now matches my heart and what matters to me. It's a miracle because it wasn't going to happen. There was like no chance. So. I would say to anyone who's listening, what we're talking about today is the beginning of meditation, the foundation of Raja Yoga meditation. But what we're going to be sharing is a lot of other aspects of the spiritual knowledge that is involved in this, uh, practice. So stay tuned if you like this. Also in the description, there's the Brahma Kumaris website. Please check it out if you like, because there's going to be lots of meditation connections and classes that you can sign up for if you like. Um, one of the things I like about this podcast and this online service is that you watch it on your own time. There's, we're not asking for anything. All the Brahma Kumaris classes are free. It's, it's really. just a chance to try something and that maybe it will make a difference. I can say it made a tremendous difference in my life and I can say that I'm truly happy and satisfied and I did it. So it's not like something else did it. I did it because I learned who I am and I was able to make those changes and make it. meaningful to me. So I'll leave it there. I hope that was enough to, uh, entice and interest if it's something that you want to try. And so until next time, our slogan is heal, empower, and serve. Thank you very much for listening and we'll see you next time. Take care.
