Episode Transcript
Welcome to the Spiritual American. My name is Dr. Anne O'Hare and I'm your host. Today, we're going to be talking about 30 minutes. Start your day 30 minutes earlier for lasting peace is the name of the thumbnail. But what are we going to talk about today? We're going to talk about the spiritual daily routine. A lot of times when people are listening to something new, they think, okay, how do I implement this? So this is going to be the biggest implementation. This is how do I start? What do I do if I want to be more spiritual? What kind of practice can I do? There's a lot of practices out there. So I'm sharing the practice that I do. that we do in the Brahma Kumaris and you can look up, look up more about the Brahma Kumaris in the description, which is the type of meditation that I practice and the spiritual practice knowledge that I study. So the, today we're going to be talking about the daily routine that supports your spiritual practice. So first of all, the first thing that we do first thing in the morning. is we do some meditation. Now, if you've been watching these podcasts, these episodes, I haven't really been talking too much about meditation as a thing, a formal thing, because what I really would like is for the audience to understand that spirituality Although there is discipline involved, it's more important, I believe, to have discipline of your mind, your internal discipline, of the knowledge and the understanding versus a physical discipline. That being said, we do have to have some kind of physical discipline because we have to put something into practice, right? To make it different. So the first thing in the morning, we practice meditation. We get up very early in the morning to meditate between 2 and 5 a. m. is the best time to meditate. Now, I'm not suggesting that everybody get up between 2 and 5 a. m. I'm mentioning it because A lot of people get up at that time anyway, and that's good. So if you're already getting up at that time, great. If not, it's okay. You don't have to get up that early. The reason for that two to 5 AM is because of the vibration at that time is very peaceful. Most people are sleeping and you, you're not, it's, it's not. kind of difficult to get super active at 4 a. m. right? Because the energy is very sedate and very quiet. So it's a very good time for meditation. And I'm going to explain what I mean by meditation. Actually, the next episode is going to be about that also. So stay tuned. Um, if you like this and you like this content and what I'm sharing, keep listening because there's going to be more and more knowledge that gets shared as we go through the episodes. So, You don't have to get up between two and five in the morning. What I suggest is wake up 30 minutes earlier. So what's the science of that? In other episodes, I was talking about habitual thinking. Habits of the mind and the emotions. Let's say I get up every day at 6 a. m., let's say. And I would, I would assert that if I were to watch my mind or have a recording in my mind or somehow document the thoughts and feelings and ideas and habits I have, it would Every day at six o'clock, it's basically the same. I'm having the same first thoughts. I'm having the same attitudes. I'm having the same feelings. I'm having the same physical activities. I'm going to the bathroom, whatever, getting out of bed, whatever it is that I'm doing. It's the same every day. So what we want to do is we want to meditate before that habit kicks in. So if that habit kicks in at six o'clock, if that's the time I wake up every day, I want to set my alarm for five 30 because I want to give myself that 30 minutes where I have not started the mental emotional habits of the day. I had a student one time, it was funny because I was saying, you know, you, we got to get up and meditate in the morning. And she was like, I got to make breakfast for my husband. And what about the news? And what about this and that? Because she was going through the daily routine that she has. And I said, well, you couldn't get up earlier. And she goes, I'm sorry. Wow, that's right. Like it didn't occur to her that she could actually get up before her day starts. So 30 minutes earlier, and now I'm going to meditate. I'm going to get up, going to brush my teeth, go to the bathroom, whatever, and then I'm going to meditate. So what does meditate mean? I'm going to find a place in my house. We suggest create a space that you're doing nothing but meditation. That's your meditation space, your meditation chair, meditation Don't spend a lot of money. Just get a nice little clean area where you have a little table with your books or whatever and your little chair and that's it. Sit down and do 15 or 20 minutes of silent reflection and we're going to talk a little bit more about that. I'll, I'll say it now because this is the, this is the foundation of the meditation. The foundation of Raja yoga meditation is that I am a soul. So I'm the living being. I am the spirit, the soul. This is my body, but I'm the soul and my original, my original nature is peace. So I'm sitting in meditation and I'm remembering that I'm actually a spirit, I'm a soul. And so it's very simple, but your mind is probably going to go crazy, right? Cause this is what we were talking about too, is that when your mind's habit, as soon as you try to quiet down, all the stuff is going to come up. in your mind. So one of the things that we also recommend for meditation in the beginning is commentaries or guided meditations. And I'll put in the description below a link to the release your wings meditations. Highly recommend them. They're five to 10 minutes long and they're very simple and you can follow along and they're great. So you can either do them in bed. You can do them when you're sitting for your morning meditation. You could do them during the day. You could do They're very convenient because they're short and they're all based on this spiritual knowledge that we're talking about here. So I'm sitting there for my 15, 20 minutes. I'm doing my release your wings or I'm playing my soft music and I'm sitting there and I'm telling myself I am a soul. My original nature is peace. I'm a spiritual being. So at that time, all of the Ordinary thinking about myself is, I don't want to think about it. Like I'm not thinking that I'm female or my job or my kids or whatever. Like I don't, I'm going to try not to think about that. I'm just going to try to give myself that quiet time to consider myself to be a spiritual being. Now, realistically, what's going to happen when I sit down for the first time, your mind is probably going to go crazy. Okay. But what I tell students and I'll, and I'll say it to the audience is that it's okay Don't judge yourself. There's no judgment in spirituality, there's no judgment for yourself and no judgment for anybody else. Those judgment doesn't go away right away, but we're declaring it. It's not, has nothing to do with spirituality. So when I'm sitting there and the mind is going crazy, I have to understand that maybe this is the first time I'm watching the mind. Maybe this is the first time I tried to be quiet. So okay, it's going crazy. Well, it's going to let it go crazy. I'm just going to sit here. So I would say. If you sit there for 15 or 20 minutes, even if the mind goes crazy, even if you're not Even if it's not quiet and the mind is still very active, you still won because you did the discipline. You sat there and you did the self care. So one of the things I'd like to say about this morning meditation and even the whole daily routine is it's all about self care. We do our laundry, we take care of our car, we take care of our children, we pay our bills, we take care of everything, but we don't take care of our mind. This is a big deal. So when we're doing meditation, first thing in the morning, prioritizing the mind and prioritizing self care. So I got up, I sat for my 15, 20 minutes. And now after meditation, we do a little bit of study five, 10 minutes. Pull out your Bible, pull out your, your spiritual scripture, pull out your daily affirmations, pull out whatever you have that's like inspirational, spiritual, positive, something like that. And read a little bit of it. So I'm reading a little bit, I'm pulling out my Bible or what, or something, and I'm reading about forgiveness, let's say, or love or patience. And I can take a point, an idea from that scripture or that. book or whatever I'm reading and write it on a piece of paper and that's going to be my homework for the day. Like, I'm going to work on this today. I'm going to work on forgiveness or love or patience and I put that piece of paper in my pocket and I bring it with me throughout the day. Now, I've done this. I've really written things down and brought it with me because if I remember, I don't, you know, during the day I might, oh, I didn't look at my paper and I'll remind myself that this is what I'm supposed to be doing. working on. After this study, get up and go about your day. So now we have work and whatever else, family and responsibilities. During the day, we do what we call mini meditations or traffic control. We call it traffic control, like the traffic of your mind. We control the traffic of the mind, right? So how does that work? Well, you actually stop whatever you're doing or Two to three minutes and you, and you like you're, if you're sitting in front of the computer at work or something and you say, you know what, traffic control, computer off, sit quietly, put on a release your wings or just sit quietly and just say, I'm a soul. I'm a peaceful being. Everything's moving. The mind is moving. The body's moving. The world is moving, but I am still peaceful. My nature is peace. What that's doing is it's giving like a, a chance for the mind to kind of recharge, regroup because there's so much activity going on, but to be able to take a rest, like a couple of minutes of rest, it's very good, very healthy. Periodically throughout the day, we do those mini meditations and then about 7 p. m. we do another meditation and this one's going to be. You can do a release your wings, but the, the, the theme of the evening meditation is world service. And what does that mean? So I am sitting in meditation and I'm thinking, okay, I'm a soul and my nature is peace or my nature is love, or I have a benevolent nature. Uh, my nature is mercy. I have mercy, mercy in my heart. I have love in my heart. And then as I am feeling those feelings, I share them with the whole world, with my wish. So I wish that everyone would feel peace, feels peace. And in this meditation, I would recommend using the word all. So I wish for all people, all of nature, that everyone feels peace or everyone feels love. Everyone feels happy. So I'm feeling it myself and I'm sharing it with the world. That's the 7 p. m. meditation, the evening meditation. After that, you're going through your evening routine. right before bed. You can do another release your wings again, five minutes or so. And then right before sleep, run the day in front of your mind, like before you go to sleep. So like I'm running the day, how did my day go? I'm going through the scenes, no judgment. I'm just watching. As I'm watching, I'm getting a little insights, you know, Oh, maybe I, I did better there. Wow. I, I was a little more patient or wow, I need to be a little less reactive there or wow, this relationship is not so good. I need to work on that one or, or maybe wow, I, I actually stopped myself from reacting over there. So you're going to get a sense and also whatever you wrote on the piece of paper, how patient was I? Okay. How, you know, You get a sense of it, you make peace with it, and you go to sleep. And that's the daily routine. Now the title of this was, Wake up 30 minutes earlier for lasting peace. And can I tell you that if you wake up 30 minutes earlier, you're going to have peace like every minute for the rest of your life? No. But I can tell you from experience that if you prioritize your mind and heart in your And you take the time to work with yourself. By caring for the mind and heart, studying, making a, making an aim for your own growth of your own virtues and your own values and your own self throughout the day. You take a break from the traffic of the mind. You, you serve the world. Take the time to have an attitude of service for the world and sharing your feelings, your deep feelings with the world, and then taking responsibility for your own life. You're looking at it, you're, you're reviewing it and you're learning and you're moving on. It's a powerful. Simple daily routine. A couple of final thoughts about this. Just like with any new action, there will be some that gravitate towards different aspects of the daily routine and not so much toward others. We had one student that really liked the mini meditations and he was doing that right away. Like he was really into that. And there are others that may like the evening meditation or may easily naturally gravitate towards the studying part or whatever. I would recommend that if you were only going to pick one thing to do, do the morning meditation first thing, because I find from my own experience and from other students as well, that that morning meditation, when you get up and you do it first thing, when you wake up, it really sets the groundwork for you to have a more peaceful, more in control of yourself. kind of experience throughout the day. And I've heard it over and over and over again. I shared this on another episode that when I started this meditation, I did this daily routine. Some, some things I gravitated to, some things I didn't, but I was pretty good about the morning meditation. I, I recognized that that was very important and the studying was very important. And so I did that and I had shared this in the other episode, but after two weeks of practicing, anger had completely left me. I mean, impatience and frustration and, you know, little, little irritation was still there. Those are like anger's little friends, but anger itself was gone. It was remarkable. And I'm also going to say that any emotional state, any extreme emotional state will begin to calm down when we start prioritizing the mind and heart. So I'm going to leave it there. This was a very practical episode. I hope you took notes, maybe, maybe can use this. I it's, it's a very simple routine. Um, highly recommend and there's been really good results, not just for myself, but for many, many thousands of us who are practicing this every day. So thank you for listening. And again, our slogan for this podcast is heal, empower, and serve. Thank you for listening. Take care.
