31 Days of Contemplation

31 Days of Contemplation follows in the tradition of what can happen when a person is alone with themselves, and is open to that experience of being alone. The title and concept of the book was chosen following the devotional model of processing deeper thoughts a day at a time. This book will most likely be helpful to someone who is afraid and avoids being by themselves, and can be a guide in learning how to be alone. The author is a licensed mental health counselor, musician, father, spouse, emergency department mental health evaluator and has been trying to uncover this dream called life since the 1980s. Contemplation can strike at anytime and is not contingent on the ability to meditate or pray. Contemplation is a journey into the deepest parts of the self and where our deepest fears can meet and coalesce with peace, hope and love. There is a lot of mystery in contemplation. Contemplation is not prayer or meditation, and can be done by the believer or non-believer. In contemplation time stops, and a connection to the unknown in and out of the self is made. In contemplation peace, hope and love become more than just an idea, and are discovered to be real tangible truths to be experienced. This book could be a guide into contemplation or used as a existential exercise in sitting with yourself and asking what am I. ...................excerpt.................................DAY 3 These things reside in the contemplative mind: our questions, the void, peace, hope, love, transcendence and our malaise-and all at times lead to a stuck feeling of unknowing. Are we getting use to this unknowing? When we allow ourselves to become supremely focused on this state of unknowing, something other emerges within the self. No matter how atheistic I can be or how much of a believer I can be, there is a question in me. A question shows evidence of a speaker and a seeker. True and open seeking creates altered states, and will I dare to listen to the question calling out to me. How far am I willing to go into the question, the unknowing, can I strip myself totally naked of everything that makes me feel secure. To let go of superego societal and religious beliefs, as well as my id driven desires for physical and material needs and pleasures. This is what and where I will be within myself when I enter contemplation. Into the question I will go, and what is my question today, what am I seeking today? Is it more than, what will I eat for lunch and how will I entertain myself tonight until I am tired enough to fall asleep. What is the question that arouses my deepest fears, that is it, that is the one I must go into boldly and in complete humility? I must face that question completely with no fear of the consequences, of knowing or not knowing. The questions of: am I utterly alone here, will I ever know the love my intuition knows exists and that I resist and cannot find, can my life have meaning beyond my limitations, what is making this universe keep going, where did my innocence go, why don't I fully trust anyone, how did I decide hating myself was the right idea, why do I feel unlovable, what is this fear that fills my stomach, why don't I believe in God, why do I believe in God, what was I like as a child, what is unconditional love, how can I experience this moment fully without judging? Now I sit with these questions and allow the full experience to happen. The full cognitive experience of complete optimistic and pessimistic thought, and the full emotional experience of dread and peace, both of these moments must happen, and coalesce into contemplation. The moment I close off to one of these experiences, I miss the chance to experience the other, the high and the low..........