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Your Altar: Creating a Sacred Space for Prayer and Meditation - Softcover

Kynes, Sandra

 
9780738711058: Your Altar: Creating a Sacred Space for Prayer and Meditation
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0738711055 ISBN 13: 9780738711058
Verlag: LLEWELLYN PUB, 2007

Inhaltsangabe

In this fast-paced world of over-stimulation and distraction, keeping a private space for meditative retreat and spirituality is essential. Creating an altar using the power of numbers allows you to achieve spiritual stillness in a personal and meaningful way.

The numbers one through nine each carry a profound symbolic history and significance. Harness this energy and apply it to your life by selecting the number that best resonates with your intention and using it as a guide to your altar design.

Deepen Your Spiritual Practice

With meditation techniques and many examples of prayers, practices, and rituals from all major faiths, popular author and Celtic scholar Sandra Kynes offers a new approach to altar-building. Using representations of elements from myth and nature as focal points, you can create an altar that best suits your spiritual needs.

Straightforward and practical, with easy-to-follow instructions and clear illustrations, this unique book allows you to experience the restorative benefits of altars—and ultimately reconnect with that sacred space within yourself.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Sandra Kynes (Mid-coast Maine) is a member of the Order of Bards, Ovates & Druids and the author of seventeen books, including Star Magic, Llewellyn's Complete Book of Correspondences, Mixing Essential Oils for Magic, and Sea Magic. Additionally, her work has been featured in Utne Reader, The Portal, and Circle Magazine. Sandra's writing also appears regularly in Llewellyn's popular almanacs and datebooks.

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The one thing that will never leave you, once you transcend all unstable mental states, is the joy of your soul.

-Paramahansa Yogananda

Meditation

Although considered by some to be a Buddhist practice, meditation is a tool used in many spiritual traditions. Texts found in 1945 at Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt describe techniques of spiritual disciplines not unlike Buddhist or Hindu practices designed to achieve enlightenment1. Like the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, the text called Zostrianos emphasized the importance of removing physical desires, reducing the chaos of the mind, and stilling it with meditation. Likewise, Paramahansa Yogananda called meditation "the science of being actively calm"2 and considered daydreaming and sleeping to be forms of passive calmness.

Meditative pathways encompass a wide range of practices and spiritual orientations. The range includes koan meditation, vipassana, yoga, tai chi, ecstatic prayer, Hindu and Christian mysticism, the Western mystery schools, and the Kabbalah. In general terms, meditation has two primary facets: the search for the Divine and the search for the true or inner self. As these are frequently intertwined, it is common to seek the Divine in our everyday lives. Regardless of individual details, meditation is about one's spirituality and transformation.

In a third-century province of Syria, spiritual master Yamliku (whose Latin name is Iamblichus) wrote a classic work called On the Mysteries. He emphasized a distinction between theology, what he called "talk about god," and theurgy, or "god work-doing the spiritual practices that actually produce real inner transformation."3

A question arises: how do we make this happen? The answer is that it will be slightly different for each person, and finding what works can be an interesting and rewarding journey. Whether it's concentrating on a symbol, rhythmical chanting, or physical movement, it comes down to focusing the mind. Over time, the mind becomes like a Möbius strip-a circle created by a strip of paper that has been twisted once before the ends are joined, so that the inner surface flows into the outer surface. In meditation, we move inward but eventually connect to the world outside, and vice versa.

This inward and outward flow occurs as we cultivate focus and mindfulness. Malcolm Eckel suggests the "deliberate cultivation of mental images."4 In a commentary on Yoga Sutra 1:39, Pandit Rajmani Tigunait suggests that by meditating on an object of choice, one can attain "steadiness of mind." He also recommends that one use "wise selection" in the choice of objects on which to focus.5 Using a series of objects or symbols creates a flowing meditation in which a "meditator works with a sequence of stimuli."6 The stimuli become a chain of thoughts that lead deeper into the inner world toward insight (or "in-sight"), which is "seeing into the real nature of things."7


Grounding and Centering for Meditation

Sit comfortably and close your eyes so you can begin the shift from the everyday outer world to your interior space. Focus on your breathing, and let each breath start from your belly. Slowly fill your lungs, and then pause before you slowly exhale. The last air should leave from your belly. Pause again, and then start the next inhalation. Allow your body to let go of any tension. Become aware of your feet on the ground. Think of your energy extending below the floor, below the building to Mother Earth. Feel the solid foundation of earth that extends thousands of miles below you. The earth nourishes and cradles us.

Begin to draw this energy up into your body. Feel your legs become heavy and solid with earth energy. As you continue to draw the energy up into your abdomen-your center-feel the energy lighten into water. Continue to draw the energy up to your chest, to your heart, where we think of spirit and love. Feel the spark of fire energy burn there with the passion of life. As the energy continues upward, feel air energy, the power of mind and knowledge, surround your head. Hold the sensation of all four elements for a moment, and then allow the energy to return to Mother Earth, taking all negativity and tension from you.


Numbers: Sacred, Space, and Form

Since ancient times, people have had a desire to acknowledge numerical patterns in the world around them. This allows the mind to bring order to (or at least perceive it in) a seemingly chaotic universe and simplify a complicated world. For example, basic reckoning of time provided the means for mapping the cycles of the natural world. The ancient Sumerian, Babylonian, Chinese, Egyptian, Hindu, Celtic, Aztec, and Mayan people all developed complex calendar systems, which gave them the ability to make predictions-for example, when to sow seeds and when to prepare for weather changes or river flooding. In addition, numbers weren't just for counting days or predicting cycles; they were essential for making measurements and expressing abstract ideas. Even today, depending on the subject, a simple
number can tell us if the weather is cold or hot (Fahrenheit or Celsius), the severity of an earthquake (Richter scale), the hardness of a crystal (Mohs scale), or the acidity or alkalinity of a substance (pH).

In ancient Greece, arithmetic was considered a high form of art since numbers were thought of as "abstract, spiritual entities."8 Philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras (c. 560-480 BCE) held the belief that "the essence of everything seemed to be expressible in numbers."9 He founded a school/community, part scientific and part religious, where he further developed his "theology of numbers": he believed that the study of arithmetic was the way to perfection.10 Pythagoras ascribed symbolic meanings to numbers, which formed the basis for the practice of numerology. However, he wasn't the first. Numerology in one form or another was used by the Phoenicians, Hindus, Chinese, and Babylonians. The search for esoteric meaning in numbers was also pursued by the Sumerians and Egyptians, as well as the Aztecs and Maya. It seems that seeking metaphysical associations for patterns found in nature and attempting to understand the mysteries of life are basic human traits.

Gematria, the art of assigning numbers to letters, has been used to seek a connection between alphabets and numbers in the belief that a lost word of great power would be revealed. Gematria was used by the Babylonians in eighth century BCE,11 as well as by medieval Kabbalists.12 The Kabbalistic Tree of Life provides mystical interpretations of numbers, and the Enochian alphabet, with its numerical codes patterned into 644 lettered squares, was believed by John Dee and others to contain secret information.13 True magic squares (grids of boxes with numbers whose sums are the same no matter which direction they are added) represented perfection and were used as amulets. The Sumerians believed that certain numbers represented particular gods and goddesses. Likewise, in the Bible, 666 is an example of a number that was believed to be a symbolic reference to a particular person; attempts to decipher it have challenged people throughout the centuries.14 In many cultures and spiritual traditions, the notion of sacred numbers provides a way to deal with the great mysteries that confront us on a spiritual level. Numbers go beyond the function of symbols for the abstract; their use-mathematics-forms one of the building blocks that affect our experience of the physical world.

Pythagoras wasn't alone in associating numbers with shapes and exploring sacred geometry, where the relationship of form and proportion creates a vibrational resonance of interconnectedness. The ancient Chinese and Hindus designed temples with...

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Verlag
LLEWELLYN PUB
Erscheinungsdatum
2007
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0738711055
ISBN 13 
9780738711058
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
197
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar