Spiritual Practices

Peace

Spiritual Practice: Anytime you feel peace, whether in meditation or outside of meditation, dwell on it and enjoy it. Peace is a manifestation of God and an attribute of the soul. Feel your oneness with it. Realize the significance of that feeling, knowing that you're feeling the presence of God. If you've felt it many times before, don't take it for granted and don't belittle it. You're experiencing God to a greater or lesser degree. Expand it by concentrating on it and enjoying it.

Spiritual Practice: During meditation, repeat “I am peace" over and over. Throughout the day spend a minute or two every now and then repeating it mentally with closed eyes, “I am peace." Let yourself feel that peace. Hold onto it as you perform your daily duties. You will be more concentrated and open the way for greater joy and love in your life.

Spiritual Practice: Physical relaxation is conducive to mental relaxation, and they're both conducive to the experience of peace. Practice yoga postures and finish with savasana, the corpse pose, enjoying the peace that comes from that. Or lie down and tense the entire body as you inhale deeply, then exhale and relax quickly. Repeat several times. Then lie there for as long as you like, enjoying the peace. Be sure to keep your eyes lifted, without straining, to the point between the eyebrows. It will not only keep you awake, but also help you go deeper into the peace.

Spiritual Practice: Do some deep breathing and tensing and relaxing when you’re feeling stressed. Sit quietly and breathe in for a certain count, whatever is comfortable for you, hold your breath for that same count, and exhale to that count. Concentrate on the breath and the counting to take your mind off whatever might be stressing you. Practice at least six times. This will calm the breath and heartbeat, which in turn calms the mind.

Then breathe in and tense the entire body simultaneously from the neck down. Exhale and relax the entire body. The tensing and relaxing removes tensions in the body resulting from stress, and also energizes and calms the body and mind.

Spiritual Practice: A concentrated mind is conducive to the feeling of peace. Revolve the mind around a spiritual thought, an affirmation, or a short prayer, or simply the word “peace," repeating it mentally over and over. Concentration on one thought helps create peace. When the thought is about peace, that is an added help.

Spiritual Practice: Analyze what you're feeling when you're in a hurry. You'll probably find that it's fear. If you're always in a hurry, you're always in a state of fear. Strive to replace the hurry-fear consciousness with a peaceful, concentrated state of mind, even while acting quickly and efficiently. And plan your day so you don't have to hurry.

Spiritual Practice: To increase your peace and reduce stress, try to plan your day so you don’t have to rush. Get up earlier so you can spend a little more time meditating, eat slower and enjoy your meal, leave for work earlier and be more relaxed during your commute. Starting the day off with peace will have a beneficial effect on the rest of the day.

Spiritual practice: To feel more peace in your life, try to remove the clutter from your living space. Your physical environment has an effect on your consciousness. The less cluttered it is, the more relaxed and calm your mind will be. The calmer your mind, the less cluttered it will be.

Spiritual practice: Practice the actions presented in David Allen's Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. One simple action that he recommends is to write down everything you need to do or might want to do. Place these to-dos in lists according to where you will perform the action: at home, at the office, on errands, etc. Include a someday/maybe category for all the things that aren't pressing but that you might want to do someday. This process of downloading all your to-dos greatly frees the mind from thinking about things at odd times simply because you fear you might forget to do them. This freedom from worry keeps your mind calmer. Write down the to-dos as they occur to you and review them once a week. Your mind will become convinced that it no longer has to keep reminding you of all the things you have to do. This process will help you feel more peaceful, concentrated, and in control of all the things you have to get done.

Spiritual practice: To help yourself feel less overwhelmed and more peaceful, practice a simple action David Allen recommends in his book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. Ask yourself, "What's the next action?" You might have the tendency to write "Work on such-and-such project" on your to-do list. When you read that, you could easily feel overwhelmed, particularly if it's a large project. Instead, write down the next action that needs to be done to move the project forward. It might be as simple as a 10-minute phone call or a simple email. When we break down projects and subprojects into next actions, they become more manageable and less overwhelming. Please note: Analyze what you think is a next action. At first it might appear to be a simple action, but if it requires more than one action to complete it, break it down further into single-step actions.

Spiritual Practice: Get out in nature, preferably a place where few people go, and walk slowly in silence, really being aware of the beauty and peace of your surroundings. Find a place to sit and meditate, and spend some time feeling that peace. You can have a deep experience of peace doing this.

Spiritual practice: Think of a time when you felt calm and peaceful. It could be years ago or recent. It could be an experience when you were alone in nature or in a quiet setting or lying in bed after waking up. Once you've chosen this occurrence, you can experience it again through imagination. Sit quietly with muscles relaxed and eyes closed. Imagine yourself in this setting. Visualize the scene. If you remember any other sensory experiences during this event, imagine them as well. For example, a breeze, a smell, the warmth of the sun. Relive the experience as vividly as you can. Feel the peace. Go deeper into that peace. Enjoy it for as long as you can. Let the memory of that time be a way to access the peace you have within you, that peace which is part of your true nature.