How can someone open their third eye at will (safely)?

[paralizedeyes]

Reading on this forum, it's intriguing me more and more. I'm a Buddhist and I've been meditating for almost a year now, so I'd say I'm nicely experienced with my root and sacral. I've done the third eye meditation a few times, but it's never done much for me except make my fingers sore.

Is there anyway I can practice openning or utilizing my third eye just sitting here, typing this. Anywhere. Eatting dinner, running, reading, anytime anywhere. I want to practice this more. If anyone has advice, feel free to spit it at me.

Thanks in advance,

Jack "paralizedeyes" Young

[Stookie_]

Personally, I would advise not doing chakra work (or any meditative state for that matter) during daily activities, it should be reserved for meditation/quiet moments. You don't want to enter other states of consciousness when your physically focused.

I mostly work on my brow chakra through visualization exercises. Not so much direct techniques like visualizing the chakra glowing, but by holding onto a symbol or scene for a length of time without interfering thoughts. It's a very slow process and you can't expect immediate results, but over time it's well worth the practice. Eventually your visualizations will become "alive".

[paralizedeyes]

Just to make sure I understand: So you're recommending I kind of go into a Zazen state of mind, to slow my mind until it comes to an eventual focus, not the normal clusterfuck it usually is?

[Stookie_]

I'm not exactly sure what "Zazen" is, but yes, you want to still your mind and focus all of your awareness on your chosen visualization and hold it as long as you can. Every time a thought interrupts it, you're basically starting over. Visualization directly stimulates the brow chakra.

[Jilt]

Mine opened after a psychic friend told me I needed to become fearless about what I would see and sure enough, about a month later I started to see energy, auras, spirits, orbs, animal totems and have ever since (about 6 years). She also recommended placing an amethyst crystal at my third eye but props/tools are probably unnecessary. 

I also asked the author/intuitive Caroline Myss about what I was seeing and she said I ALWAYS had the ability to see these things but that my spiritual development (meditating, lucid dreaming, law of attraction work) made it possible to register it consciously through becoming more conscious and fearless (obvious when you think of it that way).

If you meditate with your eyes closed and focus your vision at the third eye area it's amazing what you'll see if you really look. I usually see an outline of an eye (my third eye?) or a bearded man (my guide?) whenever I focus there.

Enjoy and don't try too hard, it'll just happen.

[personalreality]

you can make yourself more aware of the third eye just by focusing attention on it.  this will allow you to be more mindful of the role it plays in your daily perception.

on the other hand, I agree with stookie.  meditating on a chakra is about feeling the energy contained within.  much like meditating on the sephiroth of the kabbalistic tree of life or on a tarot trump, you're feeling the archetypal energies that these things represent.  chakras are the same.  each one represents an archetypal function of your being, an energy that exists in beyond us that we mediate through our minds and bodies.  to really get to know your chakras and the energies they represent, you should explore them during quiet meditation rather than during daily activities.

but like i said, that's different from becoming more aware of the particular energy center, that you can do anytime.

[paralizedeyes]

Alright, thanks guys. All of you.

Jilt: mer, I wasn't looking for ways to do it with crystals. That was the oppisite direction I was trying to go it, lol. thanks for mentioning the author though. I will set to work reading her works.

Personalreality: you're just a damn abyss of info. thanks man. or woman. or...it?

Stookie: thanks for helping out first.

[personalreality]

Man

[paralizedeyes]

Thanks for clearing that up.

Ok, so I was focusing on the third eye area (middle of the forehead). The entire time, I kind of just toyed with the shadows in my eyes, I felt nothing though. But as I broke free from the meditation, I noticed that I had the sensation of freefalling, but just on my skin, if that makes sense.

So to clarify, was I doing it right? .-.

[astraladdict]

Brow chakra= minds eye. In my opinion just day dream. That's it. Day dream. Use that third eye, get your visualization stronger. Than you can move on from there

~astraladdict

[personalreality]

that's actually really good advice howard.

he's absolutely right.  by daydreaming you are activating that center and you're teaching yourself to visualize with more discipline.

Good call addict, really.

[astraladdict]

Thank you 

~astraladdict

[XNomadX]

As an alternative, if you can overlook the religious connotations, you can try practicing the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram followed by the Middle Pillar Ritual.

They incorporate plenty of open-eyed visualizations that will accelerate the development of your third eye immensely as well as assimilate chakra/energy work into the process.

Beware though, some people report seeing things like fairies, gnomes, half-decomposed corpses, etc... during the course of the day after performing this rituals for an extended period of time, I pooh on you not! Whether they are artifacts of the imagination, or have their own individual consciousness is debatable.

It is recommended that you perform the Middle Pillar Ritual only after performing the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram for 30 days, if I recall correctly.  Afterwards, always perform the LBRP first followed by the MP ritual.

How to perform the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram:
http://www.kheper.net/topics/Hermeticism/LBR.htm

How to perform the Middle Pillar Ritual:
http://home.earthlink.net/~xristos/GoldenDawn/rituals03.htm

Alternatively, the Advanced Middle Pillar Ritual:
http://www.livingwithmagick.com/magick/ampr.php

For the record, if anybody decides to practice this I recommend that you do some more research. It's been a while since I stopped performed this rituals, so I might have some things wrong here and there.

[Lexy]

imagine a glowing indigo light in the middle of your skull

[mon9999]

Mine opened after a psychic friend told me I needed to become fearless about what I would see and sure enough, about a month later I started to see energy, auras, spirits, orbs, animal totems and have ever since (about 6 years). She also recommended placing an amethyst crystal at my third eye but props/tools are probably unnecessary. 

I also asked the author/intuitive Caroline Myss about what I was seeing and she said I ALWAYS had the ability to see these things but that my spiritual development (meditating, lucid dreaming, law of attraction work) made it possible to register it consciously through becoming more conscious and fearless (obvious when you think of it that way).

so what exactly did you do?

[Jilt]

It just happened (or I started to notice) about a month after my psychic friend advised me not to be fearful of what I would see and that if it was too distracting I could always choose to 'close' it.

She gave me the exercise of imagining my third eye as a camera aperture opening (and that you can close it the same way if you want). Another good exercise is to place your palms a few inches apart facing each other and see if you can see the band of energy or sparks between your palms or the auras around your fingers. This didn't used to work for me so don't give up if at first you don't see anything.

[mon9999]

thanx jilt I'll try it

[Jon_88]

Well you can just use your mental focus on your third eye place. Just dont strain. resting like that in meditation will give you a feeling thats something is there. After a few sessions it works well with your eyes open also. I sometimes use it if i feel i need more intuition. Sometimes it seems to work and other times not.

Sometimes when meditation like this i can see what looks like a random scene from a random persons life. Dunno if its real. Anyway if i imagine him/her to do something they will do it , then just stare idly at me. So that speaks against it being any thing from reality. Other times all i can see are eyes and symbols  of eyes.

[Jilt]

Interesting that what you see is an eye - I do as well, or I see an outline of a face but mostly the eyes. Somehow it's validating that someone else has the same experience. Thanks.