Why do we meditate, other than for physical and mental balance? We meditate in order to shift our consciousness.
Once our consciousness shifts, our character changes, and once our character changes, our destiny alters dramatically -in both this world and the next.
We begin with a method, some kind of mental exercise intended to create gaps between our never-ending emotions and thoughts.
This is something we might not have done before.
Our mind has probably gone non-stop since birth, so this could be a new and interesting experience for us.
These gaps are very important, and as we continue to meditate, the gaps become longer, wider, and this interval between thoughts and emotions begins to alter our consciousness.
When this alternation begins, insights come up that will be unique to our experience.
This is the first taste of the immense potential of meditation.
If we can get this far, then the practice of meditation becomes a most precious experience, and one that we will treasure as long as we live - and beyond.
Our beginning insights are usually connected to everyday things; how to do something more efficiently, a new invention, or something having to do with existence as we experience it.
Later on, insights will be much deeper and inexplicable, although we obviously experience them.
Soon after, there will be no experience, no experiencer, and yet there will be insight and awareness.
The seeker is gone.
That which is sought is unimportant.
And there is only meditation.
The meditator has moved, from the physical, past the emotional, past the thoughts .
.
.
and on to the divine.
This is the level of sainthood, the level of arahantship, a sage that proclaims, "I have nothing, I desire nothing, I am nothing.
The self is transcended in that final tremendous shift in consciousness that throws open the door to enlightenment.
To begin practicing meditation, go to a good meditation center (instead of Hawaii), and this time really change your life! They will teach you how to meditate, usually suggesting that you concentrate on the rising and falling of your breathing.
This is done at the solar plexus, or maybe the nose tip.
After you can do this fairly well, you will be told to simply notice thoughts and emotions as they arise in your mind.
They will suggest that you allow them to arise, notice them, and then let them go.
Practicing this will acquaint you with the fact that all things change, including your thoughts and emotions, and therefore since you are your thoughts and emotions psychologically, you change every moment as well.
There is no substantial entity behind it all.
So already, you have learned many things by just watching your mind, and without even cracking a book! Things that most human beings will never have a clue about, for example; that everything in existence changes constantly.
Most people go through life thinking that things will never change.
And that you are merely a ball of shifting thoughts and emotions, no more.
Most think that they are real and substantial.
But if you believe that you are substantial, fear and worry come up all the time as you attempt to protect this "substantial" thing and keep it from changing! But we grow old nevertheless.
Then you may notice one other thing; that, magically, because of meditation, your fear and worry has subsided a tad.
Copyright © E.
Raymond Rock 2007.
All rights reserved
Once our consciousness shifts, our character changes, and once our character changes, our destiny alters dramatically -in both this world and the next.
We begin with a method, some kind of mental exercise intended to create gaps between our never-ending emotions and thoughts.
This is something we might not have done before.
Our mind has probably gone non-stop since birth, so this could be a new and interesting experience for us.
These gaps are very important, and as we continue to meditate, the gaps become longer, wider, and this interval between thoughts and emotions begins to alter our consciousness.
When this alternation begins, insights come up that will be unique to our experience.
This is the first taste of the immense potential of meditation.
If we can get this far, then the practice of meditation becomes a most precious experience, and one that we will treasure as long as we live - and beyond.
Our beginning insights are usually connected to everyday things; how to do something more efficiently, a new invention, or something having to do with existence as we experience it.
Later on, insights will be much deeper and inexplicable, although we obviously experience them.
Soon after, there will be no experience, no experiencer, and yet there will be insight and awareness.
The seeker is gone.
That which is sought is unimportant.
And there is only meditation.
The meditator has moved, from the physical, past the emotional, past the thoughts .
.
.
and on to the divine.
This is the level of sainthood, the level of arahantship, a sage that proclaims, "I have nothing, I desire nothing, I am nothing.
The self is transcended in that final tremendous shift in consciousness that throws open the door to enlightenment.
To begin practicing meditation, go to a good meditation center (instead of Hawaii), and this time really change your life! They will teach you how to meditate, usually suggesting that you concentrate on the rising and falling of your breathing.
This is done at the solar plexus, or maybe the nose tip.
After you can do this fairly well, you will be told to simply notice thoughts and emotions as they arise in your mind.
They will suggest that you allow them to arise, notice them, and then let them go.
Practicing this will acquaint you with the fact that all things change, including your thoughts and emotions, and therefore since you are your thoughts and emotions psychologically, you change every moment as well.
There is no substantial entity behind it all.
So already, you have learned many things by just watching your mind, and without even cracking a book! Things that most human beings will never have a clue about, for example; that everything in existence changes constantly.
Most people go through life thinking that things will never change.
And that you are merely a ball of shifting thoughts and emotions, no more.
Most think that they are real and substantial.
But if you believe that you are substantial, fear and worry come up all the time as you attempt to protect this "substantial" thing and keep it from changing! But we grow old nevertheless.
Then you may notice one other thing; that, magically, because of meditation, your fear and worry has subsided a tad.
Copyright © E.
Raymond Rock 2007.
All rights reserved