Meditation / Visualization techniques

[9anda1f]

Two easy practices.  All meditation practice begins in a still area where you will be undisturbed (later, after practice there you can try meditation anywhere).  Meditation is all about where and how you direct your attention.  In meditation you are noticing things that otherwise are beneath the noise level of your routine thoughts.  This noticing is done in the absence of active thinking (as best you can at first).

1)  Sit in a comfortable chair.  Start at your feet and consciously relax each part of your body in turn, letting go of any tensions you may find.  Once relaxed, focus on your breath.  As you breathe naturally, notice your breathing becoming slower and more regular.  Now begin to notice that singular point between inhaling and exhaling.  There is a very short period of nothing there, neither inhalation nor exhalation.  Then begin to notice the "yang" of that, the singular point between exhaling and inhaling.  Within these two points of stillness lie the universe, and here you may encounter yourself.

2)  Again, comfortable chair, consciously relaxed.  Now merely listen.  Eyes closed or open.  Begin to sort out and notice the individual sounds that you are hearing.  Let the sounds come to you to be noticed as your awareness accepts them.  After a while your awareness begins to expand outward.  You become larger and more in tune to your surroundings.  Your "self" may become diluted as you connect outwards.  Ultimately you may encompass the whole earth, and even touch outwards amongst the nearby planets and stars.

Afterwards you will find yourself feeling refreshed but calm.  Angers/frustrations of the day will be washed away and you'll feel a new spring in your step.

In both exercises you have altered your consciousness, and you have done so consciously.  Practice every day.  Other exercises will come to mind as you go or will be suggested to you through friends and reading.  Enjoy!

My favorite quotation by Franz Kafka: 

You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait. Do not even wait, be quiet still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.

[DasFlo]

Thank you for all the help, Wordnerd and 9anda1f.
I do usually not think in terms of god, but I can work with the concept.
9anda1f, I love that. I am getting a better idea of how I'm going to approach this - and hopefully enjoy I will.

[Shamaness]

Wonderful suggestions here.  I've tried a couple of the binaural-type programs and they do seem to produce the promised effects.  Robert A. Monroe (author of Journeys Out of the Body) was a pioneer of this concept, and he used it in his training facility to help people learn to have out-of-body experiences.  I just mention that as fair warning.   

As for visualization, here is something I just happened on one day that worked for me.  Call it silly if you like.    

I was getting divorced and had just signed the contract to put our house on the market.  I really needed to sell the house ASAP.  So, spontaneously while driving to work the very next morning, I decided to visualize the ideal buyer and sale process.  Without any plan or clear idea on how to proceed, I found myself mentally wandering (very clearheadedly though!) through what you might imagine as the web of the universe - like crystalline strands, with a bright bead like a water drop at each intersection.  I sort of mentally floated over many different strands of the web, asking to find the right people to buy my house, because I knew they existed somewhere in this web of all possible possibilities. 

Finally I stopped at one point where strands crossed and felt a sort of humming vibration, a knowing that I was in the right spot where the right buyer was "waiting."  I imagined the hum getting stronger until it sort of faded out.  All this happened while I continued to drive the interstate, and I felt no impairment.  And when the hum faded, I was left with a warm certainty that everything was about to work out.

Well, that very evening I got the call from the realtor with an offer - $100 OVER asking price.  From the very first people to look at the house.  The sign hadn't even been put up yet.  The very first day the house was on the market, we had a contract.  And the buyers were ready with cash, so the sale could close within a few weeks.  Call it silly if you like, as I said - but I'm convinced there was a connection.

Because of that, I've employed this same technique many times since.  Although I didn't do this the first time, I've found that I can arrive at that "right intersection" and sort of mentally "open my eyes" to see what's there.  This helps me when I can't visualize the desired outcome right away on my own: I mentally navigate to the perfect spot on the web, and then look to "see" what I find there.  Sometimes "seeing" isn't the most effective sense, either - maybe sound or smell or a physical feeling will come through, or just an experience of the vibration's essence, that I can use as a memory jog to recreate the knowing that what I seek is out there and on its way. 

Sorry if this sounds esoteric and/or complicated...but I hope it might help.     Good luck!

[BJ]

http://www.learnmindpower.com/

I've followed the practices of John Kehoe for some years now,  Reading his book Mindpower into the 21st century helped turn my life around.  Lot's of stuff on his website.

[DasFlo]

Wonderful suggestions here.  I've tried a couple of the binaural-type programs and they do seem to produce the promised effects.  Robert A. Monroe (author of Journeys Out of the Body) was a pioneer of this concept, and he used it in his training facility to help people learn to have out-of-body experiences.  I just mention that as fair warning.   

As for visualization, here is something I just happened on one day that worked for me.  Call it silly if you like.    
[...]
Sorry if this sounds esoteric and/or complicated...but I hope it might help.     Good luck!

Shamaness, I call that neither silly nor esoteric, in fact it makes a lot of sense to me, from the way you describe it.

You mentioned that you tried some of the programs. Did one of them work out good and/or was rather easy to use?
I just learned of the binaural beats yesterday, so it is pretty difficult to figure out the right settings and parameters.

Bj, I'll have a look at that link, thank you.

[Shamaness]

Hi DasFlo.     Well, the binaural programs I tried were circa early 1990s, and I'm not even sure of their names now.  I know I did try the Monroe one, called Hemi-Sync, while I was working in an alternative bookstore.  (Didn't have an out-of-body experience, but it was still powerful.)  But I see that it's quite pricey nowadays. 

I'm not familiar with any newer programs, but I imagine they'd be effective.  For all I know, there might be something on iTunes that you could put on your iPod and use with 'phones.  Hm, maybe I should look into that... 

[sittingstill]

I'm very wary of the mind entrainment cd's.  I tried holosync a few years back, and it sent me into a months long bout of insomnia where my body would not fall asleep - and yes, I was following the instructions/recommentations that came with the cd's very carefully.  Maybe some have benefitted from these products, but no one really understands the whys and hows of their functioning, and they can, in my opinion and expereince, be dangerous even when used as instructed. 

The only sure thing about ponying up the $$ for such a product is that you will just be helping some shmoe get rich. 

Regarding meditation - find a group to do it with.  Most folks have a tremendously difficult time doing it consistently by themselves - a group can provide critical support and motivation.  You have to do it every day, and make it a part of your life, just like brushing your teeth - that is when it really started to sink in for me.

Good luck!

[DasFlo]

I'm very wary of the mind entrainment cd's.  I tried holosync a few years back, and it sent me into a months long bout of insomnia where my body would not fall asleep - and yes, I was following the instructions/recommentations that came with the cd's very carefully.

That sounds terrible. Don't people usually start freaking out after a few days without REM sleep? What was the cd collection supposed to do? Lucid Dreaming, obe?

[sittingstill]

Nope - it was geared towards run of the mill mental tranquility, spiritual insights, general life betterment, etc.  Its not that I did not sleep at all for months - just that I would go through bouts of 2 night without any sleep before crashing.

My reaction might have been atypical - supposedly others benefit from these things, but not me.  I'll stick to the old fashioned way.

[comrade simba]

See my avatar? I have a 3x4 black piece of felt with an 8 inch Sanskrit "ah" symbol stitched on to it hanging on a wall in my meditation spot. I breath in and out and don't look at the white letter - I peripherally see a void within the black. Hard to describe but it helps fuck with the senses enough to shut them up for a while

[inverse_agonist]

Try reading Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, by Shunryu Suzuki.  There's a free PDF of it here:

http://www.vidyaonline.net/arvindgupta/zenmind.pdf

This quote kind of captures the spirit of it:

"Enlightenment is not some good feeling or some particular state of mind.  The state of mind that exists when you sit in the right posture is, itself, enlightenment.  If you cannot be satisfied with the state of mind you have in zazen, it means your mind is still wandering about.  Our body and mind should not be wobbling or wandering about.  In this posture there is no need to talk about the right state of mind.  You already have it.  This is the conclusion of Buddhism." 

The key is to choose a practice (doesn't have to be Zen) and practice it daily.  When you think about meditation from the perspective of cognitive psychology, what you're doing is training your attention.  You attend to something (mantra, breath, the present moment, whatever) until you get distracted.  You notice the distraction and, without getting worked up about it, direct your attention back to the object of meditation.  The effects of meditation are real and beneficial.  Here is a review of the scientific literature on meditation:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19393712

From the conclusion:

"Several Meditation techniques appear to have short and long-term effects on functional and structural brain plasticity as well as on physiological indicators of relaxation and stress relief. There is evidence to suggest that these effects are specific to Meditation over and above simple relaxation effects. There is furthermore preliminary evidence for enhanced psycho-emotional balance and focussed attention skills in long-term Meditators. The up-regulating functional effects on fronto-parietal attention networks and fronto-limbic networks of emotional control could be the neurophysiological mechanisms of action for reported psycho-emotional and cognitive effects. Although clinical Meditation research has mostly been conducted in small sample sizes and poorly controlled conditions, there is some evidence for its effectiveness in disorders of anxiety, attention and affect. The combined evidence from neurobiological and clinical studies for an up-regulation of attentional and motivational networks and for a reduction in symptoms of anxiety, depression and attention, respectively, bears promise. Both together suggest that some Meditation techniques could potentially play a role in the prevention as well as the intervention of disorders of attention and affect regulation."

[Annie Okra]

I like some old Holosync cd's I got 5-6 years ago (although they will try and market you to death, they are big on the"Secret" positive thinking mubbage which I have no use for. But the cd's are excellent, and no, you don't need to buy them all, get a starter set and use them, 30-60 minutes a day 4-5 days a week. Also I do yoga breathing (calming breath) and light visualization ( like the bluelight thing described earlier in the thread) and I like to go to Byzantine Liturgy and Latin/Gregorian chant mass...although I do not subscribe to a lot of the brainwashing there I consider myself to be benefited in every way (mentally, , physically, spiritually) by the contact with the sacred music vibrations. Even if you're a Protestant or an Atheist or a Wiccan or whatnot, maybe try it sometime.  If the parishioners make you nervous just don't go to coffee hour. 

[MEA]

sit, breath, let go of expectations. If an idea comes, let it go.

[cjr]

Try Taichi which used visualization and movement.

Also see http://www.sahajayoga.org/

[dc62]

I have been a Holosync user for three years.  I've gained quite a bit from its use as my threshold for dealing with "stuff" has increased considerably.  I recommend it highly.  I will concur and disagree with an earlier poster's comments about Holosync.  They will absolutely market their product like crazy once you get started, as there are various levels you go through, but I've never been offended by getting a piece of mail every 60 days or so.  And there's nothing wrong with getting the first level and staying there as it will help you reach a meditative state without effort.  If you want to progress further, you may choose to buy additional levels, but it's never implied that it is necessary to do so. 

I disagree with the earlier comment with regard to "The Secret"; Bill Harris, the founder of Holosync, has actually written extensively about his problems with the message in "The Secret" that merely wanting something and visualizing having it will make it certain.