How often do you meditate?

reply to post by sphinx551



I am in a constant state of meditation.

reply to post by the_denv

which means each and every single person meditates differently and achieves the same.

I gotta agree with ya.

But you're not defining it "correctly", as you can do some searches for other forms of "meditation".

Sigh. I just said you are confusing types/forms of meditation with the actual process of meditation. There is only one meditation process, but there are various forms of meditation. I am not going to repeat this, you either get it this time around or you never get it.

I don't care for new-age distortions.



[edit on 31-12-2009 by Indigo_Child]

reply to post by Indigo_Child

There is only one meditation process, but there are various forms of meditation.

No there isn't. Process? Ie., brain waves generated. Mindlessness. Achieving this state?
Your perception of your process, and what works for you is subjective. There are many meditations and meditative states. Chakra meditations often involve visualizations. All meditations are benefited by statements/intentions made prior to and even during.

Different levels of altered states and different ways of "going with the flow" whether to be quiet, still and approach noneness, or whether to be active, co-creative, depend on your mood, but they're all meditative states.

Finding yourself busy in a mindless chore, and slipping into theta, is also finding oneself in an active meditative state.

I will give an example, one day doing the dishes, for a large crew that took quite some time with many breaks. And I don't like housework.

Now since then, one of my good friends online has shared that starseeds often take on challenging situations to transmute the energies from negative to positive, also for the sake of lessons and learning. But considering all of the sitings of crafts whole family has had, contact several of us have had, and continual ongoing monitoring, I was very upset with the feeling of being in a cage, most of my life, surrounded with other peoples negativity, wondering what I was here for, why did I come here, what was I here for, why did I come here, over and over, I was frustrated. Listening to era, and gregorian on my mp3 player which has incredible frequencies, and already utilize a kind of binaural in different sounds for each ear, this one in particular:


Era Tara Shahti Mantra

I often set songs to continual play and manually move them forward.

Then, a short while later, I'd shelved it all and was back to to mindless repetition of chores, and was hypnotized by the music as well. Suddenly, I was aware of the field, the river of waves I was stepping into, and saw two, back to back, alternative timelines. First place was a catastrophe, which will not be mentioned. It was a little different than the normal ones I read about, but could have been triggered by some of what I've read, or could even be an act of sabotage, but due to the location of this it created an enormous event.

The second was a joyous disclosure and transparency of truth, brining in awareness and advancement for the planet, free will finally restored, and there were speakers at the podiums and things were changing for the better permanently, an upgrade.

And I knew the state I was in, I knew this gift had activated, other gifts had already activated and deepened, but this one had not yet. I also then understood why we are here, to spread seeds of awareness and to hold that frequency in this planet. That and the other things that have come to me, and the significance of whales and dolphins.

That was a meditative state, also, by the way. I do all types of meditations, and know when a certain brain wave state has been reached.

The best to meditate is to not limit the experience to one type. For example, noneness meditations, and chakra meditations employ different methods, nor is it to limit the experience to sitting or lying down, rather, one can reach for this state in many different time.

www.wildmind.org...

www.buddhanet.net...

While meditation is usually associated with the sitting posture, insight meditation exercises can be practised while walking. Walking in insight meditation is essentially about the awareness of movement as you note the component parts of the steps. When walking meditation alternates with sitting meditation it helps to keep the meditation practice in balance.

www.dharma-talks.com...

You begin to walk with nature not through nature. What I mean by this is you become so centered that you are connected with everything around you. Even the animals’ notice that you are a part of nature, not just blazing through. The birds will continue to sit on the branch and sing their songs as you pass by. You begin to sense the life around you before you see it with your psychical eyes. Nature is everywhere, on the city streets and the country roads.

If I were to try to teach some one how to perform this exercise I would use an example from Thich Nhat Hanh. He states that images make the practice easy and the following poetry is one of the images he uses for walking meditation.

Breathing in, I know I am breathing in.

Breathing out, I know I am breathing out.

In/Out.

Breathing in, I see myself as a flower.

Breathing out, I feel fresh.

Flower/Fresh.



Breathing in, I see myself as a mountain.

Breathing out, I feel solid.

Mountain/Solid.



Breathing in, I see myself as still water.

Breathing out, I reflect things as they are.

Water/Reflecting.



Breathing in, I see myself as space.

Breathing out, I feel free.

Space/Free.

Oh my, walking, nature, and imaging, meditation. Oh, but I forgot somewhere in the world there exists one controlling group that thinks they mandate the meditative mind and what it means.....nope they don't. In fact such a challenge would it become to find every other way of demonstrating the meditative mind in other pursuits so as to avoid control at all.


Walking Meditation with Thich Nhat Hanh

Channel quote:

What if every step you took deepened your connection with all of life and imprinted peace, joy, and serenity on the earth? Walking Meditation features esteemed Buddhist master Thich Nhat Hanh along...

Well isn't that my point, what if every step you took, your actions, could be meditative. What if your waking life, (though dolpins may percieve us as sleeping as we are only using 10% of our brain while awake, and more while sleeping) was spent mirroring awakening to the world, and holding that frequency?

New Age information that is usually very old age, and shares common grounds with many cultures, but kind of holistic, in that its not one thing. Very good information to be found in new age. I don't agree with any one thing however.

By the way, what do you think of this?

www.oshoworld.com...



[edit on 31-12-2009 by Unity_99]

reply to post by Unity_99

Finding yourself busy in a mindless chore, and slipping into theta, is also finding oneself in an active meditative state.

I will give an example, one day doing the dishes, for a large crew that took quite some time with many breaks. And I don't like housework.

I agree,

Playing music,

Raking leaves,

beading,

once you realize you are a spiritual being having a human experience, everything is spiritual and everything is mediation,

Sometimes I think the forced act of mediation is the non experience, of the true nature of what the experience should be,

I am reminded of a story of the monks complaining about the fellow Buddhist monk that went into the village everyday to play with the children instead of following a ridged spiritual path of daily meditations,

And they were scolded for not realizing he was the one that had attained enlightenment.

Oh well I am not very good at expressing myself.





[edit on 013131p://bThursday2009 by Stormdancer777]

No there isn't.

Yes there is. No offese, but your comprehension seems to be very dense.

You still have not been able to tell the difference between the PROCESS of meditation and the FORMS and TYPES of meditation. I was going to leave you to your ignorance, but as you spent a lot of time and energy replying, I thought it would only be fair to reply.

PROCESS is only ONE: Thought-waves are reduced and you enter into deeper states of consciousness.

You have so far been harping on about how meditation connects us to our higher self, how meditation takes us into higher brain wave states(alpha, beta etc) You are describing a process. What is common in your description? I will answer it for you: Going inwards. So what is meditation? It is the process by which you go inwards. It can be defined as:

Connecting to your higher self
Entering other brain states
Reducing thought activity

A working scientific definition of meditation which describes the process is the reduction of thought wave activity. This is experienced as "connecting to a higher self" or "entering deep states" But what is happening on a process level is your thought activity is gradually coming down.

Therefore what is not meditation? That which increases your thought activity rather than reducing it is NOT meditation. An argument is not meditation(beta state)

Hence why you are advised by experts in meditation to NOT THINK. This is achieved by either maintaining a state of passive observation of your thoughts or by concentrating on an object.

Now types objects of meditation:

CHAKRA MEDITATION
MANTRA MEDITATION
SELF MEDITATION
BREATHING MEDITATION
DEVOTIONAL MEDITATION
MUSIC/SOUND MEDITATION
DIAGRAM MEDITATION
THOUGHT/PROBLEM MEDITATION
MOVING MEDITATION

There are countless types of meditations. I have done several types.

The object you select for the meditation is not very important. The process is important. By concentrating on your object(whatever it is) you cause only one thought to occupy the field of your mind. As a result, other thoughts begin to diminish. Initially, the mind will jump from thought to thought(monkey mind) but by imposing the discipline of maintaining only one thought, the jumping will begin to slown down, as a result your thought activity comes down. Then you enter into deeper states.

You will not enter deeper states if you entertain your thoughts. Period. Then you are THINKING as you always do. You are not meditating. This is also why meditation is synonymous with discipline. You need very strong discipline to maintain only one thought.

Meditation is very much like working out. You need to put in time and effort to make any gains. Hence why a formal daily practice is advised by meditation experts, which you must maintain indefinitely in order to make progress in meditation and achieive the goal(higher self).

As a result you will naturalize the state of meditation in your daily life and be able to maintain a semi-meditative state. Then everything you do can become a sort of meditation.

New age hippie crowds don't like hearing this. They want their cake and want to eat it too. The word "discipline" is poison to them. They would rather meditate when they feel like it, smoke weed and do an assortment of drugs, party, listen to CD's like, "Activate your Kundalini in 30 days" They are basically a bunch of morons. Neither useful to the spiritual world or useful to the material world. They are wasting their life.

Serious spiritual practitioners cultivate moral, spiritual and intellectual character through the DISCIPLINE of meditation. They take spirituality very seriously. They have to make many personal sacrifices in order to do that. It is not an easy path at all. It is very difficult. I am a serious spiritual practitioner, but not a patch on the real Yogis and Buddhists, I may have a new-age nomenclature, but I am not new-age at all. I am deeply rational and realistic.

[edit on 31-12-2009 by Indigo_Child]

reply to post by Indigo_Child


I havnt been harping on, and the mindless, thoughtless or zen mind, whether in our out of activity, is common, though not the only form of meditation. Many meditations, including chakra and even hemisync, take you through visualizations and conscious moments then deepen.

Others wish to make their entire waking lives meditative. Responding in a negative fashion, and even trying to turn it into a science rather than an intuitive process or tool that you will adapt to many situations, achieving different depths or brain waves, is just odd to me. But I am not saying you are harping on your scientific narrow spectrum either.

You still have not been able to tell the difference between the PROCESS of meditation and the FORMS and TYPES of meditation.

There is not one single process used in this either. There is a common one that is often achieved through a variety, but there are still variations, and needed variations because people do many things in their meditations, such as visualizing and setting intentions. Also, during the process of meditating, many things unexpectantly occur as well, that aren't mindless.

Also, when I was talking theta, and states, this referred to process as well.

Though in truth, don't even really know why we're having this disagreement. My posts were to show that there are many aspects to meditation, and that it was possible to extend meditation into living moments, and become more meditative throughout the day.


[edit on 31-12-2009 by Unity_99]

There is not one single process used in this either. There is a common one that is often achieved through a variety, but there are still variations, and needed variations because people do many things in their meditations, such as visualizing and setting intentions. Also, during the process of meditating, many things unexpectantly occur as well, that aren't mindless.

I don't even really know why we're having this disagreement.

[edit on 31-12-2009 by Unity_99]

I am guessing you have absolutely no education in science. A process is like a mechanism. The mind has mechanisms which allows us to "think" there are not several mechansism which cause thoughts, there is only one mechanism which accounts for all types of thoughts we can have. The scientific laws are the same. My thoughts and your thoughts are different, but the mechanisms in our mind that cause thoughts are the same. Psychology 101.

I am explaining what is happening scientifically on the level of mind. You have already alluded to it many times yourself, without being conscious of it would seem and despite severals explanations, you still have not become conscious of it. In meditation you are going within. What is happening on the level of mind is your thought activity is slowing down allowing you to go within.

Try it now. Take a series of deep rhymic breaths. Immediately your consciousness state will begin to alter because you are reducing your thought activity. The deeper and longer your breaths the lesser your thoughts. This is why they prescribe deep-breathing exercises to people having panic and anxiety attacks - it slows down their thoughts.

I am not going to respond on this point any further. This is too trivial and if you still don't get it then you probably never will.

[edit on 31-12-2009 by Indigo_Child]

Though in truth, don't even really know why we're having this disagreement. My posts were to show that there are many aspects to meditation, and that it was possible to extend meditation into living moments, and become more meditative throughout the day

I do not disagree with that. What I disagree with is your claim that meditation cannot be defined and it is entirely subjective. If it is entirely subjective then people would not report similar results in meditation and nor could brain science be able to measure consciousness states with ECG's.

Meditation is a science. You can make reliable predictions about what will happen to a mediator and even measure states of consciousness a meditator is in.

reply to post by Indigo_Child


Thanks for the science lesson. You can see it the way you wish, but I'm going to continue to share that we can do things throughout the day, in addition to other practices to continue meditation. Though I don't wish to disagreeable to you and your views. And hope you wish you a Happy New Year.

By the way, does anyone know why I am seeing this at the beginning of everyone's paragraphs?

rnrn NVM its cleared up, it was odd.

[edit on 31-12-2009 by Unity_99]

They are all just different techniques to achieve the exact same state of mind, it doesn't matter how you reach it it's all meditation cause the end result is the same.

Why is this turning into an argument? Peace of mind dammit.

[edit on 1-1-2010 by Osiris_Caine]

reply to post by Osiris_Caine

Why is this turning into an argument?

exactly

Only a few certain teachings stick with me, you all must have heard this one,


An old monk and a young monk were walking through a forest when they came to a river bank and saw a beautiful young woman standing at the edge of the bank.

The woman told the monks that she was afraid to cross the river because she might slip and be carried downstream. She asked if one of the monks might help her across.

Now it so happened that these 2 monks were members of a sect which practiced celibacy and they had both taken vows never to touch a member of the opposite sex. But the old monk, sensing the extreme anxiety of the young woman, lifted her onto his back and carried her to the other side of the river.

The young woman thanked him and went on her way. The 2 monks continued on their journey, but the young monk was shocked and disturbed at having seen his older companion break his vow so nonchalantly. Finally, after 3 hours of walking and thinking, he could contain himself no longer and he burst out, "Tell me, old man, what did it feel like to break your vow of so many years? What did it feel like to allow sensuality to tempt you from your spiritual path? What did it feel like to have her smooth warm thighs wrapped around your waist, her breasts brushing against your back, her arms around your neck and her soft cheek almost one with your own? Tell me, old man, what is it like to carry such a beautiful young woman?"

The older monk remained silent for several steps and then said, "It is you who should tell me what it is like to carry such a beautiful young woman. You see I put her down 3 hours ago at the river, but you are still carrying her."


[edit on 023131p://bFriday2009 by Stormdancer777]

[edit on 023131p://bFriday2009 by Stormdancer777]

I dont meditate because true Meditation takes place prior to the act of Meditation, prior to the thought and intention of Meditating, prior to their being a Meditator to Meditate in that split-second of vastness prior to anything at all.

reply to post by Skyfloating


By this, do you mean that you are always connected to your true source and your life is reflective of the true process of connection therefore meditation is not required?

Originally posted by Unity_99
By this, do you mean that you are always connected to your true source and your life is reflective of the true process of connection therefore meditation is not required?

At a certain point its easier to just acknowledge ones connectedness at-all-times than to do some specific exercise in order to "tune in" to some "connection". Its a stage in ones development where one sheds the necessity to get into something one is already in, so to speak.

reply to post by Skyfloating


That is absolutely wonderful. I think thats the stage I'm pushing for, does visualizing this or setting intentions speed it up.

So far I've had not only a past life, but now a future life to which I seem to be connected to the mission from, and this awareness or stage of being awake is what pulls me the most now, and holding the frequency of awareness and being awake in the world somehow.

Originally posted by Unity_99
That is absolutely wonderful. I think thats the stage I'm pushing for, does visualizing this or setting intentions speed it up.

A general Life-Intention of being the best you can be, or being connected to everything at all times or something like that might be helpful.

Not as an affirmation or visualization, but as a general attitude of what you decide your life to be about.

Because the "desire" to be connected acts as if you are not. So too much desiring to be connected, will make a disconnect.

[edit on 1-1-2010 by Skyfloating]

reply to post by Skyfloating


Such as these, intentions I have set a few times???, and I dont know if they implied a lack or separation from the goal, or perhaps it was that I was not intending that they do because I had some memories come, ie. the future one and so much more recognition of others, someone I see not only her future cosmic life, but I knew she was my real teacher in the family of light, like the synchronicity of not just seeing the light or source in others, and finding similar understandings being reached in them, but also seeing with joy that the teachers are here too.

"I am aware, and know who I am in source, my cosmic nature, and my memories are returning, I am connecting to my higher self, and learning why I've come to this planet, my abilities and natural gifts are activated now, this is manifesting now, and grows stronger each and every day. I am light and love, and wish to see the light in everyone, under the masks we all wear, to reclaim and love every aspect of self in this game of oneness, facing the light the shadow and loving all to wellness. I am growing and evolving, my dna is healing and I will remember. I am tuning out the negative in order to pay attention to that which I need to see."



"I will awaken
I will spread my wings of love and awareness, with memories of who I truly am, and why I have come to this planet.
It is my will and will of the Creator
I fear no evil for I am the light and love of the Creator
I affirm this with my heart and soul
for light gives me strength and I will do what is right, on task, on mission, for love and freedom's win.



I am emerging now into my cosmic self, my true self, with all of my memories and skills. My true self will no longer be silenced. It is so.



I am the love of the Creator, I am unmatched in what I can do."


[edit on 1-1-2010 by Unity_99]

reply to post by Unity_99


As not to derail this thread and not to pretend to know whats best for you, I´ll say: If those are words by you, from you, and meant wholeheartedly, thats quite enough to "get there".

Originally posted by Skyfloating
reply to post by Unity_99

 

As not to derail this thread and not to pretend to know whats best for you, I´ll say: If those are words by you, from you, and meant wholeheartedly, thats quite enough to "get there".

Yes they are, the last one had my friend's input as well when we were writing it, but it was from both our hearts. But the actual words of "I will spread my wings", that part came from his higher self, who sometimes would spontaneously write to me, and I could tell when he was in that mode. So that last one is a shared imput and combines both of our wording.

[edit on 1-1-2010 by Unity_99]