Meditation Handbook : Part Two

What do you do while sitting?

The most basic approach to meditation is to relax, let go, and do nothing. Surrender to the moment and watch yourself as a silent witness. If thoughts come to mind, then observe the thoughts without adding to them by your active participation. Be a detached and passive observer and simply feel your most basic fundamental being. This inherently immense being has been respectfully called the ground of being.

The enlightened teacher J. Krishnamurti used the term "choiceless awareness" to describe his own meditation method. This means being conscious without the thought process choosing something smaller than your vast fundamental being to focus on. Consciousness is like a glass ball floating in the depth of space. Light and sensory input flows into the field of consciousness from all directions. When you think, you focus your attention on just one area of sensory input or you create a thought from memory stored within the brain. With choiceless awareness you are not thinking or remembering, just floating and letting sensory input flow through you from all directions without manipulating that input with the thought process. You live in the moment and become totally open. This openness attracts energy from all sides of the universe which pushes you even higher.

Krishnamurti's choiceless awareness is the same "methodless method" that Zen monks call "mindfulness." Hindu yogis sometimes call it "one pointed vision." A more accurate term might be one object vision. This means that you observe yourself, the sky, the trees, and the entire universe as one object. You no longer see the world as a multitude of parts and disconnected events. Instead, you accurately perceive the observer and the observed as exactly the same thing, with no artificial wall of separation blocking the limits of consciousness. This singular entity becomes acutely aware of itself in all its vastness. The one cosmic being, as Krishnamurti said, is "beyond time" and is "untouched by thought." The revered sage Ramana Maharshi described it as "infinite" and "bigger than the human race."

Another useful method is to lend special awareness to the breathing process felt in the belly. Just behind and below your navel (belly button) lies the hara, which is felt as an ethereal ball of energy. The hara is a natural balancing point of your consciousness that can be thought of as the center of your subtle body. Subjectively and poetically speaking, the hara is where man and universe meet. It is the gateway where we merge and become man-universe and universe-man. No one really knows what the hara actually is, but we can use it to our full advantage. Consciously developing a powerful hara center is the most important secret to meditation.

When your consciousness is centered in the hara instead of the head, your thinking process slows down and you can relax in the expanded world of pure being. Trying to stop distracting thoughts through will power leads to more thoughts and a self-defeating inner struggle. By transferring your center of awareness to the hara, thoughts gradually disappear on their own without inner conflict. That is why you see Buddha statues with a big belly. It is an esoteric message that the hara is the key to meditation.

Sit quietly and focus on your belly as it moves in and out as you breathe. Over time the hara point will become more noticeable as your meditation grows stronger. We all feel the hara when startled or in intense danger. Sudden emergencies, such as near collisions on the highway, tend to activate the hara center. You get a gut reaction from sudden danger. You can nourish the feeling of the hara simply by paying passive attention to it. This relaxed concentration is very close to doing nothing, yet it is still a subtle effort. Drinking herb tea or hot water before meditation sessions relaxes the gut and facilitates awareness of the hara. Overeating and consuming cold drinks tends to make hara awareness more difficult.

Note Here is a picture of Ramana Maharshi. If you look deeply into the photograph you can sense his hara point. Energy from all corners of the universe is flooding into his powerful hara center. Observe the look of sublime contentment on his face. Those interested in the phenomena of the hara may be amused by My Unproven Theory About the Hara.

WARNING Avoid the use of mantras and long repetitive chanting. Repeating the same words over and over is a method of forgetfulness which will bore the mind and leads to the light sleep state hypnosis problem mentioned earlier. I would define a mantra as the repetition of words, usually meaningless, for a period of two minutes or more. Mantras have traditionally been used for hours on end by students who become mentally calmed and dulled by their use.

Mantras have proven to be medically helpful for some because they can unleash hormones that temporarily calm the mind. Mantras are healthier than taking tranquilizers, but are fundamentally different from meditation, which relies on the purifying fire of self-observation. Self-observation is a difficult task that requires courage and an endurance of character and spirit. Real meditation has the real payoff of leading to a naturally calm and expanded state of consciousness, not just an artificially silenced mind that remains fundamentally shallow.

A self-inquiry incantation

The use of meaningful incantations is quite different than mantras use and can help bring consciousness to greater clarity. Words can help because our minds are organic analog computers that process symbols, and words are symbols. The words that deepen meditation form a strategic questioning, not a mantra.

Ramana Maharshi was a beloved Indian teacher who reached enlightenment through self-inquiry, by asking the most fundamental question "Who am I?" Here is a self-inquiry technique that expands Ramana Maharshi's method to make it even more powerful. Speak out loud the following incantation with total intensity before and/or during formal sitting meditation sessions. By the term "total intensity" I mean the same level of intensity you would feel if you were just told that you only had one hour left to live. Be emotional, be Italian, use your hands and body language if it helps. Plead with the universe the following question.

What is this ball of consciousness? What is this ball of consciousness? What is this ball of consciousness? - You can repeat this question more than three times if the spirit moves you. Go with the flow.

I am not this library of memories. I have no history. I have no biography.

I am the space. I have always been the space, and I crush these bonds of attachment now!

When speaking the words, "I crush these bonds of attachment now!," make your right hand into a fist and hit your upturned left palm with it like a hammer hitting an anvil upon saying the word "now!" Reverse hands if you are lefthanded. Do not overdo it and hurt your hand. Just hit forcefully enough to produce a cracking sound which adds drama and helps wake up the central nervous system.

Resonate the words deep inside you without thinking of intellectual explanations of who you are. Just asking this question is purifying and ennobling. Self-inquiry is an innocent and fundamental endeavor and you need an innocent mind to see reality directly without the distortions of memory and thought. You can use this questioning technique only at the beginning of formal sitting meditation sessions or you can repeat the incantation every ten minutes during the session itself to help keep yourself focused. Combining this self-inquiry incantation with the mirror gazing technique described below creates a super-method of great power and intensity.

Over time you will find the words become a trigger mechanism which allows you to instantly drop all peripheral involvement and come home to your cosmic being. We all have the same essential being and that being is cosmic. No one is left out of this universe. If you are a part of the universe, you are all of the universe! The small 'I' is dropped and only the big 'I' remains. Then you can have a good belly laugh and that is the way I end most of my own meditation sessions. I meditate until I start laughing from the hara center. Then I know I am cooked!

A gentler, less rigorous approach to this method is to simply repeat the rhetorical question, "What is this ball of consciousness?," over about a dozen times. This small amount of repetition will enhance and center your consciousness rather than dull it. For some students a softer approach works best.

Word exercises are not for all students of meditation. If you try them and feel nothing then concentrate on other methods first. As you slowly change your methods will change with you. A method that is unusable now may be of great help to you in the future.

Source: http://www.inspirationzone.cjb.net