Recently I had a woman ask me if she could concentrate on her daughter’s wedding. Clearly not (yes, she was joking). With a subject like this, on any subject that is strictly personal, we are setting ourselves up for failure because we will immediately get our personal feelings, desires, fears and “self” in between ourselves and truth. We are once again, trapped in our own person sphere of power and intelligence. We must use a universal subject or statement if we wish to contact a universal source of power and a Cosmic Intelligence.
Another question was “how about love?” No doubt this person thought that sounded good. I suggest something more far specific otherwise we risk falling into what I call the “babbling stream” school of concentration and 10 minutes go by before we realize we have covered everything from cookies to vacation spots. It will be difficult to win the battle with your brain which, I guarantee, wants to go over well beaten tracks—it’s so much easier.
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Another question that people frequently ask is “Can I just surrender?” Well, watch out here.
Every one of us is susceptible to one degree or another to our physical environment. If you are unconscious of this, you are highly susceptible to thoughts and ideas that will be fathered by the spiritual quality of the community, the office, the nation that you are in without realizing it. So be careful about surrendering. (This is not an opportunity to blame your surroundings, however, for lack of success or present problems). Surrendering without preparation tends to create an opportunity, once again, for the brain to run along the paths of neurons upon which thought travels most easily. These are the same pathways you have been using to get where you are now. Meditation is the opportunity to concentrate upon your free willed chosen subject. (Herein lies the evolutionary step.)
Surrendering is something that we want to do after we are in the presence. Surrendering is what we must do, if we have been doing creative work; if we have been working for some person, thing or condition, particular to our own lives or those close to us. In this case we must always end by surrendering outcome to God and giving thanks.
Meditation comes after we have some mastery of the art of concentration. We must have some mastery of the mind. We learn that we can ignite positive feelings through thinking. The Soul responds to exalted thoughts.