If you feel ready to give this positive habit a try, don’t become too consumed with the mechanics. For example, don’t become obsessed with whether or not you log precisely three minutes. It may be two or three or four—whatever feels spirit-led that day. The point is to realize that you can make a connection to your spiritual source in a relatively short amount of time. What’s important is that you give it a try and that you attempt to build it into your lifestyle as a positive habit.
THE MEANING AND PURPOSE OF MEDITATION
Meditation is listening to the divine within. It is like an oasis of peace in the midst of hectic schedules and worrisome responsibilities. In those few minutes of daily quiet, it’s possible to keep yourself centered and tranquil. You can connect directly with a higher consciousness that lives within you, and that momentary connection can have effects that last all day long.
But anyone who has tried to keep a regular meditation discipline knows that it doesn’t always work quite as well as expected. There are days when you may get up from your meditation session and feel no more peaceful than you did when you sat down. What’s gone wrong on days like that?
The trouble is most likely a misunderstanding about the very purpose of meditation. The fault may lie with our attitude about what we’re trying to accomplish. If you carry into meditation the familiar mind-set of daily living, then the results from your meditation will probably be frustrating. Consider what happens when you try to transplant into your meditation period the competitive, acquisitive approach that usually characterizes modern life. It doesn’t work.
What is it about this familiar approach to life that makes it so ill-suited for meditation? Throughout most of our waking hours we’re striving—even straining—to reach goals and accomplish tasks. We’re attempting to acquire things, such as physical possessions or people’s approval. Often our efforts are tinged with competition as we try to prove ourselves. Simply put, we’re trying to get something.
But what happens if you attempt to carry that approach with you into meditation? For example, what’s bound to occur if you try “to get peace” through meditation the same way you try to earn the boss’s approval at work or complete a trip to the grocery store in less than an hour? It backfires. That straining, acquisitive attitude is the very opposite of authentic meditation. At this point you’ve lost touch with the real purpose of meditation. Without realizing it, your meditation life can turn into an extension of your daily life. It’s a subtle thing, but that’s probably the reason many people go through dry spells in which meditation just doesn’t seem to work for them anymore.
Watch what can happen if “relieving stress” or “acquiring peace” has become the goal of meditation just like all the other goals of material life. You sit down for your quiet time and you already have in mind what you want: peace of mind. It’s now become a commodity, just like a loaf of bread from the store or a larger return on your stock investment. It’s something you want, and now you’re going to use a technique to get it. Concentrating very hard on a series of words or a symbol, you go on the hunt. You’re stalking peace. It’s hiding somewhere in the fortress of your inner mind. And you imagine that the power of your concentration will track it down. Starting off such a meditation period, you feel sure that within a few minutes peace will belong to you. But sad to say, after a while, you’ll find yourself getting up from your meditation spot in frustration or dissatisfaction because you’re no closer to peace.
So, what will work? What’s the right understanding of purpose that can relieve stress and bring peace of mind? The key is simple: giving rather than getting. It’s a matter of surrendering yourself. First surrendering your worries. Being willing to give up your expectations, and not expecting to get anything—not even peace. The whole purpose of this meditation session is to give.
Sitting down for your quiet period—whether it’s to be three minutes or thirty—you choose a symbol or, better yet, a few words that capture the essence of your own highest value in life—what Cayce called a spiritual ideal. When you use a few carefully chosen words for your focal point, Cayce referred to it as an “affirmation.” The role of those words is simply to help you open your feelings to something bigger than yourself. You’re not out to get something; instead, you’re offering yourself to God. “Here I am. I give up … my fears … my worries. I surrender … my agenda … my sense of what’s needed.”
That basic purpose of turning oneself over to the Creator is the heart of genuine meditation. Such a foundation comes before any technique or method. That fundamental sense of what you do as you meditate is beyond a clever maneuver in consciousness. It is simply a heartfelt offering of oneself to something Bigger. It is a gift of yourself to whatever you hold as your spiritual ideal.
And then, remarkably, what comes as a byproduct is the relief of stress and the experience of real peace of mind. What a strange paradox. It’s only when you’re willing to give up the goal of acquiring peace that the gift of peace is presented to you. That is the basic spiritual mystery of meditation.
THE ELEMENTS OF A THREE-MINUTE MEDITATION
Minute #1. These brief periods for spiritual attunement can best be accomplished by dedicating about one minute to each of three distinct phases. The first element is attention to your breathing. Cayce was certainly not the first to recommend the usefulness of the breath for evoking a shift in consciousness. It is an ancient tradition worldwide. Some meditation techniques, for example, use attentiveness to the breath as the central method for focusing the mind.
Probably more than any other bodily function, the breath represents life itself. As you draw each breath into your lungs, you are revitalized. As you exhale the air, you are cleansed. This great rhythm is a symbol in your body of all the cycles of nature. No wonder that so many meditation teachers suggest that by silently focusing on your own breathing you can begin to connect to higher states of consciousness.
One way to get started with this powerful meditation tool is to simply observe your own breath for a minute. You might even count silently each breath for about sixty seconds. For most people this means about ten breath cycles. If you use this approach, don’t worry about manipulating your rate or depth of inhalation. Simply relax and let your body find its own pace. Your goal is to experience the process of breathing as consciously as possible.
A slightly different approach was recommended in the Cayce readings. It was a specific breathing exercise adapted from Yoga technique. It, too, takes about a minute to complete. Cover the left nostril. Inhale through the right and exhale through the mouth. Do this three times. Next, cover the right nostril and breathe in through the left, followed by an exhale through the right nostril only. Repeat this a second and a third time. As you do this one-minute breath exercise, try to let all your thoughts be identifying with your breathing.
Minute #2. The second element of the three-minute meditation is the core of the practice—silent focus upon an affirmation. In meditations of more traditional length, this part would take fifteen, twenty, or more minutes. But in these mini-meditation sessions it will be shortened to just sixty seconds.
An affirmation, which plays a key role in the meditation technique, is a short verbal expression of a spiritual ideal. It could be as brief as one word or as long as a full sentence. Some meditators like to compose their own spiritual phrases, others pick a phrase out of the Bible or a favorite prayer. Pick an affirmation that has personal appeal and meaning in your life. Is there a quality that you especially strive for now in your life, such as patience, joy, or faith? Write down a prayerful phrase or sentence that affirms that quality.
An affirmation is a tool that helps you, the meditator, get in touch with or “attune yourself to” your real spiritual identity. Focusing attention on your affirmation is a method for becoming sensitive to what the Cayce readings call your “individuality self” or “higher self.” An affirmation that is deeply personal