Greetings!
Please enjoy this edition of Inward Bound and
share it with others by using the link on the
bottom of the page. If you have stories you'd like to
share we'd love to hear them.
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Radiance from the Inside Out
How to feel happier and look even better
When people ask Patricia Wheat, an award-winning
facialist, why her skin looks even better than before,
she tells them, "I haven't changed a thing, except now I
meditate everyday." Women and men come to see
Patricia for help maintaining their youthful skin - she's
one of the best in the business. And they depend on
her to make the best facial products available to
them.
In February, she learned to meditate at one of our
Primordial Sound Meditation classes and it
shows. She says she feels better, looks better,
and has even lost weight effortlessly. Her clients want
to know what new product she's using - Patricia
attributes it to her daily practice of meditation
Patricia sees plenty of people who have had 'some
work done' in her Sedona Arizona-based facial studio,
About Face. Everyone
wants to look and feel younger and better. Cosmetic
surgery is becoming a perfectly acceptable method
toward this goal. Last year. in an effort to look better
Americans underwent an estimated 11.7 million
surgical and nonsurgical operations according
to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic
Surgery.
Supposedly, when we look better, we feel better. But I
don't know if that is true. In 2006, physicians handed
out an astonishing 227 million prescriptions for
antidepressants in the United States! That's up 30
million from 2002, and the number is growing rapidly.
Mood elevators and antidepressants are prescribed
even more often than drugs to treat high blood
pressure, high cholesterol, asthma, or headaches.
So does this combo platter really work? Do surgery
and medication help us to sustain our youthfulness or
the sense of happiness and contentment that we are
looking for? Perhaps. And perhaps there is a different
path that can be taken to look and feel better - and to
truly prevent aging.
Read the rest of the article...
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A Stroke of Luck
Anything can happen
My mother had a stroke about a month ago. My friends
and family members let me know they were so
sorry for her. I'd thank them for their words and
kindness, however I didn't feel sorry for my mother. I
was excited for her.
After the first two or three quizzical looks, I kept that
opinion to myself. But I truly feel and have
experienced that illness, disease, and the like, can
often be the doorway to evolution - to knowing our
selves and our world more intimately. It was true in my
case, when my body had cancer.
I went back to Boston to be with her, and many people
expected me to be upset: after all, we really didn't
know what her prognosis was. But I didn't feel upset. I
was excited for her. What will her life be like now?
Perhaps she'll find more freedom. Perhaps she can
be more intimate with who she is on the inside.
Perhaps she can have more expanded awareness. In
my opinion, the possibilities were endless.
When I returned to Sedona, a friend from England who
hadn't heard of my mother's stroke, sent me a link to a
video of a woman who had had a stroke herself. This
woman was a neuroanatomist, so she actually
tracked the physiological changes that she
was experiencing in her body as they were happening.
The description of her experience of awakening as her
brain went through its changes is terrifically moving.
My mother didn't seem to have the same
experience, or anything close to it. And I haven't heard
of others having it - yet. But it is certainly a great
illustration of what can happen. And a good
reason to be excited! And, by the way, my mother is
making her recovery quite well. She's almost back
to "normal".
This video has been seen by hundreds of thousands
and if you haven't seen it, please make a cup of tea,
relax,
And take a look - it's 19 minutes long and worth it!
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A Meditator's Journey
Into the heart of Namaste
People ask me about what they can expect from a
practice of meditation. I often suggest that they
approach it with innocence, as if they were on an
adventure to somewhere that has never been
explored. It is certainly different for everyone. Often,
new meditators have amazing experiences their first
day, like Carol who wrote:
"Learning to meditate was like that moment standing
on top of the mountain and seeing the whole world lay
out at your feet. A feeling of being a part of something
much larger than yourself and at the same time
knowing it was always within you. There is this image
in my mind of the swirling pinks and purples of the
rocks against that dark and moody sky that day when I
opened my eyes after meditating for the first time. It
was as if the world had polished itself just for me."
But her experience is only one of many that people
can have. A meditation student from Flagstaff , we'll
call R.H. recently shared his perspective as he
explores his practice of meditation.... I thought you
might enjoy it.
"I have read many books, and talked to a wide variety
of people about meditation, and in my practice I have
been seeking the peak experience that many
describe: the merging with the universe, the
transformational experience, the overwhelming
realization of my oneness with the spirit that moves in
all things, an experience that would change my life
forever, but it never came.
"So I would read more books, talk to more people, and
take more classes looking for a better way, or for what
I was doing wrong. But my practice continued to be
filled with thoughts, and my enlightenment remained
illusive. I kept seeking, kept up my practice, but
seemed to make little progress toward universal
consciousness.
"Over time, however, I did notice that I felt calmer and
more often at peace with myself, my circumstances
and with others. I noticed that sometimes walking felt
more like dancing, a sweeping ballet of movement
that filled me with wonder.
"I started to notice a voice within me, that wasn't a
voice I could hear, but was more like a knowing, that
helped me to see the way though my days. I notice
that I stopped wanting things, or doing things that did
not serve me, from the foods I ate, to the TV I watched,
and the ways I invested my time.
"As my awareness of these changes grew, my
disappointment at not having a transformational
experience faded, and I rejoiced in the growing quality
of my life, and it was enough.
"Then one day I realized my whole life was changing.
While I was looking for an ecstatic experience, it had
come to me, not all at once, but in the breath of daily
living. What I saw when I looked around, what I felt
when I talked to people, what I experienced when I
went within, was a connection, a oneness that is at
the heart of Namasté.*
"The experience I had sought arrived gently, more like
the warming breath of spring than the crescendo of a
symphony, more from surrendering to the wisdom of
the spirit that moves in all things than from my
seeking, more like a quarry that appears
unannounced in the night, than one you hunt down.
"So my meditation practice continues,
sometimes uncomfortable, always interrupted by
thoughts and the random sounds of my everyday
world, sometimes ordinary, but the peace and
connectedness still pervade my life, and this gift is
priceless."
*The translation of the greeting "namaste" that best
expresses what I mean comes from Alan Watts:
"I greet that place in you, which, when you are in
that place in you, and I am in that place in me, we are
one."
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Namaste,
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Embark on the path to self-discovery at an intimate
meditation retreat which promises time to rejuvenate,
recharge and reflect at one of the most enticing desert
hideaways in Arizona. 
