What is a mental selfie? A mental selfie is as you wish to see yourself. A beautiful self. What is a beautiful self? A beautiful self is when your face is lit up with love and kindness. How is that to happen? My dear ones, you will have to read a little more to understand.
First things first. How is it, that we forget when someone has been generous to us. We remember all the acts of unkindness and hurts. The kind deeds slip our memory and we accumulate a safe full of wrong doings against us, which is reflected in our behavior.
Osho said,
Man always forgets. Whatever is sublime and valuable we forget what is trivial and commonplace we remember continuously 24 hours a day. We have to make an effort to remember God, but our desires and passions don’t need to be remembered, they are there all the time. Going downhill is easy; but going uphill is always difficult.
It is so easy for us to harbor angst, weep over past grievances and view the world with damaged lenses. Our judgement is Me oriented. We look upon ourselves as being in the center stage of our existence. The outcome is that our relationships become dysfunctional and then we blame the other party. It happens to all of us.
How do we learn to treasure the presence of God?
It is possible by the daily sadhana of Yoga. We do not need to think, we just learn to perform the sadhana correctly.
- Wish, desire and intent. Chant Aum 3 times, letting the sound wash over you.
- Sit still. Enjoy the position you have placed yourself in. Visualize yourself sitting quietly. It should not be difficult as it is like taking a mental selfie of yourself. Experience the sensation of your clothes on your skin. Experience the feeling of your eyelids on each other, your lips touching each other and your teeth upon each other.
- Listen to the sounds, do not identify who or what is making the sounds. This is external awareness. Now switch to internal awareness, listen to the sound of your breath. Switch back and forth with external and internal awareness.
- Become aware of your breath and count your breath backwards, 54 times. No errors in the counting, because you will have to start again.
End the practice with chanting Aum 3 times.
What happens here?
You will find that you are relaxed and refreshed. You are not engaged with yourself; you are aware of others presence and sentiments. You have your mental selfie.
Aim Hrim Klim
Photo by Charles Chen on Unsplash