A Poem

Inspired by "Writing With Soul", I wrote this poem about my grandmother, Alice Rajah. She was an amazing woman - mother of ten children, an educator and a passionate advocate of the Mahabharata. I dedicate this poem to my father, John Rajah.

* In 1942 Japan invaded Singapore. My Grandfather's tyre factory was taken over by the Japanese army to process rubber for their military needs. My family's colonial mansion and family jewels were also stolen by the Japanese. This was a shock that my father's aristoractic Ceylonese family never overcame. As a result of the war, my father and his family lived in a small one bedroom apartment for three years. Every night my father and his brothers would sneak into the jungle searching for food, or if they were lucky, my father would be asked by Japanese soldiers in his district to play the piano for their Sunday entertainment in return for one small bag of rice. This would feed the family for at least a week.


A Bag of Rice by Shanti Clements

Brown hands slide over ivory keys.
Fingers that are dark against elephant tusk
Pound furiously, then gently, like a thunderstorm transforming into spring rain

Remember days long ago, when your island was invaded,
Playing piano tunes for homesick Japanese soliders?
Nimble fingers and a contagious grin
Were all you needed to survive.

One bag of rice
A payment for your musical service
Fed a family of twelve
Living in a tiny room.

When food was scarce in the jungle
Or your brothers' nightly search for sustenance
Was hindered by Japanese soldiers,
One bag of rice
Could fed a family of twelve
For one week.

Alice, your mother, would cook
Carefully and reverently the sacred grains.
She would boil up a weak, watery gruel
That fed the family in its pecking order.

First your father,
Your older brothers,
You,
Your sisters,
And then finally
Your mother would eat.
She would wait patiently,
Ensuring each child had eaten their fill
Before venturing timid fingers
Into the remains of drying gruel.

A large woman before the war,
She emerged a sparrow-like figure at its end.
Even when prosperity returned to the family
She remained a prisoner caught in a time-warp.
Eating only, for the rest of her life,
Scraps of rice and curry gravy
Leftover in empty pots.


Do you have poem or a piece of writing you'd like to share? I'd love to read it!
If you'd like to 'tap in' more to your creativity, check out Writing With Soul at http://circumference.net.au/public-programs/writing-with-soul/.

Shanti x

Writing With Soul

By Shanti Clements

Have you ever read a book that is so special that you tell yourself you’re going to have to read it every year? And then you do?

When I first read ‘The Long Quiet Highway’ by Natalie Goldberg, it changed my life. I loved how she not only wrote a beautiful memoir, but also showed the importance of spirituality and writing practice in her life.

I loved her concrete imagery … the sensuousness of her writing … how she could make growing up in American suburbia and eating a pastrami sandwich seem special – almost exotic. I loved how she wrote from her soul and heart … as if the words from her pen were channelled with fresh aliveness.

Natalie Goldberg is a writer and Zen Buddhist. Her spiritual practice brings a fresh approach to writing and offers ‘safety’ to young writers keen to take a ‘leap of faith’ and put pen to paper. She is passionate about the art of writing … asking people to delve into their inner most feelings, sensations and dreams … and from this place, teaches new and experienced writers to develop a daily practice that rejuvenates their soul.

Check out this video about Natalie Goldberg ...


Are you interested in learning how to connect more deeply with your creativity?

Consider Writing With Soul … for more information, go to http://www.circumference.net.au/

Shanti xxx

Benefits of The Meditation Course

by StJohn Miall

I'm very excited about the results of a survey we have just undertaken with the participants of The Meditation Course which Alexia and I have just run for Petrea King's Quest for Life.

This is our first attempt to somehow measure the effects that Meditating is having in the lives of those who have been participating on the course.   We did this by surveying the participants on the first evening of the course, and then again 7 weeks later with the same survey and seeing what difference there is.

We've summarised the results in a little video.

Here, have a look and see what you think:



If you would like to find out more about The Meditation Course, download a brochure, or register for the course, go to the Circumference Website: http://circumference.net.au/public-programs/meditation/

Times with my Teacher

From Robert Meredith 

All in all I spent about two years studying at the feet of my teacher Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. 

Well, not exactly at his feet – for most of the time I was in my room doing what we called ‘rounding’.

A round consisted of twenty minutes of yoga asanas, five minutes of pranayam, thirty minutes of meditation, followed by another five minutes of pranayam, so each round took an hour. We did between twelve and fourteen rounds each day, beginning at about 4 am.

But in the evening after dinner we would meet with Maharshi for teachings, which basically were
question and answer sessions on everything from the development of higher states of consciousness to learned distinctions on the meaning of the Vedas (ancient Sanskrit texts on aspects of spiritual life).

One of the more prosaic subjects that students were always pressing Maharshi for specific guidance on, was the endless debate on whether, as teachers of meditation, we should be vegetarian. This was something that he did not want to be prescriptive about and would generally avoid by saying things like “Mother’s food is best”, (“Why?” “Because it is made with love!)

However, one day when the group just kept coming back to the question and wouldn’t let it go until we had some kind of more definitive answer, Maharshi said this:

“Alright, I shall make one statement about food, and this shall be the end of it.

Bought meat is better than stolen rice!” 

That shut us up. What a great answer! The karma behind the action is the most important factor, not the action itself. I’ve never forgotten that answer, or more importantly, the principle behind it.

Thanks Robert.   Yes, so important that we tune into principles and values for our choices in life.   

How about you?    What have been some of the best teachings you have gained from your teachers over the years?   You are invited to share them here:

Something to Think about

Here's something to seriously think about:

Recently someone told me that on average we think about 45,000 thoughts in any 24 hours.

That's a pretty large amount of thoughts and mind boggling in its own right.

However, what's slightly scary about this is that apparently 90% of those thoughts are the same thoughts we had the day before... and the day before that.

And what's more disturbing is that between a half and two thirds of those thoughts  are negative... you know, the judgments, put-downs, self-esteem underminers etc. - the stuff your inner critic loves to indulge in.

Most of these 45,000 thoughts happen on autopilot and few fully register in our consciousness to the degree that we can do anything about them.   However, these are the sorts of thoughts that start to trigger off anxiety, worry and insecurity in our system, which in turn can trigger off the sympathetic nervous system (our fight/flight/freeze system), which, if it goes unchecked over time, undermines our immune system and can lead to all sorts of conditions such as depression and other sorts of problems, both physically and psychologically.

The other scary thing about all this is that the latest brain research shows that 'Neurons that fire together, wire together' and this means that our habitual thinking patterns tend to get more entrenched as time goes by.   In effect the longer we let this state of affairs continue, the worse it will get.

OK.  That's the bad news.

The good news is that we can definitely do something about this, and developing a regular Meditation practice is one of the very best things we can do.

In Meditation we take a little time each day to become more mindful.   Mindful about what's going on on the inside, and one of the things we become more mindful about in particular is our thinking patterns and the content of our thoughts.  

We also discover through Meditation, that we are not our thoughts, and through developing skills of witnessing we can learn to distance ourselves from our thoughts and thereby their content becomes less important and less impactful in our lives.

And,  there are many other things we can do as part of our meditation practice that when used regularly will start to turn around the negativity cycle described above.   These include deliberately creating space in our meditations for safety and generosity.   This in turn causes new neural connections in the brain and which when practiced regularly over time strengthen themselves, support the parasympathetic nervous system (the opposite of the sympathetic nervous system) and ultimately lead to a happier and more fulfilling life.

How to do this is part of what we teach on The Meditation Course.

So if you think your future happiness and wellbeing is worth investing two and a half hours of your time on a Monday evening over eight weeks, why not come and join us.  

After all, who do you want to be in charge of your future - you or your habitual thinking patterns?

All the best.   StJohn

The next Meditation Course starts on Monday 30th August in Crows Nest.    It's designed for both beginners and those wanting to re-establish their Meditation Practice.

For details, to download a brochure, or to register for the course, visit the The Meditation Course page on our website, http://circumference.net.au/public-programs/meditation/ .

Peanuts...

From StJohn

Hi here's a bit of Charles Schultz' philosophy about what he thought was important in life.   I agree with him, so I made this little movie.    have a look and see if you agree...



Movie reviews and star ratings welcome, and if you really like it, why not share it with your friends.   If you are a facebook person, just click the link below.   Thanks.

Meditation helps Concentration

Here's an interesting article from The Washington Post, citing research from the June edition of Psychological Research on meditation and people's ability to concentrate:

For people who have difficulty staying on task, intensive meditation may help.

So say researchers from several campuses of the University of California, who had 30 participants attend a three-month retreat during which they practiced meditation for about five hours a day. Researchers then periodically tested the participants’ ability to stay focused when confronted with a boring visual task.

That chore was spending 30 minutes merely identifying long and short lines that flashed on a computer screen. Participants were given this test at the beginning, middle and end of the retreat and again five months later. The study also used a control group of 30 people who were familiar with meditation but came to the retreat only for the visual testing.

Participants who lived at the retreat center went without television, phones, the Internet and books. They had instructor-led meditation in the morning and evening, and they spent most of their free time in solitary meditation, said the lead researcher, Katherine MacLean.

Before the retreat began, the experimental and control groups scored similarly in keeping track of long and short lines. As the retreat continued, those in the meditation group performed better. Those in the control group showed some improvement after the first test, but their changes weren’t as great.

Participants who continued to practice meditation daily after the retreat maintained their increased ability to concentrate, whereas those who stopped had a drop-off, the researchers reported.

“The changes that occur [during the meditation retreat] are still with you once you go back to daily life and help you function better,” MacLean said. “Purely mental training can improve your ability . . . to perceive things more clearly, and that can make it easier to pay attention.” The study findings were published in the June issue of Psychological Science.

So there you go... if you would like to improve your concentration skills, why not come and join us on The Meditation Course starting on 30th August.  For more details go to http://circumference.net.au/public-programs/meditation/

Listening

from the writings of Alexia Miall

“With the gift of listening comes the gift of healing"

- Catherine de Hueck Doherty

What does this mean to me?

Listen to my pain and I will be healed

Listen to what others tell me to do about my pain, such as friends, family, medicos

Listen to what I hear on the TV and radio, surely they know what they are talking about

Listen to others who have experienced the same pain

Listen to my inner voice, doesn’t it have all the answers

Listen to the sound of children playing

Listen to what I hear in Nature

the sound of rain falling on the roof

the sound of the crabs in the mud at low tide

the waves crashing on the beach

the wind in the trees

the birds’ morning chorus

the dog barking in the distance

Aah, now I can begin to relax

Now I begin to understand the quote:-

“With the gift of listening comes the gift of healing”

Alexia Miall