Moving Meditation
Sep 21, 2024 11:00 pm
Hi there,
In the early 2000s, I taught an in-person Sufi class with another Sufi student, Sikha -- once a month for several years. We named our class Moving Meditation. We were hesitant to call our classes Sufi, being such beginners. Also, few people knew anything about Sufi in the SF Bay Area at that time .
Moving Meditation was an inspired title because it told people that meditation happened through movement. This is precisely what Adnan’s work does. The slow movement, dance, whirling, drumming, and even chanting involve movement – a kind of movement that promotes the state of meditation.
There is another way to look at the meaning of Moving Meditation, i.e. a form of meditation that moves us to do the right thing.
Adnan almost always acted from spirit -- from intuition. When we act from spirit, an intuition refined by meditation, we generally receive positive results. I suspect this is how people, adept at manifesting, acquire the things they need.
Operating from intuition or the intelligence of the heart -- means you don’t worry, overthink things, or figure out a plan. You decide what you want and let the moment guide you. This is what I have learned to do when I teach my Sufi movement classes. From moment to moment, I receive the vision of what to do next.
This meditative moving is another benefit of the Sufi work. In the beginning, we learn to relax. All tension, anxiety, and negative thoughts disappear and we experience the exalted state of presence.
On the next level, meditation can guide you in your daily action.
The first benefit -- peace and calm, seems to be more than enough. However, as you continue to do the work, you start to see how you can stretch being in the moment into more and more of your daily life and action until eventually, like Adnan, it directs your decisions, moment to moment.
Dorm Friends
To get to this level requires focus and practice.
Most of us have learned from childhood to depend on logic, reasoning, and judgment to decide what to do. It’s a habit reinforced by our social community. Logical thinking is a habit. Worrying is a habit. Thinking about doing the wrong thing is a habit. Beating ourselves up for doing the wrong thing is a habit. All these habits reinforce each other.
Sufi work breaks the habit and teaches us a different way to be.
In the first few years of Sufi camp, I fretted about showing up on time. I would rush, I would run, and I would arrive panting only to find out that the person I was supposed to meet had not yet arrived. This still happens.
Am I too soon for the workshop?
Last week, I was driving to a 9:30 am doctor’s appointment. The traffic was the worst I’ve ever seen. I fretted, rushed, and grumbled at an unmoving garbage truck and slow-moving cars. Finally, I arrived at my destination about five minutes late. I quickly called the doctor’s office to inform them I had been delayed but would be arriving soon. The receptionist said not to rush -- my doctor had been delayed by an emergency surgery and had only just arrived. I had to laugh. What a lot of fretting for nothing! Why not take a few deep breaths and trust in the universe?
I start practicing this approach to time management at Sufi camp. This was wise because often one thing or another would always delay my arrival. Again and again, I discovered that when I just flowed, I would arrive at the right time.
Doing this in the everyday world seems risky. Yet I am starting to see that it is not only possible, it is essential to my health and well-being. Rushing and fretting is just a habit -- a habit reinforced by other people on the road. What if I don’t rush? What if I relax? Might I influence other drivers? Might I begin to slow down in this fast-paced, hectic world? Certainly, my body will thank me.
Letting go and going with the flow are gifts of moving meditation.
Want to work on this next level of Moving Meditation? When you are instructed to do your own creative dance, let the music and the breath move your body and tell your mind to take a nap.
Join me Moving Meditation this Sunday, September 22, 8:00 am PDT, and Tuesday, September 24 at 10:30 am PDT.
The Zoom LINK: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88050735178?pwd=zkrVoc4Mtg0pSXtAAWmoCrHWQb2qb1.1
Don’t forget to use the password SUFI all in caps if you are asked for the password.
Be brilliant,
Dr. Michelle
Life Transformation Coach
Empowering Women to Reinvent Their Life After Loss
Secrets of Life and Death
