• Table of Contents
  • Three Festivals by Swami Veda Bharati
  • Swami Veda Visits Ecuador by Gustavo Plaza (Arjuna)
  • Yama and Niyama Kriya by Pandit Tejomaya
  • Cosmos within Cosmos within Cosmos by Denise Martin-Harker
  • Burkina Faso 2012 by Stephen Parker (Stoma)
  • Destiny Crossroads – Why Meditate by Wolfgang Bischoff
  • Yoga Alchemy byJoanna Siauw
  • Celebrate Silence
  • Dear Yoga Mentor, My Question Is… by Swami Ritavan Bharati
  • Yoga Nidra, A State of Consciousness by Tina Gatterman
  • Without Fear by Randal Persad
  • Celebrating Vimala Chaitanya
  • With Gratitude by Daniel Hertz
  • Transitions in Self-Transformation by Swami Ritavan Bharati
  • 2012 Events and Beyond
  • Full Moon Meditation Dates
  • Location of our SRSG ashram
• AHYMSIN Newsletter Archive

Destiny Crossroads – Why Meditate

by Wolfgang Bischoff

In our life there comes a time, an event where nothing seems to work where and how it used to work before.

This creates a shock to the system – and out of this comes a range of emotional responses that disrupt us.

Here we are at a “Destiny crossroads” which implies a choice - but we miss the nature of the cross roads and act as if we have no choice. In fact, we fall into negative reactive patterns and responses.

Then we feel we must act decisively and react at greater and greater speed. We fall into stress and distress. We begin to create a dissociation and loss of contact with our deeper selves and our capacity for mindful awareness.

We are now caught in a circle that typically escalates and amplifies stress and distress and which fails to address the real issues. We are in fact literally trapped in a vicious circle or spiral.

The first key is that people miss the truth that they have a choice – “If you want to know the source of the river you have to swim against the current.”

If the river we are caught in is the river of reactive “busyness”, swimming against this river means coming to standstill.

This means going against our reactive busyness. The first step is to stop and take “time out”. To interrupt what we always do and come to a place of stillness and silence - to turn inwards and attain a state of “inner dwelling”. The capacity to dwell inside our inner self with a quiet awareness and non-judgmental attitude.

The first thing this achieves is to break the reactive circle and heal the dissociation. We are now back in connection with ourselves – and the inner spacious awareness out of which our sense of possibility can emerge, and further on our ability to find our own deepest responses to our life situation. Once we have accessed this wonderful quiet awareness.

How to make optimal use of this stopping and indwelling:

Here we can start by using the two-minute exercise and the seven steps to prepare us to enter a meditative state.

With these processes you begin to awake to the nature of your own suffering. Then you attune deeper to yourself and learn how to listen to the language of your heart – and ultimately to hear the “song of your heart” and to understand its deepest true longing.

You learn to discriminate between the words of your intellect and the song of your heart. The deep ability of listening develops and you discover the capacity for self-empathy; you experience in your own heart the pain you have caused to yourself and to other people.
Integrity and authenticity develop out of this courage of our self-witnessing, and you discover that these qualities are aspects of your true Nature.

You experience a great inner light within that begins to radiate from the inside out through your face and eyes.

This is the basis of the profound training within the meditative practice of the Himalaya Tradition:

To learn to listen to the song of our heart is the practice and the purpose of this way.

Having attained the gift of knowing the song of our own heart we realise that within this song is the seed of our true destiny. We realize the song itself opens the door to our true inner teacher, and when we open our hearts to our inner teacher, in silence and tranquility, we will discover that she will bring us insights about our own future destiny and the path we must follow to attain it.

Editor’s Note:

Wolfgang Bischoff studied with Swami Rama of the Himalayas. As well as being the Spiritual Director of Himalaya Institut Deutschland, he is a mantra initiator and is also a member of the AHYMSIN Adhyatma Samiti, or Spiritual Committee. Himalaya Institut Deutschland celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2011; please see http://www.ahymsin.org/docs2/News/1110Oct/01.html

Wolfgang has worked diligently on a charitable project in India. We invite you read about Orissa – A New Dawn, which offers  Practical and sustainable Help through concrete Projects in the Orissa area of India: http://www.hc-academy.com/HCA_EN/orissa.html

To read “Breath” by Wolfgang Bischoff: http://www.ahymsin.org/docs2/News/1209Sep/01.html