Page 6.1.1 Handbook/Mindbook
Psi-M April 1984
Section 7.1 : LEARNING METHODS
SUBTOPIC 1: EXPANDING AWARENESS
Part 1: Meditation
6.1.1.1.0 Meditative States
6.1.1.1.1 Schedule
6.1.1.1.2 Solo Routine
6.1.1.1.3 Relaxing & Centering
6.1.1.1.4 Common Experiences
6.1.1.1.5 Loosening the Body
6.1.1.1.6 Loosening the Mind
6.1.1.1.7 Imagery
6.1.1.1.8 Hearing
6.1.1.1.9 Free State
6.1.1.1.0 Meditative States
The Altered States of Consciousness, ASC's, are expanded upon with definitions of the Meditative States of Consciousness, MSC's, as a process of searching for truth and seeking useful, meaningful wisdom. Therefore, it is a subset of the so-called alpha state of seeking wisdom, but is much more narrowly defined. (See reference book, SILENT MUSIC.) One might meaningfully associate wisdom with acquiring creative, orderly, higher quality, higher potential knowledge with the power to create change in a harmonious, beneficial way, as described in previous Ïä1ÏPsi-MÏä1Ï and the Handbook/Mindbook in the Simple Common Model, SCM.
Some may maintain that any relaxed state is meditation, or that any seeking is meditative; however, critical examination of the purpose and intent may show that mere relaxation is relatively shallow.
Likewise, a state of Enhanced Internal Awareness, EIA, may be useful to explore one's internal reality to aid in developing a better understanding of oneself. As an example, one may wish to simply enjoy an imagery journey, letting the imagination roam free, for the sheer pleasure of it Ïä1ÏandÏä1Ï for later analysis of what one prefers and avoids and how one's perceptions function.
As another example, one may simply wish to experience a state of happy exultation. While this state has been achieved by this writer, it turned out to be more a matter of education. It was finding out what could be achieved, rather than something that led to more information or knowledge or wisdom in a fruitful, leading sense.
One may be confident that setting one's overall objective is sufficient for guidance, through the operation of the "goal-centered effect". The normal operation of the mind is such that an order, declaration, command, or statement of desire is sufficient to set into motion the processes to achieve the objective, just as in normal motor motions of the body. As an example, one need not fully understand all of the details of consuming food in order to eat and digest -- it's all taken care of automatically. This shows the tremendous power of the so-called "subconscious" mind that may seen as the real seat of thinking of which the conscious mind is only a small part. One of the key objectives in meditating is to increase awareness of the subconscious so as to better think altogether with all aspects of the mind.
The specific objectives should be well thought out in advance of the meditation session and, preferably, committed to writing. With the writing down before comes the advantage of comparing afterwards for critique.
Specific self-commands may be considered to be suggestive, as in hypnotic suggestion. One should begin with simple objectives such as desiring better health and understanding. Some apparently innocent objectives may reveal inadvertent errors, such as, "I wish to become telepathic.", which may result in sensory overload of receiving a sea of thoughts. Programming commands might be viewed as programming a computer; while there may be safeguards built into the operating system, there really is not benefit in using the trial-and-error method, from the simple viewpoint of conserving schedule time.
One may begin to describe the meditative state as a key to developing psychical abilities and understanding of the psyche itself. Later on, you may see that most instances of e.s.p. are basically a seeking for information. This includes dowsing, questing, scrying, clairvoyance, clairaudience, psychometry, telepathy, and mediumship. The reasons for emphasizing the meditative state as a key is that it combines several notions:
Relaxation and the emptying of the mind from attention to the conscious Ego reduces the "noise level" so as to be more sensitive and receptive to the faint signals involved with the psychical;
Entering a peaceful and calm mood reduces the prejudicial defensive filters and allows creative ideas and thoughts to be perceived that might otherwise be judged erroneously as threatening and hence be censured or evoke a disruptive emotional response;
Seeking only truthful useful wisdom that is uncluttered by false, erroneous, mis-motivated or useless, extraneous thoughts;
Allowing the time needed to perceive the information in a practical sense for appreciating and contemplating meaning; Achieving development along the path of becoming more integrated and unified with the various mental and psychical modes, such as with the Self;
Highlighting the "personal life control system" viewpoint, in striving to use the control of one's mind to control one's life;
Gaining insights meaningful to the meditator in the way of "revealed knowledge", truths and verities, from one's highest self;
Attaining states of heightened awareness for practical problem-solving;
Decoupling the mind from "clock time" for faster thinking, such as avoiding subconscious talking at normal talking speed.
6.1.1.1.1 ROUTINE SCHEDULE
Awareness of the meditative state may be compared to changing one's style of dress. You wouldn't consider throwing out your wardrobe all at once and changing to a completely different set, would you? (Especially if you might need both sets of clothes.) So it is with practicing meditation. The more one does it, the more it seems to "stick with you", until, like an awareness or memory, you feel you're wearing it all of the time. Physical measurements of the brainwaves of developed psychics shows that some are able to be in several altered states of consciousness simultaneously, while appearing to be in a perfectly normal waking state.
It's perhaps reasonable to assume that, for a student, the deeper and more extensive the meditation is and the more often it is practiced, then the more developed that you will become,. One might presume that it's desirable to get as much into meditation as possible as often as possible.
This may not be so, because the integration with the conscious mind requires time for the mind to assimilate and maintain stability in both modes. Balance is the key. One should never force development to the point of being uncomfortable wit the pace.
In my own experience, as an example, I need about 25 minutes to really get into it. I try to meditate every evening, but only achieve it about half of the time. I'd estimate that it takes about two months of practice to reach a stage of "opening up".
At the most, one might begin by trying two sessions per day, at the most. At the least, ...well, anything is better than nothing, even once a month. One might wish to know how long might be required overall for achieving the various levels. There does not seem to be any information available in the literature on this due to the variation in individual people. However, based on this writer's contacts and experience, about 50 to 100 hours seems like a good ballpark figure for achieving imagery as discussed below.
The late Dr. W. Grey Walter, pioneer researcher in EEG, electro-encepholography, ( the study of the brain by means of electrical probes ), in THE LIVING BRAIN, wrote that the mind is like a statistical book-maker gambler that continually calculates the odds based on pairs of stimuli. When 23 successive repetitions of the same pairs of stimuli are perceived, the brain shows a response indicating that it has "learned" or "believes" in the pair being together, called the "Aha!" response. This may give an indication of the many sessions needed to achieve a significant confidence level.
If you are not feeling very comfortable with your progress, then give it some more time, analyze it critically, review your notes, talk it over with a friend, or contact a more experienced meditator.
As regards daily timing, it may be worth noting that researchers have found that people usually have activity and rest cycles during the day, called ultradian rhythms. These cycles are about 90 to 105 minutes of activity followed by 15 to 20 minutes of rest. It seems fairly easy to notice the times when you have "blah" feeling and use this as the beginning of your meditation so as to take advantage of the natural behavior of the mind.
Some methods of accelerating development may involve certain risks or hazards. Using general-use audio tapes other than relaxing music may involve subliminal messages that may interfere with true development. If you plan to use such tapes, check with the maker to find out what the messages are. Some tapes that rely on monotonous "white noise" or "pink noise" such as wind and surf sounds are fairly innocuous. The use of the Ganzfeld techniques involving such sounds together with halves of ping-pong balls over the eyes to block sights is likewise beneficial. It almost goes without saying that some techniques, such as Zen, that involve confounding the mind so as to shock it into a non-verbal state raise questions as to how well the balancing may result. These methods use illogical questions that the mind cannot respond to, such as, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?", and may ultimately aim encourage non-thinking, per se. While these may appear to be effective as regards achieving the altered state and aiding in analysis of previously unevaluated thinking, the results of meditation experiences are best when they are integrated into a whole mind. Techniques such as sensory-deprivation "tanking" are advisable only under competent medical advice and control.
In every case of practice, it's a very good idea to keep written notes in a bound book, with entries describing: the date; the situation; what you were trying to do; how well you did it; what problems you encountered; and what unexpected things occurred. With this, you may review you progress over time and see what trends appear and plan more effectively.
The following practice aids are split into two areas:
"solo meditation", by one person; and
"guided meditation", where one person guides another who is meditating.
Further, it's divided into a "simple meditation" that brings contact with the subconscious mind associated with the ego, and
"deep meditation", where contacts made with the Psyche and Self and goes into rather esoteric areas of development.
Page 6.1.1.1.4 Handbook/Mindbook
Psi-M April 1981 Page 72
6.1.1.1.2 Solo Routine
As you, the student, begin to practice, you'll more likely find that a specific routine for inducing the state is helpful. This may involve a regular place to relax in, free from nuisance distractions ---- one that is conducive to your peace of mind relaxation as regards comfort, safety, and quiet. Oftentimes, some form of relaxation music will help, or, even better, an audio cassette tape of an induction method, similar to a programmed hypnotic relaxation will be helpful, such as the counting don numbers backwards. You can make your own recording with a little practice, using your own programming statements and commands and timing it for the exduction.
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CAUTION! Be sure to issue yourself commands and/or focus "ONLY" those on learnings that are compatible with your own conscious Ego and to AVOID anything that is harmful. Simple statement such as, "Open my mind that I may see visions of Truth are for me." will help.
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Bear in mind that this so called "altered state" is simply day dreaming and musing that's extrapolated and extended in a controlled manner.
You should include in your programming some statements regarding a beneficial exduction, that is, getting back to normal after your session is over. This could be statements such as "When the session is over, or after 30 minutes, I will come back toa normal waking state feeling rested and refreshed, and retaining a clear memory of all of the beneficial wisdom gained during the session."
6.1.1.1.3 Relaxing & Centering
You may listen and fell for your own breathing as it slows down and becomes shallower and shallower. You may even begin sensing your blood's pulsing through your body and the "cool" feel of the oxygen revitalizing your body. Some meditators report feeling their general electrical charge as a slow-pulsing feeling sweeping over and in various parts of the body. As you relax more and more, you may reach a "critical plateau" where your breathing changes with a sharp intake of breath. This indicates a release of a significant tension.
As you continually let go, mundane thoughts, called "the chitti" thoughts, in the Far East, may keep creeping in and distracting your relaxation. This will decrease with practice as you control your mood. Occasionally, you intent will wander and you'll catch yourself worrying about what happened today and so one --- not to worry, just get back on track.
The objective at this point is to become as "centered" as possible, that is to center your mind in your own real natural personality, without getting into any roles other than just plain being yourself. Let go of all of the "shoulds" and "ought to's" and just be natural. Some call this grounding in truth.
6.1.1.1.4 Common Experiences
As you relax and drift down into more and more relaxed awareness, you may notice certain effects or cues that are routinely reported by meditators and they should be reassuring to you. A common cue during relaxation is that the blood pressure falls and you may feel a soft popping sensation in the ears as the pressure is equalized. Your senses will naturally sharpen; however, you should strive to be extremely alert, as if harkening to a call or searching for a lost gem or lover.
6.1.1.1.5 Loosening the Body
You may notice that your body feels "looser" around you and that you may feel somewhat loosely connected to it as you relax more as if you were putting on and growing into and becoming aware of your aura. Another way of looking at this is that, as a result of your willing it to be so, you are beginning to sense and to meld with your Psyche. This may be felt in a corollary reduction of physical tension that is caused by the mental restriction. It is as if it requires physical effort for the brain to sustain a thought that is unnatural or contrary to more healthful thought.
As your state strengthens, you may also notice trembling of your limbs -- some say this is common and shows that your body is going to sleep as it usually does, while you are maintaining an alert mind in increasing awareness.
According to one source (See STALKING THE WILD PENDULUM), the body will change subtly after prolonged meditation in that the nervous system acquires harmony. In the Far East, this is called raising the Kundalini", while the skilled author of the above reference points out that the effect is the exact opposite of the "march of epilepsy" and is a matter of synchronizing.
6.1.1.1.6 Loosening the Mind
By focussing your attention and will towards acquiring wisdom, you are inherently and automatically suppressing any objections to doing this. This is a form of concentration, tuning, and will-strengthening and decision making. With each suppression of objection and lessening of restriction, you are, in a way, mentally healing.
One way of looking at this is a matter of "unlearning". While it might be supposed that the mind can only gain information and can not "lose" it, it may also be thought of a matter of having a "truth value" associated with each bit of information, like a coefficient in a mathematical term or adjective, so that one may re-assign a truth value of zero to a statement and thus negate its power to obstruct while affirming its negativity. The alternative of trying to forget it all via selective amnesia may only lead to using energy to keeping it suppressed.
and running the risk that some event may trigger its release when it may be harmful.
Being in "The Right Mood" seems to be a critical factor in achieving the goal of true enlightenment. Many of the more successful meditators report that they are most successful when they are in a light-hearted, happy mood. Being overly serious and anxious and apprehensive seems to restrict the free feeling that is conducive to opening up. an emotionally upbeat, slightly adventurous, curious mood seems to work well.
You may expect that any feeling that are associated with negative thoughts and emotions, such as the classical seven vices, will hinder you achieving of a meditative state. (Bear in mind that being all-understanding implies being all-forgiving). So there is not much point in trying to meditate for purposes of inflicting harm or gaining control of another person. (Note that Jose Silva, founder of the Silva Mind Control Method, now de-emphasizes the "Control" aspect.)
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CAUTION!!: If you are not in a good mood and are feeling "blue", in "in the pits", or are otherwise disturbed, be sure that you get into a good mood before "opening up" to information, since, just as memories are filed away in your mind according to mood, so your mood will determine the sub-personality that meditates. In other words, when your senses are sharpened and amplified, so will your thoughts and emotions be amplified so that heightened consciousness of the bad may result. Best to postpone!
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You might wonder how to differentiate between a normal dream state and the meditative state. Here it is useful to consider the lucid dream state as being in between the two. In the lucid dream, the "waking dream", one is in control of one's will, whereas it's common in ordinary dreams to feel a loss of control of the dream. As regards content, such as visions, you will undoubtedly be able to feel it when you experience of a real meditative vision due to its strangeness and its clarity. (Do not become discouraged if it takes several or even many sessions for an image to appear; I meditated for week before seeing anything more than darkness and the usual physical eye images.)
As you deepen your state, you may feel like loosening and lifting in a subjective feeling way, relaxing and refining and opening your mind to truths that may emerge from your subconscious across the normal barrier as the barrier dissolves somewhat to allow such communication. Usually this happens in dreams, when thoughts that are very important come out.
The means of emerging may be obscure at first, described in symbolic images, This may take the form of "ugly-ooglies" (visionary images of dark, ugly things that are "scary" in an emotional, gut-level way) that represent your childish fears. By programming yourself to know that the fears cannot harm you, you may release yourself from them. It's interesting to conjecture how the subconscious is aware that they are harmless, while the conscious, everyday waking mind somehow believes that are threatening, and then how it's resolved.
Keep in mind that, when you are programmed to learn wisdom, that is what you will do. (but nobody said it would be easy.) It may be quite uncomfortable in some cases, and only the long-term benefit may seem to justify the short-term discomfort. One might surmise that most people, if left to their own desires, would avoid anything "stressful" as regards the learning and the changing, since it might exceed the level of stress they can tolerate and there is a kind of implied criticism of the Ego by way of its lacking the knowledge that is to be acquired. In some cases, you may find thoughts that some parts of your Ego would prefer not to be found, that is , depending on your success in centering.
On the other hand, some good meditators report experiencing very, very beautiful thoughts that were pleasant surprises far beyond their expectations.
You should make a very firm attempt to explicitly program your mind in a self-hypnotic, affirmative manner to remember anything that you experience while you are in the meditative state, so that you can later continually build up the bond between your conscious and your subconscious minds and dissolve the barriers so that you can achieve a more harmonious balance and work more efficiently with all your mind.
6.1.1.1.7 Imagery
You may notice a heightened awareness as your senses become adjusted to the relaxed calm. Small noises seem to become louder as your sensitivity increases. You may see some purple flashes of light behind your closes eyes--this is the chemical rhodopsin (purplish), and is of no consequence. While attempting to visualize, most people report that a blank, unfocussed, unstaring gaze is most productive, If an image forms and you then look directly at it and it then disappears, that's a common experience. Keep in mind that brain-internal images are not formed throught the usual eye-vision means and are not at all subject to the same rules or habits of depth perception, focus, or even size limitations; they're more similar to normal imagination- formed images that can do anything desired and are limitted only by self imposed restrictions. Many meditators report that the images form in an area above and between the physical eyes, hence the term "The Third Eye".
Some people report that when the images first begin forming, it's better to simply notice them without trying to look at them with the physical eye reactions and allow the mental thoughts to develop, without reverting to the conscious mind thinking, seeing, and analyzing. Accept it, let it be, as is.
You may notice images of eyes -- this is fairly common. (Later on, you will be given a more in-depth explanation for this, but suffice to say at this time that they may be images of eyes of other personalities that you are in some way linked up with and/or perceptive to sensing.)
6.1.1.1.8 Hearing
An odd effect that sometimes startles meditators is that of a very loud noise -- some describe it as a horn, or a loud snore, or a lightning bolt striking! It may literally lift you out of bed! But, not to worry---no harm from this effect has ever been reported to this writer.
Some also report that the usual background sounds we are use to hearing, like the echoes inside our ears, suddenly stop, leaving a very profound, empty silence. This may simply mean that your mind is disassociated from your physical hearing and is in a condition where aural spoken inputs may be received. The hearing is the last sense we lose when we go to sleep, sort of like our guardian.
Some meditators, usually very experienced, report hearing a very beautiful, ethereal music. Some say they have heard a choir singing along with it. Many of the easily available meditation tapes, such as "On Hearing Solar Winds", the "Spectrum Suite", the "Starborn Suite", "Music from the Hearts of Space", and so on, attempt to replicate the sounds.
6.1.1.1.9 Free State
This condition is one of very peaceful calm when the body is felt to be completely separated from the mind. Aside from meditators, it has also been reported by those who have been more-or-less forced into a condition of being deprived of physical sensory inputs, such as hospital patients in casts, drugged persons (alcoholic or otherwise). This includes pilots of very high-flying reconnaissance aircraft and astronauts, wherein it is usually referred to as "break-off phenomena".
While in this state, the mind can usually work much more accurately and faster than when it is busy handling sensory inputs and controlling outputs in the everyday manner. Some say that this is the state where inspiration often occurs.
This is an extremely high state, mentally speaking. While one is in it, no problem of thinking is too difficult, since the mind seems able to comprehend all simultaneously. This is referred to as the omniscient state. It's as if one were truly high above the atmosphere in the crystal clear sparkling air, with no impediments whatsoever. The bad news is the trip back to earth. I'd compare it to taking a jet out to Los Angeles and descending back into the smog.
Afterwards, there's a faint memory of how beautiful it was, together with a sense of loss and an acute awareness of feeling like a head cold had paced the brain with dirty cotton, which is then recognized as the "natural" state of mind.
Many of the conditions typically associated with the "Near Death Experience" may also be encountered while meditating, at least, this is my personal report and others have also reported the various cues. These range from "going through the tunnel" to the celestial gardens to seeing "The Great White Light", called the Leilani by the Hawaiians.
Really Exquisite!
This about sums up many of the ideas that come to mind. We will examine guided meditation, or "Dual" as pilots call it, later on. I hope this will be of some help to some of you. Let me know if there are any particular questions on your mind about meditation in general or anything in particular.
Best,
Rich