Pick up a leaf. Place it in the palm of your hand. Look at how perfect it is – if it is decaying, watch how other little lives are beginning : the bacteria and insects that it is feeding. Look at how the circle of nature continues, how death creates life. Put all your attention on that little leaf, imagine how it was born. 
A tiny unfurling beauty that sparkled in the sun. How it strove for the light reaching up through the forest canopy and fluttered in the wind. Then one day it had grown old and was losing its hold on the branch that had carried it, its family, the tree that had sustained it, began to direct its nutrients to other newer leaves and gradually its hold became weaker and weaker until finally it had to let go and it fell and floated to the earth, to feed the very tree that gave it life, in its death. Contemplate that perfect balance for a few moments. The perfect balance of sun, wind and water that the leaf had thrived and lived and died in. 
And then realize that as you contemplate this forest, there are millions of leaves, millions of perfectly balanced evolving little lives of perfectly circular motions of nature. Realize that you are following exactly the same journey. Rejoice and realize that heaven is here, now.

The Leaf

Meditation Peace is a series of guided meditations for inner and outer peace. Most of the guided meditations are from the extremely popular free meditation classes offered by the Meditation Society of Australia.

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Sit with your eyes closed and concentrate all of your attention on your heart. Please repeat to yourself as you have in other exercises "I am not my body, I am not my ego - I am my soul"
This is your real reality.
This is the real nature of you. Your inner voice. Your conscience that has spoken to you since the beginning - this is the real you. For a moment, reflect upon the possibility that the thinking, physically feeling being that we think of as ourselves is not the real us, but that tiny, silent little voice within is the real us. That tiny little voice that tries to prompt us, tries to guide us and we ignore, is actually our highest reality. 
Is that possible?
That tiny voice that we ignore day in and day out is what we are trying to grow into. That is our highest self? Is that possible?
Listen very quietly and hear what your inner voice has to say - hear the answer it has for you.
Is that the voice of your soul? Focus all of your attention on it and let everything else go. Let everything else go.
Sit still and silent and focus your entire life past, present and future on your soul and listen. Listen with all your heart.. It is your own eternal and infinite voice.

Your Inner Voice

The aim of this exercise is to change the habitual way we have walked in the past, and lift the habit into a meditation. A habit that will require no thought, we will just automatically and effortlessly slip into a meditation every time we walk. 
So while you read this, imagine you are walking, or download the exercise to your ipod or create a CD for yourself to use anytime.
Please imagine yourself walking along a forest path, it's warm and the fragrances are fresh and inspiring. The sunlight is filtering its way through the leaves and the sounds of the birds are gently dancing in your ears. As you walk just allow yourself to feel the rhythm of your movement. 
Notice each breath. The rise and fall of your chest with the inflow and outflow of air.
As you walk feel more and more that you are making no effort. That you are being powered by nature itself. As though there is a force that is feeding every leaf, every flower, every bird and that same force is powering you in your walking. Begin to feel that you are not separate from the forest but rather you are the part of the forest that walks.
After a time I would like you to imagine that you are not walking at all. I would like you to imagine that you are a like a large drop of water hovering across the earth. And as you move little droplets of you are falling to the earth and moistening and enlivening and feeding the forest all around you. The plants and flowers around you are reaching towards you to be nourished by your moisture, your energy, your love.
Then please feel that you are not water but loving energy and you are radiating it into the forest. As you radiate love into the forest, you will automatically notice that you are also opening up your receptivity to the love that the forest is radiating unconditionally and always to all. Take a moment to really feel this. You might spend 5-10 minutes doing this or longer.
You might then just play with the feeling of you the walker radiating love into the forest and then in the next moment feel that you are the part of the forest that radiates love. Spend some more time with that awareness and remember that you can deepen your awareness at any moment in your life.

Bushwalk meditation

For this exercise, ideally you will be standing on top of your favourite mountain (you can download the exercise to your ipod or create a CD for yourself to use anytime), if you can't be there than you should visualise it.
Stop for a moment and listen, only listen to the universe around you. Hear the music of nature, the sounds of the birds, the leaves in the wind, the grass swaying on the breeze and feel that what you hear is all there is. After a few minutes like this, close your eyes and expand your perception to notice your physical sense of touch. Feel the wind on your face, perhaps the way the earth feels under your feet, you might even want to take a step or two (or five) and just reach out and touch a leaf, or a flower and feel it on your fingers. Try this for a few moments exploring what you are hearing and what you are touching. Now expand your perception to your sense of smell. Begin to feel the fragrances, perhaps the earthy wetness of a rainforest in a storm, or the pungent aromas of the blossoms of spring or even the hot, dry baked earth scents of a desert summer, and continue to expand your awareness.
Try and feel these perceptions through all 360 degrees and above and below you. Feel that you are not using your physical senses for these insights but your heart's intuition.
Finally try expanding it further by gently opening your eyes and focussing exclusively on the smallest thing you can see. It might be a dot on a cloud or a spot on a rock but just focus your outer eyes on this physical object and do not let them roam. Then I would like you to entertain the idea that your deeper vision, is just beyond what your physical eyes can see and to go deeper you need to concentrate your heart. Feel that you are not looking at anything but you are 'seeing' with your heart. Again remember that you are trying to feel all these perceptions from the centre of your heart. So feel that you are 'seeing' with the eyes of your heart.
Now comes the nice part. For the next few minutes try and imagine that all these perceptions are connecting you to the nature all around you. That you are not separate but a part of this magnificent harmony, in fact, that you are in the centre of it.
Then gently repeat the mantra 'AUM' or 'LOVE' and feel that whatever can hear their vibration is connecting to you. After a time, if you are feeling comfortable gradually increase the volume of the mantra, until you are very powerfully vibrating that mantra across all the nature around you and more and more of the world is connecting to you.
Try this for as long as you feel comfortable and you will feel the inherent oneness of all things..

Mountain Visualisation

Often in doing these classes, a common problem is the management of 'outer' work activities and our spiritual lives. 
For this exercise, we will make the leap between the 'constructed ego' and our real nature that is our heart.
Let's begin by analyzing this idea a little more. Gently repeat to yourself "Who am I? Am I defined by the things that I see? by the sounds that I hear? by the fragrances that I smell?" The answer should obviously be a resounding 'No!". So then firmly and calmly  go through the process of rejecting the egoic construct of you. 
"The real me is not outside of me. The real me is not even the things that I do."
"I am not the body" - and try consciously to let go of all your body consciousness. Your attachment to the way you look, the food you eat, your age etc.
"The real me is not even defined by the thoughts constructed by these things" 
"I am not the mind" - and let go of superficial and even, finally, all thought. 
 "I am the soul" - and allow yourself to be intuitively guided to the real centre of your own existence. A place beyond all the egoic constructions and free of all material, physical or emotional attachments. A silent place within that is your window to the kingdom of heaven within us all. Try to consciously stop allowing the mind to flow outwards and direct it inward. Ask your mind to entertain the idea that inside is your real self. Ask it not to travel outside but to journey within to find the real you. 
This will take much practice as you might imagine as we have all become very accomplished at the egoic construction of us, now we have to become experts in the heart construction, the spiritual construction of us.
Rejoice and realize that heaven is here, now.

The Leaf

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