How I Meditate
Meditationtime Forum Post
Date: Posted 3 years before Jan 09, 2016
MiBeloved 3 years ago
Meditation / What to do?
I was asked repeatedly what a person should do when first sitting to meditate. There is no easy answer to this. There is no stereotype system of meditation because there were many teachers giving different systems.
I can tell you what I do or what I have done for years and you can take it from there. The difficulty with my system is that I do not just sit to meditate. Actually when I first began meditation under the direction of a formal teacher, I was trained to just sit and meditate or to sit, do deep breathing and then meditate. The teacher also gave a system of doing asanas quietly and gracefully and then sit with spine straight, do some deep breathing by drawing air deep into the lungs for about five minutes and then to meditate in silence while staring internally at the space between the eyebrows.
That teacher was Authur Beverford.
After I took up the practice of bhastrika pranayama at an ashram of Yogi Bhajan and then meditation immediately after, I more or less abandoned the system introduced by Teacher Beverford. This was because Yogi Bhajan’s system was so superior that it made no sense continuing with the method Beverford taught.
There were times when I would just sit to meditate without doing any prep yoga beforehand. For instance in the Meditation Pictorial book, chapter one was written after I spent years doing those practices illustrated there in sitting to meditate sessions but this was due to working on a specific psychic discipline. Then I would sit and squeeze the mind in a specific way for a specific achievement or mastership.
The meditation I do now is done only after a breath infusion session. Without that, this type of meditation is not possible, at least for me. I can’t speak for others.
Thus when I sit to meditate what is the first thing that I do?
It is to check to see the condition of the psyche which the breath infusion has produced. I take note of that. How so?
Well let us think of the condition of your being away from home for a while. Then you get a phone call telling you that your house was flooded. It is a relative who called. He proposed that he could get some professionals to clean up the place so that when you return it will be put back in order.
You agree to the proposal. About a month after, you get back home.
Guess what? You are curious to see how those professionals fixed up the place. As soon as you walk through the door you are looking for surprises and disappointments.
Thus when I do the rapid breathing, it does something to the psyche and the first thing I do when I sit to meditate is to check to see what it has done. Because if it is doing nothing then why should I do it?
If when checking this I notice a concentration force, I usually link into it.
Why?
Because Patanjali gave a process called samyama which is the sequential development of the 6th, 7thand 8th stages of yoga into one continuous practice. I begin in the 6th stage by linking my attention to the concentration force. When this happens it usually develops into the 7th stage which is effortless linkage of the same, and then into the 8th stage which is continuous effortless linkage or samadhi.
In between pranayama and samyama, between the 4th and the 6, 7, 8th stages there is the 5th stage. So why do I skip that. Well there are two answers. One is that I spent about 8 years total just working on that and I developed a summary proficiency achievement that keeps that in place at all times. Then the second reason is that a thorough practice of bhastrika achieves the completion of that in one lick.
The big secret about an effective pranayama practice is that it completes the pratyahar stipulation of Patanjali. With pranayama you get the diploma so that you can show Patanjali that you are qualified to jump over the 5th stage.
So when I sit after the pranayama practice, I immediately link into the concentration force which that practice generated. Linking like this may be called piggy-backing or cheating in meditation, in the sense that instead of trying to get to a higher level, one catches a ride on a concentration force which developed as a result of the breath infusion.
Now as soon as the infusion fizzes out or is reduced, I take plan B which is to link into naad sound or naad light or to do whatever a yoga guru had instructed me to do on the previous day or before.
So that is my meditation procedure.
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A question arises as to why link into naad and notice that I do not use the word merge or become one with anything. That is not my practice but it is a practice of many other yogis and sects. I just have no use for it because I am not attracted to losing my individuality or ego.
So linking into naad was recommended even by Sri Krishna to Uddhava but the thing about naad is that it causes success with fulfilling the obligation to Patanjali in his second sutra about yogah cittavritti nirodhah.
And the importance of that practice is that it targets, shuts down and then causes the buddhi analytical orb to become a means of spiritual perception into the chit akasha.
And that is yogi gold!
Exit from this dungeon and reach the spiritual places. That is it!
Nothing left to be done!
Hit paradise and enjoy! Troubles over! Ghetto buddies forgotten. Nightmare of material existence scrapped! See you later hoodlums and sex-crazed fools!
