Meditation Archives - Page 5 of 27 - Madhu Bazaz Wangu
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Meditation

Thursday, September 18, 2025

Posted on September 17, 2025
in #Nature Lover, Awareness, Meditation, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Spirituality, Well Being
6 Comments

In stillness and silence we practice living in the present moment. When we are Here and Now our awareness is one with us. With practice we learn to bring the inner quietude right into the present moment. When we bask in self-recognition of our aware self we feel love, joy, peace and contentment.  Present moment has two layers: the immediate one, the one we are familiar with. It is a bundle of contents of our experience—our thoughts, feelings, sensations, perceptions, images, events and relationships. We are constantly entangled with this content. In stillness and silence, we learn to focus on the breath or mantra instead and go beyond these mental things. For some time or at some point we stop identifying with the things and go deeper.  What do we find when we go deeper within? We...

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Thursday, September 11, 2025

Posted on September 10, 2025
in Being in Nature, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Spirituality
2 Comments

The practitioners who intentionally sits in silence and solitude elevate themselves by realizing what it means to live in the awareness of the present moment. When you are aware you are lifted beyond your pain and sorrow. You feel true peace and happiness. You intuitively feel that are not your ego self but your aware self that is one with all there is and is always at peace. Your mindful life is the authentic life that is awake to the here and now.  What is a life of contemplation? It is to realize that we come to the world alone and we leave alone, that our solitude is absolute. To be an authentic individual is to watch our feelings, thoughts, sensations, activities and relationships as finite; and to witness our true...

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Tuesday, September 9, 2025

Posted on September 8, 2025
in #Nature Lover, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds
4 Comments

The French philosopher Blaise Pascal noted, “All the unhappiness of (people) arises from one simple fact: that they can’t sit quietly in their chamber.” The practice of sitting quietly by yourself trains your mind the way exercise trains your body. It leads you deep into yourself where you become one with your Authentic Self, wiser and kinder. When you are walking outdoors, sit for 5 minutes and feel entertained listening to birds or crickets or rushing water. Nature’s sounds add depth to any time of the day or night. Last month you discovered how much pleasure and insight travel brings. Yet, sitting at home in the silence of our Spiritual Power Spot settles the mind and opens the heart. At such moments, we genuinely feel that going nowhere is as fulfilling as...

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Tuesday, September 2, 2025

Posted on September 1, 2025
in Mindfulness and Travealing, Nonverbal Activities, Travel
2 Comments

This is my last post about Lewis and Clarke’s expedition toward the western coast. Following them to some of the towns and sites that the captains had discovered made me feel grounded in my adopted country, made the land real for me. To continue, on September 23, 1806, the Corps of Discovery returned to St. Louis. An excerpt from Lewis’s letter to President Jefferson reads: “Sir, it is with pleasure that I announce to you the safe arrival of myself and party with our papers and baggage. No accident has deprived us of a single member of our party since I last wrote you from the Mandan in April 1804.” In his reply the President wrote: “I received, my dear Sir, with unspeakable joy your letter of September 23 announcing the return...

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Thursday, August 14, 2025

Posted on August 13, 2025
in Being in Nature, Mindfulness and Travealing, Travel
2 Comments

Having left the east coast on May 14, 1804, Lewis and Clark glided into the northern side of the mouth of the Columbia River in dugout canoes in early November 1805. With starved looks, tattered clothes rotting on their bodies, and disheveled hair, they neither had the energy nor wherewithal to moor. Clark named the spot Dismal Nitch. A group of local Indians arrived in elegantly carved and painted canoes, communicating with a few words of English they had learned from fur traders. The captains Lewis and Clark had intended to meet the last trading ship of the season on the Pacific to obtain badly needed supplies and send back journals and specimens of plants and animals to President Jefferson. But a severe winter storm prevented this. This is “the most...

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Tuesday, August 12, 2025

Posted on August 11, 2025
in Being in Nature, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Mindfulness and Travealing, Travel, Well Being
2 Comments

While trekking in Sedona, my fleeting thoughts subsided amidst the fiery, awesome, sacred red rock mountains. That other worldly breathtaking natural beauty seemed to have sacred power and spiritual significance. I breathed in the sage-scented mesas and walked on orange-dusted pathways. The sun scorched my skin and frequently made me close my eyes. My deeper Self awakened to coalesce with the Universe. The magnificent Cathedral and Bell Rocks mesmerized… thecliffs, mesas, and fringes of juniper forests set against searing blue sky was singularly impressive. Taking our fill we continued our journey toward Grand Canyon, arriving at our cottage late at night. Next morning we rose early and realized that the cottage was only a few hundred feet from the view of the Grand Canyon. Hot cups of coffee warmed our hands as we took satisfying...

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Thursday, August 7, 2025

Posted on August 6, 2025
in Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Nonverbal Activities, Travel
2 Comments

Tracking back a little. From the Portland airport we took a cab to Red Lion Hotel on Jantzen Beach in Hayden Island, Oregon. The eastern sky threatened with thunderclouds, pouring down with vengeance, while the western sky welcomed us with dazzling sunlight.  Our hotel balcony overlooked the Columbia River, partly hidden behind pine trees. Was it the same river upon which sailed Louis and Clark with their crew? I couldn’t believe my fortune! The next morning I saw our boat, “American Harmony,” docked right next to the pines! Under the early morning sunlight the air was fresh. We walked on a trail that ran parallel to the river. Cumulus clouds announced themselves against the bright blue sky with such confidence that I straightened my shoulders. The riverside of the trail was studded...

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Thursday, July 31, 2025

Posted on July 30, 2025
in Spirituality, Walking
4 Comments

For Mary Oliver, a Pulitzer-prize winning American poet, “the door to the woods (was) the door to the temple.”  Walking in the woods helps us understand ourselves and improve our lives in ways you didn’t yet know we could. A moment on our mindful walk may turn into a portal to a creative activity, an insight or an intuitive idea. We just need to pay attention to things you normally may ignore or think that they are not of our interest. Original ideas flow in when our body is busy moving and we are quiet. We may get lost in thought. When that happens, as you now know, bring your attention back to your breath and ask why, how, what, and when about the days at this stage of your life....

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Tuesday, July 29, 2025

Posted on July 28, 2025
in Mindfulness and Travealing
4 Comments

Traveling within the country or internationally is supposed to open the closed windows of our mind. As seekers on spiritual path we need clear mind and open heart to see, connect and understand the people different from us.  When we travel Our vision becomes more expansive, our lives are enriched, and new connections make us realize that the divine gem in the lotus of our heart is in each and every human being—irrespective of their race, religion, color or gender. I’ve had numerous such experiences that I’ll share with you in the Month 8, “Mindfulness and Travel.” Here’s one: I occasionally accompanied my husband on business trips. A bit nervous about walking alone around in a new city, I would stay back to write. But the thought of adventuring on foot would...

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Thursday, July 24, 2025

Posted on July 23, 2025
in Nonverbal Activities, Travel, Walking
1 Comment

Only a few astronauts have actually walked on the moon. But our fictional heroes have traveled through space like no body’s business. Here’s Captain James T. Kirk from TV show, Star Trek. “Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.”  Quite different from what the real astronauts said when they walked on the surface of the moon on which no one had walked before. But each one of these utterances resonate with the same exhilaration for exploration. “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” declared American astronaut Neil Armstrong on July 20, 1969, when he put his left foot...

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