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Meditation

by “Morpheus”

 Anyone can meditate.  It’s not a secret science.  Meditation is easier than walking across an open field.  To meditate, you don’t have to learn anything.  You simply have to be.  In fact, the whole idea is to stop doing what ever you are already doing, consciously and unconsciously, and focus completely on the subject of your meditation in a relaxed, flowing, non-controlling way.   Until you are actually emerged in the subject.  And you actually become part of the subject.

Beginning Meditation

 For beginning level meditation you need only two things; a place and a time.

There are other things that may be of assistance to beginning meditation; some familiar external object, a specific subject for the meditation.  But for now, the right place and the right time will start you on your way.

 Place:

Now, designated a place for your beginning meditation.  In that place, you might like to include a chair or large pillow, a soft rug, or what ever else warms your spirit.  Like a candle, a familiar or favorite possession or a picture.  Later on you won’t need a special place.  Anywhere you are becomes your special meditation place. 

 Time. 

It does help a lot however, to be firm about setting the time aside at about the same time of each day.  Later on, you won’t need a special time.  Any time at all becomes your special meditation time.  When ever you choose to turn inward.

 Other than a place and a time, everything you need to meditate you already have.  It will be explained and you’ll find warm-up exercises you need to activate your own inner resources and begin meditation.

Positions

Any position that keeps the right and left side of your body in equal balance and that you can maintain comfortably without moving for the length of the meditation is the right position for you.  Of course, even an uncomfortable position can become a creative experience by allowing you to meditate on your state of discomfort.  So again, there are no real rules, just guidelines and one basic principal.  You are constantly taking energy from the universe, storing it, and discharging it back to the universe again. 

When you meditate, the energy exchange is amplified and greatly heightened.   Which explains why complete meditation is so enlightening and invigorating. 

To smooth out the energy and make it easier on yourself, your meditation position must allow you to completely lose yourself in the subject of your meditation and to allow you a since of separation for all your daily burdens.  That is why you keep both sides of your body in balance.  By keeping in balance and allowing yourself to be swept into the mediation, you harmonize yourself within your space through your position and your breath, you can further expand your personal energy and your inner power base to remarkable degrees.

Sitting/Positioning

Seated in a chair:

A favorite traditional position for meditation is sitting.  In a straight back chair or on the floor.  In a chair, sit erect and straighten your spine.  Place both feet squarely on the floor a comfortable distance apart.  If you’re not wearing shoes so much the better.  Loosen a collar, a belt or anything that prevents you from breathing freely, deeply into your diaphragm and abdomen.  Allow both hands to fall loosely into your lap.  Tilt your head back a little so that your neck and spine form one continuous vertical line.  Then close your eyes gently and look up at the inside of your forehead.

 For now, just experience how it feels to sit like this.  Notice where you are touching the chair and where you are not.  Sence the floor under your feet and the support that it offers.  Connect with the sensual caress of the air on your skin.  Experience it and that’s all.

Seated on the floor

Sit erect and straighten your spine.  Cross your legs Indian style.  Allow your hands to rest loosely in your lap, like empty gloves. Tilt your head back a little so that your neck and spine form one continuous vertical line. Then close your eyes gently and look up at the inside of your forehead.  For now, just experience how it feels to sit like this.  Notice the cushion or floor under you and the air flowing around you or through you.  That’s all.

 Lying down 

Let your legs spread slightly apart with your toes and feet hanging loosely from your legs.  Let your hands fall to your sides, palms up.  Sence how straight your spine is.  Notice what parts of you are in contact with the floor and what parts you are holding up, like the small of your back, your neck and maybe the back of your knees.  But, don’t do anything about that.  Just lie there and feel the air moving over, around and throughout your body.  As you breath deeply and quietly into diaphragm. 

Tubbing

Run the water in your bathtub as hot as you can stand it until it’s nearly full.  Or get in and let the water fill up around you.  Lie back.  With your knees spread apart, resting against the sidesof the tub and your ankles crossed loosely near the faucet.  Let the sloping end of the tub support your head.  Let your hands and arms float.  Let your body float up and sink down again.  As you breath evenly and deeply into your abdomen and diaphragm.  Float and drift with your eyes closed.  Submerge your ears and hear the throbbing beat of your heart.  Sence how the heat of the water relaxes your body, calms your thoughts and raises your inner vibrational level.  Just become aware of them for now.

 Alignment

Getting aligned is easy.  Always meditate facing north.  Magnetic alignment is the path of least resistance to meditating.  And to blend your life energies with the energies all around you.  Whenever you are in magnetic alignment with the magnetic axis of the Earth, you will find yourself flowing more freely into a fundamental unity with the space around you. 

 Breathing

There are two breathing techniques that allow you to open your channels if intuition, spontaneity and energy. 

 1.      Basic Breathing

Fisrt, inhale to a silent count of four.  Hold for a silent count of four before you exhale.  Exhale to a silent count of eight.

Next inhale again to a silent count of four.  Hold for a count of four.  But, exhale to a silent count of eight.  Experience your breath.  Think only of your breath and the rhythmic cycles of your breathing.

Increase the silent exhalation count to sixteen on your next breath, experiencing the long and steady outgoing flow of your energy.  Experiment.  Four counts in.  Four counts holding.  And between 16 and 32 counts between each exhalation.    

The right number of counts for you is the number that releases the inner resistance and relaxes and revitalizes you.

2.      Foundation Breathing

Inhale through your nose and allow the air to flow directly and completely to your diaphragm.  Just as before, but time your breath to a silent count of seven.  Hold for a count of seven.  Then place your tongue lightly against the roof of your mouth.  Exhale through your mouth to a silent count of seven.  Notice the gentle hissing sound as your breath flows around your tongue.  Explore the aftermath of the sound for another silent count of seven, before you exhale again.  Maintain a steady four-part cycle.  Seven counts in.  Seven counts holding in.   Seven counts out.  Seven counts holding out. 

      Often, as few as ten complete foundation breathing cycles are enough to lull you into a meditative state. 

Relaxation

Each area of tension in your body is an area where energy is trapped and blocked from flowing.  Meditation will ultimately enable you to take your tensions one by one and release them.  Knowing this, your tensions will attempt to inhibit your meditation for all they are worth.

So, in the beginning, you need to calm your tensions to the point where they and you allow yourself to relax into complete meditation.

Alpha

 Alpha is the state in which your brain produces alpha waves.  They measure and cycle slower and deeper than beta waves of everyday waking activity, yet faster than the theta waves of sleep and delta waves of unconsciousness.  So alpha is narrow and infinite plane between being awake and being asleep.  It is here that you will derive the most pleasure and the most spectacular results from meditation. 

Clearing

 Just as relaxation clears your body interference to allow free-flowing, fully energized meditation, clearing calms your intellectual interference and mental chatter.

Meditation involves being.  Complete meditation involves being completely in the moment that you are actually in.  Specifically, the now moment in your life.

Now is always where you are.  But frequently your mind is before now, stuck on rerunning a tape of some recent emotionally charged experience.  Just as frequently, your mind is ahead of now, stuck in creating a worry or problem of some possible future moment yet to come that may or may not actually involve you when you get there.

Clearing will do exactly what is says.  You create a visual screen on the inside of your forehead for your meditational field of view and you proceed to clear it and keep it clean on a daily basis.

Written by: Jon “Morpheus” Vernon April 12, 2004 

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