How to preserve spiritual nourishment the AEIOU way

How do we then preserve the new condition that has been gifted to us?

The first step is to become sensitive enough to know that we are being given spiritual nourishment, and then to make efforts to retain it, preserve it and let it grow. 

I call it acquire, enliven, imbibe, become one with it, and eventually reach a state of union, or AEIOU. We secure it, so it becomes one with us. We merge with it. AEIOU is easy to remember.

It requires only five minutes after meditation to observe ourselves within, to try to recognise and become one with our condition, savour it, enliven it and make it ours. Then it has a chance to grow. When we sharpen a knife, we do so to cut vegetables. 

When we sharpen our consciousness, it is to be used during the daytime. It helps to know how sharp our consciousness is. During morning meditation, we achieve a certain level of consciousness. 

When we hold on to it and carry on with our day-to-day activities, we retain a full grip over the morning condition with open eyes.

What does ‘grip over the condition’ mean? Here is an analogy: Suppose someone tells you a joke, and later on at home you remember the joke, and it makes you laugh aloud. Your son asks, “Daddy, what’s up?” So you explain, “I remembered a joke.” 

In the same way, the condition arising out of morning meditation may be so good, so profound and so intense that it comes back to you. 

You learn to walk with it, work with it, relax with it, and imbibe it fully. That is the meditative state we try to carry with us day and night.

Once serenity and purity are created within through meditation, we learn how to hold on to them. This is the art known as ‘meditation with open eyes’ or ‘constant remembrance’, in which we carry the condition received during meditation throughout the day into all aspects…