Читать книгу Meditation, Prayer & Affirmation - Edgar Cayce - Страница 10

Purify thy body. Shut thyself away from the cares of the world. Think on that as ye would do to have thy God meet thee face to face. “Ah,” ye say “but many are not able to speak to God!” Many, you say, are fearful. Why? Have ye gone so far astray that ye cannot approach Him who is all merciful? He knows thy desires and thy needs, and can only supply according to the purposes that ye would perform within thine own self. Then, purify thy body, physically. Sanctify thy body, as the laws were given of old, for tomorrow the Lord would speak with thee—as a father speaketh to his children . . . Know that thy body is the temple of the living God. There He has promised to meet thee!

Any individual can take advantage of Cayce’s suggested approach to meditation by following a few simple steps. First, get into a comfortable position. It’s probably best to sit in a chair, keeping your spine straight, your feet flat on the floor, and your eyes closed. Find a comfortable place for your hands, either in your lap or at your sides. In order to help with a balanced flow of energy throughout the physical body, keep your palms face down against your legs or closed against your stomach. Slowly take a few deep breaths and begin to relax. Breathe the air deeply into your lungs, hold it for a moment, and then slowly breathe it out. With your mind, search your body for any obvious tension or tight muscles. You can try to relieve the tension by deep breathing, imagining the area to be relaxed, or gently massaging any tightness with your fingertips. When you have become comfortable and more at ease than when you first sat down, you are ready to move on. You may wish to try a breathing exercise recommended in the Cayce readings to assist in even greater levels of relaxation and attunement. Very simply, it is as follows:

First, breathe in slowly through the right nostril (covering the left nostril with your hand and keeping the mouth closed), then pinch your nostrils and breathe out through the mouth. Repeat this for a total of three times. Second, with your mouth closed, slowly breathe in through the left nostril (covering the right), then cover the left and breathe out through the right. Repeat this, as well, for a total of three times.

When your breathing exercise is complete, next begin to focus your mind on a meditation affirmation or perhaps a single, peaceful, calming thought. Instead of thinking about what went on at work or what has to be accomplished with the remainder of your day, try focusing instead on a thought such as “I am at peace” or one of the many affirmations suggested by the readings. You can also use a biblical verse (such as the Twenty-third Psalm or the Lord’s Prayer) or a thought with a focus such as “God is Love.” Any of these focuses can be considered an affirmation.

The first stage of meditation involves thinking about the message of your affirmation. With one of the examples cited above, you would think about the words “I am at peace.” After a few moments of thinking the words, you should be able to move onto the second stage of meditation, which is feeling the meaning behind those words. For example, you could continue saying the words “I am at peace,” but the feeling behind these words can be much more meaningful than the actual words themselves. An analogy can reveal how a feeling is more all encompassing than a thought. Consider saying the words “I love my child” versus the feeling behind those words. From Cayce’s perspective, whenever individuals are able to hold the feeling of the affirmation throughout their entire being, they are truly meditating and building the focus of the affirmation within themselves.

During this second stage of meditation, the individual should try to hold the feeling of the affirmation in silent attention without needing to repeat the words. Whenever the mind begins to wander, simply bring your focus back to the words of the affirmation. Once again you would begin by thinking the words of the affirmation and then by trying to concentrate on the feeling behind those words. Individuals shouldn’t become discouraged if they find themselves thinking more about distractions than they are focusing upon the affirmation—it takes practice. To begin with, an individual might want to spend anywhere from three minutes to fifteen minutes trying to hold the affirmation silently. Longer meditation periods will become possible with practice and experience.

With regard to closing a meditation period, the readings emphasized the importance of consciously sending out prayers and good thoughts to other people and situations in life. At this point an individual may wish to open the palms to enable the energy of meditation to flow through them. Since we do not always know what may be best for an individual’s personal growth and development, it is best to simply pray that the individual be surrounded by light, love, and God’s will–presence and protection rather than praying for something specific. As we begin to practice meditation daily, it will become easier. We might also discover that whatever feeling we have been focusing upon in meditation will actually begin to carry over into greater portions of the day.

Sometimes certain physical sensations may occur in meditation: energy rising up the spine, gentle movements of the head and neck in a circular or side-to-side motion, etc. These sensations are simply a result of the movement of energy (often called the kundalini or even spiritual energy) rising through the endocrine centers of your body: gonads, leydig, adrenals, thymus, thyroid, pineal, and pituitary.

Through the regular practice of meditation, you can begin to heal yourself on many levels. As you focus upon a positive affirmation, you may find that your negative habit-patterns will begin to change to be more in keeping with your positive affirmation. It is while practicing the silence of meditation, by relaxing your physical body and by quieting your conscious mind, that you can set aside your daily concerns and attempt to attune yourself to your spiritual source.

Perhaps more than anything else, meditation, prayer, and the use of spiritual affirmations are tools for attunement, and personal attunement is at the core of understanding our true spiritual essence. In Cayce’s worldview, the end result of soul development is that all individuals will eventually realize their true spiritual self and their connection to the whole. Actually, the readings told a thirty-six-year-old lawyer that this realization was the ultimate cause of each individual’s creation in the first place: