Three Minutes a Day is one of the best meditation books to come along in years. Author Richard Dixey has written a real how-to manual for anyone who wants to start meditating. Not only that, he outlines in clear, simple terms how the reader can gain all the wisdom and benefits of a meditative practice with just a few minutes daily investment of time. Repeat that three minutes every day for several weeks, and before you know it you are a meditator, capable of achieving clarity, growth, and insight.

Spiritual symbols are images of hidden spiritual processes, conditions and forces that relate to spiritual beings such as elementary beings, hierarchies of angels or even the being of Christ. When we connect with these symbols through meditation, we effectively open ourselves and merge with those spiritual forces associated with these spiritual beings.

Using magical symbols for the achievement of goals and success is not only empowering but also fraught with risks. It should therefore be practiced with caution. A magical mastery of life needs to go hand in hand with mastery over oneself as well, including personal moral development. Exerting power without enlightened moral development can easily lead to an abyss of abuse and destruction. However, these risks should not hold us back from seeking to master ourselves and life, in close connection with those spirits that serve the ascendance of humanity.

I have been meditating for over twenty years now and find it an essential part of my life. Many have written about the substantial physical and emotional benefits, and while I’ve certainly found that to be the case, too, I’ve also noticed that there is a component of releasing “cellular memories” that is rarely addressed. People shy away from phenomena that are not so easily explained, but whether you call it “cellular memories,” “past lives,” or releasing “old patterns,” I have found that there is something extraordinary happening that also brings welcome relief to the body and the spirit.

At the end of a period of meditation, I slowly opened my eyes and saw my friend Everett, who had passed away three years earlier, standing in front of me.  Everett seemed so present – so alive – in that moment, and his vital presence remained as I came into full consciousness. Realizing what I was seeing, I was overcome by a whole range of emotions, the most intense of these being feelings of love and joy at being once again in the presence of my beloved friend.

Mindfulness meditation has been described in many ways in recent years, but I still find that one of the definitions by Jon Kabat-Zinn, the founder of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, is very helpful. He says that mindfulness is “paying attention on purpose in the present moment, non-judgmentally. He added in an interview on YouTube…“as if your life depended on it.”

You’ve probably heard of Dr. Andrew Newberg’s work on meditation, even if you didn’t realize it — he’s the scientist who did the ground breaking studies of Tibetan monks meditating that showed how dramatically it changed the brain . He went on to study nuns praying and Sikhs chanting and found similar brain states as those of meditation. His ground breaking work led to the development of a new field of science called “neurotheology,” which studies the relationship between the brain and religious experience.

Two potent inducers of stress are (1) uncertainty about the future and (2) a world that does not comport with our wants and needs. The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic brings both conditions and rampant, world-wide stress. Stress causes increases in adrenaline and cortisol in our bodies, increasing our heart rate, blood pressure, and blood sugar. Acute stress may be adaptive, enabling us, for example, to escape a predator by focusing our attention and directing blood flow to our muscles so we can run faster. When stress lasts for days, weeks, and even months, however, it is maladaptive.

There’s increased evidence showing that practices such as qi gong, meditation and yoga can not only prevent disease, but actually reverse it and delay aging as well. As scientists learn more about such topics as gene expression, what turns a gene on or off, and how to prevent telomeres, (the strands of protein in our cells that control aging) from unraveling, it becomes impossible to ignore just how much our good lifestyle choices can pay off.