In spiritual work, you want to first go for control – your mind, your emotions, your speech, your actions. This is the primary goal of religious discipline.

In today’s world, that discipline can take forms most suited to your lifestyle. In other words, you can live your life pretty much any way you want, as long as you do it with integrity and without harming anyone.

But control is the main concern. Why? Consider a slow-moving airplane, like a single-engine two-seater with a top speed of 150 mph. The wings are large, the tail rudder is prominent, the landing gear is fixed and hangs below the fuselage. Everything is designed for easy flying at low altitudes and at low speeds. But, if you were to strap jet engines to the wings of this plane, it wouldn’t even survive the acceleration of takeoff. Jet planes, on the other hand, have small wings and control surfaces. At speeds of hundreds or even thousands of mph, small moves get big results.

The same principle applies in spiritual work. Meditation and spiritual exercises can boost the energy in your body in subtle but powerful ways. Your thoughts will manifest quickly. So the rules are pretty specific: make your actions, your words, and your thoughts positive and uplifting.

Never ask God to hurt you, break you, or punish you. There will be plenty of that in the normal give and take of life. No need to force the issue.

Don’t give energy to any negative or “evil” psychic forces; they only have the power you give to them.

Those who talk a lot about karma like to see other people pay for their sins. They vicariously take pleasure in seeing people suffer. This is a completely manmade concept. God does not punish. Ever.

If you feel psychic energy pressing on you, it is in all likelihood simply a buildup of forces in your atmosphere due to the normal imbalances that can occur in daily life. These are similar to static electricity or pressure differentials of various kinds, like in water containers or air pressure tanks. When something is out of balance, you have to find a way to restore equilibrium. It’s better to do it consciously and deliberately than to have it happen by “accident.”

Whenever you feel an uncomfortable energy buildup, all you have to do is offer it up to God. Reach up in your mind and form a connection between you and the Cosmos. You will know when it works by the flow of energy you will feel. Alternatively, you can reach into the earth, or even literally touch the earth, or a tree, and direct the energy that way. Either method will “ground” you and dissipate the buildup.

Sometimes, these energies are more subtle, more to do with patterns in your thinking or something you’re doing repeatedly that’s causing the problem. This can require deliberate acts of restraint, or counter-actions on your part, patterns that are opposite to the ones you have fostered. In religious terms, such actions are called tapas or penance. Jesus referred to them as “prayer and fasting.”

But while the religious terms can evoke a certain sanctity, one should never forget the simple laws of nature (physics) that underlie these phenomena. It’s just energy.

While we want to receive guidance from God, it is we who must make the decisions. People who give themselves completely to subtle forces “telling” them what to do usually wind up in an institution. Instead, set the course YOU want to follow, and then be sensitive to God’s light hand on the tiller. The reason for this is that only the actions you initiate of your own freewill will add credit to your soul. It’s what we do willingly and consciously that counts. We don’t get to heaven by living our life as though it were a Ouija board.

There is a book that I think would be helpful for you to read. It’s called The Golden Force, and you can buy it on the Science of Man website. It talks about your personal atmosphere and how to work with it. This is indispensable knowledge you should acquire.