One more point here. If you attend so well to the thought you are
focusing on that it literally becomes an experience, then the end product of
that is an emotion. Once that emotion is created, you begin to feel like your
new ideal, and that new feeling will start to become familiar. Remember
that when your body begins to respond as if the experience is already a
present reality, you will signal your genes in new ways ... and your body
will commence to change now, ahead of the physical event in your life.
Now you are ahead of time, and most important, you move into a state of
being—mind and body working together. And if you repeat this process
consistently, this state of being will become familiar to you as well.
If you can maintain that modified state of mind and body, independent of
the external environment and the body’s emotional needs and greater than
time, something should show up differently in your world. That’s the
quantum law.
Let’s summarize here. According to our working model of meditation, all
you have to do is remind yourself who you no longer want to “be” until this
becomes so familiar that you know your old self—the thoughts, behaviors,
and emotions connected to the old you that you want to change—to the
extent that you “unfire” and “unwire” the old mind away and no longer
signal the same genes in the same ways. Then, you repeatedly contemplate
who you do want to “be.” As a result, you will fire and wire new levels of
mind, to which you will emotionally condition the body until they become
familiar and second nature to you. That’s change.
A Second Definition of Meditation:
Cultivating Self
Besides its meaning in Tibetan, to meditate in Sanskrit means “to
cultivate self.” I especially like this definition because of the metaphorical
possibilities it offers—for example, gardening or agriculture. When you
cultivate the soil, you take the packed-down earth that has been lying fallow
for a while and you churn it up with a spade or other implement. You
expose “new” dirt and nutrients, making it easier for seeds to germinate and
for tender shoots to take root. Cultivation may also require you to remove