THE INWARD SMILE MEDITATION

If you can learn to smile at yourself you can bask in a warm, harmonizing energy that will penetrate your whole being and permeate your entire energy-system.

How can you learn to smile at yourself?

By developing an inward smile. Try this simple exercise that, if performed regularly, can literally transform your attitude to life.

Sit comfortably with the back erect and the feet firmly in contact with the floor. Close your eyes to screen out any external distractions. Relax the mouth and allow it to form into a smile. Now you are going to turn that smile inward, and into yourself �?into your Hidden Self.

Direct that smile into your eyes. It is not a matter of attempting to create a visual image of the eyes in your mind, but rather of moving your awareness into your eyes. So put your attention into your eyes, and imagine that smile shining out to absorb everything in its harmonizing energy. Then switch your attention to your face and jaws. Imagine the warm glow of your smile smoothing out any wrinkles in your face and releasing the tension in your jaws. Then move your awareness to the throat and neck, and concentrate your smile on that part of your body.

Next, turn your attention to your chest and lungs and smile on them, too. Then let your heart bask in your smile, and with every heart-beat feel it pumping Love-energy to every cell in your being.

Move your attention then to the abdomen. Smile on your liver and smile on your kidneys. Now to the base of the spine; move your attention slowly up the spine and into the head, smiling as you go.

Finally, move down to the navel, where a central control centre is located just beneath the surface. It is the point from which you were first knitted together as a human being. It is the point at which you are connected with the Cosmic Web, and with everything else in existence. So smile into your navel.

Your whole being should now feel aglow. You have a pleasant sensation of well-being –not only of being healthy, but that all is well with the world. That is the transforming power of the inward smile!

Open your eyes, but retain that smile.

Practice this inward smile first thing in the morning and last thing at night.

Perform it several times during the day.

It can be done almost anywhere—on a bus or train, in the car on the way to and from work, and during meal breaks and quiet times.

Best of all, perform it before facing any problematical, difficult or traumatic situation. Your Hidden Self will respond positively.