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With the glorious aid of imagination, the faculty through which we make mental imagery, we are able to bring our attention beyond our physical surroundings.  We travel on the wings of this amazing ability to imagine beloved scenes from our past as well as to conceive that which is not yet manifest.  We become discovers, inventors, creators, and even healers, moving upon a landscape which is inside us.  Meditation thus can mean many things, depending upon person, intention, and technique.  In general meditation suggests a process by which we quiet the mind, turning our gaze inward towards a relaxed state.  Meditative techniques include a wide variety of practices yet in the end each does aim towards reaching a state of well-being and peace.  While the ancients have practiced different meditative techniques from the concentration on particular prayers or mantras, modern techniques vary in service of clearing the mind and lowering anxiety, reducing depression, as well as helping to minimize health issues such as high blood pressure and anxiety induced infertility.

 

Sometimes we may use what we call guided meditation to set us on our way to the sacred space within seeking our connection with the inner strength which gives us peace and balance.  With the technique of guided meditation we close our eyes while we listen to what we may call a Global Positioning Voice, a meditation guide speaking, asking us to bring up mental images that include immersing ourselves fully in a peaceful landscape.  We are asked to see, feel, smell, and hear our inner visionary experience.  The sound of waves pounding on the sand. The flight of birds across a clear blue sky. The feel of silk draping across our shoulders. Each image evokes a feeling, enveloping us in its serenity.

 

In the end each of us may seek meditation for different reasons at different times. As we come with our own history, our particular belief systems, we can, in the end follow even a guided meditation only to a certain degree. For ultimately it merely leads us to a destination. Once we arrive, our unique personal needs and intentions take over.  Unlike a waking reality journey the visit within is one that demands nothing more than intention and focus.  There is no price, no airport, and no train to take.  There is merely the realization that everything we need is within ourselves.  We were not birthed without a connection to our own source of healing and wisdom. Who among us would believe that a parent would send a child into a strange unknown world without a telephone for communication? Just so, I personally believe the Creator did not manifest the universe and all within it without remaining connected to each.  Likewise I do believe in a Creator. As the philosopher Spinoza remarked. All is God. Our language of separating ourselves from everything is an illusion.  We  are all connected, united much like a mother and her fetus. The Creator remains an integral part of all and we part of each other.  Our ability to imagine, to meditate and to journey within is our mode of connection, our vehicle to take us from the bonds of the rational sensory view which would separate each of us.

 

Spinoza’s view was not unlike the ancients who believed that Divinity, the Hidden Creator, the Supreme Spirit beyond all name and form, dwells within all the manifest.  Our ancestors  used  meditative techniques taking the pilgrimage within to be in the presence of the Great, the Inner Wisdom dwelling in the heart of their being. Across time and space humankind has thus found a way to shift consciousness from the waking physical environment to the inner dwelling place accessed by the faculty of imagination. When I hear people talking about mental imagery as “just the imagination” I sigh in disappointment. For me, imagination is my treasured vehicle of communication to the Truth, the Divinity that resides within. Traveling to this place I find freedom from the often disturbing events of the physical world.

 

The meditations I offer through this meditation portal are an invitation to join with me in accessing this space within, honoring our birthright to find our identity, our healing space, and our true self with the Eternal Intelligence, the alpha and omega of all existence.  I invite you to this welcoming space and wish you peace in all your visits. Remember, the more frequently we open the inner portals seeking the quiet meditative space, the more familiar we become with the fruits of contemplation.  With our eyes closed to the chaos of the external world we will slide beyond the portal to the amazing universe within. Blessings and peace to each who chooses this path.  

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Communion with the Inner Voice,©   original art by Janet Piedilato