Four Principles of Growth

[Chris]

It's been a while since I posted thoughts from my experiences here, due in part to hectic work life I've allowed to distract me from focused meditative practices at times, as well as from the fact that I've needed to continue my own experimentation, become sure of the techniques and principles through repetition, and the fact that not everything should always be shared since each person's evolution is... well... personal... but I see no harm in throwing a few things out for anyone who wishes to digest and practice it. So, without further ado, here it is:
There are four basic principles or keys that form the foundation of ALL consciousness, growth, and new experience whether in the physical or the more spiritual realms. These are:
1.   Focus
2.   Emptiness
3.   Senses, sensation, feeling
4.   Movement

Focus

The ability to gather your consciousness into a coherent body (any body) for the purpose of sensing and movement, sensing, and/or action of any sort. It takes strength to move (see below), and without focus there is no strength. The mind/self is like water... able to spread wide, or be collected into a container.
Emptiness
The phrase "empty your cup" is more appropriate here than the general sense of "empty your mind". You mind is always brimming with information. You can quiet your thoughts and mental activity, but this is not so much what I mean here... more important is to empty your beliefs and expectations. This is actually much more difficult than simply quieting the mind. Emptying the cup is so important because only by letting go of preconceptions, beliefs, and expectations, can you open yourself up to deeper reality and sensation/information. Your beliefs form your personal delusions. These delusions keep you from becoming aware of greater reality outside of yourself. This applies in the spiritual and physical realms. A very good example of this is I think a contestant trying out for American Idol. If you've watched the show at all, you've probably thought about how deluded some of those people are, and how if they would just stop talking about how good they THINK or BELIEVE they are and simply LISTENED to the judges, they might actually SEE themselves more clearly... where they need to take training or make changes, and actually become better. Emptying the cup is necessary for growth in this physical world, and is also EXTREMELY necessary for going to higher levels of reality. Your beliefs and expectations blind you. If you cannot let them go, how will you ever see anything beyond them?

Senses

Once you have focused yourself and attained a certain level of emptiness, you can now take in more information through your senses. In the physical world these are our eyes, ears, touch, etc. A self-deluded American idol contestant can literally hear what the judges are saying with their physical sense of hearing, but they cannot ABSORB the information... it cannot be understood... they don't really HEAR because their belief filters out the information into something fragmented, misinterpreted, and non-useful. Additionally, when someone forms an opinion, they frequently CLOSE themselves to further information sensing that could actually alter their opinion. Actively opening yourself to ALL and EVERY sense is an extremely important principle necessary for all growth and further experience whether in the physical or spiritual... and is NOT EASY to achieve. This could take a lifetime or several.

Movement

Focus, Emptiness, and Sense alone do not create new experience and growth. If you sit somewhere where there is little to sense, your focus, emptiness and sensing will likely result in NOTHING. Thus, it is necessary to learn how to move yourself mentally as well as physically to environments where there is something to sense... something to experience... where more information is present. However, movement without the first three principles can also result in very little growth... though usually not NOTHING. You will get bits and pieces, but your experience will be fragmented and hard to make sense of. Likely, you will simply fit the pieces into your preconceived belief system and many times end up with LESS rather than MORE until large dramatic experiences that are hard to fit into your belief system shake you up.

Summary

Thus, to maximize your growth, evolution, and meditation practice, it is necessary to actively practice all four of these. It is my suggestion then for those who are willing and ready, that you try to stop using any visualization techniques. You stop focusing on "chakras" you have been told or believe exist. You stop forcing any ritualistic or belief system on your meditation and simply COLLECT and focus your self, empty yourself of preconception, visualizations, and beliefs, open yourself to pure unadulterated sensation WITHOUT INTERPRETATION, and then try to carefully and slowly MOVE your mind during meditation... like a baby learning to feel and use their senses for the first time in a world they have no preconceptions about.
The various levels or states of consciousness in my experience are very much like very thin sheets of paper in a book. When we open a new book for the first time, we don't usually have preconceptions about the content (although this is obviously not always true). Instead, we use the fine senses of our fingers to guide use through the fine edges of the pages, and when we come to a page, we open our eyes to absorb the words on the page, and then our minds make sense of what we are absorbing in the best way possible. This is the approach that is needed for effective meditation. Use the mind like fingers to move subtly over the edges of reality... and open the mind to absorb... and only AFTER absorbing... try to make sense... but it will be even better if you don't try to make sense until you've absorbed large enough quantities of information... and even then remain open to the likelihood that your opinion is flawed due to lack of information, and open yourself continuously to more information. Do this actively, not passively.

[Stookie]

Thanks for sharing those tips Chris.

[missym]

Thanks! Was a good read   

[Chris]

Silence in motion is movement guided by pure sense free of delusion.

[Brainwaver]

I will put your tips into practice.  Thank you, very helpful and validating.