Meditation

Copied from “Foundations for the Spiritually Inclined“

Meditation is more than just a way to “quieten or still the mind”.

This topic has been designed both for those new to meditation, and for experienced meditators alike.  New concepts and ideas are covered, and explained in-depth, as well as what might already be found elsewhere.

What’s written next, a “meditation routine”, doesn’t have to take much time, and is something that personally speaking I find sacred, powerful, and profound.  It’s more deliberate, connecting us directly to our Creator, and I would certainly recommend this as a place to start if you were thinking of introducing meditation into your everyday life.

As well as this, there is also the informal and completely spontaneous “moving meditation”, explained further on.  This can be used alongside a “meditation routine”, or it can replace it completely if you struggle to find perhaps ten minutes to meditate sitting or seated, or for whatever reason.

I would recommend reading this entire topic either way, if meditation is something you are interested in, as the powerful “meditation routine” and the informal “moving meditation” complement each other, and will flow naturally from one to the other throughout each and every day.

If the idea of meditation doesn’t interest or appeal to you, that’s quite ok!  There’s no need to read this topic any further if you don’t want to.

Above all is that these two meditation techniques are enjoyable, rewarding spiritually, and when it comes down to it, easy to do as well.

A meditation routine

Meditation is where you set aside some time to connect with your Creator, in a simple and personal way, where your dedication in sitting on a chair, sitting on the floor, or similar for however long that might be, is a request from you to God…

You are asking God to take away from you what is holding you back.  You are asking God to help you take responsibility for your own life.  When you take the time to meditate, everything you experience during that time will be perfect for you.

Restlessness,
Boredom,
Impatience,
Anxiety,
Peace,
Anger,
Jealousy,
Joy,
Hate,
Happiness,
Despair,
Dread,
Love,
Grief,
Guilt,
Regret,
Hope,
Sadness,
Melancholy,
Excitement,
Shame,
Fear,
Bliss,
Frustration,
Loneliness,
Ecstasy,
A busy mind,
Visions…

These, and more, are all emotions that might be experienced during meditation time, where a healing can happen, or you can feel uplifted as you find yourself growing spiritually.

I don’t include any lengthy meditation instructions, but to begin, it is being in a suitable place or location, being comfortable, and when you are ready, it is good to close your eyes.  However, there are no set rules.  Look forward to going on an “inner journey”, and whatever happens, it will be perfect for you.

There are some tips further on, and many insights are woven into this topic that should help you with your meditations, and give you the tools to get the most out of your meditation time.

Meditation is quite a simple process, and it should be seen as such.  This topic is quite long, so don’t worry if you can’t remember too much of what you read here, you might find what you need surfaces in your mind at the most opportune time, just when you need it, in the most unusual way.

Whether it be ten, twenty, thirty minutes, or longer, it matters little.  Your heart and intuition will guide you as to when it’s the right time to meditate, and whether it be for long periods, short periods, in the morning, during the day, or in the evening, in a lighted space, in the dark, with ambient sounds, silence, or music of your choosing, on your own, or with others.

It’s not so much a step-by-step process that must be followed and remembered, but rather a learning experience that starts from within, where your enthusiasm grows, and you discover what works for you.

If your mind begins to wander, let it, don’t try to stop your thoughts, and then when you are ready, gradually bring your attention back to the meditation once more.

It is a process where in time, all of your negativity is healed and transformed, your life becomes more positive than it could have ever been, you learn more about yourself, and if you are still yet to discover your true worth and divinity, you will, and it will come very naturally.

Meditation is a tool for discovery, a tool to help you unlock the secrets of your heart, mind, and Spirit, allowing you to gain insight into all the unanswered questions you might have within you, as well as all the questions you haven’t even thought of asking yet.  You will feel the benefits continue into your everyday life, and you will grow as a person as well.

You may find that not using meditation as a way to help yourself grow spiritually, in all sorts of situations negativity may surface in uncomfortable, upsetting, embarrassing, painful, or similar ways, verbally, physically, emotionally, or mentally, often during moments that could be best described as “everyday life”.

As a result, knowing this, it might be natural to reflect when something goes wrong and to say to oneself, “Oh, perhaps there’s something I should be looking at here”.

Importantly, simply by meditating you may become aware of unresolved issues in your life that are holding you back.  This might encourage you to meditate further to continue the process of discovery, bringing insights on what might be needed outside of meditation time during everyday life to bring resolution to those issues, if anything.  It’s very much a learning process, both personal, and sometimes challenging as well.  God will support you, and He is with you right throughout your spiritual journey.

You might also see visions during meditation, but just let them drift by.  Some of these might really resonate and uplift you though, staying with you.  Or you might see nothing at all, and that will be perfect for your meditation as well.  Everyone’s meditation experience is different, and wonderfully so.

Meditation can also be a place where energy is released and energy blockages are cleared, where a person might cry, move in unusual ways, go into a trance, or feel physical sensations as examples.  Known in eastern spiritual traditions as “kriyas”, teachings and knowledge of these go back thousands of years.

You may also find that as you progress you become more aware of your spiritual growth and your accomplishments, giving you encouragement and a genuine sense of anticipation with what the future holds for you.  Meditation then becomes something to look forward to, feel excited about, and it will become something to cherish.

God is always ready in anticipation to spend time with you in the most wonderful and mysterious way, to connect with you as your friend and guide, and the meditation process is one of the most powerful ways that this can happen.

Memories and milestones can come from those special spiritual experiences too, memories that will last a lifetime.  You might even feel like keeping your own sacred meditation journal, something to look back on and cherish, or just to know that that journal is there for the future.

Or perhaps you will find moving on from each and every experience as they happen works best for you, not documenting them at all, instead knowing they will come to mind in a sacred and spiritual way at just the right time, as you need them to, even if that is well into the future.

The days of having to work hard spiritually, struggling to find God and true happiness, those days are over.

Fasting, meditating twelve times a day, wading through scriptures, getting up before dawn to perform rituals, worshipping someone, wearing unusual attire to show you are on a spiritual path, endlessly repeating prayers and mantras, attending lavish retreats, practising austerities, going to extremes to save the environment, having a set-in-stone day or time for anything that is done spiritually…

Essentially anything which is unenjoyable or stifling, it’s all in the past.   A new time is here now, and because of those who have worked tirelessly spiritually, the road to enlightenment, and beyond, is infinitely easier than it has ever been before.

Meditation and finding what works for you as far as your spiritual path goes should be enjoyable, exciting, and rewarding, complementing and enhancing your everyday life, where you find you have yet another way to connect with your Creator.

At the end of this book, in the appendix, you will find a link to some meditations that you might like to try, which may work well to complement the guidance that I have written here.

You are worthy

Meditation is accessible and available to everyone, and God is too.  It doesn’t matter what you have or haven’t done, you are everything God has ever wanted you to be, where meditation will smooth off those delicate edges, and you will reveal the diamond that you have always been.

You are truly worthy to spend time and communicate with God Himself, despite what you may have been taught in the past, where you may need to unlearn beliefs such as that you will be judged or punished for the slightest sense of irreverence, or the thought of some kind of blasphemy about Him.  He doesn’t care!  You can’t upset Him/Her.

You are His most precious daughter or son, equal to everyone else, equal spiritually and in every respect to the greatest spiritual teacher or prophet that has ever lived.  There could be no more truthful statement made.

You are divine in every respect.  Allow those misplaced feelings of guilt, shame, and unworthiness to be replaced by joy, excitement, and complete and utter positivity, as you learn to accept that God is waiting and anticipating the opportunity to spend time with You.

Helping others

If any encouragement is needed for why a meditation routine is so important, what I can say is that as well as all the benefits there are for yourself personally, the more you have healed yourself spiritually through meditation and similar, the more you can be “God’s hands”.

God can then use you in the most powerful way to uplift and heal others, and you will also heal this world along with the company of everyone who has transformed themselves just as you will have done, or are doing now.  Thus, millions of people are working as a network of healers all around this world.

To describe how being one of God’s healers can work, as I have described as being “God’s hands”, during your meditation you may not only be healing and meditating for yourself, but for others as well, as you transform and heal other people’s negativity by experiencing it as your own.  In essence, you feel how someone else feels, healing and removing their burdens as a result.

You may experience the emotions I have described earlier, where contemplation, and the insight that comes from that, will lead you to understand if you are healing your own negativity, or in fact other people’s, in which case there can be a great sense of detachment.  The topic further on, “The science of transformation”, explains this in more detail.

The moving meditation

Formal meditation, a “meditation routine” as I have just described, where a person sits on a chair, on the floor, or similar for a period of time, is one of the most powerful ways to release and heal any burdens and negativity that we may have within us, and to connect with our Creator.

But as well as this, we may find that while living our normal everyday lives we have experiences, and gain insights and understandings that we might not have had before the fullness of God’s energy entered our life.

This is known as the “moving meditation”.  It is a way of saying that spontaneous and informal moments of meditation can happen anywhere, anytime, with anyone, or on our own.

What takes place during these moments sometimes needs an external trigger for the release, experience, understanding, or insight to come about.  These “triggers” are God as He works His magic in the most interesting, remarkable, and profound ways, just for us.  These happen at just the right time, often when something unusual becomes obvious and captures our attention, even if only for a moment.

This can make us aware if we have an imbalance that we need to consider and contemplate, or we might discover something beneficial for our spiritual path that can only move us forward.

These “imbalances” can be emotional, spiritual, physical, mental, and so on, and as these are “worked through” and healed, and contemplation helps with this immeasurably, we naturally become more positive, happier, and more optimistic within ourselves, and in time, sooner than we might think, this will become evident to everyone around us.

And there’s nothing quite like a good honest laugh from deep down – not the sort I’ve seen online where a yogi forced the response and built up a following doing so – but something that is spontaneous and comes from nowhere, not even from a funny clip on the Internet.  That’s a happy healing that when it happens, requires no effort, and it feels great!

As I said earlier, there are no rules, and the most wonderful things can happen when we least expect them.

Tips

Finding a posture that works well for you, if that’s sitting in a chair or sitting on the floor, being as comfortable as you can be so that your focus isn’t so much on your body, so you feel relaxed, is really important.

There are countless people who know more about posture and the body than I will ever know, of course, and I would love to see guidance on what would help a person get the most out of their meditations being accessible for everyone, even if they didn’t have the Internet, whether that be posture, simple stretching, yoga for beginners, or similar.

It’s quite ok feeling like you don’t want to meditate, but it can also be rewarding to push oneself a little just to see if skipping your meditation is indeed the right thing to do, or if there’s a little bit of resistance that needs to be worked through and overcome.  It was something I learned over time, and I’m still learning, but saying that, there can certainly be days when there’s just no time for meditation, or you might not be feeling well, or you might be too tired, or it’s just not possible.  Your heartfelt intuition and insight is there too, to give you the inner guidance that you might need.

If meditating feels like a real struggle, it may be that there needs to be some time away from meditation for a while to recharge, reflect, and then simplify things.

As far as your meditation routine goes, if any distractions happen, for example noises or a knock on the door, know that the meditation energy will continue, so just let these distractions be what they are, and accept that they are a sacred part of your meditation as well, and then return to meditating when everything settles and things are back to how they were before, if that feels right to you to do.

You may find that you intuitively know when your meditation has finished too, and that might change from one meditation to the next.  You may even start in a certain way, and finish in a particular way, making it something more personal, even more special, and your meditation routine becomes something that is uniquely yours.

For myself, when my meditation ends, my thoughts simply turn to thank God in a very informal way for the time I have just spent with Him – but then He rejoices in whatever you do, or if you say or do nothing at all!  He will simply be ecstatic that you had both spent that time together.

After meditation ends, when you feel ready, open your eyes and become aware of your body and your surroundings.  Stretch to loosen your body, staying seated or sitting for five or so minutes, or as long as you feel you need to.  When it is time to get up and move around again, do so slowly to begin with, as the body may still be very relaxed.  Stretch again if you need to.

It’s important after meditating you give yourself as much time as you need to feel alert and steady, so that when it comes time to once again perform your daily tasks (such as driving or anything which requires concentration), these can be done safely, with the clarity, focus, and attention that is required.

Try not to compare your meditation experiences with others, where you might say, “your experience was so much better than mine”, or “I wish I had experienced that”, or wanting to become an enlightened “golden dewdrop” overnight.

When I was growing spiritually I often found myself wishing my experiences could be just as interesting as others, as on occasions they had so much to share, and I sometimes wondered if I was progressing at all.

Little did I know I was changing at a very deep level, and that I needed to know very little about what was happening, it just would have confused me and sent my mind into a spin.  My meditations were going perfectly, and God was managing everything, so don’t be discouraged if you feel like you’re getting nowhere, and above all, try not to have any expectations.

Noticing a change

So, is it possible to know how much you are progressing spiritually?  I would definitely say yes, just by observing your reactions to what goes on in your life, simple things, conversations, and everyday moments that happen to you, and everywhere around you.

You may become aware that you are less judgmental than before.  You might feel noticeably calmer and more settled.  You might find more enjoyment and happiness in life.  Things that upset you in the past might not anymore.  Responding to a difficult situation in a positive way and you never had done that before – that’s real change.

So yes, you are your own best observer, and your own best witness to your own personal change, transformation, and enlightenment.  Saying that, changes might take place gradually, so your progress might not be entirely obvious or noticeable to yourself, but positive feedback from others might come when you least expect it, to encourage you on your spiritual path and your meditation journey even more.

Like I say, you may even find yourself craving your next meditation and meditation experience – but there’s no need to try too hard.  For example, meditating formally to the point where you are neglecting everyday life isn’t necessary as God’s energy is working with us ceaselessly now, and we are in a new spiritual time.

In conclusion

Each of us is unique, and we all need to experience different things in different ways in order to learn, grow, and unfold.  What one person may need and what they will receive will not be what another person needs or what they will receive.

There are many paths to the same destination

Everyone gets to the point where there is an experience of utter bliss, joy, and divine unconditional love, an experience that will never go away.  Each step we take is sacred, beautiful, transformational, and just for us, but our spiritual ascension will benefit everyone.

There is so much in the world in the way of spiritual teachings, techniques, and literature.  As with everything that makes a spiritual path enjoyable, get a feeling for what works best for you.  If you are new to meditation, what I have written here might be a good place to start.  This topic is designed to give general information and some relevant insights, and guidance at the same time.

Like I say, don’t force yourself to remember everything that’s written here, as you might find what you need will come to mind at just the right time, in the most peculiar way, as often happens with spirituality.

If even after reading this you’re still not quite sure if a meditation routine or the moving meditation is right for you, give it a try, and try it again every now and then – even if only to see how it feels, and to see if you have any experiences that might encourage you.  With a lack of interest, if that is what you are feeling, it is likely that you are undergoing a transformation regardless, at a deep and imperceptible level, one that requires no effort on your part whatsoever.

You can’t meditate wrongly, and often we learn from within, our own “inner teacher” it could be said, rather than from any written or spoken instruction from someone or something else, myself included.

If it is simply just to sit and close your eyes, with your intention to connect to something greater than yourself, to be taken on an inner journey, God will be there with you during that time, for however long that might be.

One day you will look back on your meditation journey and say, “I have come so far, I now have a happy heart”.

Much love,

Jason