Prayer & Meditation the Easy Way

In its simplest form Prayer is speaking with God/Spirit/Universe and Meditation is listening to God/Spirit/Universe. The Universe works on the principle that you ASK and it is GIVEN. So prayer is a time for asking, whether for yourself or for others. It is also a time for praise & thanksgiving, which is also called appreciation & gratitude. Here you are giving thanks and/or marveling at the wonder of your fabulous life. It is energy directed out of you. You can speak your prayers aloud or silently in your mind. It doesn't matter to the God/Spirit/Universe.

Meditation is the listening part. You see, G/S/U speaks to us through intuition. We need to have good inner listening, which gets clearer when you meditate. Now, listening is a relatively passive activity and is not embraced nor encouraged by your ego/conscious mind. So the goal is to quiet your mind and get it to go away. You want to empty your mind of thoughts. This is energy directed in you. When your mind is empty, that is when God/Spirit/Universe can speak to you.

So that's the bare bones of the two. Both expand as your practice them. But here are some suggestions for success in each:

Prayer: Keep a prayer journal. This helps you to see what has come to pass that you have prayed for. If you wrote a list of the 5 favorite things in your life right now, you'd realize they were all prayers of yours, not so long ago. Therefore you know prayers are answered. So will be the ones you are praying now.

Meditation: Set yourself up for success by turning off the TV and the phone first. Find a very comfortable spot and set an alarm that beeps to let you know you are finished. Then try this simple method here: Easy Meditation

Forgiveness and Release

I am continually amazed at the power of forgiveness. On all levels it can improve our lives. Because we humans tend to take things personally and get offended at every little thing. Most of what anyone else is doing is about THEM, rarely, if ever, about us. (See Don Miguel Ruiz's book The Four Agreements for the full story on this)

Some time ago, I was picking up my son from my mother's best friend, when she began to tell me the litany of grievances she & her husband held against their neighbor. This neighbor had called the police on them for parking their car in the street in front of his house, had called them the most heinous of names (crazy) and she could not sleep at night for worrying about what he might do next.

Knowing her strong Catholic faith, I said to her: "Well, you know what you have to do, right?"

Befuddled, she replied: "No, what?"

"Pray for him. Grant him forgiveness."

She looked aghast.

"And do it every night for two weeks, I continued. "And when you pray, pray for him to have every good thing that you hope for yourself. Love, good health, wealth, etc..."

Without skipping a beat, (to her credit) she proclaimed, "I'll do it!"

One day shy of the 2 week mark, I stopped by her house to pick up some pictures. She couldn't wait to tell me that, not only had the neighbor approached her to let her know, "he's all over that now," but has also offered to plant a dogwood tree for her where another had died just so that "she could enjoy looking at it."

It goes to show: when you shine your light, others can't help but to be enlightened by it. But forgiveness is not for the other person anyway. It's for YOU. When my friend released her resentments, judgments and bad feelings about her neighbor, the problems disappeared. And this can happen for any grievance you may have - old or new.

Praying for their happiness is one technique to bring about the release needed to unblock yourself. Another is the stage technique. I have recorded it in an 4 minute audio for you to listen to and follow along. It is guaranteed to help you with your stickiest forgiveness issue. (You know, that #&!* person you just don't want to forgive!) Click here to download: Forgiveness Technique