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 Meditation 101
by Sarah McLean
What do you want? What do you really want? Do you dare answer that question, even silently to yourself?
I know I was unable to ask myself what I really wanted, never mind answer it, for many years. I believed that it was more spiritual not to have any desires, so I didn't, or at least I didn't admit them to myself. So, one afternoon when I was in a group meditation where I worked at the Chopra Center in San Diego, Dr. Deepak Chopra led the meditation and suggested that each one of us silently ask ourselves, "What do I want?"
I reluctantly asked the question. I heard nothing. What did I want? Was it spiritual to want anything? Wasn't it selfish? I certainly hadn't asked myself that question seriously before, and I had no idea what the answer was. His directions were to ask, then listen. So, I did.
After the meditation was over, I asked Dr. Chopra why we shouldn't try to get rid of our desires, or ignore them.... and he said, in a nutshell, that we all have desires, they are part of the software of our soul. Our soul’s software is comprised of desires which lead to actions, actions, which lead to memories, and memories which again lead to desires. Sometimes, he said, in order to experience expanded states of consciousness, we have to acknowledge our desires - and put our attention on our intention. Desires were the way that the intelligence of the universe expresses itself, and unfulfilled desires could keep us from being at peace, and ultimately, from living our full potential.
I had not thought of it that way, but I really didn't buy it. I had been spending my weekends at a Zen Buddhist training center and was under the wrong impression that suffering was caused by desires. I later discovered that the Buddha said it was the attachment to the desires caused suffering, not the desires themselves.
I continued to ask myself the question again and again. What did I want? And as my friend and mentor Byron Katie later told me, the answer will always meet the question: when we ask a question, we will inevitably hear a response. And I did.
Throughout the next few weeks and months, I started hearing my desires. I heard the internal whispers during weekend meditation retreats at the Zen center, I heard them in the early morning when I was just waking up, and sometimes I heard them as I walked along the beach. I was bothered by them, embarrassed by them; I truly thought I was fantasizing too much.
The desires came like waves, I could hear that I desired to live in a home near the wilderness, I desired to meditate and to teach others to meditate, I desired to be financially supported doing what I loved, and I desired a loving relationship with someone who understood my beliefs and values. I was truly unattached to my desires because I actually thought they were ridiculous.
That was 1998. Five years later, I found myself teaching meditation, here in Sedona. Not only was I doing what I loved, I was completely supported, married to a what I only can call my perfect partner, a sweet and funny man who meditates (one of his priorities in life is to meditate for a few hours every day), and living adjacent to the wilderness area in Sedona, in a beautiful house (I never asked for that, but it is nice).
I now understand this spiritual law of intention and desire: inherent in the desire itself is the mechanics or intelligence needed to manifest it. We just need to acknowledge the desire or desires, and detach. The trick is not to be attached to the desire, and not to try to control the outcome. As Deepak says, “Let the universe handle the details.
When I talk about desires with my husband he says, "The universe will keep fulfilling your desires so you get what you want, and then, there is a shift, when you actually want what you get, no matter what. You realize everything is for your evolution." I believe him.
Eckhart Tolle writes this which I love, "Allow the present moment to be..... Accept - then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.... this will miraculously transform your whole life."
Sarah McLean is a meditation teacher and the director of the Sedona Meditation Training Company. Her next article will be about receiving. It is one thing to ask for something, but it is another thing entirely to completely receive what the universe brings in response to the request.
Andrew Bell
 The kid is back and ready to explore the drama that is the 2008 election. While Albert has been writing wild and exciting daily columns for Margaret Wendt, I have taken the time to truly examine the politicians and to find out which one is fake, which one is real, and who we should look to, to restore our moral standing in the world. Luckily for me, my college (Trinity) is located in Hartford, Connecticut and receives a lot of attention from this crop of nominees. So far, I have been lucky enough to see firsthand Barack Obama as well as Hillary Clinton, and I must admit, these encounters have strongly influenced my opinions.
Hillary is someone who has been portrayed by the media as opportunistic, selfish and even downright nasty. I was pleasantly surprised to find that she was none of these things. In a gymnasium attended by 1500, Hillary took the time to shake everybody's hands as well as to answer hundreds of personal questions. She seemed passionate, excited, but most of all ready for the challenges ahead. I left the rally with a signature on my poster and a smile on my face.
When news broke that Obama was coming, there was a definite buzz in the air. The dorms, usually plastered by frat party signs and littered with the weekend's beer cans were instead covered with posters of Obama and people with stickers outside their doors lending him their support. This time the school provided a bus, and when I and 4 other friends arrived, we found out there were 18000 other people who had decided to come as well. After a long wait, the rally finally started, and after a few words from Caroline and Ted Kennedy it came time for Barack to speak. I found his speech to be eloquent, passionate and moving. However, there was something about the spectacle that didn't feel real. Sure, his message was a good one, but the whole event felt more like a super bowl than the lead up to the primary. Although that could be a good thing which shows the reemergence of politics, it also felt mechanic, staged and more of what pundits would have you expect of a Hillary Rally. However, Obama demonstrated that he would come out swinging in a general election and as president would be one of the few who could finally try to unite this country.
As for our friends, the elephants, unfortunately none of them came to any nearby rallies, but I'll keep you informed if any do.
For those of you not as interested in what the kid has to say, and eager to jump to the wise words of Albert or Scott, here's a quick recap. Hillary Clinton is nicer than they say and Barack Obama is as good as advertised but his campaign is a little more staged. Anyway, if you don't like my analysis, get out there, and go hear them yourselves. After all, I'm just a 19 year old college kid, with a new found political interest, having the time of his life following what is turning out to be an exciting presidential race.
Kid Bell
 Food as Addiction
I have been a recovering alcoholic for more than 28 years, and compulsive drinking is like compulsive eating—alcohol is but a symptom for an alcoholic, and it’s not just what you’re eating it’s what’s eating at you as an over-eater.
New scientific studies reveal that food is an addiction. Pritikin has perfected menus with delicious food that guarantee success if they are followed, along with exercise, but there are other driving forces that lead to over-eating, most of which are buried like sunken treasure from childhood forward. Resentments, anger, rage, sensitivities, fear, distrust and a thousand forms of character defects drive over-eating like they did drinking alcoholically for me and millions of other people. Remove the causations and you will have greater success maintaining weight loss through the Pritikin model.
As founding director of the Sedona Intensive www.sedonaintensive.com, which is a 26-year old one-on-one personal empowerment program in Sedona, Arizona, Pritikin and I have joined forces to give guests a firmer foundation to embrace better food choices while removing those negative emotions and feelings that have undermined a new resolve around food. Willpower and good intentions never work. In recovery circles we are wont to say that ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions.’ Instead of willpower, we believe that it takes a psychic experience to insure proper eating with daily exercise. We have that endgame for you now here at Pritikin with a new revolutionary program called The Sedona Intensive at Pritikin. ™ Sign up if this approach resonates with you to get added assistance in taking the total package home with you: how to eat and how to exercise to stay healthy.
Call Pritikin Longevity Center & Spa today (305) 935-7131 and sign in for this incredible opportunity to overcome food as addiction.
 There have been lots of astral tidal waves spawned by that Solar Eclipse New Moon on February 6th at 17 degrees of Aquarius. In the Democratic race for the Presidential Nomination, Clinton and Obama are in a virtual tie. Mitt Romney suspended his campaign in the Republican race for the Presidential Nomination and Senator McCain met with cheers and jeers as he addressed a conservative-rich audience at the recent Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC). The Screenwriter’s Strike ended and there was a major upset in the Super Bowl—and the never-ending ramifications of the subprime real estate debacle doesn’t seem to want to end; to wit, an alarming decline in the Stock Market.
There will be a Lunar Eclipse Full Moon on February 19th at 01 degree of Virgo. This will more than likely uncover a rise in unemployment figures. Everything seems to look like gloom and doom, but there is a silver lining in the dark and ominous clouds. The good news is that those of us who decide to roll up our sleeves, take responsibility for the things we can change—less spending, more saving, discretionary considerations for who and what we support, like the political candidate we believe can move our country into the clear and conscious territory of an end to fiscal malfeasance in corporate America, and returning to the slower but more dependable ways to secure our future by intelligent places to invest, we will thrive. ‘Let the good times roll’ is over. We are in a world of Pluto in ultra-conservative Capricorn, as well as Jupiter in the sign of the Goat for a year. If you want to survive, you will not continue to look for huge returns—those who promise them are charlatans and you can not cry ‘foul’ if you get caught in the sink-hole of false promises too good to be true.
Mercury, thank God, will go direct February 19th at 00 degrees of Pisces, joining the Lunar Eclipse Full Moon—a double whammy that can shut the door once and for all on, “If it’s too good to be true, it ain’t (sic) true!” |
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“Change, there’s that word again; can’t they come up with something else?” Unless you have been living under a rock or have stopped looking, listening to or reading what the media has to say, you have probably been asking yourself recently a similar question. We all see it and hear it on the television, on the radio, in magazines and newspapers and even on billboards aboutevery presidential candidate: “Stand for Change” or “Change, We Can Believe In” and “Ready for change, ready to lead”. I even see it daily in Sedona with our local elections, “It’s Time for a Change”. As if I hadn’t had enough, I decided to Google ‘politics and change’ and it came up with 21,900,000 combinations! Enough already; and what do all these redundant slogans mean anyway? And more importantly, are these politicians really going to make the changes they promise?