Silence
With every breath we take, nature is potentially providing us with an opportunity of shifting our consciousness and entering an enlightened state. The reason this gateway to the greater reality remains firmly shut for most of us is that we don’t give it our attention. We are much more committed to following the commands of our inner commentator with its incessant stream of thoughts over which we have little control.
If we get into the habit of using our breath as a means of focusing attention away from our thoughts to our feelings, we would gradually obtain sovereignty over our mind and liberate ourselves from the compulsions and addictions of habitual and often idle thought. Above all, instead of debating good and bad, pros and cons in our thoughts, we open an instant highway to the spontaneous wisdom of the heart.
It is the decision making process more than anything else that will train our mind to embrace Stillness instead of continuing to endure the constant inner chatter and uncontrolled commentary of our thoughts. By deciding to favor our breathing with our attention, rather than our inner chatter, we are gradually training our minds to embrace a greater reality. From then on our thoughts will become our tools and instruments rather than our masters.
The best way to deprive our thoughts of their compulsive nutrition is by using a different mode of thinking and perception. Instead of seeing with your eyes which is then narrated and judged by our mind and our old ideas, we learn to see with your heart, without judgement or interpretation. Using the same process when speaking and hearing will make a difference to the quality of our communication.
This new mode of gathering information or communicating will connect us to a higher level of reality. It will also open the channels of intuition, which is basically a much more evolved form of thinking as it encompasses information we are consciously unaware of.
This new mode of operating our senses can be learned like any other skill. We will know when we are successful when our stream of thoughts becomes quiet and everything becomes still around us. Our thoughts are no longer in the driving seat and instead of continuous judgement, which takes all our energy and deprives us our objectivity, we become aware of a powerful feeling of compassion, love and connectedness to all life. Our ego identifications become less important as we begin to identify with the the space surrounding us rather than the voices in hour head. We access reality directly rather than our interpretation of it and gain a much more inclusive understanding of who we are.
The best way to practice this kind of Seeing and Thinking with our Heart is by connecting our feeling to our breathing. As we breathe constantly anyway, we can practice this technique all day long. Instead of following our thoughts we simply decide to follow our breathing. We do this breathing in the awareness of the energy and the stillness surrounding us through the base of our body.(see diagram) We then follow our breath as it reaches our heart. We then surrender our breath again to the Stillness of the greater consciousness surrounding us, the same space of consciousness where we have taken it from.
The surrender of our breath or outbreath is accompanied by a feeling of goodwill or love. With this feeling of love we also automatically surrender the idea of our limited ego identification without even thinking about it. Instead we take comfort in the fact that we offer everything we are to a greater reality and the much larger reality of our true being.
This is the Anytime Anywhere Meditation because we can do it anytime and anywhere, whilst washing, having breakfast, driving to work, in the office, at lunch, in the cinema, talking to friends or operating machinery because it is a feeling rather than a conscious thought process. We favor surrender rather than clinging to our thoughts and judgments. Gradually our thoughts will learn to follow the wisdom that rises from the heart rather than insist on its old prejudicial pattern. As our thinking becomes more clear and we become in tune with reality our actions will be guided by the rise of wisdom, and we will use our mind as an instrument.
Source: Multidimensional Man
Here is an excerpt from an interview with Jurgen Ziewe, in which he talks about meditation. I found it interesting and helpful, so am sharing this here:
- Question:
Meditation can mean different things to different people, so what is your exact definition of “meditating”?
- Answer:
To me meditation means living in the present or as Eckhard Tolle says, “living in the now”. Meditation begins by forming a habit that allows you to put yourself in control of your thoughts, which means if you focus during meditation on the light, a mantra or anything else and thoughts pop up you simply say, “OK, now lets go back to the focus” without any force whatsoever.
It is the continuous “OK, now lets go back to the focus” which is the most powerful aspect of meditation not necessarily the object of the meditation, such as the light or the mantra and can almost be anything.
What you are doing is conditioning your mind into following your intent. It’s a bit like training a dog. Once you have achieved this you simply focus on consciousness during meditation and during your daily life. You’ll gradually find yourself living more and more in the present or in the “Now”. Your focus becomes much better too as a result and your life more rewarding, blissful even. There is no reason why you cannot meditate whilst out of the body which can have spectacular results.
- Question:
On the topic of meditating, do you know what is an optimal way to become more able at perceiving and expanding with/through the consciousness? I have been attempting for a while to do this, but without much success.
- Answer:
A common misconception is that meditation needs somehow a lot of effort or discipline. Quite frankly, the opposite is the case. It’s more a matter of favoring focus on whatever you are meditating on instead of the thoughts which inevitably arise. Thoughts are OK, as long as they don’t dominate us.
Thoughts can be great fun and we have developed a whole industry creating entertainment for our thoughts. The trick is to be able to decide which thoughts we want or whether we want them at all and instead enjoy the underlying serenity of the present moment without thought distraction.
Meditation to me is habituating the mind so it finally naturally follows our intent. It is not to control our mind or dominate it. As such meditation is a beautiful experience, because we never reject our thoughts we just regard them like our children we love, but who we won’t allow to tyrannise us.
The aim of the meditation should be: “OK, now lets gets get back to our focus”, it is this process which is important not the focus itself such as light, sound or mantra. Once focus follows your intent effortlessly your attention simply lingers quite naturally on reality, the moment, the present, God or whatever you wish to call it.
Once we have freedom from the compulsion of thinking we simply focus our attention on awareness or consciousness itself without any attributes dictated by our thinking or imagination, which means we live in the present and become aware of what makes the present. We live in reality.
- Question:
Many chant different Names of God and mantras. The specific thing they chant does mean something because they are utilizing that specific Name of God/mantra.
- Answer:
There is often a misunderstanding about the use of mantras. Some people think just by chanting and repeating the mantra they are getting closer to the higher consciousness or God. I found this to be an illusion. When seen from a higher level such chants look more like a marble clattering around endlessly in an empty jam jar without ever leaving it’s confines.
Often the chanter even thinks about other things while chanting like some robot or tape recording, clearly without the heart being in any way connected. This is as pointless as planting a crystal in the ground and expecting it to grow into an oak tree.
As pointed out previously the mantra can be a powerful vehicle for transporting consciousness into subliminal levels, but we will have to engage with the mantra. The most effective way is by totally surrendering to or identifying with the mantra. This way the mantra is no longer an object of our meditation but it’s manifestation with which we will have merged.
My silence, like an expanding sphere, spreads everywhere.
My silence spreads like a radio song, above, beneath, left and right, within and without.
My silence spreads like a wildfire of bliss; the dark thickets of sorrow and the tall oaks of pride are all burning up.
My silence, like the ether, passes through everything, carrying the songs of earth, atons, and stars into the halls of His infinite mansion.
~Paramahansa Yogananda
- 1.
Every sincere effort is registered in the divine consciousness. Your duty as a devotee is to accept whatever [God] sends you — and, for that matter, whatever He doesn’t send. God alone knows what past karma keeps you from perceiving Him right now. He may want you to finish up your karma in this life, before He gives you eternal bliss in Him.
- 2.
Do not be anxious if you don’t have meditative experiences. The path to God is not a circus! Don’t even be anxious about such fruits of meditation as inner joy and peace. Everything will come in God’s time. Meanwhile, consider meditation, too, as a form of karma yoga: action without desire for the fruits of action. Meditate above all to please God, not yourself.
- 3.
In meditation, you must go beyond thought. As long as you are busy thinking, you are in your rational mind, on the conscious plane. When you sleep and dream, you are on the subconscious plane, and in your astral body. And when your mind is fully withdrawn in superconsciousness, it becomes centered in the bliss of the spine. You are then in your ideational, or causal, body. That is the level of the soul’s existence.
- 4.
Don’t waste the perception of God’s presence, acquired in meditation, by useless chatting. Idle words are like bullets: they riddle the milk pail of peace. In devoting time unnecessarily to conversation and exuberant laughter, you’ll find you have nothing left inside. Fill the pail of your consciousness with the milk of meditative peace, then keep it filled. Joking is false happiness. Too much laughter riddles the mind and lets the peace in the bucket flow out, wasting it.
- 5.
Meditate regularly, and you will find a joy inside that is real. You will then have something you can compare to sense pleasures. That comparison will automatically make you want to forsake your sorrow-producing bad habits. The best way to overcome temptation is to have something more fulfilling to compare it with.
- 6.
Never count your faults. Just think whether you love God enough. He doesn’t mind your faults. He minds your indifference.
- 7.
Many people meditate till they feel a touch of peace, but jump up then and leave their meditation for their activities. That’s all right, if you have important work waiting for you, for it is always better to meditate before any activity, that you may feel at least some peace as you work. Whenever possible, however, sit for a long time after your practice of the techniques. That is when the deepest enjoyment comes. Intuition is developed by continuously deepening that enjoyment, and, later on, by holding on to its calm aftereffect.
- 8.
God answers all prayers. Restless prayers, however, He answers only a little bit. If you offer to others something that isn’t yours to give, won’t that be a merely empty gesture? If you pray to God, similarly, but lack control over your own thoughts, that prayer will be without power. Thoughts and feelings, both, must be focused when you pray. Otherwise God will meet your little trickle with another trickle of His own! He will dole His answers out to you in a teaspoon. Too often, prayer is more like the halfhearted mumbling of a beggar than the confident, loving demand of a friend.
- 9.
You won’t find God by making constant excuses: for example, saying, “When I find a quiet place, I will meditate.” That is not at all the way to get there! If you tell yourself, however, “Right now I will plunge into deep meditation!” you can be there in a moment. When you are really sleepy, you have no difficulty in sleeping no matter where you are. When a person is in love, he finds no difficulty in thinking of his beloved; rather, it is difficult not to think of her, even to the point of ignoring his work. Be in love with God! It is easy to meditate deeply, when your love for Him is deep enough.
Night is tremendously beautiful. It is a good time for meditation. It helps you release the tensions of the day easily and effortlessly. This particular meditation will increase your connection to the Magickal Energy inherent in darkness, starlight, and moonlight.
Here’s a very simple, very effective meditation:
Before you go to bed at night, alone or with a partner, sit silently, look into the darkness. Become one with the dark, disappear into it. Look at the stars — feel the distance, the silence, the emptiness, and use night for your meditation.
Sitting on your bed, or on your balcony, or in your garden, doing nothing…just feeling, just being there. The day is worldly, the night is more spiritual. Over time you will feel tremendously in tune with night. The world is asleep. Everything stops, traffic, noises, the mundane world is quiet. People, their unconsciousness, bad attitudes, have all disappeared into sleep. The atmosphere is clean with no jarring note.
Benefits:
As you start enjoying the beauty of the night, you will feel it more and more. As you absorb the tranquility, serenity, and comfort night offers, your sleep will then carry a meditational and in the morning you feel refreshed in a whole new way.
Source: Pragito Dove
From the space of stillness, something beautiful can flower. Life can be a song, a dance.. from that space of stillness… Where you become magnet of abundance at all levels.
How to attain that stillpoint? Concentrate the energy on the Hara, the point two inches below the navel.
That is the center from where one enters life and that is the center from where one dies and goes out of life. So that is the contact center between the body and the soul. If you feel a sort of wavering left and right and you don’t know where your center is, that simply shows that you are no longer in contact with your Hara, so you have to create that contact.
- When: In the night, when you go to sleep and first thing in the morning.
- Duration: 10 – 15 minutes.
Step 1: Locate the Hara
Lie down on the bed and put both your hands two inches below the navel and press a little.
Step 2: Take a Deep Breath!
Start breathing, deep breathing. You will feel that center coming up and down with the breathing. Feel your whole energy there as if you are shrinking and shrinking and shrinking and you are just existing there as a small center, very concentrated energy.
Step 3: Center While U Sleep!
Fall asleep doing it – that will be helpful. Then the whole night that centering persists. Again and again the unconscious goes and center is there. So the whole night without your knowing, you will be coming in many ways in deep contact with the center.
Step 4: Reconnect with the Hara
In the morning, the moment that you feel that sleep has gone, don’t open your eyes first. Again put your hands there, push a little, start breathing; again feel the Hara. Do this for 10 – 15 minutes and then get up.
Do this every night, every morning.
Within three months you will start feeling centered.
It is very essential to have a centering otherwise one feels fragmentary; then one is not together. One is just like a jigsaw – all fragments and not a whole. It is a bad shape, because without a center a man can drag but cannot love.
Without a center you can go on doing routine things in your life, but you can never be creative. You will live the minimum. The maximum will not be possible for you. Only by centering does one live at the maximum, at the zenith, at the peak, at the climax, and that is the only living, a real life. For example, there will be less thinking because energy will not move to the head, it will go to the Hara.
The more you think of the Hara, the more you concentrate there, the more you will find a discipline arising in you. That comes naturally, it has not to be forced. The more you are aware of the Hara, the less you will become afraid of life and death because that is the center of life and death.
Once you become attuned to the Hara center, you can live courageously. Courage arises out of it: less thinking, more silence, less uncontrolled moments,natural discipline, courage and rootedness, a groundedness.
Found at Inner Cosmos Meditation
A meditative awareness comes like a whisper, not a shout, with noiseless footsteps. If you are full of occupations, busyness and noise it might come and wait, but then it will leave.
Set aside some time — 3, 5, 10, 15 minutes or longer — preferably every day, for sitting in silence. It doesn’t matter where you are, just sit, close your eyes, and wait. Don’t do anything, just sit in great waiting with an open, trusting heart. Then if something is to “happen” you will be ready to receive it. If nothing happens, at least you’ve had this “down time” to do nothing. No matter what, after sitting silently for a while you will feel more in touch with yourself, more peaceful.
When and Where:
Most people find that it works best to do this at the same time every day. It doesn’t matter what time you choose, but setting aside a set time, say as a mid-morning break or during your lunch hour, helps make it part of your daily routine. When the inner consciousness knows that the outer consciousness is waiting for it, there is a greater possibility of a meeting.
Benefits:
As you practice doing nothing, by and by an understanding will start to arise between you and the meditative state. As this understanding grows you will start to feel a subtle quality of relaxation, of serenity woven into the texture of your whole day.
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