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Mystic Rose Meditation 3
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STAGE THREE:
THE WATCHER ON THE HILLS
Copyright - Pragito Dove, author of Lunchtime Enlightenment
www.pragito.com
Reprinted with permission from the Author.
SUGGESTED ROSAFLORA ESSENCES TO TAKE FOR SUPPORT:
Take 4-7 drops of the essence (Dosage Strength) under your tongue or apply to solar plexus and heart chakras:
Formulas: Love Source, Share Love, Self-Love and Peace, Open Heart
Rose Flower Essences: 'Fair Bianca', 'Sea Pearl', 'Evelyn', 'Tineke', 'Double Delight'
This last stage of the Mystic Rose, the Watcher on the Hills, serves as a centering meditation, after all the expression and emotional release. A lot of space has been opened up in the past two weeks and you now have an even greater capacity for silence, peace, and spiritual nurturing.
For a total of three hours each day, you will alternate sitting silently, witnessing your thoughts and emotions, as if you are what Osho called "a Watcher on the Hills," with short intervals of gentle dancing. You'll need a comfortable place, loose-fitting clothing, and some of your favorite relaxing, soft dance music.
Choose a quiet place where you'll be comfortable and undisturbed. Sitting either on the floor or in a chair, head and back straight but not rigid, with eyes closed, just breathe naturally and relax. Become a witness to whatever is passing by, a "Watcher on the Hills." It doesn't matter what you're watching; it's the process that's the meditation. Try not to become identified with or lost in any particular thoughts or feelings; just watch, witness.
After sitting for forty-five minutes, put on some gentle music and dance softly for fifteen minutes. Allow your body to find its own movement. Be gentle with yourself but don't get lost in the music. You want to stay aware and continue watching. After fifteen minutes, you'll return to sitting. Repeat this forty-five minute sitting/fifteen-minute dancing cycle twice more for a total of three hours.
The Watcher on the Hills is about awareness, focus, and staying awake. You don't do anything; you just relax, but this is an alert relaxedness. In this week, you are practicing disidentification - the capacity to step back and watch. Let yourself be with the moment and watch whatever is happening. Thoughts, feelings, body movements, outside noises - allow them all to be a part of your awareness without judgement.
We are not used to this doing nothing. This meditation is a way to help us move from doing to being, fromout to in. If you become aware that you've spaced out or gott4en lost in your thoughts, simply come back to the present moment and go back to watching. No judgements, no comparisons, no goal, simply be.
Any time you feel the need to change position, do it with awareness so that it becomes a part of the meditation. Say to yourself, for example, "right now I am moving my let." Then simply watch the thoughts as they pass by, the emotions at they come and go. The mind and the ego will want to make it complicated, but it is not. It is vey simple. Watch, without judgement, and with total acceptance of what is.
And let the mind pass by.
You can imagine yourself as if one would sit high up on a mountain top, watching life pass by with no attachment or involvement.
The first time I did the "Watcher on the Hills" was also the first time that I sat in a silent meditation for any length of time. Believe me, the thought of being just me with my mind for three hours a day for a week was not an exciting prospect. But as is so often the case, the reality was pleasant surprise. I actually found it rather easy to sit and just absorb the changes and insights I'd had over the previous two weeks. The point here is not to close off the mind - in fact my mind was very active - but to learn to watch it and to develop the awareness that we are not, in fact, the mind. We can simply observe what goes on in the mind as if from a distance.
Once we reach that place of watcher or witness or observer, we suddenly see ourselves with more clarity and objectivity. We can look at all the dramas in our lives with perspective and compassion.
Sometimes I think of this as gardening, as taking care of the flowers (intuition and inner wisdom) in our inner gardens. In order to nurture the seedlings we must be watchful of weeds (negative, fearful thoughts and judgements) so that the flowers can come to full bloom. We must also be watchful of intruders who might crush and destroy the flowers. When the gardener is home (watching, observing, but not judging) the flowers are safe and can blossom, offering their beauty and fragrance to whoever passes by.
Becoming a Watcher on the Hills frees us from the supremacy of the mind. It allows our inner wisdom full expression, which then creates the very opening we need for the insight and perspective to create our lives just the way we want them to be.
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