A Fresh Outlook – Oprah & Deepak Meditation Challenge Day 6

Day 6 of the Oprah and Deepak meditation challenge was inspired by the beautiful saying in India’s ancient Vedic tradition: “If you want to recreate the world, look at it with fresh eyes.” The centering thought for day 6 was ‘I Cherish the Beauty in Myself and in Others’.

We Are Unique

Oprah introduced the lesson by recounting the uniqueness each of the persons she  has been given a chance to meet. Deepak explained this to us further using the example of snowflakes. Just like they are made of the same elements and are still different from each other, so are we humans. Although we all come from the same source, we are none of us alike. Totally unique, we are each created with precision and perfection to add beauty and grace to wherever we are placed.

So far the lessons had solely focused on realizing and loving your true self. Today, for the first time, we were reminded that each one of us is like a snowflake and just as we should cherish the beauty of our existence, we should also admire the same beauty within others.

I realized how blind I have become to the beauty of those who I constantly live with. Like my partner, my close friends etc. Starting from today, I will try to look at them with a fresh perspective and accept and celebrate their uniqueness and existence in my universe. We often assume we know who they are, and so we stop seeing. Let us see them without the camouflage of memories and try to see them like it is for the first time. Similarly, it is also important to look at ourselves as though doing so for the first time. We may assume that we know ourselves, but as we are discovering on this journey we are is much more than our limited ego-mind can envision.

Meditation

Today’s meditation was on a mantra that I have grown to like a lot. ‘Sat Chit Ananda’ roughly  translates to true existence, the consciousness of it and bliss due to knowledge of its presence. It was a breakthrough in meditation for me today. After every meditatipn session, Deepak rings a bell to end the session and asks us to ‘bring the awareness back into the body’. I could never really follow those instructions since the awareness never quite left my body. Everytime he said that, I was pretty aware of my surroundings. Today, however, I felt like the sound of the bell brought me back from a different world I was blissfully meditating in.