Not only should we keep a meditation period daily, there are good reasons to keep the same time each day. The mind can be quickly trained to make alterations in consciousness at the same time in a daily cycle. Our most frequent experience of this principle is with the alteration of consciousness from sleeping to waking up each morning. By using an alarm clock for as little as a week to awaken at the same time each morning, many people can train themselves to wake up at that time without an alarm (especially if they have the desire to do so). By keeping a regular meditation time we train the mind to make more effectively the transition from normal, waking consciousness to the awareness awakened in deep meditation.
Experiment: Choose a specific time and place for meditation. Keep it each day.
“… for as we do it unto the least of our brethren, we do it unto our Maker. These are not mere words—they can be experiences, if we seek to know Him.”
One of the fundamental concepts in the readings is the unity of all life. We are each spiritual beings in the process of evolving in consciousness. We are all part of a fundamental oneness in which each part is valued.
In time and space we have all built thought patterns and habits that are inconsistent with this law of unity. Consciously we are quick to recognize these patterns and habits. They are frequently the things in others that irritate us, or the things in ourselves for which we feel dislike or shame.
Yet haven’t we all had the experience of seeing through someone’s bothersome characteristic because we loved the person? Love is often blind to the shortcomings of others. What we can awaken is a love that sees the purposefulness behind all that is, that sees the unity of life and appreciates the good (the God) in everyone. One reading says:
Know the first principles: There is good in all that is alive.
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The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung made a special point of emphasizing that it is often a part of ourselves that we find the most difficult to love and bring into this awareness of the wholeness.
“In actual life it requires the greatest art to be simple, and so acceptance of oneself is the essence of the moral problem and the acid test of one’s whole outlook on life. That I feed the beggar, that I forgive an insult, that I love my enemy in the name of Christ—all these are undoubtedly great virtues. What I do unto the least of my brethren, that I do unto Christ. But what if I should discover that the least amongst them all, the poorest of all beggars, the most impudent of all offenders, yea the very fiend himself—that these are within me, and that I myself stand in need of the alms of my own kindness, that I myself am the enemy who must be loved—what then?”
(Jung, Collected Works, Vol. 11, p. 339)
Experiment: What people in your life do you think the least of? Write down the names. What parts of yourself do you think the least of? Write down those parts. Work each day on treating these people and these parts of yourself as you would treat God. Pray for these individuals and parts of yourself each day.
“Meditation is the emptying of ourselves of all that hinders the Creative Forces from rising along the natural channels of our physical bodies …”
“We put that desire [to know Him] into activity by purging our bodies and our minds of those things that we know, or even conceive of, as being hindrances.”
One of the most important teachings about man’s effort to know God is found in the analogy of the temple or the tabernacle worship in the Old Testament. The readings indicate that the worship in the temple was merely an outer projection of an inner process. We can think of the outer court of the temple as corresponding to the conscious mind; the inner court (or holy place) to the subconscious mind; and the holy of holies (where God was met face to face) to the superconscious mind. The body is truly the temple where we can meet God.
This analogy demonstrates an order of approach to the divine. We don’t leap directly into the superconscious when we meditate, any more than the entrance to the temple opened directly into the holy of holies. In the words of The Secret of the Golden Flower, “One must not wish to leap over everything and penetrate directly.”
We must first pass through the outer court and holy place within ourselves (the physical conscious mind and the subconscious mind), cleansing and letting go of attitudes and behaviors in these areas that would keep us from contacting that highest sense of life within.
Jesus driving the money changers from the outer court of the temple can be interpreted as a teaching about meditation: Any attempt to meet God within must begin with an effort to cleanse our physical consciousness as best we can. However, we must be careful in such cleansing that we do not merely get rid of something.
“When the unclean spirit has gone out of a man, he passes through waterless places seeking rest, but he finds none. Then he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when he comes he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then he goes and brings with him seven other spirits more evil than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first. So shall it be also with this evil generation.” (Matt. 12:43-45)
Instead, we want to replace or supplant the hindering condition or state of mind with something that is consistent with the spirit we seek to contact in meditation.
Experiment: Choose and write down one attitude, habit or physical condition which could be eliminated by conscious effort and which you feel may be a hindrance in your spiritual search.
Then decide on a constructive attitude or way of behaving that could replace that hindering one (and write down the replacement). Work each day on manifesting that replacement attitude or behavior. Record situations in which you are successful in manifesting this replacement attitude or behavior.
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“Thoughts are deeds and may become crimes or miracles in their application.”
One of the most difficult steps along the spiritual path is to accept responsibility for what it means to be a soul. In our society perhaps one of the most real barriers to the acceptance of ESP search findings is a resistance to the notion that the mind has extraordinary power. If telepathy is in fact possible, then my inner, mental world impinges on everyone else’s and I cannot really isolate myself from others. If psychokinesis is in fact possible, then it may be that my every thought has some effect on the material world. In a sense it is far easier not to have to take responsibility for being a spiritual creation. If the unseen worlds of thought and spirit were only meaningless theory, then an individual could simply drift through life and never have to face what it means to be a part of a greater whole, a community of souls working together in the earth.
For many individuals, responsibility is assumed first by becoming aware of the tremendous creative potential of thought. So important is this capacity of the mind that the readings say “the mind is the builder.” It is within our own making to attune our minds so that our thoughts are healing and uplifting to ourselves and others.
As has been seen, the application of will, as toward influences in the life, alters or changes the development of the inner man—the soul. When these are in accord with the divine, or the Creative influences, hold to that which is good—cleave to that which is right, irrespective of the thought or the speech of those who would be questioned in same. In the building up, keep thyself aright. Avoid even the appearance of evil. Keep so that, that committed unto Him will be answerable in the acts, material and mental, for thoughts are deeds, and may become crimes or miracles. These are within thine own making. Think right, live right, be right!
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Experiment: Live with the awareness that what you are