Finding the Cosmos Within

This meditation on finding the cosmos within will help you find a deeper understanding of and better experience with the Principle and Sutra Exercise for today (Saturday).

Read this into a tape, and play it to yourself:

Sit or lie comfortably with your eyes closed. Quiet your internal dialogue by observing your breath.

After a few minutes put your attention on your heart. Visualize your heart as a pulsating sphere of light. In this sphere visualize two or three diving beings or archetypal energies. These could be angels, gods, or goddesses. Now visualize the rest of your body also as a body of light.

Now slowly imagine this light body with its pulsating sphere of divine beings expanding so it fills the entire room in which you are sitting or lying. Allow the expansion to occur beyond the confines of the room so that you are no longer in the room but in fact the room is in you. Continue the process of expanding your light body so that the entire city in which you live exists in your being - the buildings, the people, the traffic, and the country side.

Continue to expand your sense of self to include in your physical being the state in which you live, your country, and ultimately the entire planet. now see that the whole world exists in you - all the people, all other sentient beings, trees and forests, rivers and mountains, rainfall and sunshine, earth and water - these are different components of your being, just like different organs in your body.

Now quietly say to yourself, "I am not in the world, the world is in me." Whatever imbalances you see in this world of yours, as the divine beings still dancing in your pulsating sphere of a heart to correct them. Ask these diving beings to fulfill any desire you have and to bring harmony, beauty, healing, and joy to the different parts of your cosmic self. Continue to expand your sense of self to include planets and moons, stars and galaxies.

Now say to yourself, "I am not in the universe; the universe is in me." Slowly begin to diminish the size of your cosmic self until you can once again experience your personal body. Imagine trillions of cells in your personal body - all part of a dance, each cell an entire universe unto itself. Remind yourself that your true being inhabits all these levels of creation, from microcosm to macrocosm, from the atom to the universe, from your personal body to your cosmic body. Remind yourself that at each of these levels of your existence you have available to you the divine energies that nonlocally orchestrate the cosmic dance to create the harmonious interaction of elements and forces that can fulfill any desire. Express your gratitude to these archetypal energies.

Now just remain sitting or lying quietly, feeling all the sensations in your body. You may feel tingling or exhilaration. After two or three minutes open your eyes. The exercise is over.