Divine Inspiration

Time spent in meditation is the occasion to trust that we can let go of grasping or working on anything and simply be present. Trust that any authentically divine inspiration that arises will remain after you meditate.
~Yogacharya Ellen Grace O'Brian from her booklet, The Path of Wonder: A Meditator's Guide to Advent

Often insights will come to us while we are seated in the midst of the meditation practice. As we have talked about many times in this newsletter, as our thinking minds quiet, our deeper inner wisdom is experienced. But what do we do when that happens? When we are first beginning to meditate, we may feel that we need to stop our meditation time so that we can find a piece of paper to write that thought down. It could be important! What if we don't remember when we are done? What the teachings of Yoga tell us is that the deep inner wisdom we are experiencing is always with us, we just don't always notice it during our busy, thinking and distracted day. But it is there and if it is a divine idea, it won't go away. Acknowledge the thought and then continue with your meditation practice. You can even inwardly ask that it come back to you later. These teachings tell us to trust that if it is a divine idea it will return when we are not sitting in meditation. Then, at that time, we can contemplate it and ask our Self (that divine inner knowing) how to move forward. This time of year, in many traditions, we are celebrating the coming of the light, the light that illuminates our consciousness—our illumined consciousness perceives the wisdom within.