Group Meditation or Dharmachakra

In Ananda Seva practices we have a very particular format for our meditation together called Dharmachakra. What sets Dharmachakra apart, makes it so special is that it is designed in such a way as to move a group of individuals, of individual consciousnesses into a united and harmonious flow for the purpose of creating a special group experience.

In its simplest terms, Dharmachakra means wheel of dharma or wheel of evolution from human to Divine. It is a way of doing meditation together so as to generate the greatest force of positive energy to bring us to our goal.

Dharma refers to ones innate nature. The dharma of fire is to burn, and the dharma of humans to develop their physical, mental, emotional and spiritual potentials; to know and become one with the Supreme.

Chakra literally means wheel. In the largest sense it is the wheel of creation from energy to matter to the highly evolved human form and then back to the energy, the consciousness from which we have sprung. Chakra also refers to nonphysical energy vortexes in our body through which spiritual energy flows.

Dharmachakra consists of a chant and dance done together, a chant sung sitting just before meditation, quiet individual meditation, a chant to end meditation, and an offering of the colors of the mind to the Supreme. In addition there are often songs sung at the very beginning and a teaching at the end.

One of the greatest challenges facing a person committed to a meditation practice is the effort to do that practice on a regular basis. It is hard to meditate twice a day every day. For most people coming together for regular group meditation is the most effective single action that can be taken to maintain and improve a practice.

Some of us are very hard on ourselves for failing to stay with the practice. However, it was not long ago that few even attempted to practice meditation while engaged in a worldly life. This is a relatively new trend. Previously If a man or a woman wished to pursue a life focused on their spiritual development they left the society for the monastic life where they were removed from the distractions of daily life and surrounded by others who were also dedicating themselves to their spiritual growth.

However some of us want the spiritual life in our daily live.

Spiritual pursuits are not part of our retirement planning, we wish to integrate the spiritual life and live the worldly life, to manifest our spiritual values and actions in our families, our jobs and in our social lives. So it is no wonder that this is a hard path, for we are forging new ground here. We take the wisdom and the teachings of thousands of years, the teaching and wisdom of current teachers and apply our highest intellect and intuition to achieve a spiritual path that we can practice now, in the context of our everyday lives. What this means is if you are meditating now, even just a few times a week, you are integrating much more practice into your busy daily life then was achieved just a few decades ago by a person in a similar situation with similar yearnings.