Tag Archives: journaling

Formulating Questions for Journaling

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By George A. Boyd ©2021

Q: I seem to get the same material when I am journaling and inquiring—asking questions to my Higher Self? I keep exploring these same issues, like I am continually re-hashing the same stuff.

A: It depends on what question you ask. Different questions evoke discrete responses from the Subconscious and the Subconscious mind. For example, if you ask:

How do you feel? You’ll dredge up the emotional issues you have been dealing with in your life. [This question is often used as a segue into psychotherapy—it focuses you on your poignant emotional issues and concerns.]

What do you really want? You’ll tap the core of your desires that motivate you. [This is a good one to use if you are experiencing boredom and ennui with key areas in your life—your relationship, the people in your social network, your classes in school, your career, or your spiritual or religious organization.]

What fears hold you back? You’ll examine the obstacles fear puts up to block your success. [If you have not been moving forward on your dreams and aspirations because of fear, this is a beneficial question to ask.]

What doubts don’t allow you to move forward? You’ll look into how lack of belief in your Self, or a deficit of faith and hope influence your ability to achieve your dreams. [This helps you confront your inner critic and begin to dismantle it.]

What are your core fears? You’ll probe into the root of your egoic complex that clings to survival and runs away from danger and death. [You’ll want to use this one when you seek to make a spiritual breakthrough, to leap across the great chasm and allow your spiritual life to be awakened in you.]

What action can you take to move forward? You’ll employ this question to identify steps you can take that will free you from inertia and feeling stuck. [This is helpful when you are dealing with procrastination and feelings of not knowing what to do to create movement.]

What’s the next step? You’ll make use of this one when you want to know where you are going in your life in a particular area. It lays out a step-by-step plan for you to reach the goal or purpose for this area of your life. [Those of you who are unaware of the purpose for engaging in a particular endeavor will find this sheds light on your what to do next to actualize that aspect of your nature. We use a structured exercise to gather this guidance from your Higher Self in our intermediate meditation classes.]

What do You require of me, Oh Lord? You’ll utilize this question when you want to know the Divine Will for your life. [We discuss the elements of what the Divine Will is in our article, “The personal octave of the Divine Will,” which is in our Library, and also in our book, A Mudrashram® Reader: Understanding Integral Meditation.]

How may I serve? This reveals your Soul’s gifts that it can express in you, the wisdom and intuitive knowledge that it wishes to share, and the love and compassion that it feels that it wants to do bring out. [This frees the deeper life within you to express in your life.]

How do I make progress on the Path? This clarifies what are your next steps spiritually. [We assist aspirants to answer this question with our Soul Purpose Reading, which reveals the highlights of the Path ahead.]

What is my purpose? This requests your Soul to reveal the facets of its Purpose that it is implementing in your life. [You begin this inquiry when you have established a partnership with your Soul to enable it to express in your life.]

How do I fulfill my dreams [or overcome this challenge to reaching my dreams]? This question guides you to the steps to achieve actualization—making your dreams come true. [You would bring out this question when you are already clear about your personal zone of operation and your Soul’s zone of expression, and you seek to chart a course to personal fulfillment.]

Alternate Ways of Finding Answers to Your Questions

When asking questions does not yield fruitful or actionable responses, here are some alternatives you can use:

Practicing the Presence – In this method, you place your attention into the inner presence within you that declares, “I am God.” You listen for any guidance that it may give you. You would adopt this method if you do not know what question to ask to overcome an obstacle or move forward in your life.

The feet of the Master – In this approach, you sit at the feet of your inner spiritual Guide, and listen to what he or she tells you. You would draw upon this method when you cannot get constructive, actionable material during your dialogs with your Soul or in responses to your prayers.

The Light upon the altar – In this technique, you contemplate the Light of the Holy Spirit anchored in your Moon Soul, or the Shakti that broods upon your cosmic consciousness. This alternative comes into play when you cannot contact the Guide within, or your attempts to get guidance from the Soul or in response to prayer is not fruitful.

Journaling Specific Areas in Your Life

You also can journal to look into your goals for each of the areas of your life. Areas you can explore in your process include:

  • Your health
  • Your home and environment
  • Your emotional issues
  • Your relationships
  • Your education
  • Your career
  • Your finances
  • Your creativity
  • Your moral values
  • Your engagement with your community
  • Your learning about other cultures and travel
  • Your recovery from addiction or trauma
  • Your quest for meaning and understanding
  • Your spiritual journey
  • Your personal dreams for your life

Journaling is like a crowbar that pries open the inner depths of the mind. It lets you uncover your truths. We encourage you to journal with the appropriate questions upon relevant topics to reap the full benefits of this practice.

Our meditation students who are taking or have completed one of our intermediate classes, the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation or the by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program, are eligible to obtain The Mudrashram® Home Study Workbook, which gives you the information and resources to prepare a personal and spiritual journal. We recommend that you obtain this book, if you gravitate to doing a journal as a way of gaining insight and clarifying what decisions to make.

The Gentle Art of Concretizing the Soul’s Insights

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By George A. Boyd © 2011

For some meditators, when they contact the Soul through dialog and receptive meditation, the Soul sits silently like a sphinx—knowing, in its impenetrable mystery, the secrets of the Ages, but not revealing them. This occurs because the Soul has not activated the intuitional stream, which manifests through the thalamic center; and the octave of speech that communicates the Soul’s insights (satsang), which operates through the throat center.

Once the Soul begins to communicate, meditators often find that the Soul’s profound insights are highly abstract and vague, like cotton candy. To spin down this cognitive fuzziness into something that is concrete and useable, there are several steps that you can take.

Step One – Use a Journal. Write down whatever your Soul tells you verbatim. Write down anything you saw in meditation; anything you heard in meditation.

Step Two – Drive the process of gathering information. Once you have some initial output from the Soul, drill down to greater clarity by asking it pointed questions that elaborate and clarify these abstract concepts.

For example, if the Soul says, “be more loving,” you might ask the Soul, “In what ways do you suggest I be more loving?” “Are you suggesting I change my behavior? If so in what ways?” “In what specific instances am I being not loving, and what might it look like for me to be more loving?”

Write down these more specific responses, if they are forthcoming.

Step Three – Expand upon these initial insights. Take the initial abstract concepts and use reflective meditation.

Use the little sun technique on vague concepts, to flesh them out. Extend any unclear extensions with mind mapping.

If the Soul points out to you a character weakness, e.g., “you are too lazy,” do the mandala method to explore this.

If the Soul uses the future tense regarding one of its fuzzy suggestions, such as “you will become wealthy,” use the stepping-stones method to discover the next steps to obtain wealth.

Step Four – Wax philosophical. Use philosophical and process-style inquiry to further elaborate these ideas, so that you examine (a) their meaning; (b) how these are expressed by different people, who might be an example of how it has been operationalized; (c) how you might implement the idea in your own life; (d) what might be the consequences of implementing this idea on your self, your family, your work, your community, and the world; (e) noting the pros and cons of carrying it out, (f) noticing your willingness and reticence towards carrying it out, and exploring the rationale for each position, and (g) notice if you feel ready to make a decision to act on it.

Step Five – Make a plan. Once you have decided to operationalize the Soul’s idea, you will break it into specific behavioral sequences. Set each behavioral sequence into a time frame; set a deadline for the accomplishment of each behavioral sequence. Develop some contingency or fallback plans in case things do not work out as you have planned for each behavioral sequence, and specify one or two alternate ways you might accomplish this objective.

Step Six – Check back in. Review the plan with your Soul, to see if (a) you have correctly captured the essence of its request, (b) whether you have its permission and support to carry out the plan at this time, [or if not at this time, when it is to commence] (c) whether there is anything else that you are not considering that you need to add to your plan, (d) what will be the marker that the plan has been accomplished successfully, (e) what will be the consequences for not succeeding in the plan, (f) asking for its blessings and empowerment to move the plan forward, and (g) asking it to give you the “go” signal.

Step Seven – Make It So. Once you have clarified and operationalized what you Soul wants, you have made a plan to operationalize it, you have checked in and gotten the go-ahead from the Soul, then act on it. Your action actualizes, or makes real, the abstract, ideal concept the Soul has given you.

If you will use this process of capturing and concretizing the information that your Soul gives you, you will be able to translate the abstract idea you have received from your Soul into (a) something you understand, and (b) something you can act on that has clear objectives. Your milling of the rough diamonds of your Soul’s insights into the finished jewels of knowledge and purpose-driven action will bring your Soul’s purpose into manifestation in your life.

We teach the Little Sun Method and mind mapping and the Stepping-Stones Method in our intermediate meditation programs, the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation and the by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program.

Those who have completed one of these programs can learn more about philosophical and process style inquiry in our book, The Fundamentals of Meditation. Also available to intermediate course completers is a complete program on developing a personal and spiritual journal called The Mudrashram® Home Study Workbook.