Going Within by Shirley Maclaine

were real to me because I wanted them to be real. I perceived them as real. It was my choice, my power to hold such a reality. I went with it even further. I decided to make the balls of light blue—a brilliant royal blue. I had read that blue was a healing color. Not only did the balls of light become royal blue, but they seemed to be speaking to me as though grateful to be recognized at last! The blue lights melted into my knees. It was as though Iwas listening to the internal language of color and light, which had a meaning all its own. Yet, I was listening to something I had created. Or had I? Had it always been there inside me, waiting to be recognized as a healing device had I only been conscious of it?
    I answered my own question: I had created everything myself. I had created the pain. And I had created the healing. I was in control of it all. The pain and the healing were inventions of mine. On some level I didn’t understand yet, my knees felt healed. So did my back. I had read about people using visualizations in hospitals (with the aid of doctors) to help heal cancer, tumors, and so on. One boy had apparently healed a hole in his heart by visualizing golden threads sewing it shut. Using some unseen talent and understanding from some other dimensional truth, I had used my own unrecognized power to heal my tired, tense body. If I had created the pain and the healing in my body, was I also creating the pain and the healing in every area of my life? And was that light inside me a tool with which I could create my reality to be whatever I desired?
    This, then, was a spiritual technology worthy of examination. This was a new Soul Physics. And how did it happen?
    Simply by going within.

4
    Meditate and Ye Shall Find

Prayer is speaking to God.
Meditation is listening to God.
Trust tranquility.
     

S o my first tool, or exercise, in my self-exploration became meditation.
    The first time my journalist friends and eloquently cynical acquaintances learned that I was “into” meditation, they looked at me blankly and murmured a few vague responses—“Oh.” “Really?” “Uh-huh.”—and quickly changed the subject. A few said, “Oh, great!” and then we were off to what might be a fruitful discussion. The ones I really liked looked me in the eye and said, “Shirl, what the hell is meditation? I mean, what do you do when you meditate?”
    So first, exactly what is it? Put in its simplest terms, for me meditation is the process of relaxing my body and mind so that I can quietly go within myself.
    For this to happen, I need to be in a quiet place (at least at first; in the beginning I could rarely meditate in, say, a crowded airline terminal). Meditativetechniques vary, but quiet, concentration, and comfort are three keys to settling body and mind.
    What does it do? Meditation, or “calm centeredness,” allows the mind to recognize other aspects of its identity. Suppression of the mind is not the object of meditation. Instead, the object is to still and calm the personality in order to allow the mind to freely explore the perimeter of its own consciousness.
    What do I do in meditation? First, the position in which I meditate is extremely important to me. You should find your own posture, one that creates the fewest pressure points on your body. Meditating in the lotus position as the Buddhist monks do is not important in the beginning. A painful position is disruptive to meditation and contradicts its purpose. On the other hand, a position that is too relaxed will only induce sleep. “The middle way,” as the Buddhists say, is what is appropriate, which is “the way free of rigidity and tension but also absent of self-indulgence.” So sitting in a chair is fine.
    The aim of meditation is to stay alert but relaxed. Sitting upright with my back resting against something is what works best for me. This position gives me a “centered” freedom of energy in the spinal column and allows even, gentle, rhythmic