For some meditation guidance, I am reprinting two chapters from my book, The Complete Soul. Chapter 10 explores the concept of meditation while Chapter 11 offers several types of simple meditative practices. I think you’ll find something helpful here. Feel free to copy and paste the text into your own file.
Chapter 10: Meditation
“We stand before the secret of the world, there where Being passes into Appearance, and Unity into Variety” – Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Poet.
While meditation may or may not change what we see, it will always change the way we see it. ― JDB
The Sanctuary of the Soul
A sanctuary is a consecrated place where one finds refuge from the slings and arrows of the world, but we do not want to think of the sanctuary of the soul as a place to hide. This is our place of reconnecting and aligning our minds with our true Source. Because this connection is subjective, many think of it as secondary in importance to the development of the objective, intellectual aspect of the mind. Conscious connection with your soul is a very real and empowering experience that will do more than anything to enhance the quality of your life. You not only become an observer of the Creative Life Force rising as your soul, you come to know your authentic essence is doing the rising. As a participant, you no longer wonder what the expansive intention of this individualizing process is; you experience it first-hand. This direct knowledge profoundly influences the way you think of yourself, and it will alter the value you place on all things. You become a student of the greatest teacher you could possibly encounter—your own soul.
Do a web search on “meditation images” and you’ll find the practice overwhelmingly portrayed as highly elastic young models in designer tights, sitting in the lotus position, fingers held a certain way, the yellow tint of sunlight from that photographically magic moment of the day perfectly highlighting the Buddha like serenity that adorns their young faces. You will be far better off shunning such images, New Age commercialism, and approaching meditation as your own unique discovery. Ultimately it will be your discovery, your process, for as you venture into the experience of your soul, you will find for yourself what works and what does not. You will learn the difference between that “still small voice” and the ceaseless chatter generated by that spiritual wannabe that is your self-image.
God is individualizing as your soul. Think about this. It is as if you own a stretch of beach, and the ocean is, at this very moment, washing your shore. This is your experience. This is your relationship. It is happening in you now, and you have the full capacity to know firsthand who and what you are, and what you intend to do with your current incarnation. In truth, you are the only one who can know this.
We have all fallen into the trap of thinking others are better qualified than we to instruct us on the nature of our own soul. But, this is only because we have not accepted ownership of our unique piece of this beach. This is probably due to the fact that so much has been written on the topic of spirituality. The authorities are those who have retired to a cave in the desert, the cloistered monk, or the Indian guru that can meditate for days on end. In the capitalistically leaning West, we hail as experts the best-selling authors, or the popular talk show hosts who amass a fortune spotlighting them. We are truly undermining our natural, intuitive way of knowing by taking the objective approach to a subjective experience. We are attempting to evolve our spiritual understanding by amassing the catchy clichés from the peddlers of spirituality. Our spiritual understanding is not ours. We are visiting the beach of another. We cannot get to our own beach from here.
Jesus referred to the lilies of the field and the birds of the air as prime examples of the prospering life. These do not reach out away from themselves for the knowledge to successfully interface with their environment. Nor do they stockpile that which, for them, is the wealth that will comfortably sustain their future existence. Every plant and every creature is naturally attuned to the preservation of the body. They do not possess the creative imagination that allows them to invent a false sense of self, or to consider that which sustains it as the epitome of prosperity. Prosperity is that sustaining element embedded in each moment. They flourish in their world, build their homes, reproduce, and feed their families by being true to what they are right now. The robin does not need to soar like the eagle, and the eagle does not pluck worms from the earth.
In our confusion over the reconciliation between the spiritual and material aspects of our experience, we ask others to resolve the questions we have. Their answers become our answers, largely because we admire them, respect their authority, and we want to have an understanding that is similar to theirs. We will never get satisfactory answers until we sit at our own beach and have our own experience. Answers concerning our soul can come only from our own soul. They may be the same answers we receive from another, but we will not embrace them because they seem to be true. We embrace them because we know they are true.
Form Follows Function
In this book I am taking a broader approach to the practice of meditation than I have in the past. Because all of us have undoubtedly filled our conscious and subconscious files full of information about the various approaches to meditation, our actual attempts at becoming still may end up looking like little more than a search on our computer’s hard drive for an abstract notion that we consider an experience with God.
Our field of awareness is an interactive dynamic of consciousness that is very useful to understand, especially as it relates to meditation. There are three types of input that impact our awareness. The two most prominent are our five senses and our memory. The third input source, our intuition, involves feeling at the spiritual level. This input is the most difficult to describe because it is not the same as the intuitive “hunch” many have experienced.
Imagine all three of these input levels have volume knobs. Typically, the senses and memory inputs are set at a much higher volume than the intuitive input. For meditation, we turn down the senses input by finding a quiet place, relaxing the body, and closing our eyes. The memory input continues at full volume, which is why we find our awareness suddenly crowded with everything from appointments to things we’re going to say to our co-worker to win that ongoing argument. Senses playback is turned down but memory playback is now more pronounced, like the grandfather clock that ticks away unnoticed through the day but sounds like a blacksmith hammering red hot horseshoes in the still of night.
Our intuitive input channel is not audio/visual but feeling accompanied by direct knowing at the spiritual level. The intuition opens us to an experience of the energy that animates our being. This is as different as the audio/visual function of your computer and the computers electrical connection. Though the electrical connection is the least apparent to you the user, the computer will not function without it.
To illustrate this intuitive aspect, imagine yourself outside at night with a flashlight. You can point the flashlight’s beam in any direction you choose. Everything within that beam is within the scope of your awareness. Now imagine the sky is full of stars but, because your flashlight is so bright, the light drowns out much of what you can see in the sky and in your immediate surroundings. You turn off your light and for a few moments you are engulfed in darkness. Then, as your vision gradually adjusts, you begin to experience a sky ablaze with stars, and you can see much more in your immediate surroundings. Your awareness expands from the focal point of your flashlight beam to the grander scale of the night sky. If you were hiking at night through treacherous terrain, it would probably not be wise to try to pick your way through the darkness without the aid of the flashlight. Turning off the light is most useful if you want to enjoy the stars. This broader feeling of context inspires in you the sense that you are part of something vast.
Now suppose you are tent camping, you’ve hiked away from your camp, and night comes with only the sliver of a moon. You have your flashlight but your camp is too far away to see. You turn your light off and allow your eyes to adjust to the dark. Across the meadow you can see your tent. Knowing your camp’s direction, you then turn on your flashlight and make your way back to your camp.
This describes the relationship between meditation and prayer. Meditation is the act of turning off the flashlight so you may get a larger perspective. Prayer is turning on the flashlight so you can find your way to a given point you experienced in meditation. Our intellectually oriented awareness is like the flashlight beam. We use it to focus on this and that thing believing that only those things we see within the scope of our beam represents reality. Yet we know there is much more beyond the beam.
We can think of meditation as the practice of turning off the flashlight, letting our spiritual eyes adjust, and becoming aware of the universe that exists beyond our intellectual beam. With the flashlight on, our awareness is concentrated within the beam. When we turn the light off, we open our mind to a broader field that includes our spiritual environment. Whether our flashlight is on or off, our field of awareness is equally acute.
With this in mind, I suggest rather than thinking of meditation as the single act of stilling the mind and experiencing God, we begin to think of it as a combination of actions and attitudes geared toward increasing awareness of the soul, even with the flashlight on. We find the best ways to lower the volume inputs of the senses and memory, and raise the volume of intuition.
From this perspective, the architectural concept of form following function may serve well. When we understand that the function of every spiritual practice is simply the act of realigning our self-awareness with the soul, then our meditation practice takes a form that best addresses our understanding of this function. Most importantly, the practices become our forms rather than those passed on to us from other people. If you are struggling with meditation, it may be that it has a foreign element. You are trying to apply someone else’s description of both the problem and the solution. When you look at a problem that you know is within your reach to solve, and you grasp the value of solving it, you will find a solution.
I want to make two suggestions that I think will assist you in your approach to meditation. First, as best you can, refrain from thinking of meditation as an attempt to experience God. Think of it instead as a process of moving your awareness from your self-image to your soul. God, for many, is an abstraction that is too daunting to reach. Experiencing your own soul, on the other hand, is closer to home, a more intimate and accessible objective.
Secondly, if the conditions of your life are not to your liking, do not attempt to use meditation to change them. Doing so is a common mistake that nearly always leads to frustration and discouragement. The changes you will likely see first in your meditation practice will be in your attitudes about your circumstances. As restrictive and out of control as they may feel at the moment, you will begin to see that your circumstances do not have the power to hamper the freeing radiance of your soul. Any impatience you feel concerning your circumstances is your self-image issuing orders on what you should do and what should happen to make it happy. In a moment I’ll present a simple technique that will help you turn down the volume of this little dictator. Just be aware that your inner longing for changed circumstances is coming from your self-image rather than your soul. The soul is always content regardless of circumstances.
Your soul is now and has always been instructing you on how to return to it. The spiritual homesickness you feel is your soul calling you home. It is also important to understand that you are responding to this call. Your dissatisfaction with your current state of affairs, in particular, with that information you were given concerning spiritual matters, can and should be taken as an indicator that something in you already inhabits the home you long for. This something, of course, is your soul.
Most of us will interpret our dissatisfaction and spiritual restlessness as some form of lack that is ours to fill. Like the prodigal son who worked out the scheme of returning home as a servant in his father’s household, we begin devising the conditions that we believe are necessary for our successful return. Though this son questioned his worthiness, he also reasoned that life as a servant would be better than the life he was living in the foreign land.
Among other things, this parable illustrates that our return home requires no such compromise, no bargaining. It is completely unconditional. I will state again that there are no natural barriers of time and space between where our self-awareness may be now and the rightful home we are seeking. There are some unnatural barriers, and one of the greatest is the belief that spiritual ignorance and soul immaturity are conditions that must be overcome before we can return home. Again, this false belief is generated by the time and space oriented self-image. The prodigal obviously believed his riotous living had compromised his right to return home at any level of heir privilege. It had not dawned on him that the rain still fell and the sun rose just as surely[1] through his moments of starvation as they had when he lived his relatively care free life at home.
We’ve seen that when we are learning a new skill, time and space factor in. We train our intellect and our muscles to perform in a new way. Intuitive knowing is completely different. To reverse our earlier analogy, it is more like stepping from a dark room into the full light of day. You may have to allow your eyes to adjust to the brightness, but there is nothing you have to learn about the nature of sunlight or how to experience it.
Why Omnipresence Matters
If you look at a photo of the earth taken from space, you see our marbled globe suspended in a sea of black. It appears that there is no light in the blackness, yet the earth, reflecting this otherwise invisible light, is proof that light literally fills the blackness. Think of the omnipresence of God in the same way. The reason it seems that God is not present is because we are looking for God from the shadowed side of the earth. We have invented an idea of what God should look like, and we are looking for something that aligns with this idea.
You know if you are on the dark side of the earth and you simply wait, the earth will turn and you will see the light of day. You also know that there are no learning requirements for this to happen. Time and space factor in because we’re talking about earth, sunlight, and the location of your body on earth. It takes the earth a certain amount of time to rotate and expose your position to the sun. As I pointed out in an earlier chapter, if you were able to leave your body and move out of the earth’s shadow, you would see the sun shines perpetually.
This is what you are seeking in meditation. You are turning your self-awareness from the intellectually-based senses input to the intuitive way of knowing. As a simple illustration, place your hand in a light source, a lamp with your palm facing the light. The back of your hand will be shadowed. Now turn your hand over so the back is facing the light and your palm is in the shadow. Your palm is like your intellect and the back of your hand your intuition. With this simple demonstration, you see the only thing that changes is which side of your hand you have facing the light. You can turn your hand at will.
To bring this example into the meditative experience, think of your soul rather than God as the perpetual light source. This will help you put aside the idea that something in you needs to be developed before you can experience your spirituality. In terms of its composition, your soul has equal standing with God. Remember, “In the beginning was the Word (soul), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Everything is already in place and waiting. Meditation is the act of turning your self-awareness from the shadows to the light that is shining in full force in you, as your soul.
Jesus did not have access to a photo of earth from space, but he did use a metaphor that carries the same idea:
“The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with every one who is born of the Spirit.”[2]
The wind, like light filling the blackness of space, is unseen. But you do hear it so you know it is present.
The idea we want to take from this is that God, the Creative Life Force behind all manifestation, has individualized as your soul for the purpose of continued expression. This is not a process you and I have started. Nor is it one we can stop. We can come to know this process in a way that gives our soul unhindered, free reign in establishing a spiritually inspired consciousness. The ideas we hold are true of the soul. This inspiration is the “breath of the Almighty.”[3] When the intellectually based self-image steps in and takes over consciousness building, we become “man, whose breath is in his nostrils.”[4]
Self Denial
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”[5]
This saying may carry an air of austerity, but it truly is our key to freedom and prosperity. Self denial is not about letting go of all the things you think you want; it is about letting go of the self that wants them. When, through conscious and deliberate exposure to your soul, you begin to loosen your grip on the false sense of self, your soul fills that vacancy. Your wants are transformed in ways that are compatible with who and what you are at this deepest level. In short, your life begins to work because you are building on the rock of the soul.
The practice of meditation is not an end in itself. It is a means to the end of entering direct communion with your soul. When this communion begins to take place, you are instructed in deeper communion by the experience itself. As your soul reveals more of itself, you lose all sense of burden concerning your quiet time. It’s similar to the difference of being forced to study a textbook to pass an exam or reading a good novel that is hard to put down. If you’re taking the textbook approach to meditation, try to loosen your attitude about it and make it more user-friendly. Make it your practice of communion with your soul.
The Importance of Context
Whether or not you believe it is true, I hope you are at least beginning to entertain the idea that your soul is complete right now, and that you are getting the sense that you have, for reasons of your choosing, taken on this body. Even the act of considering such things is actually a lite version of meditation that, for a short time, lifts you from the confines of the self-image, and sparks new ways of seeing yourself. You are still on the outside looking in, for simply thinking about your soul does not anchor you in the deeper experience you seek, but it’s a beginning. The moment you open your mind to your spiritual possibilities, you are opening the intuitive portal to your soul.
I would not recommend using the practice of meditation to try to discover why you incarnated at this time and place. If you’ve ever had the experience of going into a room for something and then forgetting what you went for, you know the harder you try to remember the more you seem to forget. You usually remember when you stop trying. Free your soul of all preconceived conditions and give it time to emerge in its own way into the field of your awareness. This specific information may naturally reveal itself to you, which is fine if it happens. You want to make your mind an open vessel to your soul by releasing all preconceptions of what may come.
More important than knowing why you took on a body is simply accepting that you could and did do it. Entertaining the idea that you are here by choice, not chance, is a powerful position to be in. More powerful still is the realization that your choice is not permanent. The time will come when you will lay down this body and return to your natural, unencumbered spiritual state. There is much more to you than this sphere of experience into which you have placed your body.
As I stated earlier, I think it is highly likely that we knew there would be maintenance issues and limitations with the body. You and I were willing to experience these because we understood that the times we have spent in bodies, probably many, are relatively brief. Considering the all-knowing aspect of the soul, it would seem incredible not to know this. Even now, we know each of our daily circumstances has a beginning and an end. When we go on a vacation, we know we’ll return home. We sit down with a good book knowing we’ll reach that final page. And who hasn’t had the experience of mulling over a span of decades, wondering where the time went?
It is when we are suffering that it seems our struggle will never end. Prolonged suffering can push some into such a self-absorbed state that the world created by the self-image totally implodes and a complete breakdown, even suicide, appears to be the only way out. While exploring this subject is beyond the scope of this book, reasons for reaching such a depressed state are commonly derived from attempts to fit into a role that runs counter to the soul’s true nature. The self-image falsely believes it cannot go on without certain conditions or relationships in place. In truth, nothing in the self-image’s collapsing world is required by the soul. The soul is our true, God-sustained center of power. Your soul’s wholeness, its strength and purpose, is not dependent on people, places, and things. The shift in awareness from self-image to this authentic dimension through meditation brings the deeply healing spiritual element that truly is greater than anything in the world cobbled together by the surface self.
Meditation clears the film from our spiritual vision and brings the eternal perspective into the field of our awareness in ways that will likely be different from anything we expect. This awareness rises as very gentle, nearly imperceptible energy that is quite natural though rarely experienced in the endless humdrum of the mind’s senses-based traffic. As your inner vision is raised, much will come to mind that will guide you in putting the pieces of your life’s puzzle together. Your desire to experience more of this energy is the guiding direction. It will not prompt you with words, but with its very essence. You will learn through direct experience how to position your mind in ever deepening receptivity.
Our purpose with meditation is not to ignore the body, but to transcend its influence long enough to reacquaint ourselves with the soul that actually animates it. In the following chapter, we’ll explore a variety of techniques ranging from simple exercises in perceptual awareness to those that can help you move deeper into a first-hand experience with the completeness of your soul.
Chapter 11: Meditation Exercises
The meditation exercises that follow represent such a wide range of commitment that everyone can do at least one. I’m suggesting a variety of options because most people I talk to about meditation struggle with it. There is much confusion about how we are to think, relax, position our bodies, and, most difficult of all, how we’re supposed to focus on something as abstract as communion with God, or even the soul. The subjective nature of the meditative experience makes it difficult to describe objectively. We normally think of relaxation as the mind and body at rest, but the meditative posture is a mind on full alert. Choosing quality time when we are not likely to drift into sleep is important.
As we’ve seen in the previous chapter, think of meditation as turning off the flashlight, and letting your spiritual eyes adjust to the universe that exists beyond that intellectual beam. With the flashlight on, your awareness is concentrated within the beam. When the light is off, you adjust to the broader field of your spiritual environment. Whether your flashlight is on or off, your field of awareness is equally acute. When you turn off your flashlight, you don’t fall asleep. You transition from using your daylight vision to night vision. Instead of analyzing everything in the flashlight beam—rock, tree stump, bush—you simply let the darkness happen. You are no less aware, not the least bit drowsy, but you see in a different way. Your eyes and all of your senses adjust to the night. You have done this countless times without giving it much thought. You have also had the reverse experience of being in darkness and having someone turn on a light. The light blinded you briefly, but your eyes adjusted. In both cases, your vision adapted to the change in your environment. You do not associate drowsiness with either situation.
This is the point of meditation. You are placing yourself in a condition that is receptive to the experience of your soul, that spiritual dimension within you that is accessed through the intuitive portal. In one sense, this faculty has rarely been used in the way you will use it in meditation. The flashlight of the intellect has shown so brightly that when you attempt to turn it off through relaxation, nothing seems to happen. Your night vision, that is, your spiritual vision has not engaged, at least not in the way you are expecting. Learn to give it the needed time to do so.
Observing how your night vision gradually engages is a simple exercise worth performing.
Exercise #1: Observing Your Night Vision
For this very simple exercise, you will need a flashlight. With the flashlight in hand and turned off, enter a room that is fully lighted, and then turn off the lights. Observe how poor your vision is but how it gradually adjusts to the dark. As your vision naturally adjusts, you’re not required to do anything but wait. There is no need to strain to see through the darkness. You also notice that the darkness does not bring drowsiness. Your mind is alert and observing. Your body knows how to make the necessary adjustments to this change in your environment. The longer you wait, the better you see.
Once your eyes have fully adjusted to the dark, turn on your flashlight and scan the room for a few moments, taking in all you see. Now turn off the flashlight and see what has happened to your vision. You will notice two things are going on. You have again lost much of your night vision and, you are probably remembering the images in the room while your flashlight was on.
What you can learn from this exercise
In the context of meditation, relaxation is the process of letting go of your normal, light-oriented way of seeing and allowing your night vision to emerge. Once your eyes have adjusted to the dark, you can see most objects in the room. But seeing objects in the room is not your objective. Your objective is to allow your night vision to establish itself. If your objective is to see the things in the room, you do something very different. You turn on the light.
When you try to still your mind and yet find yourself thinking about events in your life, this is like turning on your flashlight and scanning the room. Relaxation, then, is letting go of your normal vision and allowing your intuitive vision to emerge. Given the chance, your intuitive vision knows how to do this, no learning required. In fact, there is something you must stop doing. You must stop scanning the objects, all the various situations that make up your life. You relax this mental seeing and turn your intuitive receptivity to the natural radiance of your soul, which we’ll explore in the exercise, A Full Meditation.
What I want to make clear with this exercise is that the process we call meditation is as natural as the process of gaining night vision. In all likelihood, the only obstacle you are dealing with is that of making meditation a foreign practice. You are seeking an experience of your soul with the flashlight of your intellect, that visualizing aspect of your imagination. Relax this effort knowing your intuitive portal, like your eyes adjusting to the dark, knows how to adjust to the subtle radiance of your soul.
Exercise #2: Practice Seeing
Here is another exercise that demonstrates that you can see a thing inaccessible to your normal vision. This exercise utilizes a stereogram. If you’re not familiar with stereograms, perform an Internet search for the term and you’ll find a variety of examples.
When you look at the stereogram with your normal vision, you will see a multi-colored, two-dimensional graphic consisting of patterns that make little sense. Allow your eyes to relax and a three-dimensional object will magically appear. You may see a fish, a human figure, a flower or any other object the artist embedded. If you look at the stereogram in your normal viewing mode, and someone tells you there’s a dolphin in the picture, you’ll look for the dolphin hidden in the patterns, which you won’t find. The harder you try, the more it will evade you.
The secret behind seeing the three-dimensional object in that maze of patterns is to turn off your object-seeking flashlight, so to speak. This, of course, seems counter-intuitive. Normally, if someone points out an object in the distance that you do not see, you’ll double your effort to sharpen your focus, which will probably work. You are also using this type of seeing as you read the words on this page. If you view these printed words in the same way you look at a stereogram, however, you will see double, making the text very difficult to read. In daily life, we don’t have much use for this way of seeing so we seldom use it. Daydreaming might be the closest. We find ourselves staring at nothing in particular because we’re watching some mental scene play out.
Like blurred vision, we don’t have much practical use for the kind of intuitive perception we’re talking about, which is why we have reduced our understanding of this faculty to those occasional hunches, premonitions, or gut feelings. I’ll say again that the practice of meditation is not about cultivating extra sensory perception, that the intuition is not a sixth sense but a faculty designed specifically for experiencing the soul and bringing its influence into our field of awareness. As you open to this experience, intuition begins to play a significant role in your daily decision-making, becoming a major influence on the way you employ all other executive faculties.
Exercise #3: Simple Contemplation
Your initial approach to meditation may be the simple contemplation throughout your day of the idea that your soul is now complete and fully accessible; that the restlessness you feel is your soul calling you home. In reading up to this point, you have already started this contemplative activity. This does not fit the meditation model of sitting still, eyes closed, attention turned away from senses input and seeking an inner experience, but it is a move in the right direction.
For a number of reasons, people who take a full-scale approach to meditation often do so without success. If you are among those who have not experienced the deeper levels of your being through meditation, doing more of the same will not produce different results. A key reason for your lack of success may be as simple as trying to apply ideas and practices that are foreign to you. You want to find your own, user-friendly approach that will produce gratifying results.
As we have seen, the problem we face with meditation is that our self-awareness is focused more on the self-image than on the soul. Because this has been our status quo for most of our life, we will do better gently inviting the soul into our field of awareness. We can’t force this to happen, mainly because we don’t know how. We can learn to let it happen by dwelling on the truth that our soul already knows how to enter our field of awareness. Most of us, thinking books and teachers hold the key to our success, have looked with great hope to these external sources for help, when our true help is already at hand. Who could possibly sit where you sit, at the very center of your self-awareness, and view your life and all its many issues from the unique perspective that you hold? Who knows you better than you? If you make a shift in your thinking and approach your soul experience as if it is your problem and only you can find the solution, you put yourself in the proper frame of mind that brings your awakening. You want to call on an expert, but until you are willing to make yourself that expert, your results will not be satisfying.
Exercise #4: A Walking Meditation
This walking meditation requires the least amount of concentration. I’m calling it a walking meditation because it is one you can practice in any normal routine throughout your day. This meditation consists of a simple visualization and two affirmations.
Visualization: Hold at your core the vision of a dazzling light radiating through your entire being. Think of your intuitive portal as completely open so the light of your soul shines into your conscious mind, your body, and out into your surroundings.
With this visualization, use the following two affirmations:
My soul is complete.
The light of my soul is shining in its full power right now.
You can practice this visualization and the two affirmations right now. Don’t be too concerned about whether or not you are doing it exactly in the right way. You are instilling the awareness that your soul is present and shining forth in its full capacity now, and you are bringing this awareness into your normal routine.
I’m calling this a walking meditation, but you may practice it during a telephone conversation, while shopping, while in a board meeting, or while working in your garden. In other words, you practice it anytime during the normal activities of your day.
To understand the objective of this simple exercise, let’s first take a look at two things you are not trying to achieve with it. You are not seeking to reprogram your subconscious mind by establishing a new habit, and you are not attempting to experience full-blown cosmic consciousness.
Concerning the first point, a habit is an automatic pattern of behavior. Meditation, at any level, is mindfulness, experiential in nature, not a practice that runs on subconscious autopilot.
To the second point, a breakthrough in awareness can occur at any moment and will, more often than not, happen when you’re not expecting it. The walking meditation will certainly open you to deeper experiences, but the moment you make these your objective, your self-image will take over and begin manufacturing experiences. Relieve yourself of this pressure.
What you are doing with this simple exercise is initiating the move of your self-awareness from your self-image to your soul. Your subconscious mind will respond in its own way to any change of consciousness “chemistry” that takes place. Also, bear in mind that your longing to have a cosmic experience has its origin in the self-image. Your soul has never known anything but cosmic consciousness.
The walking meditation, like all forms of meditation, is based on the law of expression. You are initiating a cause—bringing your soul to your awareness—and you are taking your mind off all potential effects that this might have. Your soul has a very different agenda than your self-image and it informs you of this agenda intuitively, through inspiration.
A walk by yourself, in a park or some natural setting if possible, is a good time to practice your walking meditation. Start out walking normally. After a time, stop, close your eyes, take a few relaxing breaths, and then begin to see light radiating from the core of your being. It’s okay that this is just a mental picture. You don’t want to try to force anything else to happen. Make the statement, My soul is complete. A few moments later, still holding your vision, say, The light of my soul is shining in its full power right now. Get some sense that this is true and begin walking, slowly and deliberately. Repeat both affirmations as you walk while holding the vision. Continue this for as long as it feels productive.
You can practice the walking meditation during any activity, even those where other people are involved. With practice you will be able to run it in the background of your mind even when you are in conversation with other people. I often do it when I am delivering a Sunday morning talk or even teaching a class. It always brings a transcendent element to my thought that has freed me from the need to use notes. You will find your own best, most effective way to employ this meditation technique. You may change the affirmations and expand on the visualization, but keep it simple, and keep it focused.
Exercise #5: Bagging the Self-Image
A productive meditation practice is one that lays aside all preconceived forms of meditation and focuses instead on the function of moving your self-awareness from your senses-based self-image to your soul. Understanding this function, you will find your own form for getting there. To do this, you want to experience the soul at some level. If you do not have a measure of experience with your soul, you will not know where you are going with any meditative practice. Even the slightest experience with the soul gives you something to build on, a true direction to follow.
Let’s take a look at a couple is exercises that can be a helpful catalyst for the experience of the soul.
Imagine you have a large canvas bag. In this bag you place your self-image with all of its childhood memories, its spiritual aspirations, its dark secrets, its talents and skills, its body-centered identity, its confusion, its family ties, its career, its successes and failures, its fears, its hopes and dreams. Nothing you put in this bag is you. This is your self-image and its history. The real you, your soul, is the observer of this bag and its contents.
With this picture clearly in mind, allow yourself to experience this freeing realization:
I am here right now. I am an eternal soul grounded in and sustained by the life, love, power and intelligence of God. I have consciousness. I can think and I can feel, and I have a physical body that enables me to communicate with other people and to interact with all aspects of my material environment.
I am not the contents of this bag. I am under no obligation to re-open it and take on all of its problems. I am not this. I am me. I am my soul, free to use my consciousness and my body to experience earth in any manner of my choosing.
As you hold this simple image, you will feel as if a great weight is being lifted from your being. Stress literally drains from your body. Your mind rests in the peace of the simplicity of being.
Everything you think you know about meditation is in this bag. Let it go. The experience you are having now, the freedom and peace of letting go, is the direction your meditation will take from this moment on. Stop pursuing the experience of foreign gods and realize that you already are what you are looking for.
Exercise #6: Guided Meditation
To experience it, you first direct your faith to the truth that your soul is present, fully accessible and absolutely familiar. Take the attitude that you are not traveling into a far country but that you are coming home.
Let’s expand on Exercise #5 with the understanding that this is a guided meditative exercise, a framework whose purpose is to open your intuitive portal to a more spontaneous, self-directed experience. As with any exercise of this type, the imagery is intended to help you achieve a measure of the action it suggests. The visualization of bagging your self-image is intended to identify and invoke the feeling of separation between your soul and this senses-generated aspect of your consciousness. The emergence of the soul into the field of your self-awareness is a natural transition that will ultimately require no visual assistance.
Read the steps first and then go back and perform each one. If at any time you find yourself tensing up by trying to force things to happen, let go and relax again.
Step 1: As in the previous exercise, mentally place your self-image and all its problems and concerns into your canvas bag. Cinch it and set it aside.
Step 2: As you observe this bag for a moment, feel yourself relax and become free from the self-image and all of its many issues. If at any time during this exercise you become distracted, remind yourself that you have placed your self-image in this bag and you are under no obligation to give it your attention.
Step 3: As you observe the bag and its contents, realize that you are making this observation from the outermost region of your soul, a position that is least in the kingdom.[6] You acknowledge that your bagged self-image is one thing and you, the observer, are something different.
Step 4: Leave your bag and its contents and begin to move to your inner depths, into your soul’s sanctuary through the intuitive portal that your faith has now opened. Here you find a dazzling galaxy of energy, absolutely peaceful, all-accepting and totally freeing. You feel very natural and alive.
Step 5: Now move to the center of this energy and experience yourself as its actual source. This pure energy that you are radiates from your core, through the walls of your inner sanctum, engulfs your entire body, and moves out in all directions beyond the farthest reaches of your vision.
Step 6: From your radiant center, speak the words, I Am, slowly and several times, each time letting go and allowing your experience to deepen.
Stay with this until you feel ready to get up and go about your day.
Exercise #7: Self-Guided Meditation
This exercise uses your own recorded voice. If you do not have one, there are many inexpensive voice recorders available. If you are not used to hearing your voice on a recording, you may resist this practice. Most people do not think they sound like themselves but if you play your voice to any of your family and friends, they will identify it as yours immediately. Make peace with your voice, because using it can add power to your self-guided meditation.
You may find it adds a soothing aspect to your recording if you play some good meditation music as you make your recording. We’ll base this Self-Guided Meditation on the full meditation you will find in Exercise #8.
Recording Tips
Prior to making this recording, familiarize yourself with your voice recorder. Most recording devices are very simple to use. Do a couple of practice runs by reading a few passages from this book. The recorder will have a built-in microphone, so be sure to hold it steady. Moving it in your hand will generate unwanted noise. Hold the microphone about four to five inches from your mouth. Keep the microphone positioned to one side of your mouth rather than speaking directly into it. This will help you avoid getting the pop of your p’s.
If you decide to use background music, do a few practice runs. Start the music on whatever device you will use, record your voice with the music playing then check your levels. You do not want the music to overpower your voice. In addition to music, there are also pre-recorded nature sounds available that you may prefer. Some like the sounds of a gentle rain, the surf, or other combinations of natural sounds. Do a search for soothing sounds on Youtube.com and you’ll find numerous choices.
Each of us has a reading voice and we have a speaking voice. You will be reading passages, but practice using the same speaking voice you would if you were offering comforting words to a child. Without being overly dramatic, let your voice be natural and full of compassion. Speak from your soul. If you feel intimidated by the recorder, work with it until you move past this discomfort. The only audience you are speaking to is yourself. If you make your recording and decide it doesn’t feel natural as you listen to it, re-do it until you are satisfied. You will get the best quality of playback sound by listening through an inexpensive pair of ear buds.
The words Speak and Pause will precede each instruction. Do not speak any of the words in bold print. The ellipsis within sentences indicate a pause of roughly five or ten seconds. The word Pause represents a roughly thirty second pause. There is no need to time these, just speak in a relaxed manner.
Making the Recording
Pause: Start the music or your background sounds and let it play for about 30 seconds.
Speak: I close my eyes, relax my body and I let go of all concerns. … I bring my attention to the center of my being. … My soul is at peace.
Pause
Speak: I dedicate myself to this quiet time by releasing all mental and emotional strife. … I continue to relax and let go.
Pause
Speak: My soul radiates the pure light and life of God. … The light of my soul shines warmly and gently into the field of my awareness. … I do not search for my soul or for my center. … I am guided to my center by the natural radiance of my soul.
Pause
Speak: I Am. … As I speak these words, I speak them from my center. … I Am. … I Am. … I am open and receptive to the radiant energy of my soul. … I Am. … I Am.
Pause
Speak: The pure energy of life, love, power and intelligence radiates through my entire being. … There is no need to force anything. … I let go in perfect trust. … I let go.
Pause
Speak: My mind is at rest. … My body is at peace. … I let go. … I relax and I let go.
Pause
Speak: I Am. … I Am. … My soul is complete, a radiant light that shines from my center. … The pure radiance of my soul shines in its fullness now. … I relax and I let this pure energy rise into my awareness.
Pause for about 1 minute
Speak: I Am. … I Am. … My mind is at rest. … My body is at peace. … I move deeper into relaxation. … I let go. … I relax and let go.
Pause
Speak: My soul is complete, a radiant light that shines from my center. … The pure radiance of my soul shines in its fullness now. … I relax and I let go.
Pause for one or two minutes and End
Speak: Thank you God. … Amen
Note:End your meditation with words of your choosing, not necessarily Amen. Let the music continue to play for thirty seconds to one minute, bringing the volume down slowly. When the volume is down, turn off the recorder. Prior to using this guided meditation, follow the same preparation you find in Exercise #8, A Full Meditation.
Exercise #8: A Full Meditation
In this full meditation, you will apply no particular techniques or invoke specific elements as you will in exercises #9 through #12. In this full meditation, your objective is to turn down the volumes of the senses and the memory inputs and open your field of awareness specifically and directly to your soul.
A Few Words on Preparation
Preparation for all meditation exercises that follow will be the same as this one. Establish a place within your home where you will not be disturbed. Choose a time when you are most alert. My personal preference is early morning, before I become engaged in the events of the day. Your best time will likely be different. Consistency with quality time rather than a random squeezing into an otherwise busy schedule will factor into your success. Sit in a comfortable chair or on a cushion on the floor with your back supported. Your body is constantly vying for your attention, so you want to minimize the discomfort of poor circulation and other physical distractions.
Begin by relaxing and dedicating yourself to your present purpose by releasing all mental and emotional strife. There will be times when you are unable to let go of a particularly distressing circumstance, so don’t try to force it out of your mind. If you cannot release it but find yourself dwelling on it, you will only magnify the problem. It may be best to abandon your attempt at a full meditation for now and come back to it later. The walking meditation might be more suitable at such times.
Close your eyes and let your attention drop to the center of your being. You do not want to make an issue of a physical location, but you will likely find your awareness hovering around the solar plexus, the pit of the stomach. You may realize that you carry stress in this area. If so, acknowledge it and begin releasing it.
Your soul is your center, a natural radiance of energy that will emerge into your increasingly undisturbed field of awareness. You will not need to engage in a search for your center. Just go with what seems right and natural. You may also open your eyes, read a few lines of these instructions to help interrupt and redirect any rising mental chatter.
With your attention at your center, speak the words, I Am. Listen and feel from this place. You’re not listening for voices and you’re not feeling for any preconceived ideas of love or any level of power. You are opening your intuition to the radiant energy of your soul. This radiance is the energy of life, love, power and intelligence but there is no need to focus on any of these. Do not try to force or generate imagery or any kind of experience. You want to get the sense that your soul is a perpetually radiant center at the core of your being. Let yourself go. Allow your thoughts to slow down and let your body continue to release pent up stress. You are not pushing the body away as if any movement or attention to it will crack the silence. Just as your vision will adjust to the darkness when you turn off your light, so your spiritual vision will adjust as you turn down the volume of the senses and that normally active exchange between your consciousness and subconscious mind.
When your mind begins to wander, return your attention to your center and repeat the phrase, I Am. Bring your awareness back into the moment and to your purpose for being here. Again, you may open your eyes and adjust your body from time-to-time and then re-center your awareness on the radiance of your soul. When you actually pick up on this radiance, it will not likely be anything visual. It will be a subtle experience of energy that you will discover is always present beneath the threshold of your constant body signaling and the incessant mental chatter. Don’t try to do anything with this energy. Just let it move in you as it will. You may wish to acknowledge and enhance the experience by speaking these words softly:
The pure radiance of my soul shines in its fullness now.
I relax and I let this pure energy rise.
Stay with this practice for as long as you can without forcing anything. An aggressive pursuit of inner stillness will not work. But neither will quickly giving in to the constant chatter of your mind. You will make some effort to move past it. Otherwise, your quiet time will yield no experience beyond that of your normal thinking.
There will be times when you are more successful than others so you do not want to measure your progress by how you feel from any given session. It is likely that your first manifestations of this inner reflection will bubble forth during your normal day as an unexpected feeling of gratitude or peace. If you have felt trapped in your life, a new sense of present possibilities may begin to emerge into your awareness. Your circumstances may or may not change, but your appreciation for all aspects of your life can grow in ways that cause you to see things differently. These experiences, as we’ll see in the following chapter, will be strengthened, affirmed and enhanced by incorporating them into your consciousness through prayer.
Your goal with meditation is not to change your life. Your goal is to invite your soul into your field of awareness, to know its presence and energy as real. Because this exposure will change the way you see yourself, it will change the way you interact with all the many aspects of your environment. In all likelihood, this new interaction will take you in a direction you would not have otherwise considered, so in thinking of your soul, become willing to forgo all your expectations and let it reveal itself on its own terms.
Focused Meditations
It is sometimes useful to focus specifically on one of your soul’s four characteristics as a way of stimulating the energy they represent. The meditation on life, for example, will stir more enthusiasm, which can get you past lethargy. Focusing on love will stimulate deeper understanding in relationships, or various conditions where understanding is called for. If you lack strength—physical strength, strength of character, or strength to carry on some important task—the meditation on power will boost your strength. If you feel the need for more order in your life in general, or in a specific undertaking, the meditation on intelligence will be an appropriate choice.
Like the sun, your soul does not radiate partial frequencies. It gives all of itself all of the time. Your focus on individual aspects will enhance your awareness of that element expressing through you, but you can trust that all four elements are always working in perfect balance with each other.
Exercise #9: Life – Enthusiasm
Follow the same preparations stated above. You are still going to drop your awareness to the area of the solar plexus and center with the phrase, I Am. You may also want to use these same statements or some variation for focus.
The pure radiance of my soul shines in its fullness now.
I relax and I let this pure energy rise.
As you relax with your awareness at your center, see the radiating energy of your soul as the energizing life that permeates all aspects of your being. It is natural to visualize life as the light that animates and heals every cell of your body and brings a sparkle of enthusiasm to your eye. You need not direct the energy of life, for life knows how to express itself. We see it expressed in countless ways, forms, and levels everywhere in the world. Life never stagnates. It is only our focus of attention that becomes dull and lifeless. Simply acknowledge the free reign of life as it radiates its natural expansive movement through and as your being. Encourage its flow with words like these:
My soul radiates the pure, unrestricted energy of life.
There are no blockages. There are no restrictions.
I am filled with boundless life and unbridled enthusiasm.
Don’t try to pump up your enthusiasm and strive to be the life of the party. Doing this will expend your energy by directing it to that bottomless pit of your unenthusiastic self-image. Any forced positive attitude you generate will be short-lived and costly. A forced expression of enthusiasm is a performance you’ll be expected to repeat. People who do this might be entertaining, but they can also be quite wearisome. You don’t have to instruct fire to be hot and you don’t have to inform life that it needs to express as enthusiasm. Natural enthusiasm manifests as genuine interest in whatever you happen to be doing, from creating a piece of art to taking out the trash. Enthusiasm is as unconditional as the energy of life itself. You need no particular reason to be enthusiastic. It is life’s gift to you. As you affirm life in your meditative experience, quiet enthusiasm will naturally grow.
Exercise #10: Love – Understanding
Follow your same meditative preparations and bring your awareness into the region of the solar plexus. See and feel your soul radiating love. This beautiful energy of love works for the highest good of all concerned, sometimes attracting and sometimes repelling or dissolving, depending on how the highest good is to manifest. Whether love attracts or dissolves is not a decision you make, but one you trust love to sort out as it flows in and through every aspect of your being and your life. Love lifts your vision in a way that imparts the understanding to see and know what needs to be done. Affirm:
I am guided by the understanding that love imparts. Love is my essence. Love is my being. Love is the balancing action in all my relationships and all conditions in my life.
See your body immersed in love. See every aspect of your life, especially those areas that are troubled, completely engulfed in the love that radiates as your soul. See love doing its perfect work and become willing to do your part in that work when the understanding dictates. Loving your neighbor may result in strengthening your relationship or dissolving it. This is a much better alternative than trying to force yourself to love them because you think you are supposed to. You may not always be able to muster the kind word or take that right action that will bring agreement with another. Still, you can know that invoking love will fit all the pieces together, will tie up the loose ends, and move all concerned to their best and highest good. Love reveals that this is true even when your good intentions at diplomacy fail miserably, or fear drives your own actions. The love that expresses as your soul is greater than all human frailty. Your unloving thoughts and actions or the unloving thoughts and actions of another do nothing to alter love itself. Love does not depend on how loving or unloving you are.
Let all of this go and simply see your entire being immersed in love. Experience love’s healing warmth. Let it melt away your stress and your struggle to be loved. You are more than loved. You are love itself.
Exercise #11: Power – Strength
Initiate your normal preparations for meditation. This time you will focus on power. Power manifests in a wide range of ways, from the unfathomable power of the sun to the simple unfolding of a leaf. Power divides our cells and fuels all aspects of our being.
Power rises in your being as physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual strength. You may call on strength to hold a steady course, to take one more step when your world seems to crumble around you, or to steady your faith in the well-being of a loved one. Strength may manifest as the courage to make an apology or it may express as the power to say no to behavior you know as destructive.
With your attention focused at the solar plexus, sense the power of your soul rising from your center and radiating throughout your being. Affirm:
I am an expression of pure power. The full radiance of my soul empowers me to steadfastness in all that I am and all that I do. My strength is boundless, my power has no limits.
If you are feeling powerless to do anything about some condition in your life, release the emotional energy of helplessness as you use this affirmation. Again, do not try to make anything happen or even look for changes in your life. Simply allow the flow of power to rise in your being and know it expresses as the strength you need, as you need it. Take a series of deep breaths. With each one, breathe in power and breathe out strength. Power is the essence of your being. You are never without it.
Exercise #12: Intelligence – Order
Prepare yourself for meditation. As your attention drops to the area of your solar plexus, open your mind to the quickening presence of intelligence. Your entire being is already permeated with intelligence. The functions of your body are all governed by it. You see and experience intelligence as order in your breathing, the beating of your heart, and all the many activities within the universe of your body of which you are not even aware. You see intelligence in the flower, in your pet, in the birds, and the clouds that sail across the sky.
As you relax and let go, get the sense of this truth that you are completely immersed in intelligence and that your life is now unfolding in perfect order. Affirm:
The very essence of my being is intelligence. My mind is clear. My thinking is orderly. I see things in their highest relation to the whole. My vision is clear. My soul is imbued with the wisdom of the universe. In all I do, I move forward in confidence and in peace.
Release all feelings of uncertainty about your life and know the intelligence of your soul is guiding your every step. Lift your spiritual eyes away from all appearances and see yourself as a conduit through which infinite intelligence is expressing as you. Everyone and everything becomes part of success in living. If your life seems to be pushing you to the left when you think you should go right, then know the intelligence expressing as your soul is now at work. Do not strain to work out plans or struggle to control events. Hold fast to the truth that the wisdom of your soul is directing your life, that the order and success you desire is unfolding with every new development.
Exercise #13: Simple steps given by Emilie Cady
The following exercise is adapted from Emilie Cady’s book, Lessons In Truth. For background, read the two chapters from that book, The Secret Place of the Most High, and Finding the Secret Place.
Withdraw for a time from the outside world. Turn your thoughts within by directing this series of statements to God. Do not speak these statements rapidly, one after another, but dwell on each one, realizing the truth of the words.
You abide within me, You are alive there now.
You are all power.
You are the fulfillment of all I desire.
Your innermost presence now radiates from the center to the circumference of my being.
I give thanks that You hear and answer me, that You now come forth into my visible world as the fulfillment of my desire.
Repeat these statements as needed, not anxiously or with strained effort, not reaching out and up and away to an outside God; but let the words be the quiet, earnest uplifting of the heart to a higher something right within itself, even to “the Presence in me.” Let it be made with the quietness and assurance of a child speaking to its loving parent.
Be absolutely still. Relax every part of your being and believe that it is being done.
If you find your mind wandering, bring it right back by going over again the series of statements, speaking them aloud if necessary.
Do not look for signs and wonders, but just be still and know that the very thing you want is flowing in and will come forth into manifestation either at once or a little farther on.
3 conditions:
1. Wait upon God. Do not simply run in and out but dwell in the secret place of the Most High.
2. Let your expectation be from God alone.
3. Do not let waiting in the silence become a bondage to you. If you find yourself getting into a strained attitude of mind or heady, get up and go about some external work for a time. Or, if you find that your mind will wander, do not insist on concentrating; for the moment you get into a rigid mental attitude you shut off all inflow of the Divine into your consciousness.
What to Expect
You will have a strange new consciousness of serenity and quiet, a feeling that something has been done, that some new power to overcome has come to you.
[1] Matthew 5:45
[2] John 3:8
[3] Job 33:4, KJV
[4] Isaiah 2:22, KJV
[5] Matthew 16:24
[6] Matthew 11:11