20 Years meditating at the Gerês Mountains

For twenty years she was a shepherd in Gerês Mountains, North of Portugal.
Being the youngest sister of eleven siblings, it was her task to tend to all the sheep and goats by herself in the mountains, while her brothers and sisters were going to school.

The need to read the Bible made her learn how to read and write on her own.

Her only set of clothes were worn in reverse during the week so she could used them on Sundays while in church, her only escapade from her duties since she was a child.

On her twentieth anniversary she run away to Lisbon, which was like going to a totally different planet. There she worked and got married and with her first baby on her arms she emigrated to Africa. In the mid seventies she fled the civil war in Angola and emigrated to USA starting a new life from scratch.

She became 80 years old this month. She has been a shepherd, a housewife, mother, businesswoman, grandmother and above all, a very wise teacher.

She is my mother and I am very proud of her.

When meditating do you keep your eyes open?

I don’t know if it happens to you or not, when I ‘m in contemplation, I do so with my eyes open. Somehow closing my eyes does not allow me to be aware of it all and I may fall asleep. Music also leads me into dream patterns and that’s not what I’m looking for when meditating. Actually I am looking for nothing, just pure awareness. The metronome is great if you lock it at 60 cycles per second. In the audio program 33 Steps to reclaim your infinite Self, Stuart Wilde had a recording of such metronome on the last CD. I still use it to this date.

The peace that passeth all understanding

Through history, there has been women and men who, in the face of great loss, illness, imprisonment, or impending death, accepted the seemingly unacceptable and thus found 'the peace that passeth all understanding."

Acceptance of the unacceptable is the greatest source of grace in this world.

Ref.:
The Flowering of Human Consciousness

This moment

When we treat this moment as if it is an obstacle to be overcome, (like when we feel we have a future to get to that is more important than our present moment), we are short-changing our existence. Like Eckhart Tolle says, "a simple but radical spiritual practice is to accept whatever arises in the now - within or without"

When we say yes to what it is we become aligned with the power and intelligence of life itself. Only then we become an agent for the positive change in the world.

The Student

You Are the Only Student You Have


You are the only faithful student you have.
All the others leave eventually.

Have you been making yourself shallow
with making other eminent?

Just remember, when you're in union,
you don't have to fear
that you'll be drained.

The command comes to speak,
and you feel the ocean
moving through you.
Then comes, Be silent,
as when the rain stops,
and the trees in the orchard
begin to draw moisture
up into themselves.


Mathnawi V:3195-3219


Photo of Roscoe Mitchel