How do desires focused on the material garner our attention? Usually, it’s either by crisis, or good rationalization. Think about your own life: What interrupts or diverts you? What interferes with your pursuit of your ideals? For some, it’s the endless demands of material life that seem too important to ignore; for others, it’s the confusion created by such emotions as worry, anger, resentment, and fear. In these stressful times, almost everyone has days that seem to be ruled either by crisis or emotion.
A second diverter of attention is the impulse to say or do something that seems justifiable at the time. Because we can rationalize it, we can justify settling for something less than best.
See if you can recall examples personally from the past twenty-four hours, instances that took you away from your ideal. This exercise isn’t meant to make you feel guilty; it’s to see just how commonplace crisis and rationalization are.
Merely recognizing this aspect of the psychology of ideals, of course, still leaves one vital question unanswered: What is the best ideal for us to hold? Clearly, Edgar Cayce had a specific spiritual ideal in mind: the universal Christ, as lived by Jesus. Just as significant, it’s a seed for each one of us. In the reading, Cayce eloquently describes this universal Christ pattern, beginning with “a teacher who was bold.” (In chapter 7, “Esoteric Christianity,” we explore his Christology more closely.)
What happens when we commit to that pattern as our own? Or, for that matter, what happens when we invest in any ideal? Setting an ideal engages the unconscious mind in ways that can alter our lives dramatically. That’s why Cayce called it the most important experience that a soul can have.
But what does it mean to set a spiritual ideal? Is it just a matter of telling someone else what you’ve done, or writing it down on a sheet of paper? Reading 357-13 alludes to two crucial elements that are central to the psychology of ideals. Both play a role in stirring to life the forces of the soul, lying dormant in the unconscious. Both involve an act of free will and the engagement of the creative mind.
Aspiration is the first ingredient. To hold the universal Christ Consciousness as an ideal means to aspire to its qualities. (Much of reading 357-13 is just such a message of inspiration.) Maybe those qualities seem out of reach, but we can feel ourselves inwardly stretching and reaching for all that Christ Consciousness promises us. The same would hold true for any other spiritual ideal chosen. Striving involves both the free will and the creative side of the mind: We have to make a choice, and we have to use our imaginations to relate the ideal to ourselves.
It probably comes as no surprise that aspiration is one of the ingredients. Just think about how people use the term ideal in everyday language. Usually, it has the flavor of aspiration; for example, the ideal home is something we can imagine as the best possible way of getting along with family members. The ideal job imagines a workplace where all our talents are utilized. Aspiration means something more than desire; there is an element of intuition to the process. We long for, or aspire to, something because in part we sense that it is really possible.
Trust is the second ingredient in Edgar Cayce’s psychology of ideals. A more subtle factor than aspiration, think about how you might aspire to something but not trust that it’s really alive in you, not trust that it’s possible for you. Without trust, you haven’t yet set a spiritual ideal.
Trust is not easy to swallow because most of us find trust very difficult. It requires a more challenging use of free will than does aspiration alone. Trust means a willingness to let go of fears and doubts. It means believing ultimately in forces beyond our conscious selves. You can’t set the universal Christ—or anything else—as your spiritual ideal until you let go and put your trust in it.
Here’s another, somewhat superficial example: When you turn on a light, you trust that electricity will be there to light up the room. When you turn on a faucet, you trust water will start flowing. In other words, you worry little about the availability of electricity and water. Now, a critic could say that you’re mindlessly taking it all for granted, that many people in the world don’t have such immediate access to these resources. But the point isn’t how fortunate we are; the point is to teach us about trust.
An authentic ideal is one you don’t have to think about or question. It has become so much a part of life that it’s a given. When you come up against a challenge, you know you can count on the ideal just as surely as you can count on electricity or water when you need them. Some days, your genuine ideal is almost invisible because it’s so much a part of how you view the world.
We live in an era vitally needing a renewed vision of the power of ideals. Not pie-in-the-sky idealism, which all too often fails to connect with real life. Today’s world needs respect—even reverence—for “setting an ideal for one’s own individual life.” Edgar Cayce offers a very effective way to hone in on how to do it and make it work. Aspiration is one key; courage to trust is the other.
THE READING
✜
THIS PSYCHIC READING, 357-13,
WAS GIVEN BY EDGAR CAYCE ON JUNE 11, 1942.
The conductor was Gertrude Cayce.
GC: You will have before you the body and inquiring mind of [357], at . . . Jewelry Co., . . . , Va., in regard to her health, her home life, her work, and her general welfare. You will give a mental and spiritual reading, with information, advice and guidance that will be helpful; answering the questions she has submitted, as I ask them:
EC: In giving an interpretation of the physical, mental and spiritual well-being of a body, in terms of a mental and spiritual reading—as we have so oft indicated, Mind is the Builder.
The mind uses its spiritual ideals to build upon. And the mind also uses the material desires as the destructive channels, or it is the interference by the material desires that prevents a body and a mind from keeping in perfect accord with its ideal.
Thus, these continue ever in the material plane to be as warriors one with another. Physical emergencies or physical conditions may oft be used as excuses, or as justifications for the body choosing to do this or that.
Ought these things so to be, according to thy ideal?
Then, the more important, the most important experience of this or any individual entity is to first know what is the ideal—spiritually.
Who and what is thy pattern?
Throughout the experience of man in the material world, at various seasons and periods, teachers or “would be” teachers have come; setting up certain forms or certain theories as to manners in which an individual shall control the appetites of the body or of the mind, so as to attain to some particular phase of development.
There has also come a teacher who was bold enough to declare himself as the son of the living God. He set no rules of appetite. He set no rules of ethics, other than “As ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them,” and to know “Inasmuch as ye do it unto the least of these, thy brethren, ye do it unto thy Maker.” He declared that the kingdom of heaven is within each individual entity’s consciousness, to be attained, to be aware of—through meditating upon the fact that God is the Father of every soul.
Jesus, the Christ, is the mediator. And in Him, and in the study of His examples in the earth, is life—and that ye may have it more abundantly. He came to demonstrate, to manifest, to give life and light to all.
Here, then, ye find a friend, a brother, a companion. As He gave, “I call ye not servants, but brethren.” For, as many as believe, to them He gives power to become the children of God, the Father; joint heirs with this Jesus, the Christ, in the knowledge and in the awareness of this presence abiding ever with those who set this ideal before them.
What, then, is this as an ideal?
As concerning thy fellow man, He gave, “As ye would that others do to you, do ye even so to them,” take no thought, worry not, be not overanxious about the body. For He knoweth what ye have need of. In the place thou art, in the consciousness in which ye find yourself, is that which i
s today, now, needed for thy greater, thy better, thy more wonderful unfoldment.
But today hear His voice, “Come unto me, all that are weak or that are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest from those worries, peace from those anxieties.” For the Lord loveth those who put their trust wholly in Him.
This, then, is that attitude of mind that puts away hates, malice, anxiety, jealousy. And it creates in their stead, in that Mind is the Builder, the fruits of the spirit—love, patience, mercy, long-suffering, kindness, gentleness. And these—against such there is no law. They break down barriers, they bring peace and harmony, they bring the outlook upon life of not finding fault because someone “forgot,” someone’s judgment was bad, someone was selfish today. These ye can overlook, for so did He.
In His own experience with those that He had chosen out of the world, if He had held disappointment in their leaving Him to the mercies of an indignant high priest, a determined lawyer and an unjust steward, what would have been thy hope, thy promise today?
For He, though with the ability to destroy, thought not of such but rather gave Himself; that the Creative Forces, God, might be reconciled to that pronouncement, that judgment. And thus mercy, through the shedding of blood, came into man’s experience.
THE TRANSFORMATIVE POWER OF MEDITATION
Edgar Cayce provided specific recommendations and guidance about meditation to hundred of individuals in readings. But he also gave several readings about meditation exclusively that were meant for everyone. Reading 281-13 is widely recognized as the most practical, poetic, and inspirational of his discourses on the subject. There are three central themes:
• Definitions that allow us to distinguish prayer from meditation.
• The importance of cleansing.
• Techniques for engaging the imagination as a kind of transformed thinking.
Several definitions of meditation are offered in the reading, including one near the end that has been quoted frequently: “[E]mptying self of all that hinders the creative forces from rising.” But perhaps the most useful definition is found early in the reading and could be overlooked easily because it’s not announced as a definition: “[Meditation] partakes of the individuality, not the personality.”
As noted previously, personality is our normal physical consciousness—our likes and dislikes, our habits, our agendas for getting things done. It’s the familiar sense of identity that each of us holds—or, we might say, that holds us. In this regard, prayer largely is an activity of the personality; it’s a special effort made by the personality, the “pouring out of the personality,” so that we may be filled. “Prayer is the concerted effort of the physical consciousness . . .”
Meditation, on the other hand, requires that the personality become still. Meditation is an emptying; it is the cessation of thinking—even the high-minded kind—as we experience it typically. It involves awakening and engaging the other side of our being—individuality—which is connected more immediately to the spiritual world.
What is the language of individuality? How does it operate in meditation? In this reading, Edgar Cayce suggests that the key is in the imaginative forces. We are transformed in meditation by holding in our attention and raising up a certain image within ourselves. Actual creation takes place in meditation; or we might say that we are being re-created in meditation. In the final paragraphs of the reading, there is a very clear image: the Christ, although it is evident that what is intended here is universal Christ Consciousness, since it’s equated with “love of the God consciousness.” Cayce’s approach to meditation, however, can be practiced by people of any faith, even though devout Christians received this particular reading and the language is decidedly Christian in nature.
One secret to effective meditation is the ability to stop normal thinking processes and to imaginatively focus on a very high ideal. In many of Cayce’s readings on meditation, he suggests using an affirmation, what is called a mantra in many Eastern religions. The affirmation, or mantra, contains a short statement of one’s ideal. The point in meditation is not to think about the affirmation in the ordinary way but to allow oneself to feel the meaning behind the words and to hold that feeling in silent attention. It is a creative use of the imaginative forces but directed very purposefully. It’s not daydreaming; it’s perceiving the reality of that ideal with one’s feelings and intuition. As Edgar Cayce put it, our sense of self moves “deeper—deeper—to the seeing, feeling, experiencing of that image in the creative forces of love.” The imaginative forces allow us to experience and feel the meaning.
Another key to effective meditation is obviously cleansing, and almost half the reading deals with cleansing in one way or another. Why is the purification of our bodies and our minds so significant? One reason goes back to the beginning of the reading. The subject of the reading was looking for advice on how to meditate “without the effort disturbing the mental or physical body.” One way is to cleanse before meditating.
But another need for cleansing is also proposed. Consider what happens as we hold our ideal in silent attention. The influence, or vibration, of that image rises up within the body through the spiritual centers, or chakras. Edgar Cayce linked the traditional seven chakras of the higher energy body to seven of the endocrine glands in the physical body. What’s more, he alludes to the theory that in meditation creative energy moves from the first two chakras (which he linked to the reproductive glands and the cells of Leydig) all the way up to the two highest chakras (the pineal and pituitary glands in the brain).
But what can keep that image from connecting with the highest spiritual centers? The reading identifies two factors: If we have been mentally self-abusive (with doubt, self-condemnation, fear, etc.) and can imagine only a very limited ideal, then the movement of that image is greatly restricted; it won’t resonate at the higher level or even reach that far. The other limitation, however, can easily be present even if we’ve honed in on the Christ ideal. Impurities in our physical and mental selves have to be worked against so that the image can disseminate itself to “these centers, stations or places along the body.” The impurities become resistive hindrances.
Of course, this is not an all-or-nothing proposition. If we waited until we were totally purified before trying to meditate, we might never get around to it. Effective cleansing, like effective meditation, has levels; the point simply is to do whatever we can before we start to meditate in order to minimize any hindrances.
Reading 281-13 also raises the issue of sexuality. Edgar Cayce associates the first spiritual center with the reproductive glands (the ovaries in the female, the testes in the male). He states that the creative forces find their origin and impetus in the reproductive center: “The reproductive forces themselves, which are the very essence of Life itself within an individual . . .”
What was Cayce’s stand on sexuality? He recognized that this is a very important subject to us: “For there is no soul but what the sex life becomes the greater influence in life. Not as always in gratification in the physical act, but rather that that finds expression in the creative forces and creative abilities of the body itself” (911-2).
In fact, there was not any strict moral code that Cayce tried to push on people as he gave them advice in his readings. Instead, he asked that we consider the ways in which sexual activity is an expression of the creative forces, but he always came back to the principle of a personal ideal. In deciding what is personally right or wrong in terms of sex, each individual must decide how an activity relates to the ideal that he or she has chosen in life. As Cayce told one woman whose husband was impotent and who was considering a discreet affair to meet her sexual needs, “Such questions as these can only be answered in what is thy ideal. Do not have an ideal and not attempt to reach same. There is no condemnation in those who DO such for helpful forces, but if for personal, selfish gratification, it is sin” (2329-1). For more about Cayce on sexuality, see appendix 3, page 270.
In summary, reading 281-13 is
a remarkable discourse about the creative life-force generally and about meditation specifically. Valuable to anyone who wants to meditate daily, the beginner will discover a straightforward approach here, the experienced practitioner will no doubt find this reading worth studying again. It captures the essential themes of this vital spiritual discipline.
THE READING
THIS PSYCHIC READING, 281-13,
WAS GIVEN BY EDGAR CAYCE ON NOVEMBER 19, 1932.
The conductor was Gertrude Cayce.
GC: You will have before you the psychic work of Edgar Cayce, present in this room, the information that has been and is being given from time to time, especially that regarding meditation and prayer. You will give, in a clear, concise, understandable manner just how an individual may meditate, or pray, without the effort disturbing the mental or physical body. If this can be given in a general manner, outline it for us. If it is necessary to be outlined for specific individuals, you will tell us how individuals may attain to the understanding necessary for such experiences not to be detrimental to them.
The Essential Edgar Cayce Page 9
