Meditation - doing it correctly, right from the beginning

[Tiny]

Dear friends,

Everyone (incl. myself of course) seems to have big problems meditating, except when we have somehow managed to program our brains to shut-down at a specific time of the day for a specific period of time. It is not natural for our brain to do nothing whilest being in a wake state.
Our brain tricks us by trying to convince us that meditating is a boring, unworthy, waste-of-time activity and meditators are trying to find their best tricks, commonly called "techniques" to lure the brain into letting go.

But I keep finding that these "tricks" e.g. counting/slowing/deepening breath, cutting out thoughts continually, etc. do not always work and sometimes continual failures can become an awfully agoinizing-, frustrating experience.

There's only one way with which i keep succeeding 99% of the time - that is transfering one's conscious-awareness directly into the forehead where it belongs during meditation. This often happens automatically and eventually in every successful meditation session, but few people realize this and once we do realize this - it becomes much easier and quicker to start a meditation session in the first place.
The brow-center a.k.a. third-eye-chakra can be flexed like a muscle. When it is stimulated too much it can be confused with eye-strain. Continual but gentle focus on the brow-center will situate one's consciousness directly into the brow-center. From my experience, this also causes one's consciousness to be pulled out of the left/right brainhalves where invading thoughtforms are processed, which is what we want to avoid during meditation. Next, the brain will begin to shut down by lowering the brainwaves which will give invading thoughtforms even less chance to take hold of one's mind. Then, boredom is transcended - you will no longer feel bored in silence.
This is the point of moving inwards. The meditator, diving into self, can still "peak" through to the external world like a snail but generally - outside/environmental energies have no more influence on the meditator except if it is intended by him. This acts as a great shield and usually all negative feelings prior to the meditation session are eliminated at this point.
Then, I usually experience breath becoming heavy and my body begins to shut down aswell, releasing tension and relaxing.
I have found that when the consciousness is firmly established in the brow-center, it is no longer necessary to keep concentrating on that spot. However, sometimes the physical mind&body keep trying to pull one's consciousness out of the brow center, so continual effort is required.

I have managed to move into my brow-center even outside of meditation sessions in daily activities, which has induced drug-like highs on some occasions.

Certainly the brow-center is key to proper meditation and also gateway to things beyond that I couldn't even describe.


Take this as it is - a friendly advice from my experience and opinion:-). No guarantees as I'm not infallible.


peace

[no_leaf_clover]

Thanks for posting this. 

I'll give it a try.

[Zino]

Hrn interesting, I'll look into this.

[Xanth]

I don't think it's correct to say that our brains 'trick us' that meditation is boring... it's more a trained societal response to sitting around doing nothing.  At least for those of us westerners.

Whenever I meditate, I always feel warm and tingly... I love the experience so much it can be hard for me to let it go.  LoL

Anyways, giving your mind a point of reference to work from, especially a point of reference so powerful, is a solid form of passive meditation.  Goodstuff. 

[Tiny]

Dear friends,

I forgot to mention something.

It seems to help a lot to feel one's in-breath going directly into the brow-center, it too will help to center the consciousness there. When the brow-center is activated, entering meditation becomes a cakewalk, really.



peace

[Stookie]

That's a pretty good break down of some of the subtleties of moving into a trance state. It also seems like your body gets used to certain tricks after a while and you have to constantly change things up. When it gets routine things can become stagnant.

As far as the brow chakra, I used to get really intense pressure, sometimes headaches, when I would focus all my awareness there. Doing NEW really helped with that and now I only focus on my brown chakra for a short period before moving onto visualization (visualization alone can stimulate the brow center). If I'm not doing any visualizing I tend not to mess with it at all, just full-body circuits before moving into deep trance.

It's always good to keep the chakras in balance with each other if you are doing chakra meditation.

[Tiny]

That's a pretty good break down of some of the subtleties of moving into a trance state. It also seems like your body gets used to certain tricks after a while and you have to constantly change things up. When it gets routine things can become stagnant.

As far as the brow chakra, I used to get really intense pressure, sometimes headaches, when I would focus all my awareness there. Doing NEW really helped with that and now I only focus on my brown chakra for a short period before moving onto visualization (visualization alone can stimulate the brow center). If I'm not doing any visualizing I tend not to mess with it at all, just full-body circuits before moving into deep trance.

It's always good to keep the chakras in balance with each other if you are doing chakra meditation.

Dear Stookie,

i probably had never recognized the significance of the brow-center if it wasn't for smoking Cannabis, where i realized that the semi-trance state it induces (alpha waves I think) are linked to how it stimulates the brow-center and it does so pretty intensely.
In fact I don't see how it is possible to induce trance without some activation of the brow-center, I believe this is the missing link as to why many meditators fail on some occasions. The brow-center can not be neglected a bit like the other chakras can during trance. I've had meditation attempts where I was literally trapped in lower chakras and lower chakra thinking because I hadn't yet realized that I needed to activate my brow center.

Ini fact I'm a bit boggled that I'm seemingly the only who would mention this important connection between trance & brow-center. I'm confident that by sharing this realization, inducing trance states will become such a cakewalk for others like it has for me.


peace

[Stookie]

Tiny - you're obviously doing what intuitively feels right to you, which is probably the best advice I could give anyone learning to meditate. Advice is good, but let your instincts guide you.

I enter trance before doing any chakra work at all, so in my personal experience they are not related (for me). In fact, my awareness seems mostly located in my solar plexus and naval area during trance meditation, but I never work on chakras before trance (I don't work on them much at all because over-stimulation causes all kinds of imbalance in my life - again, a personal thing. Full body circuits daily though.) I'm sure we're all configured differently as well, a particular chakra may need more stimulation in some people than in others.

Frank had an exercise similar to yours but it had to do with centering awareness in the head, not necessarily stimulating the brow chakra. It was called the "squishy ball technique" and you feel as though you have a squishy rubber ball in your head and you use your awareness to stretch it and squeeze it in all directions. (I looked for it and can't find it). I never used it much because I would get intense head pressure and have to use NEW to redirect and balance it.

I just read this article yesterday, maybe somewhat unrelated, but I thought of this thread:
http://www.realitysandwich.com/spirituality_and_states

[Kitarist]

Hm interesting

[Panthau]

Did you guys ever thought about what meditation is? It is about beeing in the now, not in a trance state.
It has nothing to do with trance... maybe trance is good for obe or interesting experiences, but meditating
focuses on the now. So all of these techniques come from the mind, but the mind should only do one thing - lead
us to the point where there is no mind. When we are in the now, there is no mind needed, just attention and consciousness.

So if you "really" want to meditate, stop to meditate and stop all of these techniques. Just sit down and be in the now.