Book excerpt: What is meditation? Many people mistakenly understand it as an attempt to clear the mind and thereby transcend the intellect. It is not that. As Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh explains in this illuminating work, meditation is meant to refine our intellect to become a channel for Divine consciousness.In this work, the rabbi guides us through a meditation rooted in basic Judaic teachings, also useful to practitioners of other spiritual disciplines. The core meditative exercise presented here is examined at length through the prism of Kabbalistic thought. It focuses on positive thinking, Divine love, and negation of any negative influences.The exercise is both a meditation in itself and a platform for other meditations, and involves essentially imagining oneself in a six-sided "thought cube" which creates a protective, spiritual "sanctuary" around oneself. Within this sacred space one can safely open one's heart in prayer.Glossary and index included.