A year ago I received a very clear inspiration, as if God said to me: why don’t you create a spiritual centre in the style of Taizé, which travels around the world to share a deep spirituality with everyone? One of the main purposes of this spiritual centre will be sharing a community for by example a week in which people can experience a model of living together connected with spiritual gatherings during the day. (I will give a more concrete plan.). Then I received the inspiration for the first steps to take. I have put many of the texts from the conversation with God books to music, in fact mantras in the style of Taizé.[3] (I will send a sample.) I have recorded some of these mantras, and I have sung them with people on Humanities Team days.
A. The centre of the spiritual centre:
Raising consciousness of who we are.
Like in Taizé, the centre of the community I want to create is spirituality and the expression of spirituality. There will be a meditation moment, three times a day, one in the morning before breakfast, one at noon before lunch and on in the evening to close the day.
A meditation moment will begin with two or three mantras, a spoken text and a few minutes of silence. Then the meditation will continue with three or for mantras and end. The evening meditation will have no exact point of end. (Some people will leave, other will continue to sing a few mantras.)[4]
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Meditative introduction mantra
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A sample of a mantra:
When singing mantras there is the experience of exceeding the words you are singing. If you are touched by the words they first become part of you, and while singing along you connect with something deep inside of you, your true self. The second thing can also happen when the words do not touch you so much. When people are singing mantras together three times a day, the mantras will continue to work in them during the rest of the day, during their activities and even months, if not years after the experience of a mantra singing gathering.
If you want a more beautiful meditation you have to teach the people the mantras. The more familiar people become with the mantras, which are sung, the more at ease people will feel and the deeper the effect will be. During a gathering of a week there will be a song practice every day, which is for everybody. You don’t even need to know how to sing to attend this song practice. People who have been to one ore more song practices will be help for everybody to sing during a meditation. If there are enough people a little choir will be formed during the first song practice and this little choir will sing during the evening meditation to help other people to sing as well. If there are a lot of people the little choir could be a workshop during a week next to the song practice.
The meditations will be held in a meditative space. Not to much light. Every body sits on the ground. (There are benches for those who need). At some places there will be candles. The meditation space will be a place of silence in between the meditation moments. Half an hour before the meditation begins there will be soft background music to help people to enter into the silence and the meditation. The meditation space will be open 24 hours a day. Once a week, mostly at the end, before people will leave, the will be a meditation of light and everybody will have a small candle.
A model of how living together as people can be.
During a gathering in the spiritual centre for a week workshops are proposed. Not too many, people will get confused. About three to five workshops are enough. For example:
The Heartlight education workshop
Raising and educating the children to build a world of peace.
Ecology
Using the earth’s recourses without wasting them,
Living in harmony with the planet.
Conversations with God
Discussing the books of Neale Donald Walsh and spirituality in general.
The music group.
Learning the mantras in mixed voices. Attending the song practice and singing as a choir during the evening meditation.
Silence.
Remembering who you really are without words. A week of reiterate.
Next to the workshops everybody attending the spiritual centre has his or her share of work to do to help the gathering to work for everybody. Some people will prepare food, some will distribute food. Some people will clean certain places; some people will help others to enter the silence in the meditation place and in the night. Some people will help welcoming other people. Etc.
Older people.
Older people from 50 years and older will get a special task. They will if they want to, take care of the children (Bringing them form Heartlight to the meditation space) and they will form an advising platform during a gathering. People can if they want speak to one of the older persons about personal issues, about life and so on in order to have a listening ear and maybe some advise from an older person. People can do this during the day. At a certain moment during the evening meditation older people will be available in the meditation space to speak to.
The Heartlight education workshop
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Raising and educating the children to build a world of peace.
During a gathering for a week, children can together with people who are for instance teachers chose what they want to experience (learn) this week. Teachers will help them to accomplish their choice and make this possible within the boundaries of a week. The children will be at Heartlight in the morning between breakfast and the midday meditation. In the afternoon there will be place to do other things and to play.
Ecology Using the earth’s recourses without wasting them,
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Living in harmony with the planet.
In the morning between breakfast and midday meditation there will be theory and in the afternoon things to do, like planting vegetables for instance. This program can be the other way around if necessary.
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Discussing the books of Neale Donald Walsh and spirituality in general.
In the morning between breakfast and the midday meditation there will be and introduction about a part of Neale Donald Walsh’s books. In the afternoon there will be small groups to reflect and share and discuss the material of Neale Donald Walsh’s books and for instance work with the workbook.
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Learning the mantras in mixed voices. Attending the song practice and singing as a choir during the evening meditation.
If there are enough people, there will be a music group. This workshop can be done in three ways:
1. In the morning there is theory about mantra’s in general and these kind of mantra’s, how they work, and what they do, and the connection of the mantra’s sung during this gathering and their connection with Neale Donald Walsh’s books. In the afternoon the music group attends the general song practice from about 14.00 p.m. until 15.00 p.m., and continues for another hour, from 15.00 p.m. until 16.00 p.m. In the evening meditation the music group will sit together at a certain place and sing as a choir to help the others to sing to.
2. In the morning the music group practices between breakfast and the midday meditation and in the afternoon they attend the general song practice until 15.00 p.m. From 15.30 p.m. until 17.00 p.m. there is theory about the mantra’s and so on and the rest is the same as in point 1.
3. If there are not quite enough people to have a music group, but still a lot, people will be asked to form a choir during the first song practice of a week. They will continue to practice for half an hour longer each day and sing as a choir in the evening meditation.
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Remembering who you really are without words. A week of reiterate.
People can do a week of silence. Each morning after breakfast there is a speaker who reads from for instance Neale Donald Walsh’s books and gives a reflection question for the day. The rest of the day is in silence. Everybody who is in silence gets a personal guide (someone of the older people) to speak to and to reflect with.
C. Helping the spiritual centre to work, exist and continue.
The spiritual centre might be at a certain place for more than one week. And hopefully some people will wish to stay for more than one week. They will be asked to help with all kind of work, which needs to be done and to take responsibility. They will help leading the food process for instance. Lead the cooking, lead the distribution, and lead the dishwashing. Other longer staying persons will be responsible for welcoming people, running a little bar in the evening and so on. Some people are needed to help build the space for a spiritual centre, put up sleeping tents, put up a meditation space...etc. Other people will put the spiritual centre on the Internet, and announce gatherings...etc. (these are just examples.)
I really hope that you, people to whom I am writing, are willing to help me to build this spiritual centre. I look forward to your reply,
Kind regards and I wish you peace,
P. J. Wintrip
Philip.wintrip@planet.nl
www.wintrip.nl
Short songs in mixed voices, which are repeated over and over again.
