Posted 2/2/09 (By Travis)
2/2/09 Neoperspectives.com
This follows on the recent post 'Beginning Meditation'. These subtitles are more categorical then substantive, as it is not really useful to think of meditation/prayer and spiritual/religious practices as having benchmarks or labeling oneself as a 'beginner' or 'advanced' in any comparative sort of way. We just do the best we can at all times and are always are right where we are. First timers are free to try these so-called 'intermediate' exercises too and regular practitioners might find the beginning ones more useful. The best bet is to try a number of techniques and stick with what you like, or, perhaps even better, create and improvise on your own.
I gratefully acknowledge the teachers, friends, and authors who have taught me many of these techniques.
We start by assuming we are where we left off in 'Beginning Meditation'; we have been sitting for about 5-10-15 minutes and have completely relaxed our body, breath, and mind. If you do not feel relaxed enough or 'deep enough', you can try 'autosuggestion'/self hypnosis, and repeat in your mind, "I am feeling very relaxed and calm", "my body is relaxed", "my mind is clear", "my breath is easy". Others have said it can be useful to visualize a relaxing place or a scene.
Once relaxed, now we are ready to begin any number of exercises. Stick with one for as long as you like or try several during a single meditation; combinations can be especially effective. It is possible to jump into these quicker with practice and if you find the beginning 'warm-up' too boring you can start strait here. When doing these exercises the mind will stray many, many times, just gently chide it, sort of laugh at it, and guide it back.
1) Focus on God
In this exercise, one focuses on God for the entire remainder of the meditation/prayer. Ones conception of God is, of course, entirely subjective. The name itself is even irrelevant, you can use whatever word you like such as 'emptiness', 'OMM', 'goodness' depending on your background. It is worth attempting this exercise even if one is an atheist, polytheist, or another religious tradition because we are not attempting to prove or acknowledge the existence of God with this exercise, but to stimulate the neural pathways which combine thoughts of peace, love, omniscience, interconnectedness, and consciousness. For many people God is the 'common denominator' which allows simultaneous activation of these multiple pathways producing the desired effect. If God intrinsically contains negative connotations then picking another symbol (such as joy) or trying a different exercise is recommended. The idea is to clear ones mind of everything besides God and experience just thoughts of Him for as long as preferred. Sometimes it might be difficult or overwhelming to focus on God in aggregate, and so feel free to sort of 'break God down' (a strange concept!) into parts or aspects and focus on these separately before trying to combine them again.
2) Focus on subtle vibrations of your body/mind/energy
Try to focus on your whole body at once, or parts and traverse from gross feeling to subtle, feeling the smallest broadest nature of what makes up your solid body, even to the point of using ones imagination to feel cells and individual molecules and atoms vibrating. It may not be possible to feel cells or individual molecules vibrating, but to attempt to do so may be the best way to attain the desired effect of the exercise. Trying to feel subtle energies or vibrations within the body can be a powerful meditation, especially when combining this exercise number 1.
3) Focus on your consciousness
Some might consider this an aspect of God, but in this exercise try to focus on what awareness itself feels like. In other words, we are sort of presupposing there is an underlying commonality in all awareness, regardless of what particular thought or emotion the awareness happens to be directed at.
4) Observe the mind
IMHO, this is one of the best exercises. You take the role of a third party observer and simply watch your thoughts and mind. Pretend you don't know what you will experience or think of next, be surprised! This self monitoring of the mind increases awareness, allowing you to view yourself as a more objective third party observer. It also decreases attachment.
5) Observe the thoughts/feelings in the mind as they come from God
This is the same as number 4, except we presume everything we are observing comes from God. Our observed thoughts, feelings, and experiences, are 'holy', containing message, meaning, and experiential value, stemming directly from the almighty.
6) The observer is God
Taking numbers 4 and 5 one step further, we observe our mind, but we feel that 'we' or 'I', or 'it', the observer, IS/ARE God.
7) Surrender to God
A powerful emotional exercise; here we set all sense of self, pride, self worth, and judgments aside, and mentally throw ourselves at the feet of God, pledging our lives in service to God, renouncing all possessions, relationships, self love and attachments in favor of total God devotion. Not my will, but thy will. This is the path of Bhakti Yoga, yoga of devotion, perhaps the strongest path in Yoga.
8) Focus on subtle movements in your body
This is best done supine, spread eagle on the ground, the body and mind must be relaxed multiple times (sometimes tensing each part before relaxing is helpful) and the mind must be very quiet. Sometimes holding ones breath is necessary. Occasionally small motion can be felt especially in the feet perhaps because the distance from the center of gravity may act as a lever. This may be related to the Cranial-Sacral rhythm, primary respiration mechanism described in the Osteopathic literature, or fluid movement in the body related to either cerebral spinal fluid motion or blood flow from the arterial pulsations, or some other mechanism.
9) Focus on an area between and slightly superior to the two eyes on the forehead, or the heart/center of the sternum. These are called prominent 'chakras' in yogi philosophy, which appear to match anatomically with nervous plexuses. It is sometimes taught to focus on the 'third eye' if you are an intellectual person and the heart if you are an emotional person. Trying to block out everything except the feeling in one of these 2 areas is a good meditative exercise regardless.
10) Focus on the area about an inch off the skin, or just off the skin simultaneously, in areas of the body, such as the bilateral forearms, then encompassing the whole body. Around the skull is probably the best place to start, or the spinal cord. Try to subtract the normal sense of feeling from your body and observe what is left. Eastern philosophy calls this the 'energy body. It may appear somewhat bizarre to try to feel something outside your body, as by definition your nerves only run to your skin. However, regardless, this meditation can have good affect.
Which brings us to the conclusion, these exercises can be done regardless of whether one believes in them. In other words, even if one does not believe in God, attempt the exercises with God as a focus. The same with 'feeling cellular or molecular vibration' and 'feeling areas outside the skin'. All of this is not done for accuracy, but to activate certain areas of the brain. Do not feel one is being 'blasphemous', for example, by meditating that you are God observing your thoughts, or that your observed thoughts are stemming from God. These exercises are designed to increase higher thought processes, and give us separation from our normal sense of self and emotional entrapment. It appears existential types of thought activates neural areas and predisposed mindsets which facilitate positive progression and revelation.
As always, immediately after or even during meditation/prayer, monitor the effects of the exercises on your mind, thoughts, and emotions. Continue this throughout the day and observe changes in sleep patterns. This feedback is important because it increases motivation to continue these practices!
Stay tuned for 'Advanced Meditative Practices'!