INTRODUCTION

Over the years, I used dozens of meditation guides. Most had one thing in common: their authors wrote in a way to try to inspire me and to "pump me up" for the day. They often produced that result very effectively, but in my case the effect was too-often gone by the time I reached my first traffic jam on the way to work.

Eventually, I met my Teacher who gave me a new objective in my daily meditation time: rather than trying to become pumped up temporarily, I was challenged to "consider" and to "contemplate" certain key lessons in order to bring about an unwavering and permanent shift in consciousness.

I wrote in The Twice-Stolen Necklace Murders that "Meditation is properly used to take an assignment into contemplation, into true, focused consideration. Once the falseness of all conditioning and belief and dogma is revealed, and once the True Self is then known, the gotta-work-at-resting trap can end." (p. 261, The Twice-Stolen Necklace Murders)

That passage simply describes my personal experience and is not offered necessarily as a goal to strive for. Secondly, I had to do meditative work for years before the clarity came. Why? Because it was years before I found my Teacher. He gave me the daily assignments to consider that finally led to true freedom. Others need not wait that long. If one uses both volumes of "Daily Meditations from The Twice-Stolen Necklace Murders," you will have spent 365 days in contemplation, in true, focused consideration. You will not possibly be the same at the end of the period, and the difference you experience will be a new level of freedom and a silencing of the chatter that occupies the thought-life of so many. As explained, the items are numbered rather than assigned dates in order for new readers to begin at any time of the year, so I suggest beginning with Volume One since a progression occurs as the entries follow a flow. The progression builds on all of the prior readings and revelations; thus, the recommendation to begin with Volume One and then use Volume Two.

I also wrote, "Eventually, you can remain in the silence, even in a crowd. Even in a crowd, you can be in the quiet, at perfect peace, and you can sense being in the Aloneness, the All-Oneness. Even with thousands around, even with thousands screaming. Then, in that state, what is to meditate? What is to seek? You suddenly understand that each being is a Creator, if manifest; you understand the meaning of 'ye are gods'; you understand Who You Are. You understand that there is nothing that constitutes a 'way,' there's nothing more to understand, there's nothing to do, there's nothing to concern yourself with, there's nothing to dread about what remains 'after' the manifestation ends." (p. 261, The Twice-Stolen Necklace Murders)

This guide, therefore, will differ from the "pump you up" guides of the style that I used in the past. If you have a guide of that type and find it useful or enjoyable, you might consider using this guide in combination with that one. This guide, however, will offer to you a series of considerations that have allowed many people to bring to light the knowledge of Who They Really Are; likewise, it can give you the Understanding of Who You Really Are. Daily fluctuations in temperament can be replaced with a permanent shift to a stable attitude. The high of being pumped up, followed by frustration if that high does not last all day, can be replaced with a new vision of Reality that can render powerless the things that often bind us. The up's and down's can be replaced with a steady and constructive evenness if one completes all of the exercises and thereby attains the maximum benefit that will come from a guide that can lead one along a journey through Self-Inquiry and into Self-Knowledge.

May the positive changes begin for you now.