TIPS AND TECHNIQUES FROM THE WORLD'S MASTERS

       

Written by Raymond Brown: Copyright 1995

 

 

 

Meditation is the answer to your prayers. Literally. Whenever you ask God for anything, whether it’s to move that mountain in front of you or bless that person that just sneezed, God hears you. When God answers you, do you hear him? You generally don’t unless you have cleared your mind of distracting thoughts and mental chatter, and all thoughts are distracting. So the answer to your prayers can be found in meditation. If you want to get the most out of life that you can, then learning to sit back, relax and listen to that still, small voice within. This voice has more answers than the best expert that you will ever find. The still, small voice comes from a world much less affected by emotion and confusion, it holds no personal agenda, nor does it act out of fear. When you learn how to open yourself to the influence of inner wisdom, you will learn to set yourself free.

Meditation is very useful for a myriad of reasons. It can be put to use by those of us that are seeking higher knowledge. It can be used to help lower high blood pressure. It has been used by sports teams to improve their overall performance. It can improve your creativity whether for art or business purposes. The number of ways meditation can be applied to improve your life are practically endless. All you need is the desire to reach greater heights in your own life. You can use it to clear away buried emotions from your past, or open yourself up to brand-new possibilities for your future. It can help change your whole outlook on life and make every day infinitely more rewarding for you. How do you think it is that an ascetic can go off to a mountain top with a long cloth wrapped around his or her self, some minuscule amounts of food and basically nothing else, meditate hours on end, and come away happy after the whole ordeal? You know it isn’t the warm clothing, because he’s barely wearing anything. It isn’t likely to be the meals that he eats, there’s no great culinary school that specializes in ascetic cuisine. Maybe the view is worth the effort and deprivation. And then again, maybe there’s more to it. With a great capacity for meditating and clearing your mind of thoughts, you will be able to face the most adverse conditions in life and come away smiling. It’s all in the meditation. The key to success is attitude, and meditation is the most powerful tool you have for your attitude.

Among the more useful reasons to meditate is the reward of greater self-control. Who hasn’t tried to accomplish something, only to find self-defeating behavior cropping up and sabotaging their efforts at one time or another? Meditation can increase self-discipline, and not only through repetition, but by the calming and centering effect that it has on the mind and the body. It relaxes and opens the mind, so that it accepts positive energy, and allows for the focusing of personal desire. This allows for positive thoughts to be planted in your subconscious as you meditate on what you want to accomplish. This, in turn, leads to more control over desires that work against your peace of mind.

Another benefit of meditation is to be able to think more clearly in situations that may demand concentration, such as academic tests, job interviews, rush hour traffic and emergency situations of all types. Meditation helps to clear the mind of blockages that impede the flow of answers that may be useful when there is no time to think it over before you act. It also helps to overcome a brain freeze, where, under pressure, you can’t think of a response and your brain literally freezes up and is unable to work through a situation. Very often this is the result of nervousness, and meditation reduces this by calming the mind and allowing it to react more quickly in these situations, thereby accomplishing more.

Meditation also helps you to understand yourself better and lets you see just where your behavior plays critical roles in the events in your life and where you can adjust this to your benefit. In this way you can gain an advantage by understanding the difference between the actions of the world around you and your reaction to it. This can be of enormous value in the world of business and commercial enterprise.

When it comes to meditation, there are as many different ways of doing it as there are people who are doing it. Just as you wouldn’t expect every person to enjoy the same food as everyone else, not everyone will approach meditation with the same tastes. There is a way for anyone who wants to meditate to find a way that suits their temperament. Some people relate to their world in ways that other people find totally foreign, and still others find that practicing relaxation in one way can work wonders, while trying it another way actually makes them more tense. A person may be naturally intuitive and sensitive and may find that a totally still, quiet and secluded practice of meditation is the only way to relax and tune in to higher consciousness. Yet another person may be a very physical person, always active and on the go, and that the only way for them to relax is to remove the tension from their muscles first and then work on their thoughts. Whereas one person may relax and tune into the sound of music, another person may find a visual image relaxing and calming. One person may relate to history and ancestors when thinking of higher consciousness, their neighbor may have images of Heaven in their mind as they relax. As you can see, there is more than one way to meditate and derive some benefit from the experience.

Just as there are many ways to practice meditation, and many reasons to make that effort, there should be a guide that helps you find which of these ways works for you. In the following chapters you will find numerous ways to meditate. In these chapters will be tips and techniques that will help you get the most out of your meditations. Each of these suggestions will be explained so that you can make your own decisions about what you want to use and how far you want to take your experience. It would be good to go through the whole book once before going through the exercises. That way if you see a suggestion in one chapter that you would like to use while using a meditation technique from another chapter, you can incorporate all of them once you get down to business. I have put the suggestions in the chapters where they would be the most important to use along with the meditation, but many of these tips can be used wherever they fit into your expectations.

Of course another benefit of having all of these meditation practices in one book is that you may want to use different ways at different times. One may work for under certain conditions while other techniques may facilitate meditation under different circumstances. You may find yourself unable to meditate the way you normally do if you are unusually tense or nervous. A different relaxation and meditation technique may help you to calm down and center yourself faster than your normal routine would. As you go through the chapters and find what works best, you will find that you can tailor a routine that fits you like a glove. You can also make adjustments to that glove if you find that it’s not warm enough or if it’s not flexible enough for particular applications.

As we change with experience and understanding, we also find that the way we do things changes. This often applies to the way we feel like meditating as well. Having so many tips and tricks to relaxing and opening ourselves to greater understanding all in one place will give you a guide that will remain useful for years. So as you go through this book you will be drawn to those ideas that are just right for where you are at right now, and the rest of the book will be ready when you are to make changes and adjustments in your life to help you move forward and onward into a better future.

 

1...This first technique is a well known, often suggested one, which works well for people who "like to see" what's happening. Sit or lie in a comfortable position, in a quiet place. Close your eyes and, using your mind's eye, start to construct a fairly large projection screen in front of you. Think of the type you might see slides or home movies on. Be as detailed as possible about how it is made, how large, what its frame is made of, how it is suspended in front of you, and so on. Be as creative as possible to give this screen the "mark" of your own inspiration. Where is this screen located? Make the room where this is taking place comfortable and inviting without being distracting. Sometimes a room shaped like the inside of an egg works well, since there is a strong connection between the illuminator of this screen and your own personal spiritual rebirth.

The more detailed this construction is and the more effort you put forth visualizing this and working on its construction, the better off you are, because this helps to exercise the creative and inspirational visualization of your third eye. Once this screen is built, you can just sit back and watch what appears on the screen. It may project your own thoughts, or it may become the gateway for your own psychic impressions from a source outside your own consciousness. You will likely start with images that you create from your own thoughts, but at some point you will see images that seem to come to you without an obvious source. You will ultimately use this screen to watch many scenes, either of your own imagination or of images that appear out of the ether. Whenever you feel like it, you can modify the construction of this screen to suit your whims, since this screen is just one reflection of your current state of mind. There are a lot of things you can use this screen for. You will like to use it in other techniques in this book. This screen can be called up quickly in subsequent meditations without having to go through the entire construction process over again, but try to see it in great detail each time you call it up.

 

2...Another time honored tradition in meditation is the use of color. An entire book could be written on the uses, meanings, benefits and effects of color during meditation. We will go over some of the major benefits and meanings here to help you put color to use in your own meditation. Color has a profound effect on both the physical and the mental body, as well as the spiritual body, and it’s effects are often understated and overlooked. From the colors an artist puts in a painting to the colors you habitually wear in your most used outfits, color plays an important role in your life. It is often said that your favorite color is the one that is prominent in your aura field. The color of the rooms in your home will directly affect the way you feel after a little time in those rooms. Color also represents very specific states of awareness and energy radiation. Red, being the lowest and most physical of the colors, is the one that is associated with physical energy and aggression. It has the strongest influence on our lower emotions. Orange acts as a bridge between the energy of red and the spirituality and joy of yellow. Golden yellow is often associated with joy and creative energy, with the light of day, and the light of heavenly beings. Green is most often regarded as the color of healing. Blue is linked to peace and tranquility, a sort of emotional calming color. Purple, being the blend of both blue and red, which are the colors at opposite ends of the spectrum, is touted as a melding of the tranquility of higher energy and the restlessness of lower energy. This is interpreted as the color found in one who is searching, and not quite settled yet.

You can use the screen from the previous technique, or, if you don't want limits on your field of vision, you can visualize the colors without a screen. You can use objects to visualize the colors, you can visualize clothes that you put on in different colors, or see the walls as changing color. You can see the colors as emanating from a light source above you, or even imagine yourself eating foods of the different colors, since whatever you are experiencing when you eat, you tend to internalize. How you view the colors is not as important as how strong the impact is on your state of relaxation and intuition.

Start with red, which is the most closely associated color to a physical state of being, since it is the color of activity, energy and force. Sit or lie in a comfortable position, and concentrate on the color, giving as much attention to the presence of the color as possible. Seeing it as though it emanates light, or as though it is filled with sparkling points of intensity, helps to charge the color with as much life as possible. Sometimes you may literally see the colors flash in front of your eyes in a spontaneous vision. If it does, this is an example of the higher forces attempting to facilitate your connection with them, and you can count on their assistance as you proceed.

Once you are satisfied that you have really seen and experienced the color red, you can go on to the color orange. This color has been described by some as a bridge of sorts between the world we know and the higher realms, which meditation can bring us to. Bring as much emotion and feeling to this color as possible, so that it really impresses a deeper relaxation back on your body and your mind. All the colors should make a conscious impression of deeper and deeper relaxation on your physical as well as your mental state. From your toes to your fingers, to the middle of your chest and into your brain, your body and your mind should feel a calming effect from each of the colors as you concentrate on them.

The next color, yellow, should be seen as a golden yellow, as the lighter, or more lemony yellow tends to be a weaker color for meditation. But whatever shade of yellow, it should be visualized as completely and intensely as possible so its effect is as emotionally relaxing as possible. This is the color that is most associated with connection to the higher worlds or heavenly forces since it is often described as the color that emanates from angelic beings and is also the color used to represent the halos around saints.

Green, the color of healing, should be a strong and intense shade the color of an emerald forest. A light, lime or yellow green is often associated with deceit or deception and may have a debilitating effect. Green can be lingered on, and sent to particular parts of the body as you visualize it, if you need its healing energy for some physical or emotional ills.

The next color, blue, is regarded as the color of deep immersion, and calm. It is seen as the color that emanates from someone who has found his or her life’s work and is happily absorbed in it. So blue is the color that can bring very deep relaxation to the mind and the body. As with the other colors, an intense or deep shade works best. And remember to give it as much emotional intensity as you can, so it can give back as much to you.

The last color of the rainbow, purple, is called the color of the seeker. It is made up of blue and red, or you can say it is made up of peace and force, or activity. This can be translated into actively seeking peace and contentment. Here, if you would like, you can use a lighter shade of purple like lilac. Purple in general means activity of some sort rather than eternal bliss and peace, and a lighter shade will lighten the intensity of the red influence by infusing it with some white light. Remember the intensity of the color will still matter, even if the shade is light.

After you have reached the end of the color spectrum, you should be very relaxed and, with practice or luck, your mind should be very quiet and relaxed too. When practiced, this exercise can bring you to deep states of consciousness that will open you up to many things that the higher realms have to offer. Your intuition can be very strong and clear, giving you access to information that you can use to your benefit. Very often, at least in the beginning, you may find yourself falling asleep before you get all the way through the color spectrum. You will need to practice this exercise when you are not tired so you can avoid its other benefit of putting you to sleep. A good way to come out of this relaxation is to visualize the colors in reverse order. This helps to train your mind to keep this level of relaxation without being easily snapped out of it by extraneous noises or distractions.

One variation on this rainbow visualization is to see a spinning ball of color in front of you as you visualize each color. You may see this appear naturally, and this would mean that you have a natural propensity for meditating.

 

3...This next technique is good for keeping you awake if you tend to fall asleep while visualizing colors. This involves counting down a set of numbers. This is the reverse of counting sheep, including the goal of staying alert rather than dropping off into slumber. As you count down, your mind will naturally relax, you will find yourself concentrating on the counting process and you will have fewer thoughts that intrude on you. The first time you do this it is a good idea to start with a fairly high number, so you give yourself a longer time to reach a state of relaxation. Depending on your ability to concentrate and relax, you may try starting at 50, 75, or 100. Count down slowly, and deliberately, setting up a cadence with your voice that helps you concentrate on the numbers and the sounds, and cuts down on distracting thoughts. With practice this technique will take less time as it becomes more automatic or effective, and you will be able to lower the number that you begin with. After a few days or a week, you can cut the number you start at down by 10 or 20 and try it from there. Again, after a few days, cut the number down again. And again. This way, with practice, you can shorten the time it takes you to relax. With practice and effort, some people can enter a trance-like or deep meditative state just by counting backward from the number 5. This happens because your subconscious mind recognizes your intent when you train it over and over to relax when you start counting down, and it will automatically respond by relaxing with just a little prompting.

 

4...Another common technique for relaxing involves tensing and relaxing your muscles to shake out the tenseness that is so often stored in the body. This excess energy often makes it hard to relax and let go of distractions that intrude during meditation.

For this exercise, lie down in a comfortable position, start at the far end of your body, and work your way up to the top of your head. This is a great exercise in relaxation for people who are very active physically, or who work out regularly, and need to unwind the muscles in the body before they can meditate, because this can kill two birds with one stone. Start at your toes, wiggle them back and forth a bit, then tense up all the muscles you can that are connected to your toes and your feet. Make sure that you feel all your muscles that you can possibly find in your foot, including those along the bottom, all those along the top, and that everything back to your heel is tensed up. Then relax these muscles and release all the tension that you can and let them go limp. Do this at least twice.

Next, go to your calf muscles and do the same thing with them, finding as many muscles as you can, and tensing them up as tight as you can, then releasing the muscles. Repeat this again, and then move up to your thigh muscles. Relax them as before and move to your upper leg. After you finish your legs, you can move into your torso. Or you may want to do your fingers and hands at the same time that you do your toes and feet, your forearm at the same time that you do your calves and so on, so that you radiate relaxation into your torso from your extremities together. Once you tense up and relax all the muscles in your torso, you can concentrate on the neck and head. Make sure that your scalp and jaw and neck muscles feel hard as a rock, then release all the tension from them, and as one last tensing up, use all the muscles in your body to freeze up and harden to stone. Then release them all at once and let them melt into the floor.

Your body should feeling very heavy and relaxed by this point. The first few times you do this you will find out just how many muscles you really have, which are many more than you thought. This works best upon the body. Those of you who are still active with the thinking after all this can take another technique to finish the job and quiet down the mind.

 

5...A very, very effective technique for getting into a meditative and relaxed state, is the use of music. After all, whenever any of us hears our favorite music, it almost always has a positive effect on our frame of mind, no matter what we're doing at the time.

There are all types of recordings that can be used for relaxation. All stores that have a decent sized selection of recordings for sale will have a section for new age music as well. And there are lots of things available form the Internet, either as previews of current Cd’s or even to download for your own use. Any of a number of types of music can work very well for this, although the more soothing and relaxing for you, the better. Instrumental music works best, Gregorian chants work very well, as do most spiritual choral music. Classical music can work wonders, and organ music is well adapted to lulling you off into another place and time. Some meditation tapes, while they may seem boring, have a quality about them that seems to send the music right through you and helps to carry you right out the door and into the sky. One woman I spoke to recounted how her husband had been meditating in their home, when the sound of a gas powered lawn trimmer out in the yard, rather than ruining his chances for meditating, had sent him into a deep, altered state of consciousness due to its droning buzz. The main thing to remember about using music, especially if it is not specifically meditation music, is to do it in a quiet, dimly lit room, with a relaxed atmosphere, and the best stereo you can get. Headphones help to block out extraneous sounds and the music into personal contact with you, but use them only if they block out noises you can't control or if they make the music sound that much better.

The environment of the room can be manipulated a great deal if you have the place or the opportunity to do so. Keeping the room quiet and burning a candle beforehand , the longer the better, and preferably blue or purple, will make a noticeable difference in the effectiveness of meditating in that room. If you're not using headphones, try to get the music to sound balanced and full, in the room, or at least even to your ears, so you are hearing the sound evenly.

Sit or lie in a comfortable position, start the music, and listen closely and completely. Don’t think of what you are listening to, or set up some meaningful interpretation of the music. Let any emotions the music invokes be the only things you’re present to. Thinking is counter-productive. Let the sound of the music be the only thing that fills your head. When you can accomplish this, you will be swept away from the here and now and deposited in a space and time that is unknown to Earthlings. You may feel your body vibrating, moving back and forth or up and down, or in fast circles. This is a positive sign that you are reaching up to higher realms in you quest for greater awareness, and is a very real sensation, often felt through the effective use of music. Always record your thoughts when you are finished so that anything that you experience is not lost. This is most important when the experience seems unusually vivid, poignant or unusual.

When you come back to normal life, the music may have stopped long ago, but you will often remember extraordinary things that you went through. these happen to you when you can truly shut off the flow of thoughts and just go with the flow of the music.

 

6...Here's a technique using paintings I heard recently which is a variation of one I learned long ago using doors. The idea of paintings is more appealing to me for some reason.

For this you can use the silver screen in technique one, or you can just visualize the scene in your minds eye. Sit or lie comfortably with your eyes closed, and visualize a door which opens to a long hallway stretching off to your right and your left. On the wall that you are facing there are paintings hanging, as you would see in a Gallery or an art museum. Each one of these paintings belongs to a scene of your life. Those off to your left are from your past. If you walk down that way far enough you will find scenes from past lives in these paintings. The hall as it stretches to your right is filled with scenes from future possibilities in your life. The paintings on these walls, either on your left or right, may remain still or as you focus on them, they may become animated like moving pictures. The titles of these scenes may act as guides, or advice, to help you bring these possibilities to your life or to avoid them if they’re counter-productive. Sometimes the size of the painting will help you determine whether this scene is a big possibility or a small one, or a major issue for you or a minor annoyance not worth much fuss. The better you are at visualization and at being sensitive and receptive, rather than forceful and rational, the better your focus will become in this hall of artwork.

When you leave this place, or any visualization place you find yourself, remember to go out the same way you came in, as this will help you to hold your focus more easily, and this will make these trips more productive for you

 

7...This next technique is very common, and much endeared. Many people find themselves going down this path automatically when they meditate, and I think it is one of the most natural things for people to experience. This is the Garden, or secret garden, or as some refer to it, the Garden of Eden. It’s a place where you are the one its existence is for. It doesn’t belong to anyone else, and it is filled with a world that’s tailored specifically for you and your needs.

Sit or lie comfortably, and close your eyes. Imagine yourself walking down a path through a woods or a meadow, towards a wall or a dense thicket, or even a small stream which is easily crossed at one point. On the other side of this barrier, through a door, an opening or a bridge, is a garden which is a private place for you to enter. You may see guards at the entrance waiting for your arrival at any time. It is difficult for me to tell you much about what is on the other side in your garden, as it is really a private place for you alone to know. Many people find streams of crystal clear water, waterfalls, lakes, fields of flowers, friendly animals of all sorts, even other people or higher beings are sometimes there. What you see there, and especially any animals or individuals you find there, make a note of them. They are very often guides and helpers from the higher realms, who come to you to help you in many ways. When you find yourself being given something while in your garden, whether it be an object, artifact, or a food, make an offer of thanks to who or what gave it to you and remember that you can bring this back as the form of a thought or memory to use or rely on at times. Often the reason for this gift will be given, or will become clear as you meditate on it.

This garden is a place where you can go when you need to escape from the ordinary world. It is full of renewal and rejuvenation for you to use whenever you feel the need for it. This walk in the garden should also be used whenever you feel any resistance to going there, as when you are upset, tired or short tempered. Many people like to begin meditation another way and them head for this garden, but even more so than music this place can have profound effects on you and the way you feel when you leave, for it is a very real place where healing and cleansing of the body, the mind and the soul takes place.

 

8...A good technique for expanding your perception of the world around you and your own physical limits is aura expansion. This helps you to pick up sensations that normally fall beyond the reach of your five senses.

You start this by getting in a comfortable sitting or lying position, in a quiet room, away from all distractions if possible. It usually helps the first few times to close your eyes, but if you get proficient at this, you will find this is no longer necessary. As you sit there, try to get a clear feeling of the sensations of feeling in your hands, arms, legs and feet, as well as your chest and head. Get a good sense of where the outer edge of this feeling and sensation is. Then, as you are concentrating on this, try to feel your outer limit expanding a few inches into the space all around you. This space contains the bulk of your aura and you are filling it with your energy all the time anyway so you can, with practice, get a feeling for this energy field in a concrete way. Next, expand this feeling farther out, trying to reach the walls of the room, until you feel as though you are as big as the room, or as though the room and you are one. With practice, this really does feel as though you have increased your size to the point where you are as long and tall and large as the room itself. You can then try to extend your body out even farther until it encompasses a huge area. The expansion can be felt to encompass the entire universe and beyond, This always entails at some point that you stop thinking, rationalizing or discriminating and just start observing and experiencing without judging or explaining of any kind whatsoever. Success in this expansion of your awareness will help you to lose those limits that separate you from others and even from the higher realms. It will, in the long run, help you to become more sensitive and tuned in to the feelings, emotions and thoughts of others around you, and to those of people you feel close to, no matter how far away they may be.

 

9...This next technique can be a lead-in to other adventures such as the Garden, or the hall of artwork. It can be the start of any adventure, visual or nonvisual that your higher self wants you to go on. It involves seeing yourself walking through a marble hallway to your current destination. This hall uses stone for its vibrational qualities. Natural materials, including stone, can exert a subtle but powerful influence on a person, according to the natural energy of the material, its color, and even how it was formed. For example, A pearl is formed by agitating an oyster with a foreign substance and making it react to an uncomfortable situation, like getting a pebble in your shoe and making you stop to remove it. pearls may make some people more agitated than usual, although most of us don't recognize this link, and it doesn't necessarily work on everyone this way. A piece of granite, or limestone or some semi-precious stone such as Turquoise will also make you feel a certain way, especially if you are surrounded by it as in a hall lined with it. Anyway, this marble can be any stone you can imagine, from Granite, Jade, blue chalcedony, rutilated quartz or even unpolished Sandstone. This hall has steps in it, representing different levels of consciousness, which will bring you to deeper levels of awareness and relaxation. The number of steps is closely tied to concepts found in numerology, in that specific numbers herald their own specific vibratory energy. The number seven is the number of wisdom. It in an introverted number, and the wisdom it represents is found within oneself. Seven, in numerology, has a dual nature in that it can represent knowledge on a scientific level or on a spiritual level. On it’s spiritual level it comes as a call to understand the nature of the human spirit and it’s relationship to God. Seven also represents patience and inner guidance, and is generally a quieting and introspective influence. You can, therefore, choose to see seven steps in front of you as you walk down the hall. For those with a more active and restless connection to the world, the number eleven is also a number that is closely associated with spiritual energy and insight, but on a more restless level. It is a number that brings high energy to the receiver, and is seen as emanating large amounts of power, similar to a thunderstorm. If you feel up to the challenge, you can create eleven steps in front of you as you walk down the marble hall, but unless you are ready for the high strung, nervous energy of the eleven, you might want to stick with seven steps at first.

Sit or lie comfortably, and imagine a set of doors in front of you which open to reveal a hallway made of marble, full of light and highly polished. It has a quiet and peaceful atmosphere, on a refreshing sort of way. Remember that this hall is a part of you, your desires, your experience and your needs. So what it's made of, in part, is up to you. Next, as you walk down this hall, you come to a set of steps that lead down. This leading down is a way of going deeper into yourself, reaching a deeper level of the mind. You then continue down this hall a ways, and come upon another series of steps, which lead down to a doorway, which marks the end of this entrance hall. Beyond this door can be your garden, the hall of art work, or someplace new that you’ve never been to before. If you want to see what other possibilities there are, you might do well to summon a guide from heaven to walk with you through the doors and show you what's there. The possibilities are literally endless. But whenever you travel deep within yourself with no specific destination in mind, It is strongly recommend that you ask your higher self for a guide to assist you in traversing uncharted territory.

 

10..This next technique has a lot in common with the last one, but it has some major differences. This is the proverbial Stairway to heaven. Instead of going deep within yourself, you head for a higher plane. The experiences that can be found here are likely to be very uplifting and rejuvenating, like a short trip to a magical place. Instead of being surrounded by something of a grounding, or earthly nature, you are surrounded by air, the stars, the planets and the heavens. You can start this anywhere, a silver screen, the path to your garden or even in your garden as well as starting it from right where you are meditating.

Sit or lie comfortably, and when you are ready, imagine yourself walking up a staircase that extends high into the sky above you. This staircase is made of glass, or crystal, and it tends to glow with light from within. You will also notice that it has a nice ring to it, like a personal song, as you touch each step on the way up. As you walk along, climbing higher and higher, you may find at some point that you are literally flying up this staircase at a faster and faster pace. You also find yourself feeling lighter and lighter, as though you have stripped away your Earthly body as you reach toward the top of the stairs, and as you reach the top you may become aware of an unearthly music, and possibly an intensity of light which you are unfamiliar with.

What you find there is not for me to know, since you have reached another world that you will experience and bring a little piece of back with you when you return. This is a glimpse of Heaven which your higher self brings you to for your benefit, and sometimes the benefit of someone close to you. Remember that when you return, come back the same way you went, as this reinforces the existence of the path you took.

 

11..This technique comes from shamanism and can be very good at releasing you from physical limits, but if you like this way, you had best get a book called "Secrets of Shamanism" by Jose Stevens or some other good book on shamanic journeying since advanced meditation in this vein is not without its pitfalls.

For this you should lie comfortably on a mattress, couch, floor or soft or semi-soft surface far away from any distraction. As you relax, become conscious of your breathing rhythm, and try to alter it to a more and more relaxing pace. Feel your body as though it is getting heavier and heavier. Imagine roots coming out of your body and growing down into the surface below you, anchoring your body and fixing it firmly into the earth. As your body gets anchored and fixed into place, imagine your thoughts getting lighter and lighter, as though there is no weight to them at all. They can float up and soar as high and far as they feel like going. They become limitless and free to go or travel any where and in any direction that they can imagine.

This exercise helps to separate the mind from the limits of the body and can help promote astral travel in itself, which should not be taken lightly, but can be a very profound experience.

 

12..This next technique starts with audience participation, which can make many of us very hesitant. It involves chanting, and can do wonders for centering the mind once you get over any hesitancy you may feel. The active use of your own voice and the force expended here is the key to making this effective at relaxing and focusing yourself.

If you are really interested, you should go looking for some chanting tapes at a metaphysical bookstore, or you can just start sounding out a rhythmical and somewhat repetitive song of your own fancy. Native American songs or sounds are a good chant to pick up, as are any Far Eastern songs that you might find being sung in a monastery. Chanting a specific word or phrase over and over such as "Om", or even "Lord be with you", will work. Active use of personal energy while concentrating on peace and oneness, while not bringing you to a wild meditative experience by itself, can be very good for releasing pent up emotions. But most importantly, combining this with, or preceding any other technique with this one will bring a very big return for you in your feelings and state of mind. It is absolutely well worth the effort if you can incorporate chanting into your meditation practices.

 

13..Drumming is a practice often combined with chanting, above, in shamanic rituals for reaching a non-ordinary state of reality. It can be used by itself to focus and center you, but shamanic drumming, as opposed to rhythm, quickens the state of being and draws you into a different state. You may be able to find a tape of shamanic drumming, but you may have to make your own. A good way to use this is to have someone actually sit near you and do the drumming. If you need to set it up yourself, then find an inexpensive Bongo drum or any reasonable alternative, and set up a beat that starts out slowly, and builds up speed slowly, so that after four or five minutes, you have a pace of drumming that quickens your heartbeat as if something immediate is about to take place. At this point stop drumming and let the mind go. Your mind should focus very closely on the drumming and the increase in tempo. The more you are able to focus, and stop thinking or arranging thoughts to rationalize, or intellectualize, as the drum beats, the more effective the whole process will be.When this works well, you will find your thoughts taking on a life of their own. You will not need to make up thoughts, or images, or sounds, as they will flow from you as though something inside you turned on a higher faucet and is bringing you where it wants you to go. A short, but honest prayer for divine guidance before you start this is definitely in order here.

 

14..Here is a technique which I use a lot, since I am partial to color. It is an expansion on the use of the rainbow, which helps to make it possible to reach out and touch the colors themselves. Sit or lie in a comfortable position, and tell yourself once or twice to quietly relax. Next, imagine a large, crystal clear or milky translucent,(like a Moonstone) polished gemstone, about 8-10 inches in diameter and 1-3 feet high, coming out of the floor or table right in front of you. If you are lying down, you can imagine this stone coming out of your solar plexus, at the bottom of your rib cage, as an extension of your Heart center. As you lay there, start to see the stone glow ever brighter and brighter red, to where it reaches a point where the color red is visible, but the stones surface is blurry, or fuzzy to the extreme. At this point you can reach out and touch the color itself, as the hard edge of the stone is no longer a barrier to you. See the color become a part of you as you reach out to it, and blend with it. Do this with all the colors of the rainbow. This will break down barriers that you normally set between you and the outside world. These barriers are only your imagination anyway, so what you are really doing is reestablishing a link with the rest of the world.

After you finish the color purple or lilac, you can end by going in reverse order through the colors, or you can reach out to other objects, or even other people. This can do wonders for your sensitivity to loved ones around you.

 

15..Prayer and meditation. This last technique is a time honored way of spending your free time in holy Christian circles. But despite this, it works the best for long term raising of consciousness, especially when entered into in a spirit of humility and honesty.

The praying beforehand is a call for God to listen to your request. The more loving and honest this is, whether personal or for others, the better off you are. The quiet meditation you follow this with, is your willingness to listen to God when God speaks back. Your willingness and openness to God's response is the key that makes or breaks the effort here to grow towards a better world, as is usually sought through meditation and relaxation. Remember, the still, small voice within, is your best friend. And it never leaves your side, if you will but open your ears and hear.

 

There are over two hundred million people in the United States, and each one of them is likely to have a different experience in meditation when compared with the next person. And, each meditation is likely to be different to some degree from the last time they meditated. So you can see that what you will find, or experience, or receive from meditating is a personal matter most affected by your own inner self, or your own subconsciousness. But, the single most important factor in what you get out of meditation depends on how well you get step one achieved. Step one consists of becoming receptive. This cannot be stressed enough, because it is so very, very important and it is the hardest step to achieve. For most of us it is a stumbling block which we "just don't get" at first because we spend so much time thinking, that we don't know what it means to stop the mental process and become receptive to forces beyond the mind. I say several times in this manual that you need to stop structuring or putting some kind of reasoning into what you may experience while practicing meditation. This is because our own mental flow or attention very often acts as a wall to our own intuition and any flow of information from a super-conscious source. It is a lot like a soft spoken person trying to talk to a group of people, and a person with a strong, forceful presence keeps talking over him or more likely her. To shut off, or at least slow down our own thinking you need to distract the mind, or focus it on a calming thought or image or sound etc.. The better you are at thinking and acting in rational, orderly, or concretely proven ways, the more effort it is likely to take to stem the flow of rationality. Many times the first tapping into the intuition comes to us when we aren't paying much attention to anything, sort of in a daydreaming haze. This is the sort of receptive spirit that the mind needs to get into to achieve step one. It is often described as the "still, small voice within" and that's because it is a very accurate description of your intuition.

Once the quieting of the mind is achieved, you will find much to talk about, or to ponder, in the way of exciting experiences, or new experiences. Because the successful attainment of being this sensitive is often a pronounced transformation within you. This is the real beginning of successful meditation, and your intuition flows readily from a clear, un-blocked channel that doesn't get in it's own way.

What you can do with this, or how you can successfully use this flow for changing your life may sometimes be answered by the flow itself. Or, you can use the bibliography at the end of this manual to search for books that will direct you in this aim. Since the aim of this manual is to help you over the hardest part and the most common stumbling bock, I have concentrated my efforts on these. Instead of giving you one or two ways to achieve step one, followed by a bunch of things to do after that, this manual gives you a bunch of things to do to achieve step one, and a list of books to help you use step one in your life.

Step one can be achieved by anyone! You have to want it badly enough that you never give up trying to get it right. After all, the only losers in the world are the ones who give up, and these super-conscious sources work best with a positive attitude. A very positive attitude.

Meditating, or opening yourself up to forces beyond the five senses is not without its pitfalls, as I have alluded to, and for that reason I have deliberately left out discussions on the power referred to as Kundalini, or the opening up of the seven centers of spiritual consciousness referred to as chakras in Hindu and Buddhist philosophy. I have also left out certain breathing exercises which will lead to the arousal of said forces. Much more knowledge, and instruction, and guidance than I have time to give here is needed for this type of meditating as anyone with a good knowledge of this subject knows. I have seen writers who profess that it isn't dangerous to open up or arouse the Kundalini force, but I have seen more experienced writers give accurate accounts of problems arising from awakening the "Serpent Power" as it is called. My advice is to concentrate on awakening your own personal higher self as it will be self guiding as you become more sensitive to it.

As far as scientific knowledge, studying, and intellectual pursuit can take us, the greatest source of wisdom comes from tapping a vast pool of possibilities that exists at all times. A pool that is reached through inspiration and creative thinking. Benjamin Franklin didn't invent electricity, he discovered its usefulness. Edison didn't invent the useful light bulb either, but merely discovered the possibility of its existence and made it a physical reality.

The same source of these inventions can be, in fact has been, used by many over the centuries for living a productive, and positive life. The greatest contributors to civilization have all had one thing in common, and that is inspiration. Each one of us can open up a flood of inspiration and understanding leading to motivation for a more successful life through the use of meditation and relaxation on a regular basis

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

 

Association for Research and Enlightenment; A SEARCH FOR GOD, Book 1, Book 2: A.R.E. Press, Virginia Beach, Virginia 1942

 

Bloodworth, Dr. Venice J.; KEY TO YOURSELF: De Vorss and Co., Marina del Ray, California 1952

 

Campbell, Dan; EDGAR CAYCE ON THE POWER OF COLOR, STONES, AND CRYSTALS: Warner Books, New York, New York 1989

 

Cayce, Edgar; AURAS: A.R.E. Press, Virginia Beach, Virginia 1945

 

Krishna, Gopi; KUNDALINI: WHO KNOWS WHEN, Shambala Press, A. P. Ala

 

Nikhilananda, Swami; VIVEKANANDA, THE YOGAS AND OTHER WORKS: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, New York, New York 1953

 

Reed, Henry; EDGAR CAYCE ON CHANNELING YOUR HIGHER SELF: Warner Books, New York, New York 1989

 

Roman, Sanaya; SPIRITUAL GROWTH: H. J. Kramer Inc. Tiburon, California 1989

 

St. Clair, David; DAVID ST. CLAIRS LESSONS IN INSTANT ESP: Prentice-Hall, Englewood cliffs, New Jersey 1978

 

Sanders, Pete A.; YOU ARE PSYCHIC: Ballantine Books, New York, New York 1989

 

Silva, Jose; SILVA MIND CONTROL: Pocket Books, New York, New York 1977

 

Stevens, Jose and Lena; SECRETS OF SHAMANISM: Avon Books, New York, New York 1988

 

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