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There are countless types of meditation practice in the world that are available to spiritual adherents, or those who just want to get healthy, learn to relax or increase their life span and quality of living. In fact there are so many different meditation techniques that it's hard for people to choose between them or to understand what they're all about. These articles should help clear up much of the confusion about learning how to meditate and what it's all about. In short, at the highest objective meditation is a way to eventually arrive at the foundational root essence of the mind and consciousness.
The various methods of meditation available across the world's spiritual traditions all deal with the two principles of cessation, halting, stopping or "shamatha," which involve bringing the mind to a state of quiet stillness absent of thoughts. This is called "emptiness" which at its highest form is called samadhi. The principle of emptiness, or empty mind, holds for each and every stage of meditation and spiritual practice. What also hold is the principle of watching, observation, or wisdom, often called contemplation or "prajna." Prajna means to remain awake and aware of the workings of the mind whenever it's in a state of shamatha. The two principles of cessation and observation, or samadhi and prajna wisdom, are the basics within meditation that you should recognize and strive to master no matter which method you follow. |
Process of Meditation |
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All the meditation methods of the world involve learning to let go of your thoughts so that you can cultivate a state 'empty' of mental scattering, and free of 'rather invisible undercurrent' scenarios of mental interpretation and clinging.
Thoughts are always flying around in your mind, and you're always subtly clinging to them without knowing it. They are like a cloud of mosquitoes that have chi energies attached to them, and our fixation on those energies interferes with the true human underneath that actually functions with 'cosmic' awareness.
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Get rid of that incessant clinging, get rid of all sorts of layers of invisible 'false' thought that screen you from your original nature, and at the minimum you'll attain a mental scenario of peace called 'samadhi.'
At the best -- if you clear away everything including the notions of being an ego --you can achieve seamless union with the 'Ultimate Ego' that we call God or the original nature. So meditation is real spiritual practice, spiritual practice of the REAL kind. In fact, it's the only real kind of true puja (worship).
'God' is the formless original nature beyond being and non-being, existence and non-existence. The way to that achievement of realizing the Tao and becoming one with God is through consciousness rather than prayer and ceremonies because that original foundational substrate incidentally has the function of awareness (otherwise there wouldn't be anything thinking it's a being), and you can use that function to backtrack and get closest to its essence. Naturally, that doesn't mean THINKING because thinking is just another function of that essence which screens you from realizing its clear nature. |
When children are young and don't have too many thoughts, that's often why they are psychic. However, past the age of puberty when they become more mentally complicated and their sexual desires arise, those powers usually disappear because like everyone else they start clinging. Experience an accident that affects your chi and chi channels when you are older, and sometimes those psychic abilities reassert themselves.
Here's what you can expect, if you meditate correctly.
First, your mind will start to become clearer. Initially it becomes clearer without you noticing it, then one day you notice it, and then with further progress you actually think you are retrogressing.
Why, with progress, will you think you are retrogressing?
Because you're finally unleashing your vital energies which travel up to your brain and create all sorts of random thoughts and secondly, you finally start to notice all those thoughts for the first time with REAL clarity.
With real clarity you see them -- which is something you never did before -- and seeing all these thoughts you think you're actually retrogressing.
It happens to everyone, but you really aren't backsliding.
Actually it's like a glass of muddy water that is settling. When the water is all stirred up and muddy, you cannot see any individual dust particles. However, when the mud starts settling you can start to see the individual particles of dirt and dust for the first time -- and that's the stage of progress.
You see, your awareness is becoming detached from thoughts, so now you can finally see them.
That's why most meditation methods teach you 'neti neti' ('not this, not this' so don't cling), to 'let go, let go' and to act like a third person observer. It's all a matter of training you to break your habit of clinging, and to stop clinging especially to the body consciousness.
Two barriers are especially troublesome at the early stages of the path -- sexual desire and the habit of clinging to the body/ego thinking it to be the real you. Let go of both and you'll find that your consciousness is non-local.
Okay, now your vital energies are being unleashed because of proper 'emptiness generating meditation' -- what else can you expect?
Usually, now it will become easy to get irritated or angry because your unleashed kundalini life force vital energies are now always 'below the surface' shaking at the vital chi energies you cling to that are involved with your habits and personality. They're trying to go upwards and are hitting all these other obstructions.
Because that entire suit of chi you're clinging to (wearing) is unstable, it's very easy to set it off and become angry or irritated, especially now that your mind is clearer and you can see everything. Usually there are liver energies involved in this.
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