Daily Meditation April 16, 2021-Awareness

Today’s quotation:

One does not need to fast for days and meditate for hours at a time to experience the sense of sublime mystery which constantly envelops us.  All one need do is to notice intelligently, if even for a brief moment, a blossoming tree, a forest flooded with autumn colors, an infant smiling.-Simon Greenberg

Today’s Meditation:

Awareness.  There’s nothing that can beat it for teaching us important lessons about the world in which we live.  If I am aware, then every moment is a prayer, and everything I see is a miracle of life.  If I am aware, I know and appreciate all of the great gifts that I’ve been given, and I see the value in every person I know.  If I am aware, then the world starts to be a much different place–not a place in which I must fight to make my place in the world, but a beautiful home that welcomes me to take that place and is grateful that I’m willing to do so.

There is a sense of sublime mystery that constantly surrounds us.  There is the wonder and the awe-inspiring order of the world that could teach us so many things about how we fit into the world if only we’d take the time to open our eyes, clear our minds, pay attention, and listen.  The spring breeze tells us secrets of the winter past and the summer to come; the crying of the baby tells us of the trials of infancy and the power of comforting words and actions; the song of the bird teaches us of the blessing of being able to hear and of the hope of the new day.

All we need to do is notice intelligently.  All we need to do is allow ourselves to slow down and look and listen and feel, focusing on the natural world around us rather than the world of tasks and information into which we throw ourselves day after day.  We can experience the beauty of the world, but we have to decide to do so, and we have to allow ourselves to follow through on that decision.

Questions to consider:

1. How many miraculous things have you noticed so far today?  Now that you’re thinking about it, how many miraculous things surround you right now?
2. What keeps you from noticing such things “intelligently”?
3. Are you, yourself, one of those miraculous parts of the world?

For further thought:

The best things are nearest: breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of God just before you.  Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life’s plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things of life.

Robert Louis Stevenson