Toward a Deeper Meditation. John Van Auken

is needed today, now, for your greater, your better, your more wonderful unfoldment. This is that attitude of mind that puts away hate, malice, anxiety, and jealousy. And it creates in their stead the fruits of the spirit: love, patience, mercy, longsuffering, kindness, gentleness. Against these there is no law. They break down barriers; they bring peace and harmony; they bring the outlook upon life of not finding fault because someone ‘forgot,’ someone’s judgment was bad, someone was selfish today. These you can overlook, for so did He.” (357-13)

      Such a state of attitude, of mind, toward life sets up a powerful map for navigating oneself through the day’s challenges and opportunities. This is an ideal, a navigational star by which to guide one each day. With this ideal, the mind approaches every obstacle, every crosscurrent, every undertow, and wends its way through them by holding to the ideal. This is the power of an ideal. Yet, as we grow and learn, we may see the need to adjust our ideal. Cayce encouraged us to write our ideals down, but to do so in pencil. As we gain a greater understanding, we gain an increasingly better perspective and we adjust our ideal accordingly.

       Thoughts Are Deeds

      Another fundamental Cayce teaching is this: “Thoughts are deeds, and as their currents run they become miracles or crimes in the experiences of individual life.” (281-3) For the deeply attuned Cayce, thoughts were as real as actions. Our thoughts are recorded on the Akashic Record. Remember, Cayce had to strain to determine whether the person he was reading for had actually done something or had just thought about doing it! “Thoughts are things; just as the Mind is as concrete as a post or tree.” (1581-1) The first time I read this, it pained me to think how many times my thoughts had done harm to another and placed a negative influence in the Collective Mind. Watching our thoughts is important.

       Watch Self Pass By

      Cayce was once asked: “How may I learn to know self as I am known?” He answered: “Being able to literally stand aside and watch self pass by! Take the time to occasionally be sufficiently introspective of that, that may happen in self’s relation to others, to see the reactions of others as to that as was done by self; for no man lives to himself, no man dies to himself … Being able, then, to see self as others see you … Stand aside and watch self pass by!” (262-9) This is a powerful learning tool.

      For Cayce, this was not just good mental advice, it was good physical advice: “If the body will watch self and the reactions of the various foods or preparations, and draw a comparison from what may be termed a combination of all the various authorities, then the body will find what is best for self. See?” (278-2) Want to know the best diet for yourself? Watch how the various foods and cooking methods affect you. This will be better advice than anyone else can give you, because your own body reveals it.

       The Subliminal Mind

      Dreams and meditations are two of Cayce’s most recommended means for fully engaging the power of the mind. According to Cayce, our subliminal mind will engage with our outer mind to review and discuss all influences: “In this there is seen both the action of the subconscious and subliminal mind and the physical mind, reasoning together, as it were, of the past, present, and future conditions as relating to the mental attitude of the entity; for, as is seen in the final analysis of the real Mind, the Builder, and as this is presented in the view of the dreams, the meditations of the entity in those days when the inner consciousness of the entity builded in the mental forces those conditions as would bring the great joy, peace, and happiness to the entity, these, as we see, took on physical forms in the mental aspirations of the entity.” (900-205)

      As we seek within ourselves through dreams, meditations, and deep reflections, our subliminal mind will convey the insights.

       Subconscious: The Police

      The only real guide that may be relied upon is that subconscious force that is as the police to the entity, both in the physical, material, and in the spiritual planes. And, as this [the subconscious] will guide and direct the entity, in that same way and manner as the police in their regular capacity … in the physical life. [What a fascinating concept. Our subconscious is our conscience, our policing power.] That is, the police, the subconscious mind, represent the law that guides, directs, and that way upon which the entity, which any entity, may rely for the enforcement of that which will keep in peace, in war, in any condition, that straight way for the best interest of each and every individual.

      900-243

      However, even as physical police departments can become corrupt, so can our subconscious police become misdirected by powerful suggestions of self-doubt, self-condemnation. “In the same way and manner as these (the police) may become subject to all of the vicissitudes that are ever present within the conditions in life, so may the subconscious forces, mis-directed, mis-guided, or seeking to belittle the self … through its experience in the earth’s plane.” (900-243) The only way to protect against this misdirection is to hold to a higher ideal that lifts us beyond our self-doubt, self-condemnation. God does not condemn us; God has erected no barrier. Self is the only obstacle to full enlightenment and reunion.

       Levels of Consciousness

      Cayce identifies three levels of consciousness, or dimensions, of mind: conscious, subconscious, and superconscious.

      Conscious mind is the level that we are most familiar with. It is the level within which our personality and three-dimensional self develops and has much of its activity.

      The subconscious is that part of our minds that bridges the outer self with the spiritual self. According to Cayce, the subconscious is both in the body, through the autonomic system, and beyond the body, in the soul realms of telepathy, non-physical life, and timelessness. This mind is the mind of the soul. As the mind of our outer self is the conscious mind and that portion containing our personality, so the subconscious mind contains our developing “individuality,” which Cayce identifies as our true self.

      The superconscious level is the portion made in the image of the Creator, as recorded in Genesis. It is that portion of us that is a god, or godling, as the ancient Egyptians termed it. Cayce explained that the superconscious is a thing apart from anything earthly and only makes its presence known or is knowable when the soul-self lifts itself and portions of the conscious mind up into the vast, expansive level that is the superconscious. This is the portion of our being that Cayce referred to when he said, “Not only God is God, but self is a part of that oneness.”

      To know the superconscious, Cayce says that one must learn to achieve deep levels of meditation. And if a dream feels more like a vision than a dream, then it most likely originated from this highest level of consciousness.

      At death, the conscious mind is gradually absorbed into the subconscious (the mind of the surviving soul), and the subconscious becomes the operative mind, with the superconscious now in the position the subconscious held while incarnate. Later, upon reincarnation, the subconscious projects another portion of itself into the newly developing outer, three-dimensional mind. Intuitions, “knowings,” and psychic perceptions come from the projected subconscious. Cayce explains that not the entire subconscious is projected; some of it remains in very high levels of perception and activity. But the portion that is in the body maintains the autonomic systems of the body (respiration, circulation, digestion, etc.) and the seven spiritual centers, or chakras, which correspond with the seven endocrine glands.

      Mind is our true nature. It is that portion of ourselves that lives forever. What would it be like to live our lives as minds in bodies, rather than bodies with minds? Surprisingly, Cayce considered the mind to be a savior, a redeemer. It is that portion of our being that can mend and restore us. Let’s engage our minds and fully awaken to our spiritual selves.

       6

       Matter, Mind, and Spirit

      Were there really ancient gods that mingled with humans as the myths of