GETTING STARTED WITH MEDITATION
An untrained mind is a recipe for absolute disaster. I do not claim to be a meditation master, but I've been doing it seriously for a long time. And without it, I don't know that I would ever have healed.
I've utilized different styles that have helped me at various stages of personal evolution and I work with different methods today.
For your reality to be created with purpose, you must understand your mind.
When your mind is balanced and refined, it serves your soul.
"You are timeless, you are spaceless, you are nothing less. You are just my servant. Tell me how you can serve me. Intuitively show me through vision. If not, shut up. I don't need you. I can do it myself!" --Yogi Bhajan when speaking to his mind.
For me meditation is the gateway to experiencing God, flow, Source, transcendence, everything and nothing. It is the gateway to an awareness offering spiritual insight that is known only to those who know it. This awareness is freedom. It is liberation. It is self-realization.
Meditation is the process of controlling and transcending the waves of the mind, allowing the flow of radiance from the soul.
Meditation is for everyone; the novice and the sage.
BENEFITS OF MEDITATION:
Develops the neutral mind.
Takes us from a finite to an infinite perception of reality by connecting us to the clarity of the soul.
Promotes a sense of well-being, inner peace, stability and calm.
Develops intuition.
Releases reactions and unconscious habits, subconscious fears and blocks, and builds the spontaneous and intuitive link to awareness itself.
Encourages mastery over transforming emotion to devotion.
Promotes the ability to focus energy, enhancing effectiveness and efficiency.
Promotes clarity of mind, mental awareness and the ability to be present.
Resolves core issues of stress-producing patterns.
Develops the frontal lobe of the forehead, which controls your personality.
"Simran" is the continuous experience of the meditative mind. Simran is a continuous, meditative, longingly creative feeling in which life is experienced as spiritual flow.
Simran is the goal.
For those who wish to purify the mind and know the unknown, meditation is the key.
I've lived a life where there was no choice but to go within and know myself. I've lived a life where mastery was the only option other than destruction. My sensitivities and the way I download energetic data and interpret reality required a deeply transformative purification process.
Meditation was how I learned everything important that I know.
It is all within you. Period. It is your choice to dive in or not.
When I was in my younger 20s, I didn't understand what people did not understand about how to meditate. You see, the first time I tried to meditate I was eight-years-old. My father would chop wood everyday in the winter and made sure we had a continuously burning fire. One day, as darkness crept upon the evening, I remember staring into the fire with no one around (you see I am the second child of four, and I grew up in a loud, chaotic, intense household where quiet and solitude were nonexistent). It calmed me.
So, I took it upon myself to go into my mom's bathroom and grab a jar of bath salts. I stuck a single candle in the bath salts to hold it up and create what I now know was some sort of alter. I placed my little, make-shift, elemental homage in front of the fire that had me transfixed. I sat in easy pose (cross legged). I put my hands in Gyan mudra (thumb to forefinger) and began chanting "OHM."
I remember feeling it incredibly natural and like a "home" state of being. I was just a kid. And I had no access to meditators, alters, mantras and no way to know what I was doing. I just did it.
My father walked upon me in the living room with my eyes closed, chanting like a damn guru and stared at me speechless.
"What in the WORLD are you doing?!" he queried.
I felt this massive shame or fear creep into my emotional body. I was ashamed because I had no intellectual understanding of what I was doing. I didn't know if I was doing it right. I did not grow up in a household where these types of practices were the norm. I just knew that fire, quiet, a comfortable seat, and a mantra made me feel something really special that no one else could give me. (Little did I know this shame/fear associated with the notion, "idk wtf I am doing but I'm about to do it because my soul is telling me to, and I'll be able to explain it to you intellectually later when I myself understand what I am doing..." became my way of life. LOL)
I strengthened my resolve, looked back at him in the eyes, and simply said, "Meditating," like it ain't no thang.
With a puzzled expression he simply shrugged his shoulders and said, "Well, okay then..." before walking out of the room.
To this day, meditating in front of fire is my favorite way to tap in.
I remember being on the playground in elementary school. One day, instead of running around, screaming and shouting, I just wanted to sit quietly by myself.
I cannot tell you how many teachers came up to ask me if something was wrong or if I was upset. I kept assuring them that nothing was wrong. I just wanted to sit quietly and observe. One teacher came to talk to me, trying to uncover some hidden pain, clearly not believing a child would enjoy stillness, and then walked away in disbelief. Then someone else tried to be my savior, getting me to jump and play with the other kids.
I speak to this memory, because I think its funny how programmed our culture is, to fear stillness.
When adolescence hit, I went deep into the dark side, but that is another story.
It wasn't until I was about 18 years old that I began meditating seriously again. The healing that I wanted was on the side of the embodiment of stillness.
I was out of practice. I had been through no training. But I knew it was time to comeback to my true self.
I encourage you to do your own research on the many types of meditation, methods and practices. TM, Samatha-Vipassana as taught by Culadasa, Kundalini mantras, following your breath, what Wayne Dyer describes as "floating in the gap between thoughts," guided meditations, sound healing meditations, mala beads, chanting, are just some examples of where to start researching. I love Taoist philosophy and Zen meditation as well, and I've enjoyed working with powerful 4th Way exercises.
TIPS FOR GETTING STARTED:
Establish a practice: be consistent and diligent. This means sticking to it every single day, and devoting yourself wholeheartedly to your practice instead of daydreaming or looking at cushions online and calling it meditation.
Set goals: for example overcoming impatience, distraction and boredom. Choose to do it for 21 or 40 days in a row like a yoga challenge.
Keep your attention on your breath: this means neutrally observing the subtle sensations experienced from breathing deeply and slowly.
Create an alter or sacred space: having a place in your home that is devoted to stillness sets an intentional, energetic tone, and it is more inviting when it comes time to meditate.
Know that with enough practice, mystical abilities and higher communion is absolutely possible.
Don't quit because it's hard. That's like saying you don't work out because you get out of breath.
You get what you give: like anything else, what you appreciate appreciates.
MEDITATION MINUTES:
3 minutes: affects the electromagnetic field and circulation of the blood.
11 minutes: changes the nerves and glandular system.
22 minutes: balances the mind, and integrates the many "minds" into one.
31 minutes: allows the glands, breath and concentration to affect all the cells and rhythms of the body. The psyche of the meditation now affects all layers of the mind's projections/illusions.
62 minutes: changes the gray matter in the brain. The subconscious "shadow mind" and outer projection are integrated. This means you can see truth, not the dramatic and glorified bullshit of your own making.
2-2.5 hours: changes the psyche in its co-relation with the surrounding magnetic field so that the subconscious mind is held firmly in the new pattern by the surrounding universal mind.
SUGGESTED READING: THE MIND ILLUMINATED by Culadasa (John Yates, PHD)
In a world where everyone is ADD, addicted, and tech-obsessed, it is so refreshing and attractive to commune with someone who is truly present, attentive and mindful.
Be that breath of fresh air.
You can feel it when someone meditates because their energy is positively infectious and calming.
For instrumental, ambient music (no words) combining crystal sound bowl healing and electronic composition, to assist your meditations or writing, download here: