Beginners Guide To Meditation:
It is best to have a designated time and place for our period of meditation. Using the same chair or location every day is helpful in that we will create a vibration in that area that will aid our progress. If at all possible do not use a place where you transact business or watch TV etc.
Most people find early morning to be the best time for meditation as their minds have not yet become involved with the day’s events. Respect your time and make others respect it. It is best to eat little or nothing before meditation. Sit with your spine straight even if you have to use a pillow to sustain you, with your hands at your side or on your thighs, palms up. It is not necessary to sit cross legged on the floor. You want to be relaxed, not concerned with an uncomfortable position. Yes, you may even lie prone on the floor or bed, but this tends to increase the tendency to drift off to sleep. Not our goal.
Meditation Begins With Concentration
Concentration is mastery of the mind. What we now think of as spontaneous thinking is the byproduct of outer phenomena and is instinctual. Intentional use of mind is free willed. This is why we choose a subject for concentration or an affirmative statement upon which to focus. When we notice our mind has wondered (which it will very quickly in the beginning) we know where we want to refocus.
If you choose a subject for contemplation, IT MUST BE A SUBJECT OF A UNIVERSAL NATURE.
What does that mean? It means a subject that anyone, anywhere, or at any time in history could have contemplated.
Music and math are by their very nature universal languages. Shepard under stars at time of Jesus could have contemplated the stars. The man of today would have a lot more information to bring to the table, but the topic itself could be contemplated by anyone on Earth, anywhere, at any time.
Very importantly, if you are listening to anything, you are not truly meditating. Why? Something, or someone, other than you are igniting the neurons of your brain.
We do not think with our brains. We think through our brains. In meditation our ‘Self’ is the power igniting the neurons. Or should be. This is very clearly demonstrated today, for those of you who are of a scientific inclination, using what is called Functional MRIs Scientist can almost tell us what we are thinking about by watching the area of the brain we are active in, and the patterns of light we are igniting. Left to its own devises our thoughts will tend to travel upon those pathways of neurons that we have most frequently traveled. Like water running downhill. Easy to see how a mental state of continuous worry leads to a soul state of depression. When we can stay conscious without physical stimulation, we are making progress.
Contemplation leads to Meditation, vibration. When the individual is concentrated in mind and positive and steady in soul rhythm, a cord of communication is created between the individual and Divine Mind. Meditation is the state of reception. Higher mind, not individual intellect, expresses through the individual. The individual realizes it is no longer he who is thinking, but that he is now receiving information. He has new thoughts,
