• ON MEDITATIONS (WORK IN PROGRESS)

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    ON MEDITATIONS (WORK IN PROGRESS)

    • MEDITATION
      • Mindfulness Meditation:
        • Focuses on being present in the current moment, observing thoughts and sensations without judgment.
      • Transcendental Meditation (TM):
        • Involves silently repeating a mantra to achieve a state of relaxed awareness and transcend thought.
      • Loving-Kindness Meditation (Metta):
        • Cultivates feelings of love and compassion toward oneself and others through the repetition of positive affirmations.
      • Zen Meditation (Zazen):
        • Central to Zen Buddhism, it emphasizes sitting in a specific posture and observing thoughts without attachment.
      • Vipassana Meditation:
        • An ancient form of meditation that involves observing bodily sensations to gain insight into the nature of reality.
      • Guided Meditation:
        • A meditation led by a teacher or recorded voice, directing participants through imagery, relaxation, or mindfulness exercises.
      • Body Scan Meditation:
        • Involves mentally scanning and bringing awareness to different parts of the body, promoting relaxation and mindfulness.
      • Breath Awareness Meditation:
        • Focuses on the breath as an anchor for attention, cultivating mindfulness and concentration.
      • Chakra Meditation:
        • Aligns and balances the body’s energy centers (chakras) through visualization, breath, or sound.
      • Mantra Meditation:
        • Involves repeating a sacred word, phrase, or sound (mantra) to focus the mind and induce a state of meditation.
      • Walking Meditation (Kinhin):
        • A slow, mindful walk often practiced in conjunction with seated meditation, emphasizing awareness of movement and breath.
      • Body Movement Meditation:
        • Incorporates gentle movements or yoga postures to cultivate mindfulness and presence.
      • Sound Bath Meditation:
        • Involves listening to calming sounds, often produced by instruments like singing bowls or gongs, to induce relaxation.
      • Gratitude Meditation:
        • Focuses on cultivating feelings of gratitude by reflecting on positive aspects of life.
      • Qi Gong Meditation:
        • Combines breath, movement, and meditation in traditional Chinese practices aimed at balancing and enhancing life energy (Qi).
      • Mindful Eating Meditation:
        • Encourages awareness and appreciation of the sensory experience of eating, promoting mindful consumption.
      • Noting Meditation:
        • Involves mentally noting or labeling thoughts, feelings, or sensations as they arise during meditation.
      • Silent Retreat Meditation:
        • Extended periods of meditation practiced in silence, often in a retreat setting.
      • Lying Down Meditation:
        • Similar to traditional meditation but performed in a lying position, promoting relaxation and body awareness.
      • Labyrinth Meditation:
        • Walking through a labyrinth in a mindful and meditative manner, often used for reflection and centering.
      • Breath Counting Meditation:
        • Focuses on counting breaths to enhance concentration and mindfulness.
      • Color Meditation:
        • Involves visualizing or meditating on specific colors to evoke certain emotions or energies.
      • Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR):
        • A meditation technique that involves systematically tensing and relaxing different muscle groups.
      • Metta Bhavana (Loving-Kindness) Meditation:
        • Cultivates feelings of love and compassion toward oneself and others through intentional phrases.
      • Body-Scan Meditation:
        • A practice of systematically scanning the body with awareness to release tension and promote relaxation.
      • Affirmation Meditation:
        • Involves repeating positive affirmations to foster a positive mindset and self-talk.
      • Mindful Walking Meditation:
        • Combines walking with mindfulness, paying attention to each step and the surrounding environment.
      • Mirror Meditation:
        • Involves gazing into a mirror with mindful awareness, fostering self-reflection and self-acceptance.
      • EcoMeditation:
        • Connects individuals with nature, promoting mindfulness and appreciation for the environment.
      • Japa Meditation:
        • Similar to mantra meditation, Japa involves the repetition of a mantra or sacred word.
      • Visualization Meditation:
        • Focuses on creating mental images to achieve specific goals or promote relaxation.
      • Art Meditation:
        • Expresses creativity through various art forms like drawing, painting, or sculpting with a meditative mindset.
      • Somatic Meditation:
        • Brings attention to bodily sensations and movements to cultivate awareness and presence.
      • Laughter Meditation:
        • Combines laughter exercises with mindfulness to enhance mood and reduce stress.
      • Shadow Work Meditation:
        • Involves exploring and integrating aspects of the self that are usually hidden or denied.
      • Mantra Chanting Meditation:
        • Repeats sacred sounds or words with the intention of focusing the mind and promoting spiritual growth.
      • Breathwalking Meditation:
        • Integrates walking with synchronized breathwork to enhance mindfulness and energy flow.
      • Body-Image Meditation:
        • Cultivates self-love and acceptance by focusing on positive aspects of the body.
      • Tonglen Meditation:
        • A Tibetan Buddhist practice that involves sending and receiving compassion through the breath.
      • Mudra Meditation:
        • Uses hand gestures or positions to channel energy and enhance meditation practice.
      • Divine Light Meditation
        • The Lesson
          • I Breathe in Light through the Center of My Being
          • Into the Column of Light
          • That extends through the exact center of my Sentient Physical Body
          • From Alpha to Omega Chakras and beyond
          • Expanding my Heart completely
          • Into a Unified Field of Light
          • Within, through, and around my Sentient Physical Body
          • Encompassing my entire Chakra System
          • I breathe in Light through the Center of my Being
          • Into the Column of Light
          • That extends through the exact center of my Sentient Physical Body
          • Allowing the Light to intensify within the Column of Light
          • From Alpha to Omega Chakras and beyond
          • I breathe in Light through the Center of my Being
          • Allowing the Light to expand along the entire length of the Column of Light
          • That extends through the exact center of my Sentient Physical Body
          • I allow the Light to expand holographically to the Source of All That Is
          • Embracing the Unified Field within that total expansion
          • Within, through and around my entire Beingness
          • I AM a Unity of LIGHT
          • I breathe in Light through the Center of my Being
          • Allowing the Light to expand along the entire length of the Column of Light
          • That extends through the exact center of my Sentient Physical Body
          • I allow the Light to expand ecstatically to the Source of All That Is
          • I allow the Source of All That Is to ecstatically encompass my entire Beingness
          • I AM I AM I AM
      • 108
        • 1) VISUALIZATION OF CELLULAR HEALING
          • When you go to a doctor, s/he prescribes a medication for you to take, or a treatment you will undergo, your body starts the healing process before the medicine is in your system or the exercise or surgical procedure has taken place. For most people, just seeing a doctor gives confidence that healing will occur. Depending on the patient’s cultural background, this is true whether the physician is a neurosurgeon at the Mayo Clinic or a tribal witch doctor. This is attributable to an extraordinary healing ability of the body by a process known as the placebo effect. What happens is that healing starts when you believe it will occur. Your mind buys into it and your body makes it happen. The great physician and humanitarian, Dr. Albert Schweitzer, gives us this insight – “The witch doctor succeeds for the same reason all the rest of us (medical doctors) succeed. Each patient carries his own doctor inside himself. They come to us not knowing that truth. We are at our best when we give the doctor who resides within each patient a chance to go to work.”
          • Our body is a fantastic chemical factory that is capable of seemingly unbelievable things. For instance, there is the case of a 95-pound woman lifting up a two-ton car to save the life of her child who was trapped under its weight. This was due to a gigantic adrenaline release. As impressive a display of adaptability to a need this is, our body is capable of doing even more seemingly miraculous feats. Perhaps the most impressive of all is its’ ability to heal itself – of anything!
          • There are several methods dealing with visualizing healing meditatively at the cellular level. To begin any of them, use the position, breathing pattern, physical relaxing technique, and emptying of mental and emotional reactivity that you have found best prepares you to fill with the object of your meditation. Try each of these ways separately, and try combining them until your healing has occurred. This may take mere seconds, or decades, as has whatever happened to you that now needs a change back to wellness.
          • 1. In your minds eye, see aberrant or inflamed cells changing into healthy cells. If there is a damaged or corrupted area within the cells, visualize them changing and becoming free from injury. See your whole body becoming pure. Visualize yourself as perfectly healthy.
          • 2. There are cells within your body that act as protectors and actually attack and kill damaging invader cells. See these warrior cells destroy those cells that could cause you injury. See your whole body becoming pure. Visualize yourself as perfectly healthy.
          • 3. There are cells within your body that eat threatening cells. See them devour the harm causing structures. See your whole body becoming pure. Visualize yourself as perfectly healthy.
          • 4. Visualize groups of healthy cells combining to replace any damaged areas of your body. For instance, if you have suffered a broken bone, see the cells come together in healing, bonding together to reform a complete structure. Visualize the bone as perfectly healthy.
          • 5. Visualize healing energy filling you. The energy can be felt to originate from a higher power that gifts you with healing. See this holy energy filling and changing your cellular structure to a perfect condition. Watch as the specific organ, body system, or part heals. See your whole body becoming pure. Visualize yourself as perfectly healthy.
          • 6. Visualize yourself standing, sitting, or prostrating in front of your personal deity. See your deity heal you by touch. See your deity heal you by sending divine energy to you. See your deity end your suffering. See your whole body becoming pure. Visualize yourself as perfectly healthy.
          • 7. Get an anatomy book and study the body structure you want healing to take place in. Look at how the part appears when in a state of perfection. When doing a healing visualization meditation, see your body part as being in this state of perfection.
          • 8. If you are suffering from pain, see in your minds eye, as clearly as possible, the nerve endings that are in the specific area of your discomfort, or all of the nerve endings in your entire body. With every inhalation, feel and visualize healing air flowing from a higher power and enter you and fill your lungs. See your red blood cells absorb the air through the walls of your lungs and flow through your arteries spreading healing oxygen to every cell in your body. Witness the inflamed nerve endings become soothed and witness your body start to glow with wellbeing and serenity.
          • Perhaps the most important suggestion of all is to sincerely want the healing to take place and believe that it will occur. The Meditation Society of America doesn’t favor one religion over another, or even suggest that one has to believe in God at all for the benefits of meditation to help you, but we do sometimes quote from religious sources. In this case, we cite the Bible – Mark 11:24 “…what things ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.”
          • This 2000-year-old statement is in perfect accord with the most cutting edge scientific and medical understanding of the 21st century. To quote Dr. Herbert Benson of the Harvard Medical School, “We know that belief can lead to healing or at least improvement in 50 percent to 90 percent of diseases, including asthma, angina pectoris, and skin rashes, many forms of pain, rheumatoid arthritis, congestive heart failure. They’re all influenced by belief. We in medicine have made fun of belief by calling it the “placebo effect,” or insisting that “It’s all in your head.” Yet, belief is one of the most powerful healing tools we have in our therapeutic arsenal.”
        • 2) INNER GARDEN OF EDEN
          • Never quit. Do less meditation for now, but remain regular. If you have already quit, begin again today.
          • Never give up hope. Don’t resign yourself to the present situation. Your meditations can and will improve.
          • Never feel bad about it. These things happen and there is a solution to everything.
          • Sri Yukteswar and His Workbook
            • As good gardeners, our main question is: “What is it that is preventing my inner flowers from growing? What is making my soil so dry?”
            • To find out, let’s now tune in to the wise advice of Sri Yukteswar. Imagine the majestic Master by your side, ready to help you in your efforts to find clarity. See him looking at you with his “beautiful deep eyes, smoldering with introspection, yet radiant with joy.” He asks you: “Do you really want to get to the bottom of it? Are you ready to face the truth about your meditations?”
            • If your answer is “yes”, he hands you a Meditation-Workbook For the Inner Gardener. On its cover, you see a beautiful lotus flower, symbolizing your soul.
            • The workbook contains eight self-analysis tasks, one for each of the next eight days. You will first find a Meditation Sutra, which creates the context for your daily introspection. It is often taken from Sri Yukteswar’s book, The Holy Science (original edition of 1920, published in India by his disciple Atul Chandra Chowdhary).
            • Following this, you will be guided into the Meditation Garden Self-Analysis. Once you have completed it, Sri Yukteswar will remind you that “what man has done, he can undo.” To know how to “undo” your situation, you will practice a technique called intuitive guidance, which works like this: visualize Sri Yukteswar clearly at the spiritual eye between the eyebrows and ask him the question you are given. After some time, enter into your heart chakra and intuitively feel his answer and guidance.
            • Sri Yukteswar asks you (let’s imagine) not to rush through this process, but to go through the Meditation-Workbook for the Inner Gardener one day at a time.
            • A Special Asana
              • If you practice the yoga asanas, each day include Vasishtasana (the Vasishta Pose), which strengthens your mental focus. Affirm: “The calm fire of my concentration burns all restlessness, all distraction.”
            • Now open the Workbook to find the first task for the first day:
              • Day 1
                • Giving good earth to the inner flowers: self-analysis concerning the body.
                • Meditation Sutra
                  • “Asana means a steady (sthira) and pleasant (sukham) posture of the body.” OM.
                  • (The Holy Science, 3.15)
                • Meditation Garden Self-Analysis
                  • Silence is the altar of Spirit. It begins with a steady body. Today as you meditate, observe yourself: for how long do you sit motionless?
                    • 30 minutes
                    • 15 minutes
                    • 5 minute
                    • 2 minutes
                • Intuitive Guidance
                  • If it was 2 or 5 minutes, apply the technique explained above and ask Sri Yukteswar: “What can I do to improve my physical stillness?”
                  • Write down the solution you receive.
              • Day 2
                • Meditation Sutra
                  • “Asana means steady (sthira) and pleasant (sukham) posture of the body.” OM.
                  • (The Holy Science, 3.15)
                • Meditation Garden Self-Analysis
                  • “To comprehend a thing, i.e. to feel a thing by the heart clearly, the practice of the aforesaid asana, the steady and pleasant posture, is extremely necessary.” (The Holy Science). Relaxation, resulting in a “pleasant posture,” is an important key for meditation. Today as you meditate, observe yourself. How does your body feel as you meditate?
                  • Like a jellyfish
                  • Pretty relaxed
                  • Somewhat relaxed
                  • There is quite some tension
                  • Intuitive Guidance
                    • If you picked one of the last two options, apply the technique explained above and ask Sri Yukteswar: “What can I do to improve my relaxation?”
                    • Write down the solution you receive.
              • Day 3
                • Meditation Sutra
                  • A bent spine is the enemy of Self-realization. OM.
                • Meditation Garden Self-Analysis
                  • Today as you meditate, observe your asana (posture) attentively. Is your spine straight all the time in meditation?
                    • Yes, I am certain it is.
                    • I believe so.
                    • I am not sure
                    • No
                • Intuitive Guidance
                  • If you chose one of the last three options, apply the technique explained above and ask Sri Yukteswar: “How can I ascertain the situation and (if needed), improve the straightness of my spine?”
                  • Write down the solution you receive.
              • Day 4
                • Giving water to the inner flowers: self-analysis concerning the mind.
                • Meditation Sutra
                  • If you could break the thought of not being in samadhi, you’d be in samadhi. OM.
                • Meditation Garden Self-Analysis
                  • Our mind creates our reality, both inwardly and outwardly. It often becomes our saboteur if it holds harmful convictions or negative mental “grooves.” Today as you meditate, observe yourself deeply. Honestly examine whether you have any of the following subconscious patterns in your meditative life:
                    • “I don’t think I could ever reach a high state.”
                    • “Instinctively I am afraid of deeper states. I don’t know where they would take me.”
                    • “I don’t deserve a saintly state.”
                    • “I fear that by really going deep I will change, will become different, and might become estranged from my family and friends.”
                    • “I simply can’t sit still.”
                    • “Meditation is difficult and doesn’t work for me.”
                    • “I never have enough time to meditate.”
                    • “Deep meditation is actually not all that important for me.”
                    • “I am not a disciplined person because I don’t have strong will-power.”
                    • “I dislike discipline, regularity, being tied to a daily routine.”
                    • Choose an option:
                      • I don’t have any of these thought patterns
                      • I might
                      • I do
                • Intuitive Guidance
                  • If you chose one of the last two options, apply the technique explained above and ask Sri Yukteswar: “What can I do to identify my particular pattern better? What can I do to change it? What thought or affirmation can I use to counteract it?”
                  • Write down the solution you receive.
              • Day 5
                • Meditation Sutra
                  • “Yama is abstinence from cruelty, dishonesty, covetousness, unnatural living and unnecessary acceptance. Niyama is purity of body and mind, contentment in all circumstances and obedience to the precepts of the divine personages.” OM.
                  • (The Holy Science, 3.10-11)
                • Meditation Garden Self-Analysis
                  • These yamas and niyamas form the bases for a deeper meditation. Sri Yukteswar expounds on “natural living”, on food, dwelling and company. Today, before you meditate, ask yourself whether you practice the above qualities in your daily life.
                  • I do
                  • Most of them
                  • I am lacking in several qualities
                  • Intuitive Guidance
                  • If you chose one of the last two options, apply the technique explained above and ask Sri Yukteswar: “How can I develop this particular quality?”
              • Day 6
                • Meditation Sutra
                  • “The eight bondages are: hatred, shame, fear, grief, condemnation, race distinction, pedigree and the sense of respectability.” OM.
                  • (The Holy Science, 3.13)
                • Meditation Garden Self-Analysis
                  • Our outer and inner life can’t be separated. The quality of our daily life strongly influences the quality of our meditation. By removal of the above obstacles, magnanimity of the heart results, making man fit for asana or correct posture, pranayama or prana control and pratyahara or interiorization (see The Holy Science). So today as you meditate, observe yourself and ask: “Do I experience any of the above obstacles in my life?”
                  • I don’t have any of them.
                  • Somewhat
                  • I do
                  • Intuitive Guidance
                  • If you chose one of the last two options, apply the technique explained above and ask Sri Yukteswar: “How can I overcome this obstacle?”
                  • Giving sunlight to the inner flowers: self-analysis concerning the SOUL.
              • Day 7
                • Meditation Sutra
                  • “In Him (Parambrahma, God, Spirit) is the origin of all knowledge, love, the root of all power and joy.” OM.
                  • (The Holy Science, 1,2)
                • Meditation Garden Self-Analysis
                  • Devotion to God invites His indispensable help. “Hence the culture of this love, the heavenly gift, is the principle thing for the attainment of holy salvation and it is beyond doubt impossible for man to advance a step towards the same without this.” (The Holy Science). So today as you meditate, ask yourself if your heart infuses your techniques.
                  • I am very devotional
                  • There is some devotion
                  • Not very much
                  • Intuitive Guidance
                  • If you chose one of the last two options, apply the technique explained above and ask Sri Yukteswar: “How can I bring more devotion into my meditation? What will work for me?”
              • Day 7
                • Meditation Sutra
                  • “Pranayama means control over prana (life-force).” OM.
                  • (The Holy Science, 3.16)
                • Meditation Garden Self-Analysis
                  • Pranayama stills the mind and leads it toward interiorization (pratyahara). “If [man] can direct his organ of sense inward toward his Self at that time [of outer desire], he can satisfy his heart immediately.” (The Holy Science). Today at the beginning of meditation, practice pranayama for a long time and observe the effect of pleasant interiorization. If you don’t practice Kriya Yoga pranayama, Kriyananda recommends Chandra Bedha Pranayama.
                  • It is effective for me
                  • I feel some effect
                  • It doesn’t work for me.
                  • Intuitive Guidance
                  • If you chose one of the last two options, apply the technique explained above and ask Sri Yukteswar: “How can I practice to get deeper results?”
              • Day 8
                • Meditation Sutra
                  • “What is needed is a Guru, who will awaken in us devotion and perception of Truth.” OM.
                  • (The Holy Science, 1.17)
                • Meditation Garden Self-Analysis
                  • Samadhi is Guru-given. In general, our meditation is deepened through attunement with a Guru. Today as you meditate, feel him/her sitting at your side. Ask yourself: “Does my meditation go better in this way?”
                  • To answer the question, tick a box.
                    • Definitively
                    • I feel some effect
                    • I don’t feel a difference.
                • Intuitive Guidance
                  • If you chose one of the last two options, apply the technique explained above and ask Sri Yukteswar: “How can I explore this method of attunement better?”
                  • If you have followed this eight-day practice, you are done. Congratulations! Now ask yourself: “How does my Inner Meditation Garden appear? Am I observing the first colorful flowers? Am I emerging from the dry spell?”
                  • To inspire you to keep gardening, here is one of Yogananda’s Whispers From Eternity, recited by Swami Kriyananda. By the way, his birthday too will be celebrated soon, on May 19, just nine days after Sri Yukteswar’s.
                  • And for the future: should a dry spell ever beset you again, return to your Meditation Workbook for the Inner Gardener and start over again.
                  • May your soul-flowers be ever in bloom,
                  • Jayadev
        • 3) VISUALIZE PERFECT SELF
          • Find a Quiet Space:
            • Choose a quiet and comfortable place where you won’t be disturbed during the meditation.
          • Relaxation:
            • Sit or lie down in a comfortable position.
            • Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths to relax your body and mind.
          • Create a Mental Image:
            • Visualize your ideal self. Imagine the best version of yourself in different aspects of life, such as personal, professional, or spiritual aspects.
            • Picture the details, including your appearance, behavior, achievements, and how you interact with others.
          • Engage Your Senses:
            • Make the visualization as vivid as possible. Engage your senses by imagining how things look, feel, sound, and even smell in this ideal scenario.
          • Positive Emotions:
            • Allow positive emotions associated with this ideal self to arise. Feel the joy, confidence, and fulfillment that come with being your best self.
          • Incorporate Goals:
            • Integrate specific goals or achievements you aspire to reach. See yourself succeeding in your endeavors.
          • Affirmations:
            • Include positive affirmations related to your perfect self. Repeat these affirmations mentally or aloud to reinforce positive beliefs.
          • Experience Success:
            • Envision yourself overcoming challenges and achieving success in various aspects of your life.
          • Gratitude:
            • Express gratitude for the positive changes and growth you’ve experienced in this visualization.
          • Reflect on Feelings:
            • After completing the visualization, take a moment to reflect on the feelings and emotions that arose during the practice.
          • Integration:
            • As you go about your daily life, try to integrate the positive energy and motivation from the visualization into your actions and decisions.
          • This meditation technique can be personalized to focus on different areas of your life, such as relationships, career, health, or personal development. Consistent practice of Visualization of the Perfect Self can help cultivate a positive mindset, enhance motivation, and create a mental blueprint for achieving your goals.
        • 4) E = MC²
          • Within us is an energy that is life-giving and has the wisdom to cause us to thrive and evolve. A corpse has every organ, every bone, every part that we have, but doesn’t have this energy and thus doesn’t have life as we know it. In Japan a few years ago, scientists did an experiment with a dying man. They put him in a room that was a 100% totally controlled environment. They weighed the man and everything else in the room. They knew how much moisture and oxygen were in it and had every possible variable accounted for. When the moment of death came, they found that there were 28 grams missing that they couldn’t account for. That ounce is the energy of life that right now is keeping you alive.
          • There really is an energy filling you now. This energy has a consciousness, a wisdom. It is smart enough to send its life-giving power into every cell of your body and cause the cells to absorb the energy, use it, and perfuse it and other gasses, perspiration, snot, phlegm, feces, urine, shedded skin, exhaled matter and other liquids and solids.
          • Visualize your body filled with life-giving light. Witness your body energized. Each of the billions of cells that make up your body displays its own wisdom. Some join together to form your skin, some your bones, some your organs, and some your nervous system. Each knows how to do its own functions and has its own characteristics. Each cell unique yet the same insofar as each is powered and empowered by the same energy. Visualize each cell in your body filled with life-giving light. Witness your cells energized. Your cells are composed of billions of molecules that have their own game plan of life and are powered and directed by this same energy. The molecules combine in multitudes of ways. These combinations allow the chemical, material, and electrical porperties that cause the cellular interactions that lead to organic life processes that include emotionality and intellectuality, as well as physical activity. Visualize each molecule in every cell filled with live-giving light. Witness your molecules energized.
          • Within each molecule, uncountable atoms interact with a purpose that transcends human understanding and yet gives the ability to ponder. As the electrons, protons, and neutrons swirl and dance, the structure of all molecules are actualized and the energy that activates them directs their actions and interactions and the functions of life are initiated. Visualize each atom in every molecule filled with life giving light. Visualize your atoms energized.
          • Within the atoms there is subatomic energy that has the brilliance of combining to form the quarks that form and direct the atoms that form the molecules that form the cells that form us. This same energy is within every living thing — within all things that walk the earth, that swim in the waters, that fly through the air. It is within all that grows and all that lives. And it has a wisdom that directs all activity. Visualize the infiniteness of this life-giving light. This process of energy change and exchange has been going on forever and proceeds within you and without you now. Merge with it and live happily ever after.
        • 5) BATHING IN PROTECTIVE LIGHT
          • Find a Quiet Space:
            • Choose a quiet and comfortable space where you can sit or lie down without distractions.
          • Relax Your Body:
            • Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths to relax your body and calm your mind.
          • Ground Yourself:
            • Focus on your breath or engage in a brief grounding exercise to center your awareness in the present moment.
          • Visualize a Protective Light:
            • Imagine a soft, radiant light surrounding your entire body. This light can be any color that feels calming and protective to you, such as white, golden, or blue.
          • Feel the Warmth and Comfort:
            • Visualize this protective light emitting a warm and comforting energy. Feel its gentle glow enveloping you from head to toe.
          • Set an Intention:
            • As you visualize the protective light, set an intention for it to shield you from negative energy, stress, or any challenges you may be facing.
          • Expand the Light:
            • With each breath, imagine the protective light expanding and intensifying. See it extending beyond your body, creating a protective bubble around you.
          • Connect with Feelings of Safety:
            • Allow the visualization to evoke feelings of safety, security, and tranquility. Sense the light acting as a barrier, filtering out any negativity.
          • Embrace the Healing Energy:
            • Imagine the protective light also carrying healing energy. Feel it soothing any tension, anxiety, or discomfort within your body and mind.
          • Express Gratitude:
            • Take a moment to express gratitude for the sense of protection and peace you are experiencing during the meditation.
          • Gradual Return:
            • When you are ready to conclude the meditation, gradually bring your awareness back to the present. Take a few deep breaths, wiggle your fingers and toes, and open your eyes.
          • This meditation technique is not only about visualization but also about cultivating a sense of inner security and well-being. Regular practice of “Bathing in Protective Light” can be a helpful tool for managing stress and promoting a positive mindset. Adjust the details of the visualization to suit your preferences and make the practice your own.
        • 6) LITTLE BUDDHA, BIG BUDDHA
        • 7) HEALING
        • 8) MANDALAS
        • 9) 4-4-8
          • Position yourself in your most comfortable meditation posture. Relax your body, mind, and emotions. Witness the way you are breathing. As you can see, you are hardly inhaling or exhaling at all. Maybe the air is only going 2 or 3 inches down into your chest and only 2 or 3 inches out from your nose. Every cell in your body is nourished by oxygen and weak inhalations deny us the energy supplying air we need. Similarly, our feeble exhalations don’t allow us to expel the poisonous gasses lying deep in our lungs. This is why we often feel run down, crabby, and sleepy. The purpose of this technique is to cleanse your body, mind, emotions, and spirit by taking in a healthy, therapeutic dose of oxygen and ridding yourself of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and other impurities. You are going to achieve this purification by totally filling and completely emptying your lungs. The 4 – 4 – 8 Pranayama (breathing technique) will achieve a tremendous cleansing and revitalization throughout your entire body. Enhanced clarity of thought and uplifted emotions are always byproducts of this classic method.
          • Inhale deeply for 4 units of time. Fill your lungs completely, so you can see and feel your abdomen distend. Retain your breath for the count of 4 and then exhale for the count of 8. Any rhythm that you naturally establish is the right one for you, so if your units are 4 one second units of time for inhaling, 4 of retention and 8 seconds for exhaling, that’s fine. You can’t do this wrong.
          • When you inhale for a count of 4, visualize all divine and healthy qualities coming to you. See and feel yourself inhaling purity, sweetness, gentleness, health, vitality, tranquility, and so on. While retaining your breath for the count of 4, visualize all these attributes filling every cell in your body. Now exhale all impurities and un-divine qualities for a count of 8. See and feel pain, anger, illness, ignorance, impatience, and so on, leave you.
          • As with many pranayama techniques, it is recommended that you do it for either 3 sets of 12 repetitions each, or 12 sets of 12 repetitions. Each cycle consists of inhaling for 4 units of time, retaining 4 and exhaling 8. As you get into a rhythm, it will become easy and appropriate to see and feel yourself as pure, filled with light, energy, and love.
          • Although this meditation technique is specifically designed as a healthy cleansing, many have found it to be a perfect technique to use as their primary meditation method. As with all meditation techniques, it is far better to do them then simply to read about them. Do this method, experience its’ results and achieve Knowledge, Consciousness, Bliss, and Peace and live happily ever after.
        • 10) BUILDING AN INNER TEMPLE
        • 11) CLIMBING THE HOLY MOUNTAIN
        • 12) THE END OF GUILT
          • Once upon a time there was a spiritual seeker named Jiva. After trying many different ways to become pure and holy and attain enlightenment, he had gained a great degree of self-control. He was no longer blindly reactive to the actions of people, places and things he came in contact with. Nor did he squander energy with unnecessary physical or mental tension. Selflessness and humility had replaced greed and egoism and thus he spared himself any of the suffering that is the automatic result of those behaviors. And yet, Jiva still felt uneasiness within himself. Despite being able to experience states of bliss while sitting in meditation, he recognized that there was a sense of desperation deep inside that even feelings of ecstasy and glorious visions couldn’t dissipate.
          • Recognizing his need for help, Jiva journeyed to see his teacher, Moksha. After reaching his destination and being warmly welcomed, he proceeded to tell of his frustration, anxiety, and how this made him feel that he was a spiritual failure. Moksha at once knew the cause and cure of his student’s problem. “My beloved Jiva, you have attained great things. You have understood what actions are beneficial and which are not, and on a conscious level, no longer do those things that diminish your serenity and well being. Your problem is a very common one and is on a subconscious level. You are suffering from feelings of guilt and unworthiness. This comes from identifying with an illusionary vision of who you are. Long ago you were told you had to act in certain ways and believe in things that you no longer do.
          • For instance, it was impressed on you that if you didn’t sit exactly the way you were taught was proper in first grade, you were being “a bad boy”. Similarly, you were expected to believe in Santa Claus and were led to believe that this and other fairy tales were the basis of whether you would find life enjoyable. As a matter of fact, you were taught that many of your actions were “sins” and would doom you to hell for eternity. There were also times in your life that your actions caused pain or suffering to others and are proper to regret and never repeat. You have kept these things within you and have never dealt with them. Much like someone who has a tooth that looks white and healthy on the outside but has an abscess within, you have a need for spiritual dentistry to cleanse the dis-ease process within you.” Moksha then taught Jiva the End of Guilt meditation technique. Jiva sat in meditation and soon purged himself of all subconscious feelings of guilt. He then realized the purity, wisdom, and bliss of his infinite, eternal Real Self, and lived happily ever after.
          • The End of Guilt Meditation Technique:
          • Sit in the position of comfort that you have come to know is best for maintaining meditation. Relax your mind, body, and emotions. Attain a rhythm of effortless breathing. Refocus your attention on your breath if you get distracted from your meditation. In your mind’s eye, visualize your Deity. If it is one that has no human form, see the holy, infinite, all-powerful pure energy that represents the divine. If your Deity has a form, see it in as great detail as possible.
          • For instance, if it is in a human male form, see its body, face, hair, eyes, hands, robe, all, as clearly as you can. See yourself in front of and facing your Deity, in a sitting, standing, or prostrating position. Visualize yourself covered with many, many layers of ultra fine energy, much like the layers of skin on an onion. Each of these layers were created by the process of labeling your actions as sins. In reality, nothing you’ve ever done has been either “good” or “bad”. They have just been things that occurred in your life. If they could be labeled or judged, what they would be are opportunities to appreciate your universal identity and oneness with the divine. Misinformation and inappropriate conditioning has caused you to have the illusion that you have sinned by your physical, mental, or emotional actions and have acquired layers of negative energy that now cover and soil your pure Real Self.
          • Realize that with every breath you receive, the Highest Power, your Deity, sends you forgiveness and blessings. Know that every interaction you have had with anyone else that you may have thought caused them to suffer, had the potential to help them become a stronger person and evolve in consciousness. Most importantly, acknowledge that not everything you were conditioned to believe was a sin, was one, and that the conditioning itself may have been the sin.
          • See your Deity remove your guilt and convert your so-called sins into love. Visualize your guilt coatings melting off and the forgiveness and blessings of the Divine cleansing and healing the wounds and pain they caused. As they peel off, you may remember specific things that you have been carrying within your subconscious. Witness the events and the suffering they represent fade away and dissolve forever.
          • As the final layers are peeled away, you realize that there is nothing left within and thus no separation from the Deity who is all powerful, present infinitely and eternally, all knowing and all love. Just like a bird that has escaped its shell, with no more guilt to bind you, you are forever free to soar the heavens and swim in the universal ocean of bliss. And live happily ever after.
        • 13) POWER SPOT
        • 14) MEDITATION 24 X 7
          • There is no doubt that meditating for 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes in the evening is extremely beneficial, but what about the other 23 hours and 20 minutes? All meditative techniques have the potential of putting you in the position of being the Witness of your mind’s thoughts, your bodily sensations, and your emotional feelings. Here are a few suggestions of what you can do to be at one with the Witness while not “sitting in meditation”.
          • 1) Before every action, there are words, and before all words, there are thoughts. Make it a habit to Witness your actions, and if you recognize that they are not of a peace-bringing nature, cease doing them. Similarly, if you see that your words are tension producing, stop them. And then examine your thoughts. If you Witness them being troubling, change them to ones that bring you serenity, or cease them entirely. This can be done by using a meditation technique that you have found brings you peace, or by praying, dancing, physical exercises, or whatever.
          • 2) Check your body for physical tension. Make it a habit to stop several times a day to scan your body mentally for areas where you are tense. Command them to relax. You will quickly learn where you keep your tension and when you command that area to relax, your whole body will melt away it’s uptightness like chocolate melting in the summers heat. Similarly, start taking a breath break. All you need to do is spend a minute or two doing a breathing exercise. It can be as simple as just inhaling and exhaling deeply, or it can be a pranayama (breathing) method that has a more complex pattern. This will always produce a calming effect.
          • 3) Say a prayer or affirmation several times a day. Something simple like “Higher Power, guide, protect, and bless me”, or “I receive and fill with wisdom and love with every breath”, can produce uplifting physical, mental, and emotional changes.
          • What all these have in common is that you are paying attention and are acting instead of just being in a reactive rote mode. Most importantly, you are at one with your Witness, your Real Self. To phrase this in a 21st century, computer age way; when these peace producing actions become your default setting, more and more you increase your potential to live happily ever after.
        • 15) ASTRAL TRAVEL
          • Everyone has Out Of Body (OOB) experiences every time they dream, but few have them as intentional learning experiences. By publishing this technique we know we are going somewhere very controversial. Some say that OOB or Astral travel should not be taught at all, or only while in the presence of a very experienced guide. Others feel that being OOB in the dream body, astral body, or whatever you want to call it, is much less dangerous than being in our physical body. Also, it is cited that self-knowledge brings self-control, and lack of it often goes hand in hand with being out of control. In many traditions, it is felt that you will be taught what you need to know exactly when you need to know it. Perhaps just the fact that you are reading this now points to this being the time when you are supposed to deal with it. But it may not be so. In any event, the Meditation Society of America is dedicated to sharing techniques, not to hiding them, and it is with this in mind that we share this basic methodology. Whether or not you try it is up to you.
          • The Astral Body – A Short Summary of Traditional Teachings
          • Our physical body is built and maintained by eating food. If you ingest nutritious food you will be healthy, and if you eat junk, your health will suffer. Your astral body is a higher, finer body composed of subtler material. It is built by feeding yourself what is healthy for your spirit. And that would be good acts, words, and thoughts. These “sattvic”, righteous actions produce the holy material that makes up the astral body. But, if you fill with negativity, you will not have enough energy to form a strong functional astral body. One way to help understand the way this works is to picture your astral body as a balloon. Your kindness, acts of charity, compassion, prayers, meditations, good intentions, and so on, produce astral energy that fills the balloon. When it is full enough, you will rise out of the confines of your physical body. When it is even fuller, you will escape the pull of Mother Earth’s gravity and be able to roam the solar system. This goes on until your astral body fills totally, and the balloon bursts. Your pre-preatomic energy is free to join the infinite divine creative consciousness that permeates the universe, and you are free of all limitations, be they physical or astral. Still using the balloon analogy, it is said that negativity will both dissipate the astral energy you had been filled with, as well as placing heavier, denser energy inside. This loss of “good” and gain of “bad” will affect you as much as hydrogen leaking out of a real balloon and putting sand into it. You will be bogged down and not be able to ascend to the heavens. This is a powerful life-changing situation. It is said that one moment of anger will negate whatever gains months of meditation had brought. Similarly, the intention you have for using it is felt to be very important in the construction of the astral body. As an example, let’s say that all you wanted to use it for was to go to a card game, leave your body, and in the astral, be able to see the other players’ hands. Your materialistic desires and plans to have an unfair advantage would probably deplete you of astral energy to the degree that you wouldn’t be able to use your astral body any more than a deflated balloon can fly. Although winning at cards initially may seem attractive, there is no doubt that spiritual evolution is a far greater treasure. So if you do try astral travel, it is suggested that this be the intention motivating your use of this technique. The astral body is the body you will take with you when you die. The greater the quantity of astral energy, the higher stage of evolution you will be reborn into. You can’t have any faith in your body, mind, or emotions surviving death. Only your consciousness, your awareness, has this potential. The astral body is the vehicle that carries it until liberation takes place, and the re-union with everything, everywhere, takes place. This is when you experience the Divine Body and live happily ever after.
          • The Astral Travel Meditation Technique
          • Close your eyes and visualize yourself sitting or laying down in whatever position you are in. See yourself in as great a detail as you can. Visualize your astral body getting up and leaving your physical body and floating to a position approximatly 10 feet above your physical body. Float up through the ceiling of the room you are in, or right up in the sky if you are outdoors. When you are about 100 feet in the air, look down and see the area you were just in. See the rooftops, treetops, lights, whatever. Float very much higher and then see the area beneath you. Think of somewhere on earth and let yourself be pulled there. This usually happens instantaneously with the first place you think of. It is suggested you preplan your “flight”. Look around. Be conscious of your surroundings without commenting, comparing, or judging. No mental chatter! Let your self, your awareness, be pulled back to high above where you started. Now, let the universe pull you to wherever you are supposed to go. Be silently conscious of your surroundings, learn what you are supposed to, and be pulled back again. Float back down to above the building or area where you started. Look at the environment, and float down through the rooftop to the top of the room you started in, about 10 feet above your body. Look down at your physical body, and let yourself be pulled back into it. Lay or sit still and let your physical body absorb what your astral body has learned. Silently witness the process. Live happily ever after
        • 16) SHALLOW BREATHING
        • 17) RECAPTURING LOST ASTRAL ENERGY
        • 18) I AM
          • As Popeye said so often and so wisely, “I Am what I Am and that’s all what I Am.” Prepare yourself for meditation by emptying your body of any tension, your mind of any commentary, and establish an emotional calm. Witness the sensations your physical senses present now.
          • As you witness what you see, consciously but silently state “What I see constantly changes and only has a temporary reality. This is not real and thus is not who I Am. I Am unchangeable and eternal.”
          • As you witness what you hear, consciously but silently state “What I hear constantly changes and only has a temporary reality. This is not real and thus is not who I Am. I Am unchangeable and eternal.”
          • As you witness what you smell and taste, consciously but silently state “What I smell and taste constantly changes and only has a temporary reality. This is not real and thus is not who I Am. I Am unchangeable and eternal.”
          • As you witness the sensations your skin, muscles, bones, and organs present, consciously but silently state “What I feel physically constantly changes and only has a temporary reality. This is not real and thus is not who I Am. I Am unchangeable and eternal.”
          • As you witness your mind and emotions, consciously but silently state “What I think and the emotions I feel constantly change and only have a temporary reality. This is not real and thus not who I Am. I Am unchangeable and eternal.”
          • Now, drop everything and witness yourself as I Am. Do this unchangeably and eternally and live happily ever after.
        • 19) PREPARING TO REINCARNATE
          • Exactly 3000 years ago, God in His persona of Rama was floating around heaven with the Holy Mother energy of the Universe, in the form of Sita at his side. As they passed over a remote island on the planet Earth, Sita noticed a blind man walking through a marketplace. What caught her attention was that the man was chanting “Rama, Rama, Rama, Sita, Sita, Sita” as he walked. She saw that as he passed by, many people would put a few alms in his begging bowl and some would even start chanting themselves. This pleased Her greatly. After watching him for a while, she saw he had left the little town and was now walking a path that led to the edge of a steep cliff. “Rama, Rama, Rama, Sita, Sita, Sita” the man continued to chant.
          • “Oh, Lord Rama,” said Sita, “there is a poor blind man who always chants our holy names, and in a moment he will fall off a cliff and die. Please take away his blindness. Such a devoted follower deserves our compassion and help.” “I don’t get involved in that way with humans.” said Rama “I have given them free choice and let them create and work out their own Karma. Besides, you have great power. If you want to save him, you do it.” “Oh Lord,” Sita said “I feel Motherly compassion and plead the case, but I would never presume to act in your place.” “Well, I have a suggestion.” said Rama “This man is so devoted that we will see whose name he calls when he falls over the cliff. If he calls Rama, I will save him and if he calls Sita, you save him. And then he will join us in heaven and enjoy the infinite blissful vision of eternal glory that is the fate of all true devotees.” “Oh, that will be fine!” a beaming Sita said.
          • And so, the Holy divinities watched as the man proceeded on his way towards the cliff. “Rama, Rama, Rama, Sita, Sita, Sita” chanted the blind man. He then took one final step, fell over the edge, and screamed “Oh crap!” Rama turned to Sita and said, “That’s not my name! Is that yours?” “No,” said Mother Sita, “it’s not my name either.” “Well then,” proclaimed Lord Rama, “he must now reincarnate as whatever he said in his last moment!”
          • There are a few very important lessons to be learned from this ancient tale. One would be that we should be aware that not all people who are singing the Lords name are sincere. Some do it simply to get alms. More importantly, we must appreciate that in a way we are all blind and approaching an unseen cliff that is our own death. Every religion has rites and rituals that deal with the last moments of life and the first moments that follow.
          • This passage has been universally recognized by every culture that has ever existed on the earth as a “make or break” moment. And yet, very few of us prepare for that inevitable moment at all. You are going to take a last breath and will never get another one. Are you ready? What if what you last think about is what you will reincarnate as? Are you firmly established in the consciousness of universal unity and thus can confidently expect an eternal divine reward? Are you likely to freak out and perhaps have a crappy rebirth? Depending on your answers to these questions, the Preparing to Reincarnate Meditation may very well save your (eternal) life.
          • Sit in a comfortable posture in a peaceful place. Close your eyes; relax your body, mind, and emotions. Inhale slowly and deeply. Retain the breath for as long as is comfortable. Exhale slowly and deeply. Do this over and over until it feels natural. In your minds eye, recall and envision your earliest life memory. Follow this event, examine it, and let the remembering fill you, but simply witness it. Do not comment, compare or judge. Then direct and allow your mind to replay all the events in your life. Watch the scenes with as pure a dispassion and detachment as you can. Witness as if you were watching a complete stranger’s life story. As you see your life unfold, you may witness yourself being sentimental about the people, places, things, or activities that you are remembering.
          • You must inwardly say and feel, “I am now free of these events and am ready to accept the next moment.” If you feel a strong relationship with a personal (universal) divinity, you may find it feels right to state, “God, I am giving this all to you. It has always been and will always be yours. Thy Will be done.” or some similar pronouncement. It is the “right” one if it leaves you feeling like a piece of the universal mosaic, filled with peace and ready for your God to carry you away to eternal tranquility. This is an attitude more than just a recitation. Repeat your choice statement as often as necessary until you are so free of reactivity to the events you are recalling and reliving, that it is redundant to use words.
          • As you view the scenes of your life in your minds eye, if you witness a nostalgic sentimentality toward any aspect of your life, you are not ready to join a higher power in heaven and you will reincarnate as a human. Your rebirth can occur now, or when your meditation ends, or sometime after your lifes end. If you are empty of reaction to your individual life, you will fill with loving interaction with all life and live happily ever after.
        • 20) ASTRAL HEALING
        • 21) VISUALIZATION OF A DEITY
          • When a pharmacist goes about preparing a prescription, he or she always uses a container of perfect purity to place the healing medication into. Similarly, when preparing to fill our consciousness with healing meditation, we must be sure it is free of impurities. So, begin doing this and every meditation, by using whatever techniques you have found work best for you, and bring about a state of alert, peaceful tranquility to your mind, body, and emotions. Be ready to receive all the pure, holy energy the universe can fill you with.
          • There are actually 3 different traditional techniques that deal with visualizing a deity. The first and second ones are applicable to those meditators whose relationship with the divine includes their God manifesting in human form. The third one can be done both by followers of human form deities and by those whose vision of God is as light or energy or power.
          • The first method directs us to see our deity with as much detail as possible. If it is a male biblical figure, for instance, see Him as clearly as possible. Start with His holy feet. See them gracing the earth with His presence. Then, work your way up the body/ robe being aware of every little detail. See His hands reaching out to you to take your suffering, your offering, to calm you, to carry you. See His serene, compassionate face glowing with Love. This technique brings the deity to life. It will then interact with you.
          • The next technique has you visualizing yourself kneeling in front of your savior. Once again see this scene in as great a detail as you can. Make an offering to Him – perhaps your sadness, or your pain, or your promise to act charitably. See the deity accept it and fill you with blissful, endless loving energy. Every deity has come for the purpose of easing our pain. See His pleasure in doing this for you. Feel the freedom and love fill you and know and feel Gratitude.
          • The 3rd technique deals with the concept/reality of omnipresence. Start by realizing/visualizing your deity filling you completely as air fills a balloon. For if God is God, (S)He is everywhere, in everything. Then visualize your deity filling someone you know. Then see Him in everyone on earth. Then, in everything that lives on earth – within all things in the air, in the waters, on and in the earth. Now, see this deity filling the Earth, the Sun and the whole solar system. Now see the deity filling the Milky Way and then as big as all the galaxies. See and feel the unity of everything in the universe filled with God and realize that the same energy filling everything is filling every atom, every molecule, every cell that makes you up and is filling you now and forever.
          • You are a part of the Kingdom of God and not apart from it. Know and feel this and live happily ever after.
        • 22) INNER BATHING IN ULTRA VIOLET LIGHT
        • 23) HEALING WITH OM
        • 24) HEALING WITH PRAYER
        • 25) TRANSCENDING KARMA
          • Once upon a time, long, long ago, there were 2 holy men traveling together through the countryside. They came upon a beautiful young woman sitting and sobbing by the side of a stream. She said she was afraid of drowning and asked them if they would help her cross to the other side of the water. Without saying a word, one of the monks picked up the girl and carried her to the other side of the stream where he gently put her down. She thanked him and went on her way. The two men then continued their journey. After a while, the monk said to the one who had carried the young woman, “How could you do such a thing? We have taken vows of chastity. It is forbidden to even talk to a woman let alone touch one.” The other monk lovingly replied, “When I came to the other side of the stream, I put her down. Why are you still carrying her?”
          • What have you been carrying around that you should have put down and left behind? Do you still harbor feelings of regret, anger, hate, disappointment, or any other negative adjectives or adverbs that apply, for events, people, or things that are not here, now? Why do you do this masochistic activity?
          • Life can be equated with a boat ride taking you from one shore to another. As the boat goes across the water, it leaves a wake in its path. This wake represents your past. And just like the wake a boat leaves behind doesn’t propel the boat forward at all, your past doesn’t drive you towards the other shore. What’s done is done if you will be done with it. If you don’t face the front of the boat and place your attention in the present moment, you will not be able to avoid running into the icebergs and other potential hazards that could jeopardize your trip through life. Your karma is fulfilled and up to date at all times. Your clinging to the past and fantasizing about the future is what keeps you paying a karmic debt. Simply attend to this moment and witness the path your boat is traveling. This is action free of reaction and further karma.
          • Relax. Melt into your most comfortable meditative posture. Focus on your breath and feel and witness its entry, retention, and leaving. Let your body establish a comfortable rhythm. Visualize your great grandparents in your mind’s eye. See them be born, have events take place in their lives and eventually give birth to your grandparents. Visualize your grandparents be born, see them have events take place in their lives and eventually give birth to your parents. Visualize your parents being born and see them go through the events in their lives that eventually included giving birth to you.
          • As clearly as possible, without reacting physically, emotionally, or mentally, allow the movie of the events of your life to unfold on the inner screen of your mind’s eye. Witness the events as unattached as the monk was who carried the woman over the stream. And just like him, leave your attachments to all the events that have resulted in your being here, now. Know that you are now in the boat ride of your life and that to look back is to reattach to your ancestors and your own karma and all the suffering that clings to it. Look ahead free of karma, enjoy the ride, and live happily ever after.
        • 26) HEALING WITH TOUCH
        • 27) INNER BATHING IN HEALING WATER
        • 28) VISUALIZATION OF INNER HEALER
        • 29) ELEMENTS
          • Since cave man and cave woman times, people have been meditating on the elements. Each element can be focused on individually or all can be understood together, but the emphasis is the same: we are composed of and interactive with elements every moment. This realization is true self-discovery. The meditation techniques themselves are very elemental:
          • See yourself as earth — your hair, skin, bones, teeth, all solid parts are made of elements, minerals, chemicals, everything on earth has earth in it. See yourself as merged with the earth.
          • See yourself as water — your blood, lymph, mucous, urine, sweat, tears, all the fluid in every cell of your body — everything on earth is connected to water. See yourself as merged with water.
          • See yourself as air — your lungs fill with oxygen 21,600 times a day, 7,884,000 times a year — your red blood cells carry oxygen to every cell in your body. You have many other gasses within you and without you. There is an infinite gaseous exchange going on and it’s all part of the air — cows and plants give off methane and filter carbon dioxide and produce oxygen — all life on earth interplays with the air — see yourself as merged with air.
          • See yourself as fire — every cell in your body is activated by energy and all energy is activated by the firing of atoms — every atom everywhere is an explosion of fire — every atom is an emanation of the sun and its fire fuels all life on earth. See yourself as merged with fire.
          • See yourself as ether — there is space within you, within and without every atom. There is space that extends infinitely within and without the earth’s atmosphere everywhere in the universe. See yourself as merged with ether.
          • See yourself as prana — the primal source. That energy from which comes earth, water, air, fire, and ether is prana. It is the source and sustainer of all forms. It is the lowest common denominator of everything. It is the ultimate true identity of everything everywhere.
          • Identify yourself with prana and extend infinitely as pure blissful consciousness.
        • 30) RIGHT EYE / LEFT EYE
        • 31) FILLING THE MIND TO EMPTY THE MIND
          • When you first start meditating and read the ancient literature, time and time again you find the suggestion/direction to empty your mind. Almost all the FDG’s (Famous Dead Gurus) indicate this is virtually mandatory to achieve success in meditation. Then you try to do it and find that it is easier said than done. But, as they say in song, “don’t worry, be happy” because there are solutions to this non-problem.
          • One of the best techniques to use when you find it impossible to clear your mind is to fill it to the max. Focus on any object or concept – like an egg or peace – (it is usually considered much easier to focus on an object, by the way) – OK so, let’s say you are using an egg as the object – you then think of everything you can that relates to an egg. For example, an egg is oval; it comes in brown or white. It has a fragile shell. It comes from a mother, etc. You then extrapolate on how these characteristics relate to you.
          • For instance, people are sort of oval shaped, come in brown and white colors, our skin is a fragile shell, etc. Whatever you do, keep referring back to the object of your concentration (in this case, the egg). You can also work on how the egg relates to any/everything in the universe. As Einstein tells us, everything in the universe is relative to everything else. So, what eventually has to happen is that you will find that everything you can think about relates to an egg. Way before you get through the first billion things that relate, your mind will surrender, or sort of turn off from fatigue. Being empty, you can and will then fill with the essence of the egg, which is the same essence as you and everything else in the universe.
          • You may not even need to fill terribly much with a lot of thought. It sometimes happens that you will realize that essence quite quickly. For instance, you may realize that the egg is made of atomic and subatomic substances that have no difference than those that make you up. And so is the entire universe. You are literally star energy and united with all the atomic particles everywhere.
          • There is a wisdom and consciousness that allows the atoms to know enough to merge into molecular compositions and the molecules to unite into more and more complex compositions. The ultimate intelligent composition is the human, for we are blessed with the ability to ponder this holy, miraculous process and unite with the source and maintainer of it.
          • There are many other methods to fill the mind. One is to answer Zen koans like “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” or “What was your face before you were born”. These imponderables are unanswerable by mere intellect, body, or emotions, and have been used for hundreds of years as a way to master our mind. Similarly, Sufi tales, particularly those featuring Mullah Nasrudin, as well as Hindu teaching stories, Talmudic tales, etc., that offer levels after levels of understanding that your mind will never be able to fathom.
          • Another method is to do visualizations. Then, you will be filling your mind with what you choose. For instance, visualize yourself being the person you want to be. A “you” with perfect health, tranquility, wisdom, and self control. And complete mastery of your mind.
          • Meditation Station and other web sites offer dozens of techniques and concepts that are appropriate to use to do more than just clear your mind. Try a few methods, find one (or possibly even a few) that feel right, and persevere until your mind becomes a useful tool, just as your hand or computer or car is. And you will live happily ever after.
        • 32) HAVE NO HEAD
        • 33) 3RD EYE MEDITATION
          • Imagine what your life would have been like if you had kept your eyelids shut for your entire lifetime. Your eyes would have worked perfectly and yet your sense of vision would have gone to waste. Similarly, not using your 3rd eye is keeping you in the dark in relation to enjoying the wonders and wisdom of your sense of mystic sight.
          • Every one of us had our 3rd eye fully open when we were babies. We were effortlessly able to witness the glory of the universe from its subatomic nature to its multi-galactic infiniteness. Through conditioning by our parents, teachers, and peers, we started a process of covering our 3rd eye with layer after layer of illusion. As an example, let’s imagine that at one month of age we were laying in our crib looking at the paisley patterned dance of energy that life is. Our mommy stuck a stuffed doll in front of our face and said, “Look at the piggy, look at the piggy.” We then started the process of recognizing that particular shape and associating it with the label “pig”. We also might have been introduced to the concepts of color, texture, size, and other things. “Baby, look at how pink and fuzzy the nice little piggy doll is.” And this began our habit of replacing direct perception of reality with a perceiving, labeling, reacting physically, emotionally, and mentally process. And we went further and further away from an unfiltered pure experience of living life as it takes place. As we aged, we also added a thought analyzing method of judging, comparing, and commenting on every thing our senses brought our attention to, and we got less and less in touch with Now.
          • The result of this process is similar to putting shutters on a window. No light comes through and those within can only imagine what is on the other side of the shutters. Unfortunately, this really leaves us in the dark about what is real and what life is really about. Just as you can’t adequately describe an orange to anyone who has never seen the color orange, or has not tasted one, you cannot understand what a 3rd eye vision is like from reading about it, or hearing it described by someone who has them. You will have to experience it first hand. So, the experience of divine perception, astral sight, aura awareness, mystic vision, or whatever other esoteric label you put on it, will remain only a theory until a way is found to actually open the 3rd eye.
          • Every time you sit in meditation and do the 3rd eye technique, you remove one of the shutters covering your inner window of wisdom. It is often compared to peeling away layers of skin from an onion. This continues until there is nothing left. And in this No-thing, there is everything. And we return to the pure direct perception of the glory and wonders of the universe we beheld as a baby. But now, we have the understanding that only comes with maturity.
          • The 3rd Eye Meditation Technique
          • To begin, place yourself in the place and position that you have found to be most advantageous to meditation. Relax your mind, body, and emotions. Command your mind to cease its chatter, your emotions to stay in a serene mode, and your body to not disturb your meditation in any way. Focus your attention to the sound and feeling of your breath coming in and going out. Return to your breath awareness if you witness that you have lost your focus. At no time during your meditation should you chastise yourself about anything. So, for example, if you lose your attention and then realize this, just accept it without commenting. Return your attention to your breath and then continue with your meditation.
          • Close your eyes. Place your attention on the area between your eyebrows. After a short time, a point of light will present itself in the center of your inner field of vision. Keep your focus there. For some people, it will be beneficial to raise your eyeballs as if you were looking up at about a 25-degree angle. For others, just directing their attention upwards will be easier and less distracting. After some experimentation, go with one of the ways exclusively. In the beginning of 3rd eye practice, it may help to place your thumb at the outer edge of one eye and your middle finger on the outer edge of the other, while placing your index finger at the mid-point between your eyebrows. This gives you a point of focus to place your attention. It also allows you to prevent your eyelids from fluttering. This commonly occurs, and can be distracting until you get used to the sensations that accompany this technique.
          • Let the light come to you. Be available to be filled. The more you continue practicing this meditation, the more layers of the veil of illusion will peel away and Reality will reveal itself to you. As you perceive the Truth, your understanding of the delusional concept that you are apart from the rest of the universe will lose its grip on you, and the knowledge that you are a part of all and everything will become undeniably apparent. Your chattering mind will eventually dissolve in the unspeakable transcendent light of love that is now and forever within and without you.
          • Once you stop being locked into viewing reality from just one perspective, you will start to be free from habitual reactivity. 3rd eye experiences put you in that position. You will recognize that nothing more than a show has been playing out before you in what you considered “real life”. And, just like when you are at the theater, you may be interested to some degree with seeing how the plot turns out, but knowing that it is all just a story, you won’t take it any more seriously than a show. The constant anxiety and fear that is attached to a singular ego centered view of life will end and be replaced with the bliss of effortlessly merging and identifying with all of creation.
          • Once a chick has pecked its way out of its shell, it knows that there is a lot more to life than was within its dark confines. Mother Nature, Grace, then gives the chick strong wings that let it fly to the heavens. The 3rd eye meditation technique has the potential to be the beak you use to break out of your shell, as well as the wings to transport you to the infinite, eternal, universal divine reality that is your birthright.
        • 34) SUN
        • 35) SPACE BETWEEN ATOMS
        • 36) UNIVERSAL PERSPECTIVE
        • 37) NOT THE BODY, NOT THE EMOTIONS, NOT THE MIND
          • Before we discuss who your Real Self is, we must understand who you are not:
          • You are not your body
          • You are not your mind
          • You are not your emotions
          • Here’s why: Your body was first simply one cell that began dividing. Then you were a fetus, then a baby, a toddler, a child, a teen, a young adult, middle-aged and finally old. That means you have never been consistently in just one type of body over the long term. But even in any given moment, your atomic and sub-atomic composition is in a never-ending changing mode. Every inhalation brings trillions of atoms into your body and with every exhale, trillions leave. You have never been your body. Your body has never been a stable thing that you could call your own and possess for any given amount of time and yet you have maintained an identification with your body. When you think it looks good, you feel good. If someone says your body doesn’t look right in their eyes, you get depressed. You constantly seek ways to stimulate the sense receptors in your body in ways that you have judged to be pleasant, but you have never found a lasting pleasurable sensation from these sense sensations. For instance, you seek to find pleasure from your taste buds and get and eat a chocolate ice cream cone. The sensation seems wonderful but soon after, you find you want another sense sensation and the chocolate sensation was at best just a momentary good thing and at worst, the cause of a stomach ache, a dripped-on or soiled garment, or even a weight gain. So, why do you chase after visual, tactile, sonar, odorous and tasty excitement and pleasure? Because you have an inate subconscious understanding that bliss is your eternal abode. But trying to experience bliss through the body is a mistake, a misunderstanding, an act of ignorance of your Real Identity.
          • When you have a stomach ache, you cannot enjoy anything in life. But what happens when you fall asleep? Your pain and discomfort are gone. As a matter of fact, you may even dream that you are eating and enjoying chocolate ice cream and your stomach never felt better. From this example, it is clear that we think we are our body only when our mind is attached to it.
          • We are also not our mind or emotions. This can be demonstrated by observing them for any amount of time. It will quickly become apparent that they change constantly. One moment, we are thinking of one subject and in a blink, we are thinking about something else. This is true even when we are meditating and trying to be one-pointed. Let’s say we are meditating about water and are reviewing everything we know about water. Our inner sound track may go something like, “Water is fluid. It fills the objects that hold it. When you freeze it, it turns to ice.” Now here comes a typical diversion — “Ice is in ice cream. Boy, Ben and Jerry make good chocolate ice cream. I know they sell it at the 7-11 down the street … etc.” And there you are — well away from your goal of meditating on water and in your car heading for the 7-11 to begin the process of acquiring another stomach ache.
          • Your emotions are changeable. One minute you’re feeling quite happy and the next you see a commercial on T.V. that implies that your will stink if you don’t use one particular brand of deodarant and then you get depressed because you have been using another brand and now fear everyone will reject you, etc.
          • So, because the body, mind, and emotions are constantly changing and thus can’t be said to be the permanent you, who are you? You are the consciousness that can witness your body, mind, and emotions in action. This is your Real Self. Please appreciate what good news this is — you are not limited to your sense perceptions, your thoughts, or your feelings. You are the infinite awareness. The more you identify yourself with the Inner Witness, the freer you are and the more potential you have to control your body, mind, and emotions. You can act instead of react. This freedom is far greater a wealth than all the gold in the world, for if you had all the gold in the world, you would instantly begin worrying that you would lose it. By not attaching yourself to anything that can be lost, like your body, mind, or emotions, you cease being a reactive slave and begin being at Peace, for your Real Self, your Witnessing Pure Consciousness is infinite, eternal, blissful Peace.
          • Meditating on the reality of not being the body, mind, or emotions has brought Truth, Consciousness, and Bliss to practioners for thousands of years. You need not sit in any particular pose or breathe in any specific pattern. Any time is the right time to do this illuminating meditation. Your heart has been yearning for this Wisdom. Filling your mind with these transcendental concepts is certainly more beneficial than worrying about egotistical desires or rehashing the past or fantasizing about the future. Try it, you’ll love it and live happily ever after.
        • 38) THE DALAI LAMA MEDITATION
          • The Dalai Lama has been acknowledged by Tibetan Buddhists to be a reincarnation of the God of Compassion and by the world in general to be a Nobel Peace Prize winner but few know him to be a practicing meditator. All his life, he has been surrounded by masters of meditation and has been initiated into many different techniques. It is therefore appropriate that we pay attention when he points out one method so valuable that he does it everyday:
          • Remember when you were a kid and they often had cartoons where someone had a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other and they were whispering into an ear — one encouraging doing “bad” and one doing “good”. In a way, that’s the basis of the Dalai Lama Meditation technique.
          • Sit quietly, calmly with eyes closed, as relaxed yet aware as you can be. Visualize yourself on the left side of your minds eye as you would appear to yourself and others in a moment of impatience. Really see this inner vision. Watch your face, observe your body language. What does your impatient self look like? On the right side of your minds eye, see yourself when you are very patient. What do you look like when you have a lifetime of time. As tense as you appeared on the left as your impatient self, see yourself as relaxed in your patience on the right. Now on the left side, see yourself as you appear when you’re depressed. Look carefully. How does that make you feel? Can you be aware of the aura of doom and gloom you’re radiating? And then, on the right side of your minds eye, see yourself as you are when you’re joyous. Merge with that happiness. Know how others would see you.
          • Continue seeing all the seemingly negative feelings and behaviors on the inner left-hand side of your minds eye and the opposite on the right. On the left, see yourself as jealous and on the right as how you appear when you are truly glad for someone else’s sucess or happiness. On the left, see the bigoted you and on the right, the all-embracing. On the left the mean, on the right the sweet. See the stupid you and the brilliant. See the clumsy and the graceful. On the left, see the unsatisfied and on the right, the contented.
          • Go on and on, becoming familiar with the “you” on the left and the opposite “you” on the right. Then see the total “you” who would be there on the left if none of the characteristics of the right side were present. Now see the “you” who would be the totality of yourself with the right side only if none of the behaviors and feelings of the left side “you” had ever appeared.
          • The Dalai Lama tells us that there is nothing else necessary because just by seeing your negative left-side self, you will become so disgusted with yourself when you witness yourself acting in any of the left side ways that you will automatically cease any of those actions and start doing and feeling the right-side actions. Eventually, you will become the right-side you exclusively. Eventually, you will have peace, compassion, wisdom, good health, patience, and all the other glorious aspects of life.
          • This technique has the potential to change your life profoundly for the better. It is one of the best antidotes for negativity. It is consistent with his unlimited compassion that the Dalai Lama has shared it with us.
        • 39) REINCARNATION
        • 40) DEATH
          • You’re not your body, you’re not your mind, you’re not your emotions. What you are, who you are, who your Real Self is, is the consciousness that can witness your physical, mental, and emotional reactivity and activity. It is your birthright to know this consciousness and recognize its energy, infiniteness, and eternal nature as your own.
          • When you drop this body, you will not be doing anything new or different. Every night you go to sleep in your physical body and awaken to and use your astral/dream body. That already accounts for 1/3 of your life that you don’t spend interacting with your pus, urine, feces, mucous, phlegm container. Even during the other 16 hours of the day, we are rarely in touch with our body. Virtually all of our time is spent daydreaming about fulfilling our desires and fantasies or regretting what we have done to others or what they have done to us. “I would of, should of, could of” disease runs rampant and takes up huge chunks of our life. We rarely are aware of what our body is experiencing and even when we are it is usually only one sensation at a time. If we’re listening to something, for instance, we are totally unaware of what our body is seeing, touching, tasting, or smelling. Thus, in a way, most of the time, 4/5 of our body is dead to us. Looking at the situation scientifically, we are a collection of cells made up of molecular compositions that are in constant flux. There is never a second that our atomic structure isn’t changing. Every moment our molecules are different, our cells are different, our body is different. In this perspective, our body dies and is reborn every second. In reality, every atom in your body has changed from the time you started reading this until this very moment. And in this Now, you are again completely different. Similarly, when that inevitable moment comes when the energy of life leaves your body forever, the cellular, molecular, atomic, and subatomic structure of your body will simply continue doing what it always has. Your cellular composition will change into other molecular groupings. Atomic and sub-atomic processes will break down your molecules into components that will merge with other molecules and life will go on.
          • When you die, what once were the cells that made up your flesh and bones will go into the earth and merge with the soil where they may be joined with other molecules that grow in the earth, like grass, get eaten by cows, which get eaten by people. They then get diffused as food into the cell structure of the person who ate them. If a body gets cremated, the particles are dispersed into the air and could be inhaled into someone’s lungs and merge with that person’s cell structure. If a body is buried at sea, its parts could be eaten by a fish that gets eaten by a person and becomes an integral part of their body. The cell absorption process merges the bodies and life continues. This has been going on for millions of years. It has been said that with every inhalation, we breathe in atoms that once were part of everyone who has ever lived.
          • Please meditate on these obvious facts of life and cease and desist your illusion of being your body. It is simply an ever-changing collection of atoms that will continue changing forever, whether there is a living energy in it or not. You are not your mind or emotions either. They keep constantly changing, are inconsistent, and yet you know intuitively, in your gut, that you are constant. When you are awake or dreaming, your thoughts and feelings fluctuate between good and bad, happy and sad, clear and cloudy, calm and distressed, depending on the internal or external things stimulating you at the time.
          • What you are is the consciousness that can and does witness the activity and changes of your mind, body, and emotions. It is not that which comments, judges, or compares. That is a function of your mind called your intellect. Rather, it is that which witnesses the commentary, judgments, and comparisons in silence that you are when you say, “I AM”. This consciousness is within everything, everywhere witnessing everything, everywhere. When you stop identifying with your body, mind, and emotions, as happens at death, you gain the opportunity to tune into the infinite consciousness and witness all the permutations of life that have eluded you when you limited your experience to just those things experienced via the five senses of the human body and the finite intellectualizations and emotionality that go with them. Just as a chick gains new freedom when it emerges from its shell, you will enjoy an exquisite, infinite release from bondage when you drop your attachment to your body. Like a butterfly freed from its cocoon, you will soar into the stream of universal consciousness. Once free from the limitations of experiencing life with only 5 senses, you will never want to go back. And yet you will have to until the time comes when you have evolved beyond the misidentification of your self as apart from the rest of the universe instead of as a part of it. To help you achieve this merging and emerging, you have to stop fearing the passing of your body and prepare to do it calmly with a willingness to face the next phase of your evolution as the silent Witness that in fact you are and have always been. To help accomplish this, there is a specific meditation technique that allows you to practice what it will be like to die. It allows your real self, your Witness, to become more apparent to you at the same time as you become aware of that which will occur at the time of death.
          • It is very easy to do this technique and yet very few meditations have such a great potential for learning and making a profound evolution in your conquering of the fear of death. Simply inhale slowly and deeply, as slow and deep as you can. Hold your breath as long as you can. Then, exhale as slowly and fully as is comfortable and then refrain from inhaling again for as long as you can. Repeat this 12 times, rest and do 3 or 11 more sets of this inhale, hold, exhale, hold rhythm. You may find it quite strange feeling, even alarming, when you first try to have no air in your lungs, but you will soon find that the more relaxed you stay during that time, the easier it becomes and the more comfortable you become. As a matter of fact, this may become the most influential technique you ever do for self knowledge. You can learn greatly about the way our body, mind, and emotions are reacting and causing you to react to the fear of death. You will gain first-hand knowledge of your real identity as the Witness that is transcendent of the body, mind, and emotions and gain the kind of faith that only the surety that first-hand experience can provide. There really is going to be a time that will come when you exhale and never inhale in this body again. Virtually every religion has prayers and rituals for the time of death and just after, that are intended to bring a calming to the one going through the experience. This meditation technique will get you used to the state and you will be calm and collected at that precise precious time you die forever to the attachment to this body. You can then collect your heavenly reward and truly live happily ever after.
        • 41) BLESSED SUFFERING
        • 42) WITNESSING
          • You have a Witness within you that can observe your mind, body, and emotions. As long as your conciousness is attached to a human body, there will be stimuli impacting you from the environment. You will react physically, mentally, and emotionally – one way more than the other two. The predominant way you react is your primary problem; you are controlled by it.
          • To demonstrate this, let’s call a physically reactive person “Human #1”, a mentally reactive person “Human #2”, and an emotionally reactive person “Human #3”.
          • If you punch Human #1 in the arm, he may punch you back. Human #2 may start to analyze the situation in a way such as “I have just been struck. I may have suffered cellular damage. Perhaps I should run away.” Human #3, when punched, may simply start crying. Everyone is either Human #1, #2, or #3. One is neither better nor worse than another; each one is a slave to reaction and suffers because of it.
          • If you can quiet your mind, which will happen with meditation, your Witness can see in which way you are predominantly reactive. This will be the start of gaining inner freedom. Ultimately you will gain control of that primary controlling aspect and strengthen the other two until all are equally strong. You will then be a well-balanced, self-controlling person, able to act and not just react. This is Human #4.
          • It all starts with knowing your Witness and this can start now. As you read this, be concious of your body; is there any unnecessary tension? Check your feet, legs, torso, arms, neck, head; are you using any unnecessary muscles? Command them to relax – they will. Now be conscious of your emotions; witness them now; are you happy, sad, joyous, depressed, feeling, or non-feeling? What is your intellect doing now? Are you fantasizing about something? Are you judging or comparing anything?
          • Witness without comment, passion, or any reactivity. Simply witness. There is a conciousness looking out of your eyes, listening with your ears, smelling with your nose, tasting with your tongue, and feeling with your skin. It is aware of your emotions and mentation. Merge with this Conscious Witness. It is your Real Self. Know your Self, and know true infinite freedom, transcendent of mind, body, and emotions, which are all finite.
        • 43) COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS
          • 99.99% of humankind are only kind of human and hardly kind at all. This is because they are only aware of the input of their senses and their memories and fantasies about this stimuli. Basically everything they do is selfish, self-centered and senseless. To consider this type person a fully developed human would be as inappropriate as calling an acorn an oak tree. And yet, every seed has the potential to grow and eventually flower and bear fruit. To evolve from the limits of an individual, separate, egoistic existence to an eternal, infinite, universal unity is to be truly human.
          • Now, as you read this, sit comfortably without tension, with attention. In your minds eye, see yourself as one of the billions of life forces in movement, on the surface of the earth, in the air, in the water, acting and interacting, as the earth itself is spinning on its axis while moving in its orbit around the sun. When you experience this unity of life alive, united with Mother Earth, you have planetary consciousness. See the moon on its route around the earth, just as the planets and their moons orbit around each other as they travel around the sun, which is itself spinning in its orbit. Saturn with its rings, giant Jupiter, with its red eye, all the planets with their many moons, asteroids, comets, meteors, the whole solar system in movement as the sun takes its 250 million year trip around the galaxy. When you experience this unity of planetary cooperation with Father Sun, you have solar consciousness.
          • Our sun is one of a hundred billion stars that join together with gravitational attraction and repulsion on their collective orbital journey. Some joining together to form binary solar systems that revolve in unison. Pulsars beaming rhythmic bursts of light across light years of space and time. Stars colliding and exploding. Stars going nova, showering eruptions of nutrinos, gamma, x-ray, ultra-violet and infra-red rays of energy in all directions for billions of miles. Black holes sucking all energy into other dimensions. Clouds of stardust collect to form new solar systems. All part of an intricate yet chaotic dance. When you experience the dynamic perpetual cohesive energy exchange of the Milky Way, you have galactic consciousness.
          • Billions of galaxies join ours in sharing light, sound, and power as they pass through each other, collide with each other, are pulled into each others orbits, are propelled away from each other, go nova and dissolve, and get absorbed and reform as they orbit the infinite regions of space in an eternal cycle of birth, activity, dissolution, and recreation. When you experience the cosmic events that are going on now, in reality, you maintain a consciousness of them and thus attain the birthright of every human, cosmic consciousness. Once achieved, ever identified with. Never again to suffer from the suffering the concept of being apart from the universe brings. Forever knowing the reality of being a part of the infinite, eternal universe, consciousness of the cosmic brings one to the purpose of all incarnations — to live happily ever after.
        • 44) OM
          • Every vibration has a corresponding sound and everything in the universe has a vibration and thus a sound. Each atom, molecule, cell, object, group of objects, even the entire universe, has its own collection of vibrations and unique sound.
          • When you chant a mantra, you merge with the sound vibration and become at one with the energy wavelength of the object of your mantra. Mantra chanting makes you at one with everyone, everywhere who is chanting that mantra and with everyone who has ever chanted the mantra. All the saints who have ever reached enlightenment through the technique of chanting that mantra connect with you as you connect with the vibration of the mantra. You merge with their essence which has been purified and is holy and you become pure and holy because that divine level of existence vibrates only with holiness, peace, and bliss.
          • By chanting a mantra, your cells, molecules, atoms, and sub-atomic particles all vibrate in the same wavelength as the mantra. Once attuned with this vibration you connect with everything resonating on that plane of existence. It’s like tuning a radio. At first you may get static, but once you are in the right frequency your reception is perfect. Om is the universal sound. It is within every word and within everything. So when you chant Om, you merge with all energy and all forms, from the sub-atomic to the universal, from the most gross to the most divine. And when you are tuned in perfectly, you will receive holy frequencies clearly and merge and emerge at one with the source of all and live happily ever after.
          • Many meditation teachers suggest that it is necessary to understand every intellectual aspect of the meaning of the mantra that is being practiced, but just as many others feel that the intellect may tend to confuse and hold back spiritual progress. What both types of teachers agree on is that mantras have the potential to take practitioners to the level of consciousness that transcends the limitations of the mind by a billion-fold. There is an ancient tale that very well shows that true devotion and complete absorption are the key:
          • Once upon a time in a land far away lived a poor uneducated, mentally challenged man who tended a herd of cows for his master. He happened upon a meditation teacher and was very taken with his calm, loving, gentle and happy nature. He decided he wanted to know that experience first hand. And so he went to the teacher and begged him to teach him a way to achieve the inner peace that radiated so obviously from the teacher. The teacher accepted him as his student but quickly found that the man couldn’t understand any of the philosophical points he was making and as a matter of fact couldn’t even remember the mantra Om when he tried to teach it to him. The teacher lovingly said, “My oh my, you don’t seem to know anything at all, can’t be taught, and can’t remember anything. You are devoted and sincere in your desire to gain happiness though, so I will try to help you. My son, what do you know?” The man said, “Oh great teacher, the only thing I know is cows. All my life I’ve spent caring for cows, making sure they graze, are milked, and are kept clean. Yes, for me, everything is cows.” “Well, that’s alright,” said the teacher, “then you know what sound the cows make.” “Oh yes,” said the man, “they say moo.” “Very well then,” said the teacher, “for you, moo will be your mantra. All you have to do is say moo continually and you will reach freedom from suffering and know real bliss.” So the man chanted moo, moo, moo when he took the cows out to graze and he chanted moo, moo, moo when he milked them, and he chanted moo, moo, moo when he cleaned them. He chanted moo all the time and very soon merged with that vibration, which is Om backward, and reached the highest heights of joyous understanding and lived happily ever after.
          • From this story, we learn that it is virtually impossible to chant Om “wrong”. It is, after all, an insentient sound. But the giver of this sound to the universe knows the intention and devotion of the practitioner and that is by what we will be rewarded. It is said that one minute of sincere chanting is superior to a thousand hours of mere sounding of the words. A parrot can be taught to recite a mantra but this will be just mere vibrations in the air. It is the love and worship behind the sound that counts. Technically though, there is a “correct” way to chant Om. It is made up of three letters: A, U, M. These contain all the sounds there are. The A is guttural and comes from the throat. It is pronounced without any part of the tongue or palate in contact. The U sound comes from the middle of the sounding board, the palate. In Sanskrit, the A and U join together to become O. The O sound is vibrated from the navel/ solar plexus area and sent up to the sternum to the voice region, the lips, where the M sound is prolonged and vibrated up to the crown of the head. This vibrating M is felt in every cell of the body and is beamed out lovingly, soothingly, powerfully, to everything, everyone, everywhere. Intellectually and metaphysically, A stands for the physical world perceptible to the senses, the material world. U represents the astral and dream planes, heaven and hell. M is the unknown, deep sleep, and that which is unfathomable to the intellect. Thus Om contains the entire spectrum of sound, words, worlds, and concepts. Om represents the source of all light, love, and wisdom.
          • There are three ways to do mantras – aloud, silently but while mouthing or humming the mantra, and completely silently within oneself. When done aloud and particularly when done with others, the sound of Om is energizing, calming, and healing. Although it is often encouraged to do your mantra all the time, it would certainly be questionable to consider chanting Om aloud in the middle of a board meeting. Similarly, it may be preferable to do Om silently just by moving your lips if you are in a movie theater. Chanting Om completely silently is considered the most potent method because it is not dependent on having a human voice box, or lips, or facial muscles, all of which are temporary manifestations compared to the billions of years you will be fully at one with Om. It is advantageous to spiritual development to consider the theological, philosophical and mystical aspects of Om while chanting with your physical eyes closed, looking through the third eye, and paying attention to your breath. This may seem complex and complicated, but once in synch, it happens naturally as Om reveals itself, your Real Self, to you.
        • 45) OM SHANTI
        • 46) DIVINE TRANSCENDENT WISDOM
        • 47) BEING HERE, NOW
        • 48) AFFIRMATIONS
          • Our basic state is one of purity, bliss, and awareness. When you were a baby you were in this virginal, joyous condition. The events of your life have caused you to add layers of negativity around this holy state to such a degree that now you suffer more and more and experience the blessed and immaculate in your life far too rarely. You need to add nothing to know the ecstasy that is your birthright. What will let this eternal moment of infinite joy reoccur is the removal of the obstacles to your pure energy connection.
          • The first step in recovering your perfection is to melt away all your tension. Relax. Witness and feel your breath as it comes and goes. With every exhale, send out a characteristic that has caused you to be blind to your light. With every inhale, bring into your being a divine attribute and feel yourself being purified. Send the energy throughout your body, mind, and emotions. Exhale fear, inhale courage.
          • Exhale cold-heartedness, inhale compassion.
          • Exhale ignorance, inhale wisdom.
          • Exhale egoism, inhale humility.
          • Exhale nervousness, inhale tranquility.
          • Exhale hate, inhale love.
          • Exhale suffering, inhale peace.
          • And on and on and on.
          • Continue until you have nothing else blocking your glory. At the right time, your holy moment arrives. Then, even your affirmations are unnecessary. The silence that transcends all names and forms fills you as you realize your oneness with the source of all breath. Your consciousness fills the universe and you had simply forgotten this, your eternal reality. You awaken from the dream and live happily ever after.
        • 49) TOUCH
        • 50) TASTE
        • 51) SMELL
        • 52) HEARING
        • 53) SIGHT
        • 54) COAT OF MANY COLORS
          • Prepare yourself for meditation in the way that you have found is best. Or, if you wish, there are basic techniques used to initiate the meditative state that you may try. For instance, you might sit as comfortably as possible and relax your muscles progressively from your toes to the top of your head. Witness your breath flowing in, saturating your entire being, and flowing out. Direct your mind, body, and emotions to not bother you now, in these moments of sacred inner insight. Repeat the observation of your breathing cycle over and over until you become as fluid as the air. This, and many other techniques, will allow you to experience the Alpha and Theta brain wave cycle rhythms that clinically characterize meditation and let you enter the realms of wonder, awe, and wisdom that they bring.
          • In your minds’ eye, picture an altar. On this altar are pictures of your divinity or other symbols of your unity with the universe ie: an Om sign, a clear light, an infinity sign, etc. As has been the tradition of all religions of all times, there is a place in front of the altar for sacrificial offerings. See yourself coming to the holy place that contains this altar, wearing a coat of many colors. Each color symbolizes an ungodly characteristic. Visualize yourself offering up a color from your robe, perhaps red, representing your lust. Green for your jealousy, purple for your pride, and so on. As you place a new color and part of your robe on the altar, feel yourself getting more and more purified and see that underneath what had been covered with poison and filth is now healthy and beautiful. Continue until you are left naked and virginally pure before the altar. See your divinity evaporate your offering. You have shed all the colors that coated you and are now merged with the great white light, as free and unspoiled by negativity as a newborn babe. Feel the pleasure known only to those who have attained the unqualified acceptance of the divine, and live happily ever after.
        • 55) MIRROR MEDITATION
        • 56) UNNATURAL POSITIONS
          • So you’re sitting in a business meeting and you’re bored to tears. Your eyelids are like lead and you seem to be dreaming. You know you have to at least appear to be interested in what’s being discussed, but you feel an irresistible urge to sleep. Sound familiar? If it wasn’t at work, it was at school, at church, or at your in laws, but somewhere at sometime you’ve been there and done that. Its cause is that we get way too comfortable and when we’re all nice and comfy, we fall asleep. So how did we get so sleepyheaded? It all goes back to our childhood and continues to this day. We have been encouraged to be numb and dumb since we were babies. As kids, we were excited and energetic, but because we were active at inappropriate times, like in a classroom or at a movie or visiting Grandmom, we were trained, much like a dog is house-broken, to “behave” and “calm down”. As we got older, we found ways to be very comfortable sitting and doing nothing. So comfortable, in fact, that we can even sleep with our eyes open. And walk and talk and generally live our lives in a dreamlike daze. Virtually as brain dead as a marionette. And just like a dummy, we have no life of our own and have other people pull our strings. There is an alternative. We can wake up. And if we start dozing off, into our too comfortable zombie state, we can flick an inner switch and energize. To understand the methodology, let’s study that spiritual instruction titled “The Princess and the Pea”:
          • Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there was a beautiful young girl who had become lost while traveling. As the sun set and the moon rose, she happened upon a splendid castle. After knocking on the massive doors and being brought inside, she found out that this was the castle of the king of the country she had been passing through. The king came to see the visitor. After exchanging greetings, the girl claimed to be a princess of a neighboring country and asked for royal treatment. The king sought the advice of his trusted counselors, who suggested putting her to a test. As it was very late at night and the girl was tired, they prepared a bedroom for the girl that would reveal the validity of her claim to royalty. Unbeknownst to the girl, they placed a pea under a mattress and then put 9 more mattresses on top. The young girl was then helped to the top of the mattresses and wished pleasant dreams. When the sun came up, the counselors came to the room and asked her how she slept. The girl said that she hadn’t slept at all and that she had felt an annoying irritation that kept her awake all through the night. This was the proof the counselors had been looking for, because only a royal being could be sensitive enough to be aware of a pea under ten mattresses. The king was elated and offered the princess his son’s hand in marriage and thus the kingdom. The princess found the prince the most wonderful, handsome, wise man in the world and quickly accepted. They married and lived happily ever after.
          • This story can probably be told much more eloquently, but now is the time for understanding, not merely for storytelling. There is a great amount of spiritual knowledge that we can learn from this story. In fact, it has the potential to change our lives for the better so that we too will live happily ever after… The princess represents anyone who is lost and out of touch with their spiritual nature. Her journey is her quest for Enlightenment. The castle and the country are the kingdom of heaven within. It is necessary to stay awake to pass the test that will cause you to gain the Kings approval, marry into the royal family and share in control of the infinite, eternal kingdom. The night represents the time of ignorance of knowing our true royal identity. There are many more analogies to be drawn from the tale but the one to now focus in on is the one that will help us stay awake. It was a minor annoyance that kept the princess awake all through the night, until the sun, representing the truth, came up. For us, it is right now even if the physical sun is out. We are in darkness, unaware of our true nature and must find a way to stay awake. The clue is the pea. It wasn’t necessary to use a bed of nails, or any other severe austerity to make the princess stay awake. So all we must do is find a pea to put under our mattress. Let’s go back to our original contention that we are much too comfortable. This is due to our habitually adopting physical postures that are conducive to falling asleep and much too relaxing to keep up a state of alertness. The antidote and key to being awake is simply to recognize your sleep inducing habits and then reverse them.
          • The Unnatural Positions Meditation
          • A sure way to relax your body is to have your arms and legs relaxed. If your extremities are tension-free, so will be your mind and emotions, and you will tend to become drowsy and sleepy. So, for example, when we are in a business meeting, we habitually sit in a way that we have become used to, and invariably soon have to fight the urge to fall asleep. Let’s do a demonstration. Right now, cross your legs the way you always do. You will have either your right leg over your left or vice versa. Or, you will have your right ankle over your left, or vice versa. Feels good, right? Now, interlace your fingers. Your right thumb will be over your left thumb, your right index finger over your left, and so on, or vice versa. Now just sit there for about 108 seconds and enjoy how relaxing your habitual posture is, and how comfortable it makes you feel. Now, cross your legs and interlace your fingers the opposite way. So, if you usually have your right foot crossed over your left and have your left thumb over your right, put your left foot over your right and interlace all your fingers starting with your right thumb over your left. Now sit there for about 108 seconds. O.K. Fine, now you see. It is only a small change, just as a pea under a mattress is, but it is annoying enough to keep you awake. Now you can pay attention. You will not be able to fall asleep even if you want to. We are so habituated to our comfy conditioning manner of sitting that anything that is different makes a huge impression on us, overly annoying us and thus waking us up. You will be able to pay attention to the boss, the teacher, the priest, or your mother-in-law, or whomever. But most importantly you can now pay attention to the present moment, and it is only in the present that your merging with the universe will take place. Upon understanding the value of being awake and aware of your life as it takes place, you will start looking at the moments of your life that you would normally judge to be “uncomfortable” and “bad”, and start considering them to be opportunities for enlightenment. You must be present to receive this divine, truly royal present. This little change in physical discomfort can lead to your eternal spiritual comfort. Try it, be annoyed, wake up, and live happily ever after.
        • 57) WITNESSING HABITUAL BEHAVIOR
        • 58) CONCENTRATING ON SPOT
        • 59) CONCENTRATING ON A FLAME
          • From the caveman sitting in his cave staring at his fire to the new-age practitioners in their high-tech condos looking at a DVD of a flickering candle, for thousands of years people have been using a flame as an object of meditation. There are different techniques that are commonly used, but it would be appropriate to start any of them by relaxing your body, mind and emotions in whatever way you have found that lets this happen.
          • Position yourself in a way that will allow you to remain alert, comfortable, and undistracted. The place you are in should be condusive to meditation. Often this will include a room that is quiet except for pleasant music playing in the background, has fragrant aromas from incense or flowers, and beautiful furnishings and decorations. For many, statues and pictures of deities or religious and spiritual symbols like the cross, the star of David, the OM sign, the Yin/Yang symbol, and so on, add to the divine vibration of the environment.
          • As a means of keeping your concentration steady, many meditators find that focusing on your breath allows you to remain in the present and return to the here and now if you become distracted. Often considered to be one of the most important considerations is to adopt an attitude of gentleness towards yourself that includes forgiveness and acceptance, but excludes harsh self-criticism of any kind.
          • Flame Meditation #1
          • Part 1:
          • Place a lit candle either on the floor, about 3 to 6 feet in front of you – where your gaze falls naturally downward, or on a table in front of you that places the flame of the candle at about eye level. Being as empty as possible, simply gaze at the flame. Silently focus on the flame. Your inner chatterer will probably comment, compare, and judge. Let it do its thing and the chatter will eventually slow and possibly even stop. Just watch the flame’s soothing dance.
          • Part 2:
          • After gazing steadily at the flame with eyes open, close your eyes and visualize the flame. Use the flame as an inner sacrificial altar. Send your undivine characteristics to the flame and see them dissolve, burn away, or turn to ashes. Serve up all the things that take your peace away. Your impatience, cold heartedness, anger, pain, self-loathing, and so on. Sacrifice them all. In your minds eye, see yourself becoming purer and purer, glowing more and more as the flame grows brighter with each offering. See the purified loving light fill you and radiate out in all directions, sending divine holy healing energy everywhere. Shine brightly, eternally, and live happily ever after.
          • Flame Meditation #2
          • Concentrate on the flame at the tip of a candle. Mentally analyze what you witness. See the white, blue, red, orange, yellow areas of the flame. Observe the way the light changes as it radiates from the candle. Observe the never-ending movement. Feel the warmth. Acknowledge this naked exhibition of atomic energy at play, unencumbered by solidity. Close your eyes and visualize the flame within your heart, stimulating the pulse of life itself. Witness the flame throbbing with every heartbeat and see light fill every organ, every bone, and every cell in your body. Witness the flame light up your third eye and beam energy out infinitely to infinity.
          • In your minds eye, see the flame within every person on earth. See the flame within every creature that lives in the oceans, on the land, or in the skies. See the flame within every tree, every plant, everything that has life.
          • Visualize the flame within every molecule and within every atom that composes all the so-called inanimate objects, and see the animation of the flickering energy that keeps all things in lively movement.
          • See the Earth itself filled with radiant flame. Recognize the Sun as the flame of life and see it’s energy animating every atom of all the heavenly bodies in the solar system.
          • See the entire galaxy and all the millions of billions of galaxies alive with the same energy as the flame of the candle and know that this energy is within everything, everywhere and you are at one with it, luminescent, limitless, and eternal. You are now and have always been and will forever be pure conscious energy. Witness this enlightening illumination and live happily ever after.
        • 60) HEART FILLED WITH LOVE
          • There’s a great St. John Lennon line at the very end of the Beatles’ Abbey Road album that states “The love you take is equal to the love you make.” Nice lyric, but in reality, it should say, “You don’t have to make love, just take it.”
          • As with consciousness and bliss, love is ever present, showering us with infinite blessings eternally. We simply have to be empty of everything that isn’t loving and the universe will fill us with love. Every breath we take in, every heart beat, and every sensation we experience is an act of love. In spite of our inability and disinclination to share and act in a loving way, the higher power that caused us to have life continues to bless us with the penultimate gifts of love, life, and consciousness.
          • Sit in a comfortable place, in a posture that will allow you to be free from all physical tension. Close your eyes. Command your body, mind, and emotions to not distract you in any way. Hear and feel your breath going in, retaining, and leaving. When you have established a steady, effortless rhythm, focus your attention on your minds eye.
          • Receive love with every breath.
          • Store love in your heart.
          • See and feel it beam out and saturate every cell in your body.
          • Visualize love radiating from your heart to someone who needs love.
          • See their heart fill with love, saturate every cell in their body, and radiate out from their heart in every direction.
          • Visualize love radiating from your heart to everyone, everywhere. See them all filling with love, saturating with love, and beaming love from their hearts to everyone, everywhere.
          • Visualize the entire universe pulsing with love. This is reality and now is the eternal moment to realize it. See and feel yourself dissolve into pure love. Know this love, feel this love, share this love. And live happily ever after.
        • 61) RELAXING THE BODY
        • 62) WITNESSING IMPERMANENCE
          • This meditation has the potential to have you become in touch with your inner Witness and to gain real self-control of your senses, body, and emotions. It can be done with eyes open or closed and is intended to open your inner eye leading to knowledge of the reality of your Infinite, Eternal, Blissful, All-knowing Real Self.
          • Relax your mind, body, and emotions. Inhale slowly, deeply. Hold as long as is comfortable and exhale slowly and deeply. Breathing naturally, witness what your sense of smell is receiving now. Appreciate its impermanence and the permanence of the ability to Witness.
          • Inhale slowly, deeply. Hold as long as is comfortable and exhale slowly and deeply. Breathing naturally, witness what your sense of taste is receiving now. Appreciate its impermanence and the permanence of the ability to Witness.
          • Inhale slowly, deeply. Hold as long as is comfortable and exhale slowly and deeply. Breathing naturally, witness what your sense of physical feeling is receiving now. Appreciate its impermanence and the permanence of the ability to Witness.
          • Inhale slowly, deeply. Hold as long as is comfortable and exhale slowly and deeply. Breathing naturally, witness what your sense of hearing is receiving now. Appreciate its impermanence and the permanence of the ability to Witness.
          • Inhale slowly, deeply. Hold as long as is comfortable and exhale slowly and deeply. Breathing naturally, witness what your sense of sight is receiving now. Appreciate its impermanence and the permanence of the ability to Witness.
          • Inhale slowly, deeply. Hold as long as is comfortable and exhale slowly and deeply. Breathing naturally, witness what your sense of emotional feeling is experiencing now. Appreciate its impermanence and the permanence of the ability to Witness.
          • Inhale slowly, deeply. Hold as long as is comfortable and exhale slowly and deeply. Breathing naturally, witness what your mind is experiencing now. Appreciate its impermanence and the permanence of the ability to Witness.
          • Inhale slowly, deeply. Hold as long as is comfortable and exhale slowly and deeply. Breathing naturally, Witness.
        • 63) MULTIPLE BODY PART AWARENESS
        • 64) SILENCE
        • 65) INNER SOUNDS
        • 66) PULSE OF LIFE
        • 67) DUAL BODY PARTS
        • 68) WILL POWER
        • 69) LOVE
          • Use love to purify your heart. We keep grudges, shame, pain, anger, bigotry, and other foul things in our heart.
          • Love is the perfect antidote. Visualize and feel all the things you love, and all that love you, in your heart. Do you love to garden? See and feel this blessed action of love in your heart and love it. Do you have a friend who loves you? Visualize and feel that love in your heart. Do you have a friend who you love? Visualize and feel that love in your heart. Did you ever have your parents’ love? Visualize and feel that love in your heart. Do you have children or brothers or sisters who love you and who you love? Visualize and feel that love in your heart.
          • Fill your heart with love. Displace all negativity with love. Visualize and feel the love radiate from your heart and fill every cell of your body. Visualize and feel the love radiate from you like a beacon – shining your love throughout the universe. Visualize and feel the universe shower you with love. Love the infinite purity of love. Merge with love and live happily ever after.
        • 70) NON-EXPRESSION OF NEGATIVITY
          • One of the hardest “assignments” I give to the students in my class is to try to not say anything negative for a period of two hours on one day of a week, or for a whole day, or if they feel strong and brave, for a whole week. Invariably, this exercise is a tremendous learning experience for everyone who tries it. Reports of astonishment at how often the urge to comment negatively happens habitually are common, as is the feeling of embarrassment at one’s own behavior and frustration at being unable to stop it. It’s always alot of fun when the class reports their experiences. Some common themes occur, such as verbalizing negatively every time you talk to a teenage son or daughter, the impulse to mutter behind their back at a co-worker (especially the boss), and the compulsive snotty retort to a criticizing parent or in-law.
          • Please try this wonderful educational meditation. You will witness yourself acting in ways that will amaze you. Just by seeing your habitual reactivity, you will be on the road to changing for the better. You’ve spent huge amounts of time and squandered enormous amounts of energy in negativity. As you will learn from observation and objective analysis, it is very rare to have improved any situation by injecting negativity into it. It is much more commonly a stimulus for making things worse.
          • By doing this exercise, you will be ready to appreciate the wisdom of the concept that before every negative action, there are negative words, and before the negative words, there are negative thoughts. The meditator can interrupt this process by witnessing every action, every word, and every thought. If you can witness the thought, if it arises and you recognize it as negative, you can simply not allow uncontrolled negative words to occur. If you can’t stop it on the level of stopping the negative words to come out, at least you should recognize when you are verbalizing negatively and be able to stop yourself from actually acting out negatively.
          • Be gentle with yourself when you witness yourself being negative. Don’t be negative about your negativity. Just observe the behavior, say “Oh, well”, and go back to witnessing. Don’t allow further inner commentary, comparisons, analyzations, or judgements; just witness. Begin to let “Oh, well”, become a sort of shorthand for forgiving and reprimanding yourself and know nothing else is necessary and will needlessly drain you of energy and peace.
          • Just by doing the witnessing, you will be doing many positive things. Most importantly, you will be at one with your Real Self, because that is what, within you, does the witnessing. Any time you are at one with your Real Self, you can be at one with all your Real Self is at one with and that is All Reality, for your Real Self is really at one with everyone and everything. Ultimately, there is only one Real Self and it is within all, everyone, and everything. Secondly, the more you witness your negativity, the less you will be negative. It’s sort of like you’ve been unconsciously stepping on your own spiritual toes and once you realize it, you cease to do it and ever after cease having pain in your foot and tripping and falling on your face spiritually. Anyway, you’ll definitely have a few good laughs at how silly your behavior is, when uncontrolled, and start to be less and less negative and more and more at peace. Eventually, you will live happily ever after.
        • 71) INHALING POSTIVITY, EXHALING NEGATIVITY
        • 72) HAPPY INSIDE, ALL, ALL OF THE TIME
        • 73) FORGIVENESS
          • There is a high, holy consciousness that loves you very much. It has been gracing you with gifts of love and forgiveness since your conception and continues to do so now. Before anyone, even your mother, your doctor, all the smartest and most powerful people in the world knew, this loving presence had given you the present of life. Just as it did when you were in the womb, this consciousness protects and nourishes you and causes you to thrive. As it gave you the energy to divide from one cell to many, it now allows your billions of cells to act and interact for your well-being. This is a gift of love that ignores all your sins and shortcomings and with every inhale, continues to replenish you with lifegiving energy. If this highest energy demonstrates its loving forgiveness with every breath, it is a travesty for us to not be forgiving of our and others actions.
          • With every inhale, visualize yourself being filled with loving, forgiving energy. Inhale slowly and deeply and see yourself as being cleansed. Hold the breath as long as is comfortable and send the energy to every cell in your body, from your toes to your scalp. Slowly and deeply, exhale while visualizing every physical, mental, and emotional impurity leaving your body. With every forgiving and cleansing inhalation, retention, and exhalation, see yourself as becoming pure, glowing, whole and holy.
          • When you see yourself as pure, visualize someone who need your forgiveness and send your compassionate, loving forgiveness to them. Pray for them to attain an awareness of their action and a gaining of understanding of the suffering they have caused. Forgive them in your heart and never carry this with you everafter.
          • In your minds eye, see someone you’ve caused to suffer and send them your healing, loving energy. Pray that they realize they are receiving loving energy with every inhalation and that they grow spiritually to where they forgive you and all others who have harmed them. Pray that they learned from the suffering you caused them and thereby gained strength from your interactions. And forever after, be free from guilt about your transgression. You knew not what you were doing and now would never do wrong again. Just as the highest power in the universe forgives you with every breath, forgive yourself.
          • With every breath, be forgiven and give forgiveness. Do this meditation every moment your have breath and gain eternal loving forgiveness.
        • 74) OPPOSITE EMOTION MEDITATION
        • 75) INHALE SUFFERING, EXHALE PEACE
        • 76) INNER CHILD, INNER ADULT
          • Visualize yourself as a small child — see yourself as you are now, talking to the child you were, and who is still here now, within you always — tell the child that, in spite of all the fears that she or he had, everything has come out alright because here you are NOW and it’s ok — everythings ok — all the fears were unjustified. You were a good kid and were just acting as your were taught and were forced into by your parents, relatives, teachers, so-called friends and even religious instructors. Tell the child within that it’s safe and to never worry again — you are now a responsible adult and will always act appropriately. There is no need any longer for the child to worry and suffer. Everything’s ok and your inner child can everafter be free to soar with joy, liberation and happiness.
          • Visualize the perfected soul you are within and have always been and will always be — glowing, serene, transcendent and eternal. See your Real Self as you are, and will be, talking to yourself as you are now and tell yourself you will evolve and know greater and greater experiences of liberation. Just as you now realize that your little child fears and sorrows were not worthy of all the time and energy you spent agonizing over them, your present feelings of insecurity and negativity are fantasies and it is time to know your reality — eternally free, merged with infinite consciousness and bliss. Visualize the act of internal, eternal salvation and live happily ever after.
        • 77) FREE WILL
          • You are not your thoughts. You are that which witnesses your thoughts. For instance, if you are thinking about money, you are not the money. If you are thinking about God, you are not God. If you are thinking about your enemy, you are not your enemy. You are that which can witness these thoughts.
          • When you witness selfish, rude, mean, angry, bigoted, impatient, hateful or any other type of sad thought, you must simply ignore it or change it to a loving, peaceful, gracious, divine one to be happy.
          • This is true free will. When we are not in touch with our inner Witness and are identified with our thoughts, we often suffer. When we witness our thoughts, we can control our reaction and choose actions that bring joy, peace, and love. Exercise this free will always and you will live happily ever after.
        • 78) COMPASSION
          • An ancient Buddhist meditation technique that is applicable to any religion and even to the non-religious, is wonderful at teaching appreciation and compassion for others.
          • It is done thusly: Survival depends on the efforts of other people. Relax your mind, body, and emotions and contemplate on all the ways you are dependent on others.
          • For example, if no one grew grain and no one brought it to market and no one manufactured it into bread, how would we eat? If no one dug up metal from the earth and no one turned it into steel and no one formed it into parts, how would we have a car to drive? And if no one cleared land and no one paved over it, how would we have a road to drive on? And so on and so on.
          • With this meditation, one becomes warm toward others where previously coldness, uncaring, or even looking down upon others existed. The meditative tradition holds that compassion and humility are the two most important components of spritiual growth. This meditation generates both.
        • 79) GIVING SUFFERING TO GOD
        • 80) MANTRAS
        • 81) INCARNATION
          • Too much emphasis these days is put on what we’ve experienced in past lifetimes and what we will experience in future ones. We must instead learn to appreciate this incarnation for all it has to offer.
          • See yourself as wealthy, if you need to be in order to finally understand that real peace isn’t a matter of material wealth. See yourself as poor, if you need to gain compassion for those less fortunate than you. See yourself as physically healthy, if you need to learn that perfect health will not necessarily bring true peace. See yourself as sickly, if you need to gain compassion for those who are ill. See yourself as a genius, if you need to learn that mental brilliance doesn’t bring peace. See yourself as mentally challenged, if you need to learn compassion for those who aren’t bright. See yourself as healthy, wealthy, and wise, if you need to incarnate this way so you can use your health, wealth, and wisdom to be at peace and to spread that peace to everyone, everywhere. Seeing yourself this way in the future allows you to start being healthy, wealthy, and wise in this lifetime, and live that way in all future lifetimes.
        • 82) PRAYER
          • The difference between prayer and meditation can be understood by saying that during prayer, we ask God for something, and during meditation, God speaks to us.
          • When we pray, it is considered advantageous to spiritual growth to pray selflessly. All religions direct their followers to have faith in God and to demonstrate that faith by having confidence that everything that happens or will happen to you is guided by God for your evolution in holiness. This being the case, it is completely unnecessary to pray for anything for oneself. Thus, selfless prayer is ideal. For instance, a not very developed person may pray to God to be relieved from their own suffering, while a highly developed person would see their own suffering as a gift or test of God to make them a stronger person. They would most likely send out prayers for God to relieve others from their suffering. So the formula for spiritual growth could be stated to be “the more selfless the prayer, the more advanced the pray-er”.
          • The souls who pray totally selflessly are most likely to be the most advanced meditatively as well. Their meditation would be empty of limited selfish desire and therefore they will be able to fill limitlessly with God’s direction, inspiration, light,and love. The “Prayer Meditation” is as follows:
          • Sit quietly in your sacred place. Relax and center yourself. Witness yourself praying to God. Witness silently, detached, without commentary, judgement, or comparisons. Say a prayer for yourself. Say a prayer for someone else. Say a prayer for everyone and everything. Do this again and again for a total of 3 cycles or do it for a total of 12 times or until it feels like you’ve done it enough. By the act of Witnessing, you will eventually clearly see that you feel really good when you pray for others. You may even be somewhat spiritually embarrassed in front of yourself when you witness yourself praying selfishly. As always, it is appropriate at times like that to simply inwardly say “Oh Well” and then go back to the meditation instead of scolding yourself, feeling sad, or in any way dwelling on it negatively. For this and for all the times you see yourself as an egotist or unevolved or whatever, be gentle with yourself and laugh and learn lovingly from your goofyness.
          • As you practice this technique, you will automatically become less and less self-centered and more and more selfless. We actually spend hours and hours every day subconsciously praying to fulfill our desires and ego trips. As this suffering-causing habit lessens, we become more and more ready to listen silently as God whispers lovingly to us.
          • Let us pray that you and everyone and everything will soon gain the bliss selflessness brings and live happily ever after.
        • 83) CREATING AN INNER SECRETARY
        • 84) CREATING AN INNER GUIDE
        • 85) CREATING AN INNER WARRIOR
        • 86) WHO YOU ARE
          • Before your mother knew you were in her womb, before any doctor, politician, family member, religious leader, or anyone else on earth even knew you existed, the Highest Power so loved you that he gave you life and protected and nourished you. Before you had drawn your first breath, the Highest Power had already demonstrated love and concern for you and provided all you needed for your well-being, and this continues to this very moment.
          • Your inner Witness, your Real Self, has gone from the womb of flesh to the womb of the Cosmos. The Highest has made every atom, that makes up every molecule, that makes up every cell, that makes up every organ in your body, perfectly compatible with everything the Universe provides.
          • The air, earth, fire, and water have been created in the precise proportions necessary to provide the environment needed for you to survive and thrive. The odds against this happening by chance are trillions to one and can be appreciated as absolute proof of the Highest’s loving intervention and intention.
          • Mother Earth is in an exquisite rhythm with its sister planets as gravity and motion balance their dance around Father Sun, as it travels in concert with the billions of other stars and heavenly bodies that make up our galaxy. Ultimately, the hundreds of billions of galaxies, in harmony, provide the exact perfect conditions that allow consciousness to exist and evolve. You are, always were, and will always be, the love child of the Highest Power.
          • Every atom in the universe is presenting itself to enlighten you. The celestial stage has been set. It is for you to decide to be conscious of the cosmos and embrace your infinite, eternal identity. Royal Divine Child of the Universe, awaken and live happily ever after.
          • Who You Are Meditation Technique
          • Position yourself in the posture you have found to be the one that affords the greatest comfort to you, while letting you maintain an alert awareness without falling asleep. Direct your inner chatterer to be still and your emotions to remain in a serene state.
          • With eyes open, let your gaze fall to any given spot on the surface of the floor or ground. If you are sitting on sand, pick out one grain to focus on. If you are on a carpet, lock your attention on one fiber. And so on. Witness your mind making comments, comparisons, and judgements, but remain unreactive.
          • Simply let the gazing continue no matter how strongly your chatterer tries to discourage you. It will eventually cease and desist. As your concentration becomes more intense, with less and less effort, you will start to see movement.
          • For instance, the grains of sand may start to appear to be giving off light that is flowing in a paisley pattern motion. This is the atomic and pre-atomic nature of reality presenting itself to you. Soon thereafter the air, earth, water, and fire within and without you will reveal their atomic unification and join in this dance of light.
          • This will continue until your mind chatter stops it. By stilling the mind, the intensity will grow until the point is reached where it is not unusual for the experience to be so astonishing and overwhelming that inner comments like “Oh my God!” and “Thank you God” occur.
          • The misidentification of your self as apart from the rest of the universe as a body, mind, or feeling will evaporate like a fog lifting, and there revealed in all glory will be the divine Garden of Eden that has always been present. And you will live happily ever after. After Thought
          • Half a century ago, on one of TV’s first variety shows, the Ed Sullivan Show, a ventriloquist named Senor Wences used to have a running gag with his puppet (which was simply his hand with some lipstick on it, to make it look like a face). He would say, “That’s easy to do!” about various things, and his hand puppet would answer “Easy for you, difficult for me!” in a Spanish dialect. This always made the audience convulse with laughter. But in real life, when things are easy for someone else, but difficult for you, you rarely find it humorous.
          • As a matter of fact, adjectives like frustrating, annoying, ego deflating, and so on, are often much more accurate descriptions of how you feel. The Who You Are Meditation Technique has the potential to be in this category. It is easy to tell someone “Sit comfortably, concentrate, and let the Highest Power fill you with all the wonders and wisdom of the universe”.
          • But can you actually sit comfortably enough, for long enough for your attention to remain focused enough? If so, this and every other technique will “work”. If not, like most things, the more you practice, the better you will get. Persevere, because unlike most things, the end result of this and every meditative effort has the potential to lead to the end of all effort. And effortlessly, you will live happily ever after.
        • 87) WALL OF ANSWERS
        • 88) A TO Z, Z TO A / 1 TO 100, 100 TO 1
        • 89) CANCER MEDITATION
          • Cancer is a wonderful equal opportunity provider. There may be no more powerful facts of life teacher. The choices of how to respond to it physically are usually between surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. The beneficial effect these have can be hampered by the stress of worry, fear, obsessive thoughts, and energy squandered in negativity. Medical science has produced a large body of work that proves that it is most advantageous to cease doing those things that continue to cause stress and begin doing those things that promote the optimum functioning of the immune and healing systems. Changing to a healthy diet, exercising, and other “alternate healing” methods are gaining respectability in the orthodox medical community, but none more than meditation.
          • This ancient practice has been shown to be a tremendous tool for healing. There is no better way to undo the negative reactions on the body, mind, and emotions that are produced by the adrenaline release fear, anger, and worry invariably precipitate. The endorphin release that comes with meditation properly primes the mind and emotions in a way that will let the body do its healing most advantageously. With that in mind, the following technique is offered in the hope that it will set the stage for a complete cure. It is aimed at those warriors blessed with the chance to do battle against this terrible dragon armed with the weaponry of either surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, or some combination of them.
          • Position yourself in whatever posture you have found most condusive to concentration. Think about each of the procedures that you will be going through in as great detail as you can. Visualize them relative to the maximum benefit they will bring you.
          • In your minds eye, see the surgical procedure removing 100% of the cancerous tissue. See healthy cells growing and repairing the area. See yourself whole and healthy.
          • Visualize radiation passing through your body, frying any cancerous or precancerous cells. See new healthy cells evolve and multiply. See yourself whole and healthy.
          • See chemotherapy molecules traveling through your bloodstream attacking and killing all the aberrant cells. See healthy cells swarming to the affected area and bring healing. See yourself whole and healthy.
          • As well as visualizing the physical healing processes, feel your self-love and deep inner desire for good health fill and heal you emotionally and mentally. This effort will stimulate and allow your immune system to do its job unimpeded by the damage that unchecked negativity brings.
          • Most of all, know your Self to be the unchangeable, eternal universal divine consciousness that is transcendent of your body, mind, or emotions, and live happily ever after.
        • 90) NETI, NETI
        • 91) REVERSE EVIL TO LIVE
          • Relax wherever and in whatever way you have come to know best lets you meditate without your mind, body, or emotions distracting you. Visualize a healing, loving, soothing light coming from every direction and object in the universe filling every cell in your body with a radiant glow. As your body gets brighter and brighter with light, an aura of healing, positivity, and goodness radiates out from your heart to the infinite reaches of the cosmos as the energy of perfection continues streaming into you. In your minds eye, as vividly as possible, see the person who is causing you the most pain right now. There are specific and general ways they have caused you pain. For instance, they may be humiliating you, saying things that are hurtful, bullying you, etc. But whatever way it is demonstrated, they are causing you physical, mental, or emotional suffering. There is something within them that has caused them to act this way. See their body clearly, covered with a veil of sadness that has caused them to act diseased and has made you to become the target of their dis-ease. It would be appropriate to consider them as victims of a spiritual heart attack. Their heart is cold and painful. See this sick, scarred heart as the cause of the negative energy radiating out towards you.
          • The reality that they have to suffer with their own evil, ignorant, inhumane presence every second of the day gives you an understanding that allows compassion to flower within you. Visualize and send healing light to them from your loving and forgiving heart. With every breath that you inhale, receive the healing energy the universe is beaming towards you. With every exhale, send this holy energy to the one whose pain and suffering was intended to cause you suffering. See their damaged spiritual body and injured heart start to glow and be healed. See their heart turning warm and soothed, their body, mind, and emotions becoming more and more comfortable and healthy. As the cycle of holy breath continues, feel the union of loving wellbeing that unites you spiritually and know the healing from your interactions has started.
          • Know that a person’s mind causes them to act more out of habit then reaction to reality. Thus, they may continue to act inappropriately in spite of your meditative effort. Continue to do what is right. Send loving compassion and your hopes and prayers for a full recovery for all who are suffering and for all who cause suffering. There is no better protective and healthy force in the universe then compassion. Bath in it, feel it, share it.
        • 92) AHIMSA: THE BASIS FOR MEDITATION
          • No matter what technique you are doing while sitting in “formal” meditation, or are applying to the rest of your life (perhaps like mindfulness, or breath awareness, or mantra, or whatever), the first step in the traditional path of Raja Yoga, the Yoga of Meditation, is recommended to be Ahimsa. Ahimsa is usually defined as non-violence. But this goes far deeper than the usual implied characteristics of non-violence, like not fighting physically, or taking another’s life. It deals with not causing any harm whatsoever to anyone or anything in any way. This means no actions that cause verbal or emotional pain, anguish, suffering, or even slight discomfort to any living thing is what is called for. Since the failure to help ease pain is pain causing, inaction can also be against this common to all religions direction. So, we are pointed to not causing suffering and to eliminate it when we see it. This puts us in a very win-win situation karma-wise. The things that distract us from our meditation the most are the would-of, should-of thoughts that fill our mind with guilt and anger. Actually living our life in an Ahimsa way never feeds the fire of inner gut-feeling pain that knowing we have done wrong causes and eliminates the mental poison called “Regret” that drowns us in a tidal wave of suffering.
          • The Ahimsa Meditation Technique
          • A way to live your life seems more than just a technique, but meditation can be considered a time of attention and awareness, and that is certainly advantageous at all times, not just for 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes at night. Ahimsa is based on a few basic meditation principles:
          • 1) We have an inner Witness that has been present since birth and is here now, as you are reading these words. The Witness is the awareness that can see if you have any tension in your body, what your emotions are feeling, and what your mind is thinking.
          • 2) There are only 3 types of actions (called Gunas in Sanskrit): Tamas (actions that are ignorant, habitual, dark, characterized by inertia, and generally negative), Rajas (also ignorant and negative, but usually are selfishness-desire based, and active actions), and Sattva (pure, righteous, light, holy selfless actions).
          • 3) By Witnessing what is inappropriate (Tamas and Rajas actions), we can eliminate those actions that cause suffering and flow infinitely better with life. It works this way…
          • Before every action, there are words. Before words, there are thoughts. Before thoughts, the Witness IS. At one with the Witness, the meditator is aware of the actions, words, and thoughts. If they are of an unrighteous or other negative label nature, both of passive and active characteristic (Tamas/Rajas), which is known by a “gut feeling”, intuitively, the meditator changes them spontaneously, effortlessly, into righteous events (Sattva). This is Self-control. How to do this? By witnessing your life as it takes place. Your breath is always present while there is life. By placing your attention on your breath, you are here, now, present, and can Witness your life as it takes place.
          • Several times during the day, remind your self to Witness your breath. Do this in as many ways as you can. When you first get up, give yourself a mental direction to stop every hour on the hour and refocus on your breath, and on your silent inner Witness. If you see yourself doing anything that is contrary to Ahimsa, redirect your actions to Sattvic ones. So, if you see yourself mentally cursing out your boss, for instance, change that into a prayer for the well being of all who live. This is just an example. You can also remind yourself by leaving post-it notes to yourself around your house or job site that just say “Witness” or “Breathe” on them.
          • While you’re at work, call yourself on your home phone and leave a message on your answering machine that will serve as a reminder when you get home from work and check your messages. Be creative, devise a game plan. Find ways that you can remind yourself more and more often to be aware of your breathe, Witnessing, and the principle of Ahimsa. Eventually, you will Witness your life as it takes place, and the replacing of negative actions with righteous ones will become an automatic part of your life, and you will never again have to even ponder what Ahimsa is about. You will be living it. Then, a state of transcendence of all Gunas (Tamasic, Rajasic, and Sattvic actions) occurs. The meditator then abides in life without reference or reaction to the illusion of singular identification, and the unity with the ever present, infinite underlying essence of all creation, and all activity is realized. This event of all events can only be known experientially, not emotionally, physically, or intellectually. It is a gift of Grace only, and not as a result of meditation, or by going through your pain, or by bliss-full visions, and so on. Meditation clears the pathway of all that obstructs the vision of the Witness.
          • So… breathe, Witness, and when you witness Tamas or Rajas in your actions, or the actions going on around you, change them into Sattva by acting or refraining from action…whatever is appropriate. But, be sure to apply the kindness that is one and the same in Ahimsa to yourself, as well as to others. Be gentle when you see something negative in your actions, words, or thoughts. Just say “Oh well” to yourself and go on with the process of changing negativity to loving positivity. And this will be true Ahimsa, and that will be when you start living happily ever after.
        • 93) WITNESSING MENTAL AND VERBAL COMMENTARY
        • 94) MIMICING BODILY POSTURES OF OTHERS
        • 95) CESSATION OF LYING
        • 96) NO-MIND
        • 97) INFINITY, IMMORTALITY, ETERNITY I AM
        • 98) I AM THE ALL, I AM IN ALL
        • 99) BLANK SCREEN
          • Reality can only take place now. Now is the only time that things can really be experienced. And yet we spend virtually all of our time rehashing the past or fantasizing about the future. We falsely think that we are experiencing our life as it takes place and that we understand what is real about our lives. Our senses present obstacles to understanding reality because of the fact that we are gathering our input through them and they are faulty mechanisms that operate a little too late and without enough precision.
          • What we know of our environment is filtered through eyes that don’t see as keenly as a hawk, ears that can’t hear as well as a bat, noses and tongues that aren’t as sensitive as a dog’s and skin that is less sensitive to touch than a lizard. Our senses also don’t work now. For instance, what you are reading now, you’re not seeing now, but rather a split second late.
          • It takes time for the light from the object you are perceiving to get to your eye, go through your lens to the retina, have the energy transferred to your optic nerve and finally be routed to your brain for analyzation. All of our senses operate slower than now and thus don’t relay reality to us. Similarly, our minds aren’t functioning now either. Our mental processes take time and are limited by subjective, subconscious influences continually.
          • Think about how limited our sense of sight is compared to an atomic electron microscope and the Hubble telescope. While you can’t physically see the infinite microcosm or macrocosm of the universe, you can envision them in your minds eye. Meditation is the mechanism that allows an inner control that makes this possible.
          • Your inner Witness is what is capable of observing your minds creations. It is always here, now. Your senses operate when you are awake, and you react slave-like to their input. Your mind alone is in operation when you dream. Either awake or dreaming, we are limited, enslaved, and unreal. Meditation offers us the opportunity to experience Pure Consciousness that is not hampered by human limitations sensually or mentally and is capable of roaming the entire universe now. By stopping our mind and ceasing to allow it to take us from one unreality to another, we can experience true Reality.
          • One type of meditation that deals with clearing out the unreal from our consciousness is the Blank Screen technique.
          • Sit in a comfortable, quiet place, relax your body, close your eyes and simply be aware of your breath going in and out. No commenting, no judging, no comparing, just peacefully watch your breath. When you feel comfortable, place your attention on your minds-eye and watch what flows by. Just Witness — do not react or analyze in any way. If you notice your mind chattering or your body twitching or your emotions stirring, do not chastise yourself — simply say, “Oh, well”, and go back to just observing. Your aim is to make your minds eye a blank screen.
          • You can do this by either of two methods: By being patient and simply watching your minds eye nonreactively. It will soon tire and your mind will be clean, clear, and open to receive the present and with it, Reality which comes from and always contains Truth, Knowledge, and Bliss.
          • The other method is to “fire” a weapon at the images that pop up in your minds eye. As something appears, send an energy bolt or a cannon ball or lightning, or whatever appeals to you at it, as if it was a target on a shooting range. Annihilate it and continue to shoot at whatever you see until the screen within is blank.
          • Both of these techniques will benefit you in several ways: you will become familiar with what lies dormant in your subconscious and tends to habitually pop up. You will learn what is immediately “on your mind” and you will become aware of how you are reacting physically, mentally, and emotionally. This familiarity will lead to liberation from slave-like reactivity that drains you by making you squander energy fidgeting, emoting, and mentally chattering that is inappropriate, unreal, and unnecessary.
          • While you are doing this meditation, you are acting, not simply slave-like reacting, and getting familiar with that which can control your mind, emotions, and body — your Witness. This technique, like all meditations, takes place now and is done consciously and the more that we are experiencing now consciously, the more we are actually living life as it takes place. Try it — you’ll like it, and live happily ever after.
        • 100) REVIEW OF THE DAY
          • Every night, before falling asleep, review the events of the day. Start with the first thing you remember and then continue as if you were watching a movie starring you. Try to remember everything. For instance, you may remember the alarm going off and you turning it off, pulling down the blanket and swinging your legs over the side of the bed to get out of bed. You may have then walked into the bathroom and washed up prior to getting dressed. Try to remember every detail as precisely as possible. Don’t simply rehash how you usually go through your life’s routine but rather note each nuance. An example would be if you dropped the bar of soap when you were washing up or heard alarming news over the radio while brushing your teeth. Try to recall how you reacted physically, mentally, and emotionally to every event of the day.
          • When you first try this technique, you may be amazed at how little you can recall. It may become obvious that you can easily recall highly emotional times like when you had an argument with a co-worker but you may not be able to remember anything about how you got to work. Similarly, if you had an accident in your car on the way to work, the events of that incident may be all you can remember. Anything that happened at work would be a blur.
          • The more you do this “review of the day”, the more you will start paying attention to your life as it takes place and the more you will be able to remember about the events that transpired. We all have a tendency to not pay anything but the most minimal attention to the here and now and instead spend our time rehashing the past and fantasizing about the future. This meditation technique can return our awareness of the present, which is the only time reality takes place, as well as bring an excitement and enthusiasm to our life. Think about a baby who is so amazed and fascinated with the newness of everything that occurs in every moment. We should be experiencing at least that exquisite a response to our moment-to-moment existence because each moment is absolutely unique and intriguing and since we are adults, we can ponder the remarkable way we are reacting to each event we experience physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
          • When we can pay attention to our life with a baby’s intensity, we will also find that when we do our daily life review, our mind will replay it in a minute detail and completeness as if we had put our inner VCR on fast forward. In just a few minutes, we will be able to see every event that took place in the previous sixteen hours. This will occur because at this stage of our consciousness’s evolution, our mind will be a tool we can use as reliably and more easily than any computer.
          • Review your day and start to live your life, happily ever after.
        • 101) REVIEW OF LIFE
        • 102) TV
        • 103) 1-4-2
        • 104) 1-1-1
        • 105) ALTERNATE NOSTRIL
        • 106) 12-12
        • 107) SOHAM
          • The Bible tells us that in the beginning there was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. But in the beginning, there were no words, no languages, or even sounds of humans or animals. So what was the Word that was in the beginning. This has been a great mystery, but like the solution to many mysteries, the answer has been right under our nose all along. And that is Soham.
          • Soham is referred to as the “Mahamantra”, the Greatest Mantra, and is considered along with Om to be the most powerful of all techniques. This was the first meditation technique, both in antiquity and in our own lives. The ancient cavemen, before they had invented language or fire, would sit in their dark caves and have nothing else to focus on but the sound of their breath. Similarly, the first sound we heard when we were in our mothers’ womb was the sound of her breath, and this sound has been with us ever since we drew our first breath. It negates the need to rely on any of the words of the languages of the world to use as a mantra. It has brought people to transcendence of worldly limitations from time immemorial and continues to do so. It can be done even while driving, working, and doing other acts of daily life and thereby offers a continuous experience of being in the present. This is a great present, because Reality takes place now, in the present. Soham is a wonder-full meditation technique and I hope will bring you the experience of Knowledge, Consciousness, and Bliss that is your birthright.
          • In the Bible, when God was asked what his name is, He answered ” I Am That I Am’. In Sanskrit, the most ancient of languages, the sound of the inhalation is termed So, and the exhalation is Ham. Combined, the word Soham is translated as “I Am He/That”. So, whenever you are doing this technique, you are calling on God. Every breath thus becomes a prayer and adoration.
          • The Soham Meditation Technique
          • At the time and in the place where you feel most comfortable, place your body in the position that you have found to be the most beneficial for meditation. Close your eyes. Close your ears by putting your thumbs in them, or by using earplugs. This will intensify the sound of your breath while diminishing the distractions that sight and sound bring. Command your mind to be silent, your emotions to be calm, and your body to stay relaxed. Focus on the sound of your breath coming in. Associate it with the word So. As your breath leaves, listen to the sound and associate it with the word Ham. To pronounce So and Ham correctly, listen to how they sound. As with most pranayama (breathing techniques), Soham is done either in 3 cycles of 12 or 12 cycles of 12. One inhalation and one exhalation are one respiration. 12 respirations are one cycle. For those just starting to use this technique, it is usual to silently say the word So with each inhalation and the word Ham with each exhale. When you are focused consistently, consciously, you will flow into simply listening to the sound of Soham. Soham is by far the easiest meditation. It comes to all living creatures without any effort. And yet it is the deepest possible technique, as it presents the opportunity to meditate on the great mystery of life and the life-giver itself.
          • No matter how we have acted and reacted, with each breath we are forgiven for our so-called sins and rewarded with another breath, another heartbeat, and another moment of life to cherish. No act of will on our part can give us breath. Literally, we are graced with this gift of life from a power greater than ourselves. A corpse has every bone, every organ, and every bodily system that we have, and yet it doesn’t have life or healing energy filling every cell with every breath, as we have. As you merge more and more with Soham, you surrender your reactivity to your thoughts, emotions, and sensory impressions. These are all just heavy earth-bound suffering-causing limitations. The divine energy of Soham is limitless heavenly love and light. Witness, surrender all effort, and fill with this most precious gift of Grace.
        • 108) AN EASY HARD MEDITATION TECHNIQUE
          • Anything in life that brings you closer to inner peace can be said to be “good”. Anything that takes your peace away is “bad”. Of course, it is a given that anything that only brings you momentary peace, like drugs, is not good. To really qualify, the peace must be everlasting. Very often, good, and thus peace, doesn’t come easily. For instance, politically and historically, it has often taken a war to bring about a lasting peace between enemies. An example of this can be found in the relationships between America, Japan, Russia, and Germany. Deadly enemies during World War II, and now close partners involved in mutual progress and at peace.
          • Within ourselves there is a similar inner world war-like interaction going on between the mind, body, and emotions that prevents us from knowing real peace. As the events in our life take place, we react mentally, physically, and emotionally, sometimes more one way and at other times more in another. This slave-like reactivity makes our life seem out of control, bouncing back and forth between joy and sorrow, and without lasting peace. This anxiety and conflict filled state can be witnessed by an inner awareness that is our Real Self. This Witness to our life has always been there/here, silent, non-labeling, non-commenting, non-judging, and is present now.
          • As you are reading these words, your Witness is aware of your mind’s mentations, your body’s sensations, and your emotion’s feelings. If your inner chattering stops rambling on, you can sit back in your mind’s eye and Witness your body/ego’s reactions. It is at a moment when this occurs that what has been called your higher intuitive center kicks in and you will know, with a gut feeling, just what to do. You will then be able to witness your mind, body, and emotions act, and either cease the reactivity that has taken away your peace, or start to do that which will bring about peace in your life.
          • For instance, you may have been banging your head against the wall for years, even though this caused you to suffer terribly. Your friends may have told you countless times that your life would be more peaceful if you would just stop doing this foolish activity. But, you never listened, or perhaps justified it as worth continuing with for some silly and illogical reason such as that it felt so good when you stopped. Witness yourself now. Did you just see yourself laugh, or react in a “Yep! That’s me!” embarrassment? Did your mind get angry and defensive and deny that this concept could apply to you? Are you witnessing now? And now?
          • Just as it is unlikely that you would continue to keep banging your head against the wall once you really recognized that you were doing it, once you witness yourself reacting to life’s events inappropriately (in a way that steals your peace away from you), you will stop doing it and thus allow peace to fill and stay with you. The 108 Meditation technique is one of the best at letting you witness your mind’s activity.
          • Relax yourself in the way you have found best prepares you for meditating. Focus your attention on your breath. Observe and feel air come into the body, stay, and leave the body. Silently say “One”. Do it again and say “Two”. On and on up to 108. This seems to be very easy to do, but don’t be surprised, when you first try this inner exercise, if you can’t concentrate well enough to get all the way up to 108 without being distracted by your thoughts, physical sensations, or emotions. Your mind has been your master and you have been it’s slave your whole life, and it’s not going to let you be in charge without giving you a very hard battle for control. Your mind has caused you to fritter away your most of your life rehashing the past and fantasizing about the future and will rebel if you try to live and control your life as it takes place.
          • Your breath always occurs in the present moment. Thus, if you are paying attention to your breath, you have the potential of experiencing reality, for it too can only occur now, in the present. Inner peace is not something for the past or the future. It is available and present now. We just must stop being distracted from it. When we do this technique, and we watch our mind take us away from the object of our meditation, our breath, we must not scold ourselves. If we see that we are concentrating very well, we must not get too overjoyed. Both extremes are distractions.
          • What is especially wonderful about this technique is that you can become aware of what causes your distraction as well as what happens as a result of your distraction. For instance, you may find that if you try to do this with your eyes open, something may catch your eye and you will start thinking about it. But, this is not necessarily bad because you may then have learned that it is easier to do this technique with your eyes shut and that this does bring more peace into your life. So, in a way, you may gain greater insight from “failing” at maintaining your concentration than from paying attention.
          • Another benefit that this method gives us is that we can gauge our progress over time. For instance, when you first try it, you may only get up to the number 12 before your mind’s chattering, or your body’s twitching, or your emotion’s swings distract you. Then, perhaps a week later, you may find that you are able to maintain your attention up to 48. A 400% improvement!
          • Eventually, you will be able to silently witness your mind obediently accomplishing the task you have assigned it and you will get to 108 successfully. It will be then that you can be considered the master, and your mind, body, and emotions, the slaves. They then can be used as valuable tools that will help you attain the consistent inner peace that you have been seeking. Easily!
          • Perhaps the greatest asset this technique offers is that you will become more and more aware of, and start identifying with, the Witness within – the pure, blissful, serene consciousness that is your Real Self. You will then need no tools, techniques, or concepts, and will live happily ever after.