“I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.”
— Charles Dickens

Dear Spiritual Warriors-

Merry Christmas and sweet present moments! I’m in silence till the end of the year – so feel free to tap into any one of the 100 free meditations in the blog – but I wanted to reach out and thank you for your love and support.

2013 has been a wonderful year to share our hearts, our minds, and our souls with each other. I am deeply grateful for our sweet connection. New and exciting unfoldings rest just around the corner and love is the key that unlocks that door. Keep in touch. Keep it real. Keep meditating. Keep love flowing. And remember…we are the masters of each moment!!!!

From the sweetspot of the universe…peace. –davidji & peaches – the buddha princess.

“Always first draw fresh breath after outbursts of vanity and complacency.”
-Franz Kafka

The Power of the Four Immeasurables

As we head into the final weeks of the year, and reflect on all the highlights and lowlights of 2013, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Many of us will be hosting family; some of us will be visiting family; others will spend this time in hermit-like self-reflection. And for many of us, we will immerse into a blend of all possibilities.

This time of year brings lots of comparison and judgment as we look around at everything that’s happened and didn’t, things we have and don’t have, all the people in our life, and all the circumstances that have unfolded over the past 12 months.

As we spend time with friends and family, we may find ourselves asking, “What happened to me this year?” “Where is my life going?” “Why do I feel this way?”

If we are in an abundant space, then we are in celebration and sharing mode. If we are in a constricted space, we may be feeling waves of sadness, turbulence, or overwhelm. It’s important to feel, to honor those emotions, and to recognize that somewhere we have moved out of balance. But, we can make a subtle shift and still honor how we feel. And in time, we come back into balance and move to a more abundant, whole, and heart-based expression of who we are.

One of the most powerful shifting tools in my life is the cultivation of bodhicitta – pronounced bo-dee chit-tah, a Sanskrit word, which literally means awakening that which is conscious. In Buddhist thought, bodhicitta is defined as a heart-based state, essentially having a mind that strives toward awakening and compassion for the benefit of all sentient beings.

Among the many methods of cultivating Bodhicitta in our life is contemplation on an ancient Buddhist teaching known as the Four Immeasurables, or in Sanskrit, the Brahmaviharas – (pronounced brah-mah vee-har-ahs) and according to the Buddha, cultivation of the Four Immeasurables has the power to cause the practitioner to be shifted into a Brahma realm – or a divine state.

The Four Immeasurables are:

• Immeasurable Loving-Kindness or benevolence
• Immeasurable Compassion or rooting for another’s suffering to end
• Immeasurable Joy in the good fortune of others
• Immeasurable Equanimity or mental calmness, composure, and evenness of temper especially in a difficult situation.

We can cultivate our bodhicitta each day by weaving the Immeasurables into the fabric of our BEing. Right before our morning meditation, spend two minutes (30 seconds on each Immeasurable) making them personal.

Start out by closing your eyes, taking a long slow deep breath in, effortlessly release it; and then drift your attention to one person who could benefit from your benevolence – see them in your minds eye, and radiate it out to them; then drift your attention to one person who could benefit from your from your compassion – see them in your mind’s eye and radiate it out to them; then drift your attention to your heart and feel the joy at the good fortune of a friend or relative…stay in that space and let it settle in. And then begin your meditation practice – daily meditation will awaken your equanimity.

Don’t keep the Four Immeasurables a secret. Share them with everyone you know this holiday season. And before you begin your holiday meal, the sweet collective you’ve assembled can open their hearts and radiate the Four Immeasurables out to everyone they know. Remember…we transform the world by transforming ourselves. So let’s begin our bodhicitta transformation right now and don’t forget to join me on LIVE! from the SweetSpot on Hay House Radio!

Blessings and peace. See you in the gap!! –davidji

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“People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering.” – St. Augustine

What do you see when you reflect on the choices you’ve made this year?

Do you go back to your highlights? Your lowlights? Your laughter-filled moments? Your pain-points? Actions you took? Or things others did?

Reflection is powerful – it helps us see where we’ve come from. It allows the concept of co-creation to clarify as we realize nothing happens without our participation.

Even when we think, “he or she did that TO ME”, we realize we are co-conspirators in every breath, thought, word, and action – as well as all the breaths, thoughts, words, and actions of those in our lives.

As we reflect back on the past eleven and a half months, a great place to start is making a few lists. Take some time over the next few weeks to hunker down and REFLECT on:

• Your five most significant moments of 2013 – the moments that defined your journey and the trajectory they created

• Your five most important decisions of 2013 – the choices that reinforced past decisions; the choices that refined existing decisions from the past; and the choices that created new directions.

• Three people who came into your life in 2013 and helped raise your vibration

The answers to these 13 reflection points will help you realize where you are right now. They’ll help you to see more clearly about what really did happen this year and more importantly, how you got to where you are. We all get to move in any direction we choose – and when we can see the seeds – whether we planted them; another person scattered them around us; or the universe dropped them on us – we need to remind ourselves that WE ARE THE MASTERS OF EACH MOMENT.

If you love the direction that your life is moving toward – apply more pressure to the accelerator and keep moving. If you don’t like the direction where things are heading – you get to stop and shift. And your answers to the 13 reflection points will help you move from where you are to where you want to be.

So as we sit 20 days away from a clean slate of 2014, let’s get busy visioning & dreaming where the next magnificent year will take us. Remember, where attention goes, energy flows – – – and what we place our attention on blooms and blossoms and grows and thrives. Where we drift our attention away from, withers and diminishes, and ultimately fades into the ether. Yes indeed, we are the masters of each moment. Join me today on HayHouseRadio and we’ll reflect together!!! Peace. -davidji

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Join me for one of my upcoming events!

Set Your Course for 2014!
January 23-26

Masters of Wisdom and Meditation Teacher Training

SOLD OUT
March 17-23

Discovering Your Dharma
April 3-6

Secret’s of Meditation Healing Immersion
May 8-11

“Whatever comes, let it come,
what stays let stay,
what goes
let go.”
-PAPAJI

 As we begin the month of December, we celebrate all the teachers, coaches, Masters, gurus, rishis, and guides who have graced the world with light and love. Some of the most profound messengers of peace, awakening, and truth have graced the planet for thousands of years; and as we have evolved and grown over the years, we have resonated with differing voices and different messages depending on where our paths have journeyed.

Whether its an ancient master – such as Patanjali, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Jesus, or Adi Shankara- who touched you deeply with spiritual guidance; or a modern teacher – such as Thich Naht Hanh, Eknath Easwaren, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, or Joel Osteen- whose voice resonates with your vision of life, each of us is making important decisions each day based on the wisdom we receive and interpret.

The blissful teachings of Yogananda, the compassion of the Buddha, the awakening of Christ consciousness, the transcendence of Yogi Bhajan & so many others all flow through our awareness when we carve out our spiritual time. But we need to go deeper. We need to see the teachers around us in every moment.

Every difficult conversation we have includes someone who is teaching you something about yourself. Every trying situation contains an opportunity for deeper self-reflection and learning. Every irritant, heart-break, frustration, disappointment, fearful moment, and sadness is a teacher.

The author Carlos Castaneda stressed this when his archetypal character Don Juan said, “a warrior who stumbles on a petty tyrant is a lucky one.”

My own personal experience has taught me that the guru rests inside. The answer to every question we could ever ask sits lovingly in the silence of our heart waiting for the right moment to emerge. We need to understand how to tease it out…how to allow spontaneous right thought, speech, and action to flow from us with grace and ease at the perfect moment. And that starts with allowing the stillness of the universe to become your stillness.

By quieting down … powering down … for only 5 to 30 minutes a few times a day, we create the space…the opportunity for the teacher to “arrive” with each constriction, overwhelm, or less-than moment. Coming from a place of stillness and silence, we are wiser, less reactive, less conditioned, more creative, and more intuitive – so we are more likely to respond to life rather than knee-jerk to it.

So today, let’s celebrate the teachers and the teachings that have helped to make us who we are. Let’s honour every teacher who has helped us mold the personal play-doh of our life. Let’s pay tribute to our parents, and the caregivers who brought us into this world; our teachers in kindergarten straight through graduate school. Our coaches, doctors, clergy, bosses, and all the authority figures that have pointed us in a particular direction. Our schoolmates, work colleagues, loved ones, and the members of our support groups. And of course, those with whom we have a grievance, the petty tyrants, the nagging experts, the oil & water relationships that challenge us to be better versions of ourselves.

The key to mastering the ancient wisdom teachings is making an internal shift that transforms your intellectual knowledge into inner wisdom. And that comes from seeing the teacher in every moment…in every breath…in every conversation…in every interaction…and in every self-reflective moment. When the student is ready, the teacher appears. And it is this acknowledgment merged with a daily practice of stillness & silence that will awaken your inner student, your inner teacher, and your inner healer.

Join me  LIVE! from the SweetSpot  on Hay House Radio today and every Wednesday at 3p PST/6p EST…radio for your soul.

Keep opening to the present; keep dying to the past; and keep meditating. I’ll see you in the gap! Peace. -davidji

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