Don’t be discouraged if your attention drifts after just ten or fifteen seconds, especially if meditation is new for you. Simply restate your affirmation in your mind and focus your thoughts again. Don’t force your attention on your affirmation; rather, gently guide it.
Minute #3. The Cayce readings recommend that any meditation session, however long or short, should end with prayer for healing. That’s the third phase of the meditation—in this case, just another one-minute period to send blessings to those for whom you have concern and for yourself. Remember that healing prayer doesn’t limit itself to prayer for those who are physically ill. It encompasses emotional, attitudinal, and spiritual issues as well. Send a positive thought or blessing to just a few individuals for whom you may have some concern. If a person hasn’t directly asked you for prayer, it’s best not to visualize some specific changes happening in his or her life. It works best to surround the person mentally with the loving energy that has been awakened from this meditation session.
A STORY FROM THE CAYCE ARCHIVES
Marcus lived in New Bern, North Carolina, with his wife and two-year-old son. He had been to Virginia Beach a few times, and he had visited the Cayce family at their home near the oceanfront. Marcus was interested in having a life reading from Mr. Cayce, but the waiting list was lengthy and he had a considerable delay. In February 1931, as the time for his reading drew nearer, he wrote to Cayce about his expectations.
“I am anxiously looking forward to the time when you will be able to get to my life reading, as it is a matter of vital interest to me. My affairs have reached the point where it is time for me to make some sort of change but I will hold off until I hear from you as I feel that this reading is to be the turning point in my life.”
Marcus was a healthy man overall; but the inevitable stress of his career combined with approaching middle age wore at his health in subtle ways. He wanted to find out how to live a more balanced life, giving his body the attention it needed in order to remain healthy for the long run.
In April of 1931, the appointment date for his reading arrived. Gertrude Cayce presided over the session, as Edgar Cayce offered his wisdom from a deep, unconscious state. First Cayce addressed the minor health concerns that Marcus had expressed. With his clairvoyant insight, Cayce indicated that Marcus’ left eye would improve over time, and that his poor digestion would be improved by drinking a glass of warm water upon waking up each morning.
When he had been preparing questions for this reading months earlier, Marcus knew the tremendous amount of stress he felt each day was his most immediate health problem. He had worded one of his questions for the reading, “How can I overcome the nerve strain I’m under at times?”
The answer from Cayce on this day in April was direct and simple. “By closing the eyes and meditating from within, so that there arises—through that of the nerve system—that necessary elements … that will quiet the whole nerve forces, making for that—as has been given—as the true bread, the true strength of life itself. Quiet, meditation, for a half to a minute, will bring strength—will the body see physically this flowing out to quiet self, whether walking, standing still, or resting. Well, too, that oft when alone meditate in the silence—as the body has done.” (311-4)
This extraordinary recommendation—for quiet meditation lasting perhaps only half a minute or one minute—contained a powerful promise. By developing the positive habit of recentering himself each day with mini-meditation sessions, he could heal this nervous tension disorder.
The reading helped Marcus get his health back on track and gave him personal insights into the mind-body connection. Profoundly impressed with the information Cayce gave him, Marcus wrote to Cayce a few months later:
“As time goes on the original life reading gets clearer and the meaning more apparent to me. I wish everyone who has had a life reading would get it out about every three months and carefully check up on the statements made and the events as they unfold. It is a revelation.”
A MODERN DAY SUCCESS WITH THIS POSITIVE HABIT
Most mornings when Ron headed to work, he felt like he was headed into a war zone. Things were tough at his company, a large telecommunications business with thousands of employees overall and more than seven hundred at the facility where he worked as human resources manager. The company was in flux, having just purchased and merged with another firm, and there was considerable pressure on Ron and his team to effect many personnel changes. Staying centered had become an elusive feature in his life.
If things at home had been a little more stable, it might have been easier for Ron to stay connected to his inner resources. It wasn’t that anything was particularly wrong with his family life, but everything there seemed to be in the midst of change, too. His wife had just started a new job and there were the expected stresses of adapting to a different set of work colleagues and duties. One of their children was just off to college, and both parents felt a continuing obligation to stay in touch with him and be supportive as he learned a new lifestyle away from home. And their thirteen-year-old daughter was showing some normal but occasionally annoying behavior of a new teenager.
After a particularly rough day at work—one that involved breaking the news to five employees that their jobs would soon be phased out—he came home in need of a little refuge and rejuvenation. Driving home he had thought about resources available to him to keep his life on track, especially during this challenging transition time at the office, which was sure to last at least two more months. One option seemed to be a recommitment to daily meditation. It was something he had learned and even practiced regularly when he was in his twenties, but for the last ten years or so he had been very sporadic with the discipline. As he pulled into his driveway that evening, his enthusiasm for the idea of regular meditation had grown to the point that he wanted to have his first session right away.
However, as soon as he walked into house he realized that it wasn’t going to happen soon. His daughter announced that Ron’s boss had called ten minutes earlier and needed a call back as soon as possible. What’s more his daughter needed a ride to a friend’s house in half an hour, and with his wife having to work late at her new job, Ron would have to be the chauffeur.
The interrupted plan repeated the same pattern each day for the rest of the week, and before long Ron realized that he had to come up with a new approach. By a fortunate and serendipitous event, he came across an article about meditation that mentioned the way in which positive benefits could come from even brief periods of focused attention. The idea was a novelty to him because he had always imagined that it took at least thirty minutes to have a meaningful meditation session. But given the demands of his life at the time, this concept of miniature meditation times seemed too good to pass up.
He started the new habit that very day, first with a three-minute meditation just before dinnertime. He wasn’t sure that much came from that initial try, largely because he spent most of the three minutes mentally fighting off self-doubts that he could really do it right. Ron persisted, though. He experimented with different times of day to try his mini-meditation. Mornings on the one hand seemed easiest to get himself centered and focused in a short amount of time. But the very best results came from the time and place that he would have least expected to be successful—right there at his office.
Ron had never considered doing a spiritual practice like meditation in his office. It would be embarrassing if someone walked in on him sitting in his chair with eyes closed and no evidence that he was doing anything productive. What’s more, everything about his office had associations for him that are linked to stresses in his life: His telephone that is constantly ringing with people’s problems, his computer on which he frequently works and reworks salary budgets, stacks of personnel files with employees’ performance appraisals. This was hardly a “sacred space” for him.
Surprisingly, however, he was quickly