Free Your Mind: An African American Guide to Meditation and Freedom - Softcover

Rainey, Cortez R.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1492769207 ISBN 13: 9781492769200

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2015

Synopsis

Although more and more Americans are practicing meditation, it is still relatively rare among African Americans. In Free Your Mind, Cortez Rainey does something about this by speaking directly to African Americans about meditation.

Free Your Mind introduces meditation by using stories about the heroic men and women who journeyed from slavery to freedom on the Underground Railroad.

This easy to read guidebook explains how to use meditation principles and techniques at home, either alone or with family and friends, to free your mind from thoughts that keep you shackled and bound.

As you apply the principles and practice the techniques, the stories about Underground Railroad heroes and heroines—such as Harriet Tubman—will guide you and inspire you to overcome challenges you encounter while meditating, as well as the ones you encounter in everyday life.

Free Your Mind presents meditation as a path that African Americans can use to develop a mind that is free of limiting thoughts. As you journey, you will bring forth more of your “inherent goodness, genius, and potential.” Eventually, you’ll reach the “Promised Land.”

Free Your Mind is a Nautilus Book Award Winner, Next Generation Indie Book Award Finalist, and NAACP Image Award Nominee.

About this title

About the Author:

Cortez Rainey has practiced meditation for many years. He has degrees in history (Paine College) and city and regional planning (Morgan State University) with a concentration in community development. Currently he promotes meditation in the African American community.

Photo by Kwana Strong Photography

From Kirkus Reviews:

Rainey’s debut seeks to introduce meditation to African-American audiences by integrating the historic figures of the Underground Railroad into its teachings.

With meditation increasing in popularity as a method to conquer stress, anger, and discontentment, the author seems surprised that it hasn’t been more enthusiastically adopted by African-Americans, who continue to face the frustrations of racial prejudice each day. Rainey writes that he hopes to use meditation as a tool to battle these social inequities by focusing on the hardships, triumphs, and travels of Harriet Tubman, along with many other former slaves and abolitionists. Each chapter features an Underground Railroad station on the road to freedom in Canada, accompanied by a history lesson about the stop and guides for techniques for breathing and introspection that reflect these lessons. Rainey describes the techniques in meticulous detail, including black-and-white photographs to aid readers in posture and positioning; he even supplies more than 20 pages on basic yoga poses. The book helpfully bolsters the exercises by drawing parallels to the struggles of African-Americans in the antebellum period and by describing how they overcame discomfort, fear, and negative thinking to ease their minds, embrace charity, and promote community. This latter element is particularly important, as it encourages meditation practitioners to include their families, friends, and neighbors. The book’s remarkably expansive notes section and thorough index and bibliography provide a wealth of further reading about the Underground Railroad, Tubman, Frederick Douglass, and their compatriots. Though aimed principally at African-Americans, the text is highly approachable, and its combination of history and self-help is likely to attract readers of many races and backgrounds. Even experienced meditators will find new contexts and methods to diminish stress and pursue enlightenment.

A highly accessible, comprehensive resource for all meditative skill levels that may also attract a few history buffs.

About this edition

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1492769207
• ISBN 13: 9781492769200
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 478