What Are You Hungry For? (28 page)

Making It Personal:
How to Be Whole—A Seven-Day Meditation

At the beginning of this book I spoke about joining a groundswell of change. It made a big difference in my lifestyle when I joined it; I became more aware of my eating, and that small step led to a deeper understanding of what “nourishment” really means for mind, body, and soul.

But there is another groundswell of change that reaches even further, beyond the boundary of one person’s life—the movement for finding a holistic way to live. This movement is global and affects everyone, because with the ecology in peril and the pressure of overpopulation, trying to live as we have in the past isn’t possible. Life sustains itself, and yet human beings are the caretakers of life. We are called upon to sustain the environment, and yet the way forward isn’t clear by any means.

Living holistically means that you feel connected to everything else. A tree in the Amazon exhales oxygen, which you need in order to live, while you exhale carbon dioxide, which that tree needs in order to live. The virus that makes a child sick in China travels by jet to reach the doorstep of another child somewhere else in the world. Water, food, and air are no longer local needs. They nourish the body of the planet. For the individual, a holistic lifestyle must still bring happiness. We aren’t asked to be monks and nuns renouncing our well-being so that Mother Earth can get better. The two are complementary. You can be happy and at the same time promote the well-being of all life.

Most of the themes you’ve practiced in this book apply to holistic living, especially purity and balance. Gobbling up the planet’s limited resources is unbalanced. Fouling the atmosphere with pollutants is impure. Why do we continue to do what we know is obviously wrong? Because we are attached to being happy, and the old template for happiness depends on being a consumer who
craves more of everything, disposes waste products carelessly, focuses on “I, me, and mine” without regard for the whole human family, and lives for the moment, leaving the future to take care of itself.

I believe that your life can be just as happy by aiming higher. Fulfillment will always be the key. But inner fulfillment is much more satisfying than the promise of happiness based on endless consumption. I’d like to offer a new template for happiness to replace the old one. You are asked to find fulfillment every day starting from “in here.” You won’t be joining a cause or crusade. Instead, you will be making a connection. This connection starts with yourself and then spreads outward.

Below is a seven-day meditation that is effortless but full of meaning. It’s been successful and popular with hundreds of people who began following it at the Chopra Center. Read the vision for each day, and then spend the time to practice that day’s meditation. A separate mantra assigned to each day is derived from the Vedic tradition of India—using it is optional but recommended, since mantras settle the mind into a deeper place.

You are already connected to all life on earth—that’s a given—and now it’s time to actually feel the connection and let it sink into your awareness. Many people have called for a shift in consciousness and a new paradigm for the future. Here’s a way to answer that call personally.

Sunday, Day 1
Perfect Health

There exists in everyone’s awareness a place that is free from disease, that never feels pain, that is joyful and vibrant. When you journey to this place, the limitations we commonly accept cease to exist. If the mind-body connection is strong, awareness can be converted into perfect health. This isn’t a dream. In the body’s feedback loop, every intangible thought, feeling, and sensation is converted into chemical or electrical signals. Awareness is constantly
affecting the body. Therefore, it’s only reasonable to believe that negative messaging has negative consequences for health, while positive messaging has the opposite effect.

Perfect health is the norm of every cell. Imperfections are healed or the cell dies. If it is forced to exist in an imperfect state, a cell can adapt with extraordinary flexibility—that’s how the heart manages to function for years even with decreased oxygen from blocked coronary arteries, for example. But if the imbalanced state lasts long enough, cells, tissues, and organs die. Since perfect health is the norm for your cells, it should be the norm for you as the person who sends every message to those cells. How you intervene depends on the choices you make. Every intervention for good supports the body’s perfect health; every negative intervention puts stress on the body and pushes it, either a little bit or a lot, toward ill health.

It has taken decades for modern medicine to recognize the mind-body connection, and since doctors are still trained only to treat isolated parts of the body, being healthy is your responsibility. Raising this to perfect health demands more awareness. This book has described what “awareness living” can do for you. Having all the tools is important. But you must pick up and use the tools. It’s easy to settle for less, and when your expectations drop, old patterns pop up out of nowhere, offering the course of least resistance.

What fuels a conscious way of life is inspiration, and inspiration comes from within. It doesn’t arrive in the form of uplifting messages—although these are good in their own right—but from a settled state of being centered and at home within yourself. Protected from the agitations of stress and outer pressure, you will find it easier to follow your new vision of life. A calm voice will show you how to do what you know is right for you. This becomes the course of least resistance, not dropping back into bad habits. In today’s meditation, and all the ones that follow, the goal is simple: the next thing you want to do will be the best thing you can do for yourself.
As you begin your first day’s meditation, contemplate this centering thought:
I commit to living in perfect health.

To begin, find a comfortable position, placing your hands gently in your lap and closing your eyes. Observe the inflow and outflow of your breath. With each inhalation and exhalation, allow yourself to become more relaxed, more comfortable, more at ease.

The mantra: Now, gently introduce the mantra that allows you to connect to this memory of wholeness, repeating it mentally and allowing it to flow with effortless ease:
Om Bhavam Namah,
which means “I am absolute existence. I am a field of all possibilities.”

Silently repeat it with your eyes closed. Whenever you find yourself distracted by thoughts, sensations in your body, or noises in the environment, simply return your attention to mentally repeating the mantra.

Continue with your meditation. When you think that about 10 minutes have passed, take a peek at your watch or clock. If you have more time left, close your eyes and continue with the mantra. If the 10 minutes are up, then it’s time to release the mantra. Gently bring your awareness back into your body. Take a moment to rest, inhaling and exhaling slowly and deeply. When you feel ready, gently open your eyes.

Follow through: As you continue with your day, carry with you the knowledge that simply with a change of mind, you can change your life. Return occasionally to this centering thought:
I am creating perfect health with every choice. I am creating perfect health with every choice.

Monday, Day 2
The Wisdom of Your Body

Each of us possesses an inner wisdom that isn’t reflected in our daily thoughts, which are mostly occupied with the business of living. This wisdom is rooted in the body. While human beings fight and disagree, trillions of cells synchronize every biological process down
to the thousandth of a second. While the ego drives us to fulfill self-centered ambitions, every part of the body instinctively works in concert, always looking out for the whole. Cells don’t know how to be selfish, and if they happen to forget the well-being of the entire body, such cells become malignant. Pursuing their own expansion at any cost, they invade other parts of the body, only to discover in the end that their only reward is death.

You’ve been learning how to obey the wisdom of your body over many pages. When you trust your body completely, you stop interfering with its wisdom. You stop overloading it with stress, lack of sleep, a bad diet, and hours a day of total inactivity with intermittent bursts of overactivity. We’re all embedded in a materialistic worldview, and for a long time a notion like the wisdom of the body was dismissed—as it still is in some quarters—as unscientific. But there is no need to replow that field. The mind-body connection is a scientific certainty, and the major breakthrough came from researchers who showed that the chemical messages sent back and forth by brain cells were found in the digestive tract, immune system, and skin. The brain was no longer the sole seat of intelligence. Instead, intelligence was like a river coursing through every tissue. It was entirely accurate to refer to the immune system as a floating brain and to consider gut feelings as legitimate as emotions “in your head.”

The biochemistry of intuition and insight hasn’t emerged yet, or the inner river that makes humans so curious and creative. But it is certain that the mind-body connection will be involved—all that is needed is to find subtler ways of observing it. In the world’s wisdom traditions, the body’s wisdom doesn’t need to be justified, as if it were ever in doubt. Wisdom exists in a state of unity already. The body is seen as one component in the cosmic dance, and its display of intelligence derives from a field of intelligence that organizes all of creation. This is a spiritual view, although if you could ask a cell where it came from, it would point to the whole body as a matter of course—a heart or liver cell doesn’t believe for an instant
that its life is isolated, separate, or accidental. Being a single cell in the body of the universe, which each of us is, has the same basis. If you could be as wise as your body, everything in your life would be in harmony with everything else. Meditation is a powerful way to bridge the gap between our imperfect self-image and the perfection that comes effortlessly to our bodies.

As you begin meditation, contemplate this centering thought:
I trust the wisdom of my body.

Begin your meditation, following the instructions from Day 1.

The mantra: Now, gently introduce the mantra. It is the sound,
Shyam,
that is associated with intuition and inner wisdom. It is pronounced “shi-um.”

Follow through: As you continue with your day, listen for your intuition and contemplate this centering thought:
My mind and body are in perfect sync. My mind and body are in perfect sync.

Tuesday, Day 3
Restoring Balance

The key to restoring balance and keeping our ideal weight is to expand our awareness from unconscious habits to self-aware choices. Whenever we have an experience, the mind is in one of three states: unconscious, aware, or self-aware. The mind’s two main modes of operation, unconscious and aware, are highly developed. When acting in the unconscious mode, the brain is able to take care of the body without needing specific detailed instructions, processing the five senses to keep us aware of our inner and outer worlds. However, in the unconscious state, health and well-being are generally left to chance, and the critical mind-body feedback loop operates automatically without any awareness.

Consider this example: If you get to the break room at work and pour your third cup of coffee of the day without thinking, you’re doing something unconsciously, which is the mode of operation that underlies habits. If you
see
yourself reaching for the coffee urn,
then you are aware. Now you see the last muffin left out for the taking. Self-awareness can also step in. In that moment, you can ask, “What am I getting out of this?” When we begin to ask ourselves questions, reflecting on our behaviors, looking at the larger picture, and then inviting the answers to come to us, we move into the place of self-awareness. Being self-aware, you begin to pay attention to the one who is aware, the true self. The true self is where values, meaning, purpose, and answers come from.

Self-awareness moves us beyond the old, well-worn pathways in the brain that support fixed, unconscious habits. Imagine a situation in which you are angry. In this instance, when you recognize, “I’m angry,” you are having an aware thought. But knowing where your anger comes from invites a component of self-awareness into the situation, allowing you to recognize a pattern of behavior. You realize that old habits—past outbursts, for example—likely haven’t served you well, and you begin to take steps to transcend those habitual responses.

Reality shifts when self-awareness enters, and we start to take control with the help of our spirit. Becoming self-aware opens the door to lasting change and empowers us to make the most nourishing choices in every moment.

Here’s the centering thought for today’s meditation:
With awareness, I create healthy habits.

Begin your meditation, following the instructions from Day 1.

The mantra: Now, gently introduce today’s mantra. It is
Om Kriyam Namah.
(
Kriyam
is pronounced “kree-yum.”) This translates as “My actions are aligned with cosmic law.”