what meditation techniques do you use? if any? how often do you meditate? for how long? i have always known that there is more than just the basic concept of meditation, but i was always curious as to what they were, and how to employ them. does anyone on here use any kinds of advanced meditation techniques? ------------------------- personally when i meditate i find a quiet spot, usually my room when no one is around. then i will sit down and steady my heartbeat. afterwards i will heighten my awareness and focus in on all the quiet sounds around me, and the way that everything appears to be. shortly after heightening my awareness i will focus all of my energy outwards onto the world around me, until i feel comfortable enough to close my eyes. usually this doesn't take very long. then i will slowly draw my attention inwards. to my body, and then eventually to my breathing. i let all my thoughts quiet down. rather than forcing them to stop i let them resolve themselves, while still not giving into the act of 'thinking'. think of ripples in a pond. if i try to stop the ripples it is just going to cause more ripples. then i maintain, and surrender. my breathing is almost always my central focus point. sometimes i will slip into blissful ego loss, other times i will attain a direct connection with the divine. other times energy will flow through my body, up my spine, and out my crown chakra. i try not to give into this too much though, because i am not very well versed on kundalini. but i do know that premature kundalini awakening can be dangerous. although i have noticed that if i go into the session with a goal in mind usually i will acheive nothing.
Sit down, legs crossed, hands in each palm but fingers not grasping each other. Thumbs touching each other pointing up words. This completes an energy circuit and the thumbs create a point for energy to flow to. Keep the head slightly titled back, just a tad, so the Kundalini energy doesn't get stuck. Close your eyes and study your breath. Be one with the breath, listen and feel your breath moving back and fourth, visualize taking in energy in, and releasing it into the earth. Watch passively the colors and visualizations that appear within your inner eye. Then chant a mantra in your mind of any name of the divine. AUM mantras, and mantras the supposedly bring you back to the pure land really do help. If you mind is cluttered say the mantra very fast, then slow it down when your mind begins to get clearer. If you are good with breath work then the breath can be used like a mantra. Use the mantra or the breath until your mind is completly clear. Until you are completly mindless and left with nothing but awareness. Keep that state of mindless awareness as long as possible. The more you meditate the easier it becomes. If you practice is silence and remove your senses, then your inner senses will begin to kick in. Focus and hear and see the divine light and sound, or what ever waves of reality your ready for. Mantras and meditation seem to work like some magic charm while under the influence of lsd or magic mushrooms, or any other psychedelic. What usually takes many hours of meditation sober, only takes a few minutes, sometimes even a few seconds on psychedelics. There is many different objectives for meditation. You can do it for physical health, you can use it to learn how to astral travel and OOBE, but I follow the hindus and the buddhist in their meditation. I go straight for the source, I explore the innermost region of being. I try to find the god within. I use meditation to find my way home. For a sober meditation the visuals and insights usually come between an 20 mins to an hour. Sober meditation is the most pure, deepest, and truest meditation for the self. If one can acheive the results he does from tripping while sober he will be a true master of meditation. Tripping without learning to meditate is a waste of time. Not a complete waste but you are missing such a vital intergral part of the trip. You will experience so much more in the meditative state. Not to mention life itself without learning to meditate is a complete waste, meditation should be as normal and as natural as pooping and peeing or eating food. Hope this helped, AUUUUM.
I do self-inquiry: in silence, I'll ask myself the following questions, and attempt to remain still as I await an answer: What is dreaming? What is thinking this thought? What is awake? What is the source of this thought? What is happening here? What is this? What is duality? What am I? What is observing this? Keep asking different questions in this vein (in a completely honest and truthful manner, as ridiculous as the questions may seem), and come up with new creative questions asking about the nature of reality: surprise yourself, eventually one will click and some process you have no control over will become apparent, revealing illusion to be illusion, reality to be reality, and that there is no hint of a "self" that is separate from any of it. The more time you spend as this "force you have no control over", the more easy it is to relax as it.
whoa I feel colors and liquid just reading these posts. I mostly do breathing. A very simple one is start inhaling at the bottom of the gut, and expand in wave fashion up the torso, not forcing the body any particular way and more or less just visualizing the wave of breath rising from the gut. The chest rises and the breath proceeds up through the throat and to the top of the head. Hold the breath for as long as is comfortable, usually just a few seconds, and release it. The release is optional. Either the breath descends back down through the chakras the way it came, or you can visualize the breath leaving your body through your pores, dissipating from you and carrying with it whatever you need relinquished. Thoughts that pop up flow away with the breath. This one I do most often because I don't need to set aside time or space to do it. I've tried Kundalini and she is powerful. I recently read that you can awaken her starting from the crown chakra and descending into the gut. But I just focused on the root chakra and the serpent did arise. Much respect is needed for this. The warmth is very real and the longer you focus the higher it rises and more it fills you. She's easy to chase away; as soon as I had defiant or skeptical thoughts she coiled back down immediately. But the longer I focused, the more power the serpent had over those skeptical thoughts. Once it rose to a certain point and the skeptical thoughts popped up, the serpent struck the thought mercilessly and swallowed it up. It seemed as real as a snake striking me. It was so intense and real that I haven't really tried to focus in that way since then, like it's too much for me at this point. But the experience was beautiful; I could see the dance of the serpent when I closed my eyes and it appeared to be twin snakes, mirroring each other, massaging my spine or chakra system. There seemed to be sudden energetic discharges flashing up and down the system, all through me, as if tiny serpent offspring. I had phenomenal amounts of energy afterward. Cool stuff. And then I tried something Rygoody mentioned on here about the fingertips. Thumb to index finger, thumb to middle finger, etc. Each connection seemed to have a corresponding chakra. I had to get into it slowly, getting some energy flowing with the index finger, then gently switch to the middle, etc. Different areas of the body activate with each pairing with different feelings and colors, almost like I'm playing myself as an instrument. Pretty cool, thanks for that one, Ry mostly I just like to ease into a relaxed state and see what kind of meditation I feel like. the other day after flirting with a few, the urge to chant came. SO I started with a straight "ahhhhh" and after a few I close it off with a soft "m" at the end. After doing a few, for a split second I wasn't doing it anymore, it blended with all the ambient activity in one great noise, but not obnoxious or deafening just very onmipresent and pervasive.
I fast all day and in the evening I sit cross legged in a quiet space and "unwravel" my daily stresses until I can focus on the big picture.
When I meditate, I put a big fat smile on my face. I stop thinking, I start focusing on my breath. I listen to the sounds of the birds chirping, and let the sound of each chirp run a bolt of energy through my body. I surge through the nothingness and blackness and feel as though my inner body is expanding in all directions. One with nothing, yet everything in it's essence. Love and joy in it's purest, the satisfication of simply breathing and being alive and happy with the present moment -- the only thing there really is! Aww boy makes me wanna meditate right now!! Sorry if I sound sappy -- but that's how I make the most of it. It's how I do mayn Peace & Love :cheers2:
corpse pose deep breathing tensing muscles and releasing then void when i come out of it my brain works approximately 75% slower but my soul is like
also one other strange thing that i notice after i meditate: usually towards the beginning of my meditation my legs will start tingling and energy will course through them. kind of like the pins and needles feeling you get when your legs falls asleep, but different. i don't get it unless i am meditating. the longer and deeper i meditate, the more apparent it is. then after an in-depth session my legs will lock up and and i can't really use them for about 5 minutes. i have to lay there and regain control over my legs. almost like my consciousness has to return to my body and gain control over it again. isn't that strange?
because my mind likes to stay so busy all the time, i amuse it during meditation with a simple chakra opening exercise - by the time they're all open and flowing, so is my Being
meditation can be a spontanious disapline for me, which is to say im not nessesarily following any kind of technique most of the time. just turning inward and being open to what happens there. one meditation i do practise though when i need to charge my batteries is, beginning with my attention deep in the earth, forming a connection with the divine mother, taking time to feel deeply, conciously raising energy up into the base of my spine, sitting with it there for a time, letting the energy rise up into each chakra one at a time. up to the crown, and above, forming a connection with the divine masculine. bringing it down. and then once the circut is complete ill circulate these energies throughout my being in a torus centered in my heart. this is the most centering and charging meditation i know, but i get lazy with it, cause it'll take at least an hour. really i ought to be doing it every morning.
Bringing this thread back. Remembered a good technique. The White Flame Meditation - picture a samurai sword in your mind, think about the word sword. does the word sword fully explain everything that the sword is? think of where the metal came from, where the leather came from, how the sword was created, where did the knowledge to create the sword from, how long did the metal sit in the earth, who had road the horse that the leather was made from, what made the swordsman make those designs, how did he grow up so that his mind was ready to make swords? you see the list goes on and on and on. Now try to explain yourself and everything you came from. Think very hard, think of everything you are, even though it seems impossible, just try. NOW FEEL THE WHITE FLAME!
^ You should. In my case the meditation wasn't really effective until I just learned to follow and focus my mind completely on the breath.
Ive never actually meditated before, maybe once after my acid trip when i was into religous things, space and all that wonderful stuff...But lately after i burn a joint i usally lay down somewhere quiet and just breathe and my god does it feel good, espically with a clear mind. Does the meditation part actually effect it, like do i have to be sitting in a certain formation? lol
when im on top of my game, i use a similar meditation when im eating food. what kinds of things make up the meal im eating? where did it come from? ....ect. then give thanks.
Again, I re-iterate what others have said. Focus on the breath. Breath slow and deep, letting it out more gradually than you take it in. Do this by closing the back of the throat somewhat during exhalation, until in exhaling you hear the the sound of your breath escaping. Listen to it, with eyes open or closed, relaxed. Gazing inward with the consciousness, immerse yourself in love, joy, and peace. You'll most probably have a slight ecstatic grin. Stay there a while. It will change everything.
breath is quite important. my freind always says, "as you breath, so you live your life." its true though. another potent meditation is to breath into your center. deep into the belly, consistantly, throughout your day. i notice that when feelings of insecurity or axiety arise, my breathing is always shallow. deep breath.....