Visionless Third Eye Meditation

Meditationtime Forum Post

Date:  Posted 3 years before Jul 30, 2016

MiBeloved 3 years ago

Third eye meditation is usually done with expectation of opening the third eye, and this means different things to different people.

Mostly people develop the idea of seeing through the third eye on the basis of what they read in a book which was written by a yogi or psychic. Some meditate for years on the third eye as was advised in a book or in a lecture, but they get no results from doing this. Some others get results quickly and then there is stagnation where the third eye just opens no longer.

Some are able to keep the third eye open after the first try.

One can however leave aside the expectations and just meditate at or on the third eye.

This means that from a distance in the subtle head, the observing self focuses on a central point or area at the center of the eyebrows.

In the case of a focus, the observing self feels itself to be back in the head say about two to three inches or so back from the point between the eyebrows. From there the observing self emits either a single ray of focus energy or two rays of vision energy which converge at the center of the eyebrows.

Having dual rays of vision energy is natural because there are two optic nerves through which energy courses naturally. But the person can abandon that and use a single ray of energy.

The trick is to do this without desiring a result, without wanting to see anything, without being under a pressure-need to see this or that. Can you do this without a visual quest with an open mind?

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One thing that helps tremendously is to actually see the brow chakra because then one does not have to go on just a belief in it. To see this chakra, one may shut the eyelids tightly and then press in slightly on the eyes with the fingers. This will cause lights to be seen in the head. If one keeps pressing these lights will usually form into a full circle of light or a doughnut shape of light. This is how one can identify that there is a chakra there. Once you have this experience, you can be confident that you do have a chakra and that would take it off the mere belief level.

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Peter at LinkedIn:

quite some time ago, while lying in savasana and focusing on my third eye, i felt a pain there which lasted for 45 minutes. is there any explanation for the pain?

MiBeloved's Response:

Over years with experiences with the third eye, I never had any pain there. Sometimes I felt a slight twitching or tension but never pain.

The person who first taught me about meditating there was Arthur Beverford. His method was to use White Flower Embrocation which sells in South East Asia. It is an essential oil from mint, camphor and eucalyptus. He advised to rub that in the space between the eyebrow and then sit to meditate, focusing on the cooling sensation there produced by the oil.

The methods I used originally are described with diagrams in my book, Meditation Pictorial.

If you have a strong mental focus, strong will power, then it is likely that when you move that focus away from its normal behavior, it could produce headaches. I would recommend that you first try to pull in the mental focus into the core-center of consciousness in the head and then when this energy is introverted and relaxed in that internalization, you can then direct it outwards again towards the third eye or to the naad cosmic sound which is heard in the individual psyche.

Most of us are extroverted by nature, which means that our psychological energy pours out away from the central consciousness but for the purposes of yoga, this needs to be reversed so that the psychological energy reverses or goes in the direction inwards to the center of consciousness. This is the pratyahar sensual energy withdrawal fifth stage in the eight stage yoga process of Patanjali.

unlimitedsun 3 years ago

Such focus can indeed be extraneous and painful especially when one is not accustomed to doing this exercise, the reason I think is that there is at the beginning much of a physical/ muscle and or nerve involvement in the action. But that discomfort should cease almost immediately upon stopping the exercise, unless of course it went on for an exaggerated length of time.

So was the pain going for 45 minutes after the focus on the third eye was stopped? In that case there could be more going on. Was it an headache? a tension?...?

And most importantly was it a onetime occurrence? As a result of over straining untrained muscles/optical nerves...

So does decreasing the amount of time help? Then resistance can be built over time...

MiBeloved 3 years ago

Peter from LinkedIn:

thanks for the link. i really appreciate it. i did some googling and found out that quite a lot of folks suffer pain in the third eye while meditating on the 3rd eye. some suggested it is because the chakra is opening too fast and the meditator is not ready for it. does that make sense?

MiBeloved’s Reply:

That does not make sense to me. For one thing the third eye is in the subtle body. It is not a feature of the physical body. There is no evidence physically or any organ located between the eyebrows where one sees the third eye chakra.

But what may be occurring is that people have a headache there and because the third eye is located there in the subtle body, they are confusing the two things.

One thing you may investigate however is focus. What I mean is this, if you concentrate on something mentally, sometimes we notice that we knit our brows. Now that might cause a headache if one concentrates too hard. That is a combination of a subtle body third eye focus and also a physical muscle action of knitting the brows and also putting a strain on the frontal brain area.

The solution then is to sit to mediate and deliberately try to relax the eyebrows and also the frontal part of the brain. But that is physical problem arising because of focusing the frontal part of the brain, and it should not be confused with the third eye, even though it occurs in the same area where the third eye is experienced.

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Reply from Laura on LinkedIn:

Michael, Interesting explanation of the third eye meditation. Sounds clear and easy to follow. Meditation with a goal is, in essence, no meditation at all. Since you mention, "most of us are extroverted by nature," do you think it is easier for introverted persons to meditate?

MiBeloved's Response:

Meditation is mostly about introversion. In fact the 5th stage of yoga which is called pratyahara means sensual introversion, or the pulling in of the sensual energies which are usually coursing outwards for sense gratification.

Prati is a Sanskrit prefix which means against, like anti in English. Ahara (aa haa ra) is a Sanskrit word which means consumption. It is usually applied to eating but its broader usage means sensual consumption of all sorts.

For survival one has to be extrovert in order to check out the environment, avoid dangers to one’s body and also procure food to sustain the body. Nature has stacked extrovert tendencies in the creature bodies (humans included), and therefore that is the natural way for the most part.

For meditation we need to do the opposite which is to withdraw the senses from their objects. So that is the beginning of mental and emotional yoga, which is the 5th stage in the ashtanga yoga system.

Once a student can master that introversion it becomes introspection or an inspection of what is in the psyche of the individual.

Dear Beloved 3 years ago

I agree that there should not be any pain when meditating on the third eye.  And the opening of this eye cannot be willfully forced.  It's pointless to strain the mind to try to open it.  The best one can do is relax and dissipate all the mental excitement and random thoughts and the eye will open naturally by itself.  And since it is an astral phenomenon, there should be no pain associated with it.  If one is having pain, then it could be a physical reaction...maybe from sitting in an uncomfortable or unfamiliar posture for too long or from physically straining the head muscles or from an underlying health condition from some other unrelated cause in one's life.

The only 'physical' feeling that I have felt in relation to the astral body is when one consciously separates from the physical body.  There is a clear vibration of varying intensity.  The first time I ever experienced this...it was a very strong and almost frightening vibration.  Subsequent occurrences have been more mild in vibration.

unlimitedsun 3 years ago

From Linda's post:

In my take there is a sheer distinction between being psychologically introvert and being adept at true meditation, which here is not mind control per se initially, but rather mental channeling of energy, from outwards in to a specific object...

Psychological introversion is distinct from survival instinct demarcation.

As a great illustration of this: Michael has in my opinion a rather extrovert personality (in that he is not a shy person), but he is also the king of meditation as we know it!

So being an introvert does not imply that one has more handle on the operations of the mind. These two may not necessarily be related, and being introvert can be compensated by a greater mental reactionary disposition.

The end of Michael's reply does imply a definition of introversion from a yogic perspective and not the lay man's definition.

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The end of Michael's reply does imply a definition of introversion from a yogic perspective and not the lay man's definition.

Correction:

The end of Michael's reply does imply a definition of introversion from a yogic perspective but the layman's definition.

MiBeloved 3 years ago

Peter on LinkedIn:

Michael, is there a difference between looking inward with eyes closed and looking inward with eyes open? Some yoga teachers stress that we should always practice looking inward without closing our eyes and I'm not sure why. Is it a way to train and sharpen our focus while still being able to observe distractions around us?

MiBeloved's Response:

If a person is completely detached from the visual outward going sense, then there is no difference for that person. Each of us have particular sensual hang-ups which cause slow progress with introspection and the internalization required to complete kriya yoga practice or samyama meditation in the ashtanga yoga system.

Each of us must deal with these hang-ups honestly if we want to be successful. I had a friend who was really attracted to sound. This guy always had some sound device with him and had to hear some sort of music or mantra day and night to be happy. He was very disturbed when there was no sound being created for his hearing sense.

Like that each of us has some type of sensual hang-up. Some of us are visually addicted to colors, shapes and forms. This is evident today with the screen technology where every three months the techies release another type of TV or computer screen, and so many of us run out to buy it, even standing up in a line overnight at the stores.

Is there a hard and fast rule?

I think the rule is that you have to narrow down your hang-up and whittle away at it until you get it under your thumb. If I am attracted to physical shapes, then that hang-up will mess up my yoga practice if I do not take steps to curb it. Say for instance in my case, I am male, so if I am really crazy about female body curves, then how will I be able to meditate internally if you sit me to meditate with open eyes in a penthouse in Manhattan with a group of curvy females who wear body shape-fitting garments.

Some one might say that I should just sit there and detach myself but it is not that easy if my mind and emotions are strongly attracted to the female shapes. But if I admit my frailty and get a blindfold, then perhaps I would have a chance to get some introspection under those circumstances. Better still, it would be, if I would leave that penthouse and go to a place where no one was in a room and there was subdued lighting or total darkness where my mind would not be bothering me over pursing forms in the immediate area.

I heard of the instruction about not closing the eyes and there is the tratak practice which is done by staring into nowhere with eyes open. I tried these practices and found that for me they do not get the results intended.

I know of others who do these practices and state that they get results.

I use a complete eye/head blindfold while meditating. I even do so while doing bhastrika pranayama breath infusion practice. I get results in that way. I used to do breath infusion practice without a blind fold and the energy generated would leak out whenever the mind would try to use the eyes to see something. So I learnt from that not to have any visual leaks. A blindfold does that for me.

Actually there are histories of yogis who used to meditate in dark caves in Himalayas but nowadays we do not hear about that. The caves are being used by Muslim extremists these days.

My advice is to do what works for you, but of course you need to really know what the objective of your meditation really is, before you can understand what to curtail and what to include.

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I do not agree that a student yogi should pretend to be a great yogi and try to meditate in the center of Times Square during the rush hour. A student should be humble to nature and try to hide away from nature and from manmade distractions so as to develop strength in practice. If I am not a great yogi already, then being in the world will make me worldly, so I need to escape from the world, develop some resistance by practicing without the challenges which contravene yoga.

bandika 3 years ago

Since I’m still unsuccessful in opening my third eye, I would like to write here my experiences.

In meditation I move my consciousness into the center of my head, and focus towards the brow chakra. During that time, nothing extraordinary happens, I see some lights moving to the center of my forehead. Unfortunately this practice is very tiring for my mind so I am able to do that just for a few minutes.

I also try to move my consciousness to the back of my head. In this way I start to see a cloud of energy in front of me almost immediately even if I don’t expect to see anything. My problem is that I’m not able to control this phenomenon, and don’t know how it relates to the third eye. If I try to focus onto or through that, then it will disappear gradually.

MiBeloved 3 years ago

bandika wrote:

In meditation I move my consciousness into the center of my head, and focus towards the brow chakra. During that time, nothing extraordinary happens; I see some lights moving to the center of my forehead. Unfortunately this practice is very tiring for my mind so I am able to do that just for a few minutes.

MiBeloved’s Response:

Have you tried to do the exercises which are given in the form of mind diagrams in chapter 1 of the Meditation Pictorial book? If you have done this, then do some more of it. It takes sometime before those practices will pay off.

In your first sentence you were really speaking about focal self-awareness and not about consciousness. Just want to get the vocabulary in order.

This practice which you described above is one of the standard focusing practices but it is tiring and for some persons it yields no honest results. Some people use the same practice and visualize the third eye as it was described to them in books or lectures or as they just imagine on their own and they feel that this imagining whatever is the third eye, which it is not.

First of all you need to have some confidence by direct experience that there is a third eye there in the first place, because suppose there is no third eye there, then you are just barking up the wrong tree and will be frustrated in the end.

In spiritual life, we need a reliable witness, just as we do in a court of law. The judge was not at the scene and he has to make a decision based purely on hearsay of other persons. Is the defendant guilty or innocent? Who is the judge to believe? So he has to rely on a credible witness. People usually hawk about direct evidence which they see with their own eyes but even a person’s eyes can tell lies.

So you need some direct evidence.