Meditation Monday - Full Moon Eclipse & Dhahrana
I stayed up late to watch and meditate on the moon magic happening in the sky last night. The first of my two big insights last night related to how it seemed as if I was watching a whole month of a moon cycle happen in two hours. As many traditions encourage connecting intentions & wishes with the cycles of the moon, I decided to do a little intention setting for some things I’d like to see happen a little quicker than the casual route. The other insight goes along the lines of understanding that our perception of the world is made of light and shadow. When the light is shining bright we sometimes miss the more subtle details of things. You can see in the pictures when the light is so bright we miss a lot of really beautiful detail. The eclipse can be a time to let ourselves go into our dark corners in order to understand what’s happening deeper beneath the surface of our lives. There is great beauty even in the dark corners of life for those who have the courage to open their minds to that perspective. *See my more complete slide show online @ www.flourishandshineyoga.com.
Shine Yoga’s Meditation Monday invitation is to open your heart to your own dark shadows and those of others. It is only in cultivating acceptance that we can create harmony between life’s complementary opposites. Focusing your attention on an object or on a thought is a type of meditation called Dharana. It is the sixth limb in the classical ashtangha system.
Meditation Practice - Dharana
"The objective in dharana is to steady the mind by focusing its attention upon some stable entity. Dhr means "to hold." Literally, the word dharana means ‘immovable concentration of the mind’. The essential idea is to hold the concentration or focus of attention in one direction. This is not the forced concentration of, for example, solving a difficult mathematics problem; rather dharana is a form of meditation which could be called receptive concentration.... When the mind has become purified by yoga practices, it becomes able to focus efficiently on one subject or point of experience. Now we can unleash the great potential for inner healing. If the yogi chooses to focus on a center ("chakra") of the inner energy flow, he or she can directly experience the physical and mental blocks and imbalances that remain in his or her system. This ability to concentrate depends on excellent psychological health and integration and is not an escape from reality, but rather a movement toward perception of its true nature." ~ Ranjiv Kalsi