Mettā, loving-kindness

Introduction
Two and a half year ago a friend of mine sent me a song saying: "here, I have the feeling this will be good for you."
The first time we met, we went for a coffee, with also another friend of mine. When he walked in he gave me a big hug and I was stunned by his inner peace, happiness and love. The whole time I couldn't say a word as his energy was so overwhelming to me. My friend talked with him normally, but I couldn't, I just felt like crying. His energy was so strong and so loving that it 'attacked' my heart chakra and 'messed' with blocks I had in this (and other) chakra(s). To make things 'worse', he once in a while gave me a big hug or stroke my leg.
As I got to know him better, I started to get used to his energy and to know how to handle it, but it kept having a big effect on me. Of course he had noticed this from the first day on, and that is why he sent me that song.


When I listened to it, I felt tears coming up and at the same time it made me so happy. I felt light, as if a burden had fallen from my shoulders. The sounds and the voice were so pure and loving.
I've listened to the music over and over again. When I felt sad or when I wanted peace and quiet within myself I listened to this music. I felt how this music was healing my heart chakra, which now is one of my most developed chakras.


Mettā, loving-kindness
The song I'm referring to is called 'Mettā', sang by Imee Ooi. I wanted to share this song with you, for you to use it to heal your heart chakra. To meditate on it, to learn how to love yourself and, from there, how to give and receive love. And, finally, to be able to love unconditionally.
As sure as I was that this song belonged to the heart chakra, in fact I didn't knew what the song was about. So that is why I did a little research.


Imee Ooi is a Malaysian composer and singer, who makes music out of traditional Buddhist chants, mantras and dharanis. The lyrics are written in Pali, which is the language used to write down most of the earliest Buddhist scriptures, to be found in the Pali Canon. This language has never been a spoken language, yet only the liturgical language of Theravada Buddhism.


One of her songs is called 'Mettā'. 
Mettā (Pāli; Devanagari: मेत्ता) is loving-kindness, friendliness, benevolence, amity, friendship, good will, kindness, love, sympathy, close mental union (on same mental wavelength), and active interest in others. It is one of the ten pāramīs of the Theravāda school of Buddhism, and the first of the four sublime states (Brahmavihāras). This is love without clinging (upādāna). The cultivation of loving-kindness (mettā bhāvanā) is a popular form of meditation in Buddhism. In the Theravadin Buddhist tradition, this practice begins with the meditator cultivating loving-kindness towards himself, then his loved ones, friends, teachers, strangers, enemies, and finally towards all sentient beings. [1]


The last phrase of the paragraph above mentions exactly that what I have been feeling every time I listened to this music, even without knowing what the song actually meant. For me, this means that this music is more then just a song and has real powering energy. It is a music that brings healing to our hearts even if we don't realize it. 
So, now, for all of us to cultivate our loving-kindness towards ourself and then to others, below you'll find the music, with lyrics and translation.


Namasté


Meditation for the heart

[1]: extract from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mettā 

A year of silence...

It has been over a year since I wrote my last post. It really is incredible how fast time passes by. Now what happened? What was the motive of my silence?
I normally write about things I observe, hear or feel around or within me, because all the sudden I see them clearly or because I question them. Yet the past year I have had a tough year of introspection. Lots of changes in my live, of which the biggest, emigration to a foreign country.

Like (almost) everyone I still have issues with my self-esteem and with all the changes and introspection of the past year a lot of doubts arose.

I think we all know what this is and we all have passed through moments of doubts about who we are, what we are and what we know and are capable of. Yet the proportion in which we experience those doubts and how we handle them has a lot to do with our level of self-esteem. The lower our self-esteem the more and the stronger our doubts and the more we let our doubts influence our daily live.

Well, this is what happened to me over the past year. I had doubts about myself, about my life's purpose and about my capabilities. I felt like I was always one step behind, I felt inferior to the people in my surroundings and thought that all of them knew and experienced more then me. As Eckhart Tolle would say, this all is Ego.
I always knew that self-esteem still was one of my biggest issues, but I just didn't know very well how to make it better. My Ego had tried to improve it for a long time by comparison to other people, and as long as I had people around me that I could feel superior to, my Ego would be satisfied and would give me the idea that my self-esteem wasn't that bad after all. Yet, my Ego fooled my, like many of you are fooled by your Ego. Our Ego is master in manipulation, but by being present and aware you are able to see this through.

So that is what I did. Many times I stopped, took a step back and watched my Ego. First a felt annoyed, but with time I started laughing about it. I started laughing about it, because I could see the irony of the Ego trying to play his game. And honestly, many times he still knows how to fool me, I'm definitely not free of Ego yet, that will need more time and awareness, but I'm heading the right direction.

Two weeks ago I really had a low point. I won't say that I hit rock bottom, because that sounds very drastic and it wasn't, but I certainly had tough moment. But sometimes we need the darkness to see where light shines. As long as it is dawn it's more difficult to see this source, but when it is dark, even the slightest ball of light will get your attention, will get your focus. And that is what happened to me. In that moment I knew my purpose. Being, loving, trusting myself and the universe.

A couple of days later I went for an aura reading. I couldn't have got any more confirmation. Everything that I felt, experienced, lived through, intuit or knew over the past year, that I had doubted about, got confirmed during this session. Everything. My guides couldn't have given me a bigger message. I have to TRUST myself and my intuition. I have to hear and acknowledge myself. I have to love myself. Then my self-esteem will raise and my (negative) doubts will belong to the past.

When I went home, in the days after this session I was stunned. I had been doubting about myself all my life, especially over the last year, and all the sudden these doubts were gone. I felt (and still feel) so free. My doubts had been blocking my creativity and now it is time to let my creativity shine. Right now my head is full of new ideas, of alternatives and topics to write about.

So my message to you, dear friend, TRUST your inner feeling. Take a step back and feel the difference between your thoughts and your Being, and you will know what is true. Intuition has his roots in Being and therefore is true. Even if your thoughts will tell you that it is not possible or made up, your thoughts are the ones who are wrong and trying to manipulate you. Thoughts are created by society, by culture, which can never comprehend the truth of Being. You are capable of so much more then your mind can grasp...

TRUST.