Dear Friends,

We are sitting in a large circle, some thirty teachers and students of Kundalini yoga here in Phoenix, chanting an ancient mantra for two-and-a-half hours, having begun shortly after sunrise when we had finished our usual daily morning practice of yoga and meditation.

Listening to and blending in with these voices, I feel us all wrapped in the sacred temple of the heart, projecting peace and spiritual power.

For many who meditate in today's world, meditation is a practice - an act done for a given amount of time over a number of days or weeks to accomplish something specific in their lives such as relieve stress, improve health, bring mental clarity and focus.

For some of us, however, meditation is a way of life. In a special way, life itself has become a meditation.

Ask yourself this question, for what reason might you practice meditation? One practices to perfect something, just as I choose to perfect kindness, detachment and non-reaction throughout my life. To the extent that I achieve that, then I am living my meditation.

Many years ago, a student, who heard that someone meditated for eight hours a day, asked me, "How many hours a day do you meditate?" She was comparing what practitioners did as a sign of some spiritual advancement. I could have boasted that I do two-and-one-half hours of yoga and meditation every day before sunrise, as do many others who practice kundalini yoga, but I didn't. Instead I said, "With every breath I take."

She looked at me in shock. "How could that be?" she was thinking.

"With every breath I take I repeat God's Name," I said, to answer her unasked question. "I inhale 'Sat' and exhale 'Nam' - Sat Nam, the highest identity of Truth. It is the call of the God within connecting to the God Beyond. Or sometimes I mentally chant 'Wahe Guru', vibrating with the ecstasy of being in the flow of God.

It becomes automatic - no need to stop and think. The sounds run continually in the back of your mind and protect you from being trapped in emotion, reacting to others' words or hurts. It is as if your mind is continually passing the beads of a prayer mala (bracelet) over your hand, one bead with each recitation. So negativity, old issues, and internal criticisms that usually plague the mind do not occur.

The advantages are enormous. You don't get caught in someone else's war. In fact, when you don't react, you don't get into war. You keep a fresh perspective on everything that happens. You get out of your own mental box by never getting into the box in the first place. You can observe yourself while in the midst of thinking and doing things. You come to trust and depend on yourself, your clarity and calmness even under pressure.

How long does it take to achieve this state? You can start to catch glimpses of it after the first few days of a 40-day meditation. My husband once remarked, when asked what music station he listened to, "I listen to the central meditation channel most of the day."

Meditation is the keystone of everything I am teaching these days - every Tuesday night class, the upcoming Womanheart Retreat in July, every time I do Reiki healing with someone.

The mind cannot resolve the stress, fears, angers and mayhem now so common all around. Talking to someone does little good. Only meditation can give you the peace you are seeking, the happiness you hope to claim.

Come join us and discover a new way of living. Such a life is your divine right.

Bless you in all ways always,

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