Life is what it is. No more, no less. Ask nothing of it, as Emerson reminds us: “These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God today.” As do you and I. Come alive in your mind to the point of demanding nothing of anyone or even of life itself. See the divineness in all of the people you encounter. Accept that and you will be in the inner frame of mind for creating real magic.
Rather than asking something of others, try giving instead. Become the giver, even if what you give is simply the radiance of love and unconditional acceptance that you are feeling within. It is the giver, not the taker, who is the true miracle worker and, ironically, it is the one who is focused on giving as his or her purpose in life who seems to receive so much more than those who are always looking for more. It is all in your mind-set!
Suggestion for Implementing This Mind-set:
• Give yourself a day to ask nothing of anyone. For your spouse, your children, your co-workers, everyone that you encounter today, decide to give to instead of taking from. What a pleasant surprise awaits you as you simply extend yourself to others and expect nothing in return. As you will see, the less you expect from others and the less demanding you are that they serve you, the more will come your way.
Just give love and unconditional acceptance to those you encounter and notice what happens. How can you be angry or hurt when you have no expectations? This is a wonderful exercise to implement when you find yourself feeling victimized or underappreciated. Expect no appreciation and allow those you meet to be what they need to be. Then you will see that the appreciation that you think you need is unnecessary. In fact, being upset because it is lacking is just another way of allowing someone else to control you with their actions or lack of actions. When you relinquish that and simply give to others because that is your purpose, and for no other reasons, then you will find yourself receiving the very appreciation that you coveted so desperately. Now you will not need it. You’ll acknowledge it, and then get back on purpose.
13. Begin to develop authentic power for yourself. As you proceed in developing your miracle mind-set, think about what it is that will make you an authentically powerful human being. This concept of personal power is often tossed around without stopping to consider what it takes to be personally powerful.
By authentically powerful I do not mean the ability to dominate or control others. If power is measured in such terms, then where is your power when those people, whom you control, leave? To be authentically powerful, your power must not reside in how others react to you, nor exclusively in your physical strength or appearance. If power is dependent on your physical beauty, where is your power when it is gone? Authentic power is not located in the physical body—inevitable changes transpire in the material world. Exclusive alignment with the physical side of your humanity is a movement away from true empowerment because it is transitory and dependent on how others react. And anything that is dependent upon the physical, material world to be authentic always slips away as that material world changes and becomes less of what has been called attractive or strong.
Authentic empowerment is a different kind of journey. It is found on the path of alignment with your soul’s purpose. With each step that you take to align yourself with your soul’s purpose, you further empower yourself. You must remember, however, that you are in a culture that places primary emphasis on the physical side and minimal emphasis on the spiritual, or invisible, side. You are constantly encouraged to align yourself exclusively on the physical side of your humanity. So, as you read these pages, remind yourself that your objective is personal empowerment—to literally become your own miracle maker.
Transforming your body into as healthy a specimen as possible will probably require a complete about-face in your nutritional and exercise habits. These habits have developed in a culture that has daily tempted you to align yourself with your physical self exclusively. Your spiritual side, as you become realigned, will implore you to eliminate poisonous items. Yet your physical side will tempt you with toxic allure. Your physical alignment can literally disempower you and make the transformative miracle you imagine for yourself an impossibility. Yet the light that is within you, invisible though it may be to your five senses, knows precisely what you require in the way of nutrition and active exercise.
When you become realigned you will follow your inner signals almost effortlessly. You will see and feel yourself changing. That shift will signal a movement away from inauthentic power, to personal empowerment. The physical temptations will remain, and occasionally you will allow them to win, but your new spiritual alignment will dominate your life, and a periodic slip will not dislodge your authentic self. This realignment will show up in virtually all areas of your life.
Alignment with the physical realm will cause you to be tempted to cheat, steal, cut corners, deceive, bully, angrily lash out, or give in to an addiction. If you stay with this alignment, you will witness the disintegration of your power. You will have made the irresponsible choice to disempower yourself. The immediate rewards may make you look more powerful, especially to others, but you will know inside yourself that you are weaker. You will know that you once again succumbed to the weakness of temptation and ignored your inner urgings.
Authentic power, the ability to create what seems impossible when totally aligned with your five senses, is accomplished step by magic step. These steps are inner thoughts that guide you to pay attention to something you already know but have ignored in favor of the immediate gratification of your physical-world sensations. Just one little victory at a time is the way to experiencing authentic empowerment, perhaps for the very first time in your life.
Authentic empowerment is the knowing within that you are on purpose, doing God’s work, peacefully and harmoniously. It is knowing that you can create whatever you need to further that work, without resorting to manipulating or harming another. It is a new way of being, and it can show up in thousands of tiny ways.
For example, in the seventeen miles I drive between my office and my home there are numerous traffic lights, often heavy traffic, and a multitude of construction delays. When I was more physically aligned I was always in a hurry, and angry over every little delay or slow driver, rushing through yellow caution lights and generally in a state of upset for about ninety minutes each day. I was allowing myself to become inwardly upset as a result of the physical-world realities that were a part of the life I had chosen for myself.
When I realigned myself, I began to experience authentic power in that same situation. Now, before leaving on that seventeen-mile excursion through those real-world conditions, I play it all out in my mind first, before even getting into my automobile. I see it going the way I would like it to go. I picture myself peaceful throughout the trip, stopping at caution lights, staying in one lane, and even blessing those who drive at a pace that requires me to slow down. This is my mental picture as I enter my automobile for the trip to the office. I am calm, relaxed, and ready to enjoy the next forty-five minutes of my life.
I am empowered authentically! I am no longer victimized emotionally by how others choose to drive, or how the traffic lights perform. I do not need any specific external conditions for me to feel loving and purposeful and to enjoy the present moments of my life in traffic. I have shifted my alignment primarily to the spiritual, invisible domain, and only secondarily to the physical.
Whereas previously my thoughts and feelings in the invisible domain of my life flowed from whatever was happening in the physical world, now it is reversed. My thoughts and feelings—my invisible, spiritual self—dictate how my physical world is going to be experienced. This is authentic empowerment—to have control over one’s environment—and it is possible in virtually all areas of your life, if you choose to be empowered with the miracle that is your spiritual, invisible soul first and foremost in all of your physical-world undertakings.
Being personally powerful in any life situati
on becomes easy and natural when you realign yourself in this fashion. This is empowerment, and it works in everything you do and with everyone you meet. Align yourself to your soul, listen to those inner pleadings to be at ease and on purpose, and you will shift your life over to being an authentically powerful person. It is with this mind-set that real magic will become available to you as a life choice.
Suggestion for Implementing This Mind-set:
• Detach yourself for a brief period from the behavior of controlling others through your size, authority position, physical prowess, physical appearance, age, wealth or anything external to yourself. Imagine yourself as just a soul interacting with other souls. Truly treat others as if the fullness of God resided within them. Imagine that all manner of physical-world attributes are nonexistent. Give this a try for a day or two. See how much authentic power you truly possess.
I often do this with my little children. I imagine myself without my adult-size body and all of the power that goes with being grown up. I try to relate to them for a period of time, say, on the way to school, as if we were all without bodies and only our thoughts and souls were present in the car. I see how empowering this is to them and to me. I listen to them, rather than giving them orders. I send them love rather than directions. They see me as a loving guide, rather than a big-person father who can make them do what I want them to do.
Give up your need to control, and substitute a kind of unconditional acceptance of those you meet as soul mates, all equal in the eyes of God. Convert your marriage or primary relationship into a spiritual partnership. No authority. No one in charge. Simply two mates connected by an invisible bond, without one needing to dominate the other. You will be surprised at how you will empower others as well as yourself when you shift your inner world away from domination and control, to one of unconditional respect and loving harmony. While this world is of course invisible, it nevertheless is much more powerful and authentic than that which resides exclusively in the visible, material world.
14. Practice daily meditation. Learn how to meditate, and make meditation an integral part of your daily life. This final step in creating your miracle mind-set is, for me, the most significant.
Five years ago, I could not imagine myself meditating on a regular basis. Today, I cannot imagine my life without it. It is the vehicle I use to create the state of mind I have been writing about in this chapter. I cannot imagine myself going on stage to speak, without first meditating. Similarly, every single writing session is preceded by a meditation. My life is primarily about meditation, or quietly going within to discover the invisible intelligence and loving guidance that is always available to me.
The process of meditation is nothing more than quietly going within and discovering that higher component of yourself. After a while, you come into direct contact with what has always been a mystery in your life. You will discover God, that infinite invisible intelligence that is always a part of you and your daily life. Here is how Richard D. Mann describes it in The Light of Consciousness:
The body seems to be moved, purified; the imagery has an unfamiliar and awesome clarity; the spontaneous registry of what one’s life and current experiences all imply at their core may take the form of searing insights. Even the stillness comes as a blessing and a discovery. Whatever happens, it continues to suggest a shift in the inner structure of one’s consciousness….
Learning to meditate begins, like all learning, with a belief, a thought that must originate with you. The thought is simple: “I believe there is something to this experience of meditation and I am willing to invest the energy to discover it.” That’s it! A simple acknowledgment that meditation, though you may know nothing about it, has some inherent value, and a decision to approach it with an open mind.
In order to create that open mind, contemplate for a moment on the greatest thinkers you have admired. Consider the lives and the advice of these spiritual masters who have been more influential than the billions of other people who have lived on this planet. They all encourage us to meditate, to go within, to seek guidance in the silent invisible empty space that resides in all of us. Meditation gives you an opportunity to come to know your invisible self. It allows you to empty yourself of the endless hyperactivity of your mind, and to attain a calmness. It teaches you to be peaceful, to remove stress, to receive answers where confusion previously reigned, to slow yourself down and, ultimately, when you adopt meditation as a way of life, to be able to go to that peaceful place anytime. I do mean anytime. In the middle of a business meeting, in the midst of a tragedy, during an athletic competition—anytime! Meditation can and will help you become your own miracle worker and come to know the meaning of real magic.
I want to remind you again what the brilliant French philosopher and scientist Blaise Pascal said about the benefits of meditation: “All man’s miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone.” I find this fascinating, and wonder why we don’t include meditation in our education programs at all levels. In my experience with meditation, I have never felt anything but more peaceful, loving and confident after meditating. Here is something so simple, available to all of us whenever we choose to use it, that contributes enormously to our well-being.
And how do you do it? It’s simple! You just make up your mind to do it. Listen to the literary genius Franz Kafka:
You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait. Do not even wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.
There is no right or wrong way to meditate. There is no specific strategy to follow. It truly is just allowing yourself to go into another dimension that is free of the limitations you experience in your physical world. In your meditative state, you can play out a difficulty or problem, in your mind. See it, experience it first within your invisible self and then play out how you want it to go in your physical world. You can also ask for divine guidance by silently asking questions like, “How may I act lovingly and serve you while participating in this upcoming event?” “What can I think to replace the self-destructive thoughts that are now in my mind and destroying my happiness?” Remember the key: “As you think so shall you be.”
Meditation is your opportunity to create what you will be, by entering the invisible world of thought and playing it out there first, almost like a divine rehearsal for your life. Yes, you will receive the answers you seek. Yes, you will be able to manifest miracles that were all but impossible previously. Yes, you will be able to leave your physical body and enter the kingdom of heaven that is within you and come back to truly experience real magic.
In The Three Pillars of Zen, Philip Kapleau summarized what you can receive from the commitment to the exercise of meditation.
For the ordinary man, whose mind is a checkerboard of crisscrossing reflections, opinions, and prejudices, bare attention is virtually impossible; his life is thus centered not in reality itself but in his ideas of it. By focusing the mind wholly on each object and every action, zazen [meditation] strips it of extraneous thoughts and allows us to enter into a full rapport with life.
Yes, you will truly move from ideas about your life to experiencing your purpose here, your heroic life mission. Another way of saying this was offered by Taisen Deshimaru: “If you have a glass full of liquid you can discourse forever on its qualities, discuss whether it is cold, warm, whether it is really and truly composed of H-2-O, or even mineral water, or saki. Meditation is Drinking it!”
Beautiful! Learning to meditate is learning how to live rather than talking about it. It is a true alignment with your purpose as a spiritual being having a human experience.
There are many wonderful books and guides on the subject of meditation, by people far more qualified than I may ever be. I will describe how meditation works, but I want to emphasize that this is what works for me. I would be most pleased if my descripti
on encourages you to begin the practice of meditation; however, you will only know what it is, and what benefits it offers you, when you experience it directly.
I have found that my most valuable meditation time is early in the morning. You might want to take that last hour in the morning before you normally would have awakened and devote it to meditation. Don’t worry about being fatigued—it seems that one hour of meditation can be equivalent to a night’s sleep. When I finish meditation I feel more rested than after awakening from a full night’s rest. I take a long, hot shower or bath, then sit on the floor, legs crossed and eyes closed.
My first objective in meditating is to get myself to an alpha state. It is the equivalent, for me, of how I’d feel if hypnotized. The brain waves are altered. They are actually slowed down. I know when I’m there because I begin to feel light and euphoric. My arms feel lighter, almost like feathers, and will rise with a minimum of effort, seemingly assisted by an invisible force that is part of me. It is like a tipsy, light-headed, overall good feeling without chemicals or alcohol. After several years of meditation, I can get to this alpha state in a matter of seconds.
Burt Goldman, writing in How to Better Your Life with Mind Control, has a superb chapter called “Getting to Alpha,” which describes in specific detail how to get there. What works for me is taking deep breaths and concentrating totally on the longest intake and outtake I can manage without having any intervening thoughts. I avoid the temptation of endless thoughts bombarding my consciousness by repeating “Ey-Kiss” as an inner mantra, very slowly to match my breathing pattern. I can actually feel the chemistry of my brain altering as I sit concentrating on my breathing and repeating “Ey-Kiss” slowly over and over.
I have also used what I call the twenty-four-second-clock approach to getting to alpha. I visualize a clock made of numerous lights outlining the number 24. Then I shift it down to “23.” My own personal rule at the beginning is to get the clock in my mind to go from “24” down to “0,” seeing each number light up. If at anytime in that interval I become distracted, or a thought pops into my mind for even a fleeting microsecond, I start the clock over again at “24” and work it back to “0” without any intervening thoughts or mental distractions. This is a way of learning to discipline yourself to concentrate on one thing and to empty your mind of all other thoughts. Getting all the way to “0” from “24” is a monumental accomplishment! I am at alpha when I succeed.
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