Many people tell me they cannot meditate. To me, this is like giving up, saying, “I can’t dance,” after taking just one dance class. Meditation is an art that expresses who you are and helps to show you your true self. It requires constant practice for perfect results. You should expect perfect results, as perfection unto yourself has absolutely nothing to do with comparative perfection (with others). This is your perfect expression.
A professional actor would feel that they could not perform at their best if they missed one day of rehearsal. If they missed a week of rehearsal, they would feel that their audience could sense this in their performance. You are not meditating for an audience, however. You are meditating for yourself and the effects that it will have in your life. You are using meditation to help you to observe yourself so that you can change your habits to create new habits and life a live of which you have dreamed.
Think of your life as your screenplay, and you as its director. The people in it are the people you chose as its cast of players. In a sense, they are also your audience. But your audience reflects back on yourself and your consciousness. Audience comes from the word audio, meaning “to listen.” Your audience is listening to your energy, your vibration, echo, and the self-talk you learned as a child.
What are you doing when you meditate? You are refining your energy and your vibration so that when you participate in the play (your life), you can direct and redirect it. If you believe that everything is outside of you and that you are a victim of your circumstances, however, you will continue to play the victim role in your life.
Meditation as Art
Meditation can be a release, a place to connect with the Divine, and your place of peace, but it is also seen as an art as it is creative and spiritual and meant to be practiced in any way you choose. The more you practice it, the better you become at it. You learn to go more deeply within your being to connect with your Divine self.
Don’t let someone else tell you what meditation is. Make meditation personal–make it yours. Studying meditation through the practices of masters, friends or others is a great way to refine your own practice. But never allow someone else to tell you how to be and who to be. That makes you simply an extension of their ideas. Instead, build on their ideas and create your own path. This way, meditation becomes your art and your creation, just as your life is your own.
Those who complain that meditation is too difficult are resisting the practice. They may not be ready to make meditation a daily practice. When something appears in their life to force their hand, however, they will then try to force themselves to meditate. Forcing meditation is like trying to break a horse who will never allow its spirit to be broken. If your imagination and thoughts are running wild and uncontrolled, they will inevitably win out. Having a meditation practice already in place that allows you to go deep inside yourself is very helpful to you when you encounter things in your life that cause disruption.
Shocks to the System Break Habits
One of my clients, for whom I do readings quite often, was struggling to change his wife’s behaviors. He believed that acting as her harsh disciplinarian would change her. He kept arguing with me that “a wife should” do certain things. It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I continually told him that he needed to shift his energy and focus off of his wife and, instead, view his wife as a mirror of himself. He was very critical of and hard on himself, but was projecting all of this onto her.
I suggested that this man use meditation and soothing music to help shut off his mind. He tried meditating and listening to music one time but gave up, telling me he couldn’t focus and that meditation was not for him. I then asked him if he prayed, and he said yes, he did. I told him prayer is the same thing as meditation, and it can happen anytime – while washing the dishes, gardening, making the bed, taking a shower, brushing your teeth. It is simply shutting off your mind long enough to feel what is happening inside yourself. But this idea made him uncomfortable.
This man was convinced that all of his experiences were happening outside of him and that he was not mirroring his wife. He firmly believed that she needed to behave and do things HIS way. He was trying to control something within himself – specifically, his fears–by trying to control someone else. This was an obvious subconscious pattern that he had learned from his father, who had been a strict disciplinarian and had tried to break his son’s free spirit. His father tormented my client for years, shaping him into an anxious, uptight, constantly stressed control freak.
His wife, of course, resisted all of his attempts to control her. I finally told my client that if he continued to act as a prison warden, his wife would make a prison break and escape. And she did. He came home one day to find her closets cleaned out, and a note. She was gone, taking the kids, the dog and the cat. While I was not surprised in the least, he was shocked. Unless you are ready to receive it, you just will not see it.
He was shattered and emotionally broken, like a fragile glass tossed onto the floor. However, this was a wake-up call, and the beginning of a cathartic, freeing experience for him. He started meditating 30 minutes each morning. Within a month, he had committed to meditating for an additional hour in the evening. His life began to change. He began seeing himself through the eyes of those around him. His work colleagues began to engage him in conversation and wanted to be around him.
Eventually, his work colleagues asked him about his metamorphosis. He told them that he had begun meditating as a result of his wife leaving him. He also confessed that he had witnessed himself through the reactions of others, and that he was finally able to see that he had been wound incredibly tight.
He started meditating during exercise and while on the metro, adding this to his regular meditation practice. Soon, his life felt like a perpetual, calm prayer. His wife and kids could not believe the changes in him. When he changed, every single thing outside of him changed to reflect his self-love and his love for others. When you fall in love with yourself and your life and everything that is in it, the world falls in love with you. The man’s free spirit also returned to him (although it was now tamed and focused).
Focused Will and Attention
To begin self-reflective meditation, sit or stand comfortably. Quiet your mind, shutting off your thoughts, and watch what happens. Your thoughts will inevitably come racing back to disturb your peace. Uncritically observe them, just letting them be and watching them until they quiet themselves. Then notice the few thoughts that return to speak to you. They are a mirror of what you subconsciously think and feel about yourself. Just observe these thoughts, and do not judge them because then you justify them. Refocus your attention back to a simple inhale. Hold your breath for a count of five seconds, slowly releasing your breath for a count of ten seconds. Focusing on your breathing shifts your attention back to the present moment. This practice can redirect you to stepping into the energy that you want to experience. Then you are ready to head in the direction you desire.
Next, step into the energy of what you want to see manifest in your life using creative meditation. Creative meditation is well-sustained, controlled attention and imagination. Hold your attention on a certain idea until it completely fills your mind, pushing out all other ideas from your consciousness.
Concentrate on the idea that you want to see realized and do not permit any distractions. This is the secret to your power in action. Should your attention wander, bring it back to the idea you wish to realize and keep doing this until your attention is effortlessly fixated on the idea. You will be focused and fascinated while holding your attention on your desired state.
Neville Goddard said, “Meditation is the education of the will, for when will and imagination are in conflict, imagination invariably wins.”
You are the thinker and the conceiver, and you will find yourself in your conception. This is what we mean when we say, “You are what you think I am.” We are all reflections of each other. If you remain undisciplined in thought, then you become the servant of your subconscious mind, not the master of your life. If you find your mind captured by drama and the news, turn away from these things, as they create the sense of something urgent. Refocus your mind, instead, on what is important, like solutions.
Keep Your Sanctuary Silent
Your mind is your sanctuary. Your body is a reflection of your mind. Your soul and spirit feed your mind and body. Great things are born from this sanctuary. No one should be allowed into your sanctuary without explicit, specific permission from you. Their energy, thoughts and feelings affect yours. This is no place to allow the dirt of others to enter.
In the Kabbalah and Catholic mysticism, it is expressly forbidden to allow an unclean spirit (thoughts, feelings and emotions) into your temple. This is what those teachings mean. If you do not keep company with thoughts that are toxic, why would you allow the thoughts, energies and intentions of others to penetrate your temple? You can love others with loving detachment, but you must keep your door closed and not allow entrance of these things into your sacred place.
There will be times when lesser intentions are allowed to interfere. Remember, this is within you. Set yourself to attain mastery over your attention and imagination. This way, when you are faced with drama, you can evoke them at will and be the master of your vision. Keep silent, though, and don’t let others know on what you are focusing.
Practice daily holding unwavering concentration for at least five minutes, three times per day. This is a training exercise and is not light labor. Thoughts and feelings will come rushing in to light up the nerve highways of your body, frustrating your meditation. Do not allow them to do so. Refocus your mind, telling your emotional reactions to be silent. If you persist in this practice, you will create within yourself a center of power.
