Topics Include:

Moving from pain, anger, judgment and negativity to peace of mind.
10 Suggestions to facilitate meditation practice for peace of mind.
Trusting God.

Ask the Author: Question and Response
 

For 20 years I have been attempting to change my horrendous outlook, and subsequent judgment of everything. I blamed religion, in my childhood, as the cause of my anger and pain. I could not hear the words God or Jesus without triggering negativity. You speak of my Godself. I have been trying to meditate to connect with the Life-Force, the Creator. I can still only use tapes and CDs for that purpose. I want to get silent, go into the stillness, experience the peace I crave, but my mind, due to the controlling ego, makes it very difficult. What would you suggest besides perseverance? Is there another form of prayer that is not simply asking for greater consideration? I do not know how else to put this but I am frustrated and need help not to give up. Worthiness plays a big role. I thank you for your book, which I will buy next payday.

- Stephen, Coos Bay, Oregon, USA

Trust that God desires you to have peace of mind, joy, meaning and fulfillment in your life. Trust this, and let your actions be an extension of this desire. Focus on these attributes and your physical environment will begin to reshape itself to support this realization. These attributes are expressions of your Godself, and consciously or not you desire a greater expression of them in your life. 

All forms of meditation and prayer are helpful. Tapes and CDs are practical and valuable steps on the ladder you are choosing to use to get you to where you desire to be. Allow me to offer you ten suggestions to facilitate your prayer and meditation practice.
 
1) Heart-centered prayer and meditation. Learned religious or spiritual prayer and meditation are fine. Do them if that’s what works for you. But in my own practice, I have found heart-centered prayer and meditations to be most effective in bringing about memorable experiences. By heart-centered prayer and meditation, I mean using your heart and soul to lead you through the process. Once in the meditative state, allow your heart and soul to set the intention, ask for the guidance, listen and offer gratitude.
 
2) Morning prayer and meditation. I highly recommend spending, at the very least, 5 minutes immediately once you awake in prayer and meditation. This assists in setting the intention for the day.
 
3) Afternoon prayer and meditation. If possible, meditate in the afternoon and take a nap right afterwards. An afternoon nap following a meditation allows you to go into a light REM sleep, where although you are unconscious, the possibility of moving into a conscious state during or towards the end of the nap increases.
 
4) Evening prayer and meditation. Meditation and prayer before going to sleep is also key. Some people go to sleep with the TV on, some reading a book, still some others with a hundred thoughts crossing their minds. None of these types of behaviors are truly helpful in obtaining the types of experience and connectedness you are looking for. So go into prayer and meditation before going to bed. Make it heart-centered. Offer from deep in your heart gratitude for all you have, then stop and listen. As any friend would want you to listen to them, so too would God, Life-force, the Creator, or any other self-actualized spiritual being you choose to pray to.
 
5) Imagine your day being the base for your meditations. If your days are filled with judgments, a horrendous outlook, anger and pain, then how do you think this will translate into your meditation practice? For just one moment, one honest moment during your day, forgive and pray for one person who in the past you would have judged. My dear friend, do this with your full heart and soul but once in your life and you would want no other way. Make your day your workshop, your time for conscious meditation. Forgive an action you would have once judged. Send a blessing to someone you might have once criticized. Lend a hand to someone you would have once not paid attention to. Give an honest complement to a person you might not have noticed before. Let someone into your driving lane. Pray for someone who appears to be having a bad day. My dear friend, if you understood the countless possibilities for miracles during your every day you would swear you lived in heaven. And my dear friend, you would then take these experiences and energies into your meditation practice and you would find no doors or barriers or any other ego mechanism that would separate you from your Creator, from that Life-Force you know to be your true home.
 
6) Start working on forgiving the past. Imagine if those who raised you, your peers and others who taught you to fear God and Jesus, those who taught you to have a horrendous outlook on life, those who taught you that pain and anger were natural emotions, imagine if they simply read to you from a fairy tale they themselves were taught from. From a fairy tale, they themselves were taught was true. Would you judge these people for what they taught you and made you believe, or would you look now into your heart and see that they did the best they could with the tools they had at the time. My dear friend, would you laugh, criticize and blame your child for believing there are monsters under his bed and in his closet or would you simply and lovingly turn the light on and let him see for himself that there are no such things?
 
7) Start letting go of the past and focus more on experiencing the moment. Just as in meditation, thoughts of the past come in, taking you away from where you desire to be. So, too, does the past take you from living the life you now desire. If in the moment you react with judgment, anger, pain and stress, then know you are bringing past learned behaviors to deal with the present moment. You are bringing your past into the present and are thus creating a future like your past. For all that truly exists in the moment is love, and the possibility to be loving through forgiveness and understanding. For one of the greatest gifts our Creator has given us is free will, the power to choose how we will act and react to anyone at anytime. Let the past go, for where has it taken you? Learn and understand the power of the present moment, of your free will, for it is not what someone does that affects you, but how you choose to react to what someone does.
 
8) Letting go of judgment. When in your daily experience, instead of judging someone or blaming your past for how you react and feel, you simply forgive and pray for them, you will be unconsciously teaching yourself that you too are worthy of forgiveness, that you too are worthy of love and being connected to the Life-Force, the Creator. My friend, listen carefully, for I have experienced this on many occasions: you will be lifted as high as you believe you deserve to go. No one, and I mean this in the most literal sense, no one will stop your connection to the Creator other than yourself, other than your own self doubt, other than your belief that you are not worthy of His forgiveness and love. Know that you are worthy. Know that you are worth forgiveness in regard to any of your past errors. Know that you are completely loved by the One who created all of us.
 
9) Understand everyone’s connectedness. You are connected to your Source. Your brother and sister are connected to their source. Your source and theirs are one; therefore you are connected to your brother and sister. If during your day, you judge a brother or sister then you judge yourself and unconsciously bring that judgment, that energy, into your meditation. If you judge a brother or sister, regardless if you believe you have every right to do so, you will end up carrying this judgment with you. You might not know that you are carrying this judgment with you, but it does color everything else you see and do throughout your day. You jail these energies within you; these energies hold you down, imprison you in the physical. On the other hand, if you forgive your brother and sister, unconsciously you let them go. You no longer carry judgment with you and thus release yourself from these energies, freeing you to move into a higher plane.
 
10) Release the ego of its power over you. When you say, “I want to get silent, go into the stillness, experience the peace I crave, but my mind, due to the controlling ego, makes it very difficult.” The only control the ego has over you is the control you allow it to have. The ego is not some master puppeteer pulling your strings. The ego is simply a limited belief system within the mind, and the less power you charge it with, the less powerful it will be.
 
My dear friend, frustration results from a lack of trust in God / Creator / Life-Force’s plan. Treat your fellow brother and sister as your heart and soul tell you. Forgive and love everyone, even and especially those who do not forgive and love you, and then allow the chips to fall where they may. Understand who walks not only with you but in you, and trust that you’re headed in the right direction at the right time. My dear friend, if in any one thing or moment in your life you would completely trust the Creator with it, then frustration would be impossible. Yet the ego convinces you over and over again that frustration is a saner solution than trust. My friend, the ego’s solutions only sound sane to an insane world. Just once in your life, once honestly with your whole heart and soul, when you are feeling stressed or frustrated, choose not to accept the ego’s insane solution. Simply stop and tell yourself, “I have had enough of suffering. I have had enough of stress. I have had enough of frustration. I now choose to trust my Creator and His plan for my life. Dear Creator, I have done all I could, I now leave it in your loving hands.” My dear friend, this one statement would completely and utterly break all chains that the ego uses to enslave you to its world.
 

Note: 

To read more about our forgiveness, you may want to read Chapter Seven Overview: Freedom Through Forgiveness.

To read more about our trusting God, you may want to read Chapter Six Overview: Trusting God.
 

View larger images of front & back cover 
of the great spiritual / self development book You Have Chosen to Remember: A Journey from Perception to Knowledge, Peace of Mind and Joy by James Blanchard Cisneros.