With love,
sanjay
Here comes the tricky part.
All these concepts like suspending all judgmental thinking and thoughts pass by without getting involved in them looks very easy while saying but very difficult to implement in reality. This cannot be done by this knowing or thinking about his. As i said before, these are not the starting points of meditation but come quite later. And, to get there one has to follow a certain procedure. It is not an intellectual/philosophical issue but neuro-biological one so demands to follow that route to create real understanding. That is precisely the reason why conventional philosophy has never be able to wrap its head around meditation.
The thing is that one cannot learn playing football merely reading by written books about it. Yes, one can become a historian or commentator by doing so but certainly not a player. The same is about meditation. So, the question is what one wants to be, commentator or real player.
with love,
sanjay
sanjay
[/quote]
The first question comes to mind: how to do or start meditating?
I think that I should take one more point here before that. As i said before in this thread that mind and consciousness exist in very much amalgamated form in the body. As we all know that the mind is connected to each and every body part through nerves, thus being amagamated with the mind, Consciouness also spreads through the whole body. So, when we concentrate mind at any one point or thing, Consciouness has no option but to concentratrate itself too. Meditation takes advange of this default mechanism.
Now, let us get into the methodology of mediation.
The first thing to do here is to be into a confortable position. This may be of any type like sitting with crossed legs, sitting on the chair with legs down or even lying on the bed, either straight or at any side. Postures do not matter. Different people may feel comfortable in diferent postures. For myself, sitting does not work well so i lie down stright on my back. The only important thing regarding the postures which is important, is that once coming into the desired posture, you are not supposed to move your body, not even a bit, as long as you are meditating. This condition should not be violated otherwise that whole session would go in vain.
Now, let us assume that a person has gotten into his/her comfortable posture. The second thing to do is to close eyes. I also have mentioned its reason already in the thread above. The next thing is to find something to concentate upon. That object may be anything, a picture of anyone or sound byte. I can tell from my personal experience that a sound byte suits the most. You have to chose a small sound byte according to your taste. That may be a small mantra according to your belief, like Ya Allah, Om Namo Shivay or whatever. Please remember, It is not necessary to chose any religious thing, though that may be helpful but it also can be done without that.
The only important thing regarding the sound byte is that it should not be long, but consisted of merely 3,4 words, otherwise it would not work porperly.
After choosing a sound byte, you have to repeat it, slowy and alertly, preferably in the mind, though it may be difficult in the starting. You tounge will move slightly automatically even if you do not want. That is fine and no need to force the issue. And, you will realize that the image of the words of the sound byte will keep poping up before your mental eyes, as you repeat those. That is natural thing to happen. If you can focus on that images too along with the sound byte. that would enhance the speed of the process.
That is all you have to do, nothing else. Just keep repeating that sound byte in your mind, as long as you can. The process looks very simple on the paper but quite difficult to implement. The reason is our subconscious mind, which is forced to go against its own will by our effort to focus on one thing. So, subconscious will keep distracting from the goal . As the result, conscious mind forget what it was doing and go with the thoughts popping in the subconscious. This will happen again and again but you have to keep it bringing to that sound byte.
If one closely observes this struggle, he/she will be surprized to see how much is stored in the subconscious and how it keeps popping up, even against one’s will. One will get totally unrelated waves of thoughts like from the childhood or what may happen in the distant future. This subconscious is an uncontrollable beast inside us and needs to be tamed down. And, if we keep patience, it will ultimately surrender.
There are some fine points and explanations are also pertinent here which i will take in the next post.
With love,
sanjay
[/quote]
Let me take up from there.
The methodology of the meditation is just like a multistage space rocket. These rockets use two types of fuel engines- detachable and undetachable and in the same order too. The first thing that a space rocket is required to go in the space is to clear the earth gravitational field otherwise it would fall back on the earth. the required speed to clear the earth is called escape velocity which is 11.29 KM/Sec. Anything thrown from speed or above from the surface will never come back and continue moving further in the space. To achieve this speed initially, rockets use boosters but these boosters are detachable and decouple from the rocket after providing it sufficient thrust to gain escape velocity. Once the earth’s gravitational field is cleared, then rocket uses undetachable engines to get the direction right. This arrangement is necessary otherwise the rocket would become too heavy to maneuver after clearing the earth.
Mediation also works in the same way. To trigger a spiritual journey, first of all we also need a very big thrust of initial concentration otherwise we will keep falling back at where we started. Maneuvering part comes in play only when we would be able to clear a certain threshold. So, it is useless to concentrate on maneuvering without getting escape velocity.
And, that is precisely why i am asking to focus purely on the building concentration first, not anything else. All these concepts of just sitting there and clearing the thoughts are the part of maneuvering, not initial thrust. These things are unable to gather sufficient initial thrust to trigger the journey and nothing can happen without that. That is perhaps the precise reason why most of the who took meditation will never be achieve anything meaningful. We have to get the basics right, in the first place. The journey have to start fro 1 not from 100 or 1000.
There are some more points about his issue. I take up those in the next post.
with love,
sanjay
That is probably the reason why some don’t even start the meditation-journey, and others… give up after a short while.
I wonder what separates the determined-to-persevere, from those that don’t or can’t continue?
Very well put, Zinnat… I like. 
Yes… certain realisations and insights can only occur/be triggered, at certain points along the meditative-journey, so one has to start and continue on, in order to experience and utilise the benefits from it.
I think the starting point and reason, of the journey, is important, and key to progress and continuity.
with love,
sanjay
As i mentioned in the last post, a lot depends on triggering the journey. So, it is natural that one may ask what exactly i mean by triggering, how it happens, why it happens and how one can recognize it. To understand this, we have to go back into the details of human’s neuro-biological system because without understanding this clearly, the process of meditation cannot be understood.
As i mentioned already in the thread, humans are three folded entities- the innermost consciousness, middle layer of soul and outermost existence of human. The important point here to remember that these three layers become one to form a human, yet keep their separate existence, Something like a detachable system. Going further, at first level, consciousness merges with the soul, then this mixture further permeates into human body to form a complete (alive) human.
Meditation is nothing but reverse engineering this process of human formation, step by step.
At first, consciousness mergers with soul and gives life to the soul. As a thumb rule, and without any exception, anything that becomes alive, has to die also at some point of time. This period of life may vary and that depends on which kind of batter is forming the body. The subtler the body, the more its life span would be, which could be from some years to some thousand years. But, this is a different subject altogether an let us not go there now to avoid confusion.
Secondly, the consciousness must be there to make anything alive. And, mind also comes embedded with the consciousness because it is a part of consciousness, however intruded it may be. Given that, mind is also eternal. it cannot either die or stop working even for a second. So, this concept of stopping the thoughts or emptying the mind is oxymoron.. No one can do it ever, whether an average person or even an enlightened one. Yes, we can slow down its activity to some extent or keep it engaged where we want but that is it.
Now, the soul’s body, embedded with consciousness and mind, enters into human body and makes it alive. After entering into human’s body, the mind divides into two parts. One original portion remains with soul while the newly formed portion goes with human body. As it is new thus it knows nothing and learns as humans get different experiences during their life. I am not sure how it happens or being managed but there is some sort of veil between these two parts of the mind. Even both parts affect each other but generally it is a one way traffic from soul’s mind to human’s mind or from subconscious to conscious. It is conscious mind who meditate which makes it stronger and eventually strong enough to convert this default one way traffic into two way. When this happens, the human’s mind starts getting the glimpses of what is going on into soul’s mind.
And, that is precisely the trigger point as i mentioned above. But, unlike the methodology of the space rockets, there are two triggers points in the spiritual journey. One is which i mentioned just now when one gets the glimpse of soul’s mind for the first time and there comes a second one also but quite later in the journey so let us leave that for the later too. in other words, we can say that the spiritual journey is also divided into three parts. The first part starts from starting to the happening of the first trigger, then from first trigger to the second trigger, then lastly from the second trigger to the final destination. Having said that there are any many intermediate stages between all broad three stages also.
i think that is enough for one post.
with love,
sanjay
Sorry guys, i have been quite busy for last some days thus unable to post. Next post follows today or tomorrow.
with love
sanjay
Let us resume.
Before saying anything further, i think that i have to quote this portion once again-
Now, let us assume that one is following above mentioned process, So, now the question is where it would lead and why.
Contrary to the general perception, brain and mind are two different things. Brain, as we all know is a part of our physical body but mind is not. it enters the body, embedded with consciousness and makes our body alive. Brian dead is not dead but only mind dead is in true sense. There is an example present of this phenomenon in the nature. There is a type of frog found in Alaska named wood frog. Its technical name is Rana sylvatica. Just like all other frogs it also goes into hibernation during winter and became active again later. But, during hibernation, its whole body freezes, including mind and heart. it remains in this stage for eight months. Then, it becomes alive again. So, the question is that how a living being can remain alive even being heart stopped and brain dead of eight months?
It is considered a biological miracle by scientists but nothing is miraculous in it. It happens just because wood frog never becomes mind dead but brain dead only. Humans can also achieve this stage though not easily. To be more precise, we all experience this but not able to realize this because this happens during sleep. That is precisely why a slept person is considered half dead in many scriptures. During sleep, consciousness and mind leaves the body many times, then it comes back. Having said that during that period, some connection still remains between mind an body otherwise we will be dead forever. I am not sure what exactly the mechanism behind it but it happens exactly in this way.
I am going in this detail because it is necessary to understand the difference between mind and brain to get the correct understanding of meditation. otherwise it will get confusing sooner or later. That is precisely the reason why some people feel a kind of meditative state while being drugged. let us get into the details of this to understand why does it feel so.
As i mentioned before, the first stage/aim of the meditation is to able to witness the working of unconscious (soul’s) mind. and, how one is supposed to do that! By reducing the noise on the conscious mind. So, when the noise of the conscious mind reduces, it becomes easier to hear the thoughts of the unconscious. Meditation slows own the working/noise of the conscious mind while drugs slows down the brain. But, it both cases, the noise comes down though entirely for the different reasons. that is reason why some people feel a kind of ecstasy or heightened state of mind with drugs tough actually it is not.
I want to use an analogy to make it clearer. Say, the conscious mind is an observer standing still at some point of the road while incoming thoughts of both of conscious and unconscious are like traffic. As traffic is heavy and speedy thus the observer is no getting enough time to pay attention to individual vehicles. Now, if the speed and volume of the traffic comes down, naturally the observer will get more time to give attention to individual vehicles and may able to recognize those too. That is precisely the methodology of the meditation. But, there a different way too. We can also decrease the seeing capability of the observer in such away so it can see only big vehicles like trucks and buses but not cars and bikes. This is what happens when use drugs. Drugs reduces the capacity of the brain( not mind) so conscious mind gets less physical stimuli and thus produces less thoughts. As a result we sometimes feel that our senses and mind has become more efficient but it is not. All that happens just because of the lessened sensing power of the brain, the thoughts of the unconscious mind look more prominent than usual.
Those thoughts remain there always but because of the noise, we cannot feel those. The reason is that the consciousness cannot do multitasking but feel only one thought whichever is the most prominent one at given time. Only mind can do multitasking, which it always does but the consciousness has to gravitate towards only one.
Many people find it unbelievable but it is true. To understand it, let us visualise a thought experiment.
Say, a driver is driving his car at highway at high speed. he is enjoying his new car which is going quite fast. Besides that, some music is also playing on the system. The song is new for the driver and he is listening it for the first time. Now, all of a sudden, a child comes in the front of the car from nowhere. The driver applies the brakes immediately, the car skids but eventually escapes the boy and stops. Say, this incident takes 20 seconds. The music system is still playing that song.
Now, let us get into the mind of the driver for those 20 seconds. I am sure that no one would disagree with me when i say that driver would not have listened or remembered that 20 sec part of the song. Why it is so? The common answer would be that his mind was occupied somewhere else but if we look closely we would find that it is nor true. Technically speaking, he would have listened that part because song never stopped and that sound reached his mind also through his ears but he cannot remember that part. That happens just because his consciousness was drawn to the boy and as it can focus to only one thing at a time thus he would not able to remember that missed part of the song. We All come across to these kind of situations many times in our lives but unable to pay understand what exactly is happening.
That would be enough for now.
with love
sanjay
_
I think it’s more about the psychological blockage of mind, than acquiring knowledge of the process itself…
Most say that it’s not the process but what they fear they will encounter along the way, that is the prohibitory factor of starting the process… though I’m sure that hearing the experience from another may help others overcome that fear, but in my experience it hasn’t.
I think that even daily general musing on one’s thoughts is better than no musing at all, and is a great place to start… even if there the muser forever remains.
And, most important of all, you don’t have to actually demonstrate that this is true theologically or philosophically or scientifically.
You simply have to believe that it is true in whatever manner you have come to believe in turn that the brain and the mind are intertwined in the evolution of biological life on earth going back to whatever you believe about things like the Big Bang going back to whatever you believe about things like God going back to whatever you believe about the existence of existence itself.
You think it, then meditate about it and that makes it true.
You know, like genes and memes.
I don’t think anyone can validly talk about how any of this works until they clearly define distinctions in the terms they use - “brain”, “mind”, “consciousness”, “unconscious”, “subconscious”, “instinct”, “habit”, “natural”, and so on. Until then, all explanations are vague, unscientific, and a bit meaningless - even superstitious.
“Do what I say because magic.”
That’s essentially how Budism subdued most of Asia.
That’s when personal thought became State property, ergo Buddhism and religion itself.
The science behind meditation has been researched, many years ago now.
That’s actually a really cool phrase.
_
Thanks…
Science has reported on studies involving people who have been practicing it. They said nothing about the many who tried it and gave up because of no evidentiary affect upon them. I doubt they have even bothered with a statistical study.
The science they reported has been that meditation works to the positive (for those who have been doing it - not necessarily for all people perhaps not even for half of the people due to their individual situations). But that is all they can say. They can say NOTHING about how or why it helps those few. How and why meditation helps anyone is still completely superstitious postulation.
On the other hand, what if it’s memes and genes?
But for you, on any number of threads, a dump is a dump.
Or “poop” as some call it.
Stop spamming. I am simply reminding you of your glass house. You are welcome any time “to actually demonstrate that this is true theologically or philosophically or scientifically” here: ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 1&t=196136
Try this for few days and see what happens-
[quoteBefore anything else, the first thing to learn is to establish direct two way connection between conscious and subconscious mind. Here is very simple method of it and this will help in many other ways too.
All one needs is 20 min in 24 hours for this.
When going to the bed in the night, do not sleep at once. Devote roughly half an hour to yourself daily. When one is going to sleep, after finishing all your work, he/she just to down calmly for some seconds there on the bed and close your eyes. Let some breaths go in and out smoothly then try to remember what you did during the whole day from waking up till the bed. Start from the event one, whether important or not. Then try to remember your state of mind while doing different actions, like whether you had a fight with your boss or employees, love or quarrel with you spouse, etc. Go in the details and try to see the motives behind your actions, examine your frame of mind doing a particular action, and, also try to judge whether your actions and intentions were right or not, and then sleep.
That is all one has to do.
But, please understand that though it looks very simple, but it is not. It would be somewhat thrilling for some initial days, but, sooner or later, that moment would come when your mind would refuse to stick to it and tells you quietly that let us bunk it today. And, if you fall in the trap, it would argue more profoundly next day for avoiding it by telling you that you have some more important things to think about, so why engage in this useless exercise. And, if you make a gap of some days, then you have to start all over again.
Just remember two things.
Never open your eyes doing so otherwise that system would not be activated and eat slightly less at dinner to avoid falling asleep immediately.
with love,
sanjay
]
[/quote]