The Second Mandala – Free Excerpt from the Responsive Universe

My new literary effort, The Responsive Universe – Meditations and Daily Life Practices is now available for purchase. Within these pages are nine Mandalas or chapters that illustrate a new and authentic step forward on the path to self-discovery and enlightenment. Over the course of the next week I will be giving an intimate look at each chapter as well as a small excerpt from the new book.

We continue with the Second Mandala…

Meditation is a powerful tool. Through the devices of contemplative observation and daily life practice, we need to make space and open ourselves up to an infinite vision of our true reality. We need to understand that under all the ego and co-dependency is a constant unwavering force that we can depend on. Secondly, finding space for all of life’s challenges allows one to pause and make the right decisions. The brain may seem small, but the mind is vast. Connect to the minds vastness and gone will be stress and anxiety.


Second Mandala Excerpt

Much like the Cosmos, our True Nature is also vast and seemingly infinite. In fact, once you connect to your True Nature, there is a feeling that the mind and the Universe are connected. The immensity of the Universe boggles the mind, and the spacious nature of the human brain amazes and mystifies us as well. While you can measure a human brain for size and depth, when you think of the mind and all its processes and capabilities, the brain seems to defy dimensions and appears infinite.

In the era when common belief was that the Earth was flat, thinkers believed that when you looked up at the night sky, what you saw was the extent of all that existed. This sort of thinking – that the world only consists of thoughts and things within your own realm of perception – is what breeds close-minded and primitive observations of life. These kinds of observations lead to stress, fear, anxiety, exclusivity, and hate. Imagine trying to count every grain of sand on Earth. It is impossible, right? Even though it is impossible to count every grain, you know that a vast quantity of other grains exist on beaches you can’t even see.

Primitive thinkers found this notion unsettling – that more existed beyond which they could perceive. Yet, there is actually comfort in trusting that our world and True Nature are spacious. The Universe just exists, and there is nothing we need to do to make it exist. Many times in life, we feel there is little we can count on. Home prices and the stock market fluctuate. Love and friendship can be fleeting. We age and eventually die. One thing is constant and unchanging: The spacious vision of True Nature that exists within us all. Our minds, like the Universe, are vast and boundless realms where countless things are possible. There is space for everything in our lives because the Universe has unending space.

John C. Bader
www.responsiveuniverse.com