Meditation Advice

When meditating I like to lay down opposed to sitting upright, due to some of the back pains I get so I almost always get tired or actually fall asleep.

Are there any meditation techniques or positions that will actually help me keep awake and not be in pain?

I think gaga is an overated rather ugly performer cashing in on the stupidity of the masses - she says she's hot and talented so people want to believe it.

What the hell? You changed the thread from about a gaga video to pain reduction?

Man that video must have really had an affect on you...

ummmm why did this thread just completely change from lady gaga

Advice*

Because, I was trying to get advice in one category and show the lady gaga video in another video, lol. I n00bed out hard.

LADY GAGA

Sorry about that, I meant to post that in the Grey Area.

reply to post by CordDragonzord


I have the same issue, fortunately though I cant fall asleep while lying on my back so I just do that.

Maybe you could try lying on the floor or in a recliner chair that you don't normally sleep in. You could try lying on the grass or the beach too and see if being outside helps you stay awake. The other thing you could try is do it like mid morning when you have fully woken up but are not yet tired from the day, also if you've drunk a coffee that could help too.

If you read the osho meditation book. It say's you can actually meditate all day while going about your business. Basically your just stay peaceful at your center and meditate their sorta like going on cruise control. Check it out when you get a chance.

Yes.. Can do "walking meditation" where you meditate while walking - at first just walk around the room while meditating.. In time you will be able to meditate as you go about your daily activities.

Some chant while meditating. For centering. I have taken to the practice of deep ,low humming throughout the day. No long or extended oooooooommmmmmmssssssssssss. But quiet short om, expelled with the breath every now and then.

This did it for me, no counting, no mantra, it's a super guide.


I got to a point where I can feel the air coming in very easy, very relaxing.

I am really into meditation, weirdly enough because I read about it when I was about 7 years old in a book by Vidal and Beverly Sassoon. Anyway, I have read books that say you have to pose like this or like that, and I have also read books which say life can be lived as a meditation, you can bring meditation into whatever you do - when you eat you put 100% of concentration into your eating, when you wait for the bus, you be totally in waiting for the bus. i recently read something by the dalai lama that also mentioned an older monk who was too ill to sit up for his practice but successfully did it from his hospital bed.
So yeah, in my opinion meditate however you want, whenever you want!

In a chair is acceptable. Plant both feet firmly-flat on the floor, and both arms equally placed at your sides or on your lap, or on the armrests with both hands facing upwards or downwards. Tilting your head a bit back is ok, just now falling forward or flipping way back. (That constricts the flow of blood in the Jugular Vein and Carotid Artery to the brain and to and from the heart).

Find a way to sit that doesn't give you back pains. You may have to try out different chairs. I have that issue right now at home, no good chair. I'm getting better at sitting crosslegged but I still need a backrest. You can fight through any pain though and try to ignore it and tell yourself whatever you like to keep you focused, like.. "i don't need this body, or i am the master of this, its physical condition is all in my mind" or something like that. I'd recommend against it though. Work on stretching and getting your back fixed if you need to. It's been months since my back injury and I really thought it would get better on its own. Back pain gets in the way with everything. If you're lucky enough its just an energy / chakra block instead of twisted nerves if anyone wants to tell me what that would be.

You can fight through the pain though and just stay rooted. I've done this while sitting uncomfortably crosslegged and then when I went to stand up I fell over several times, it was pretty funny but yeah. Just do what works for you.

I don't like meditating laying down either unless i've already come out of a deep trance, since I find them less likely to occur again soon after. So I utilize that coming out of trance state, lay down, get relaxed and then I start doing energy stuff, 3rd eye stuff, because these days even if I focus on a chakra i'm in a deep trance in minutes if not seconds some days. I can relate.

Find a chair that works for you. I'm finding sitting cross-legged on my couch with my back resting on the backrest to be pretty comfortable.

But then there are always other issues when you choose to sit. My head keeps falling over as I detach from my body. I have to keep throwing it up, its distracting. I don't really think there is a way around it other then trying to keep yourself in a low level trance. So in a way I sabotage my meditations to keep me grounded. I'll over-think.. Also i've found if I start doing some excercises where I circulate energy in the body and amplify it.. and stay away from the chakras.. I find it has this effect of making me not go into a deep trance.

I find that deep trance that just seems like you were sleeping for 45 minutes really helpful or clearing everything out. After this you'll probably want to move around but if you can keep still, switch up your posture if you have to, this is a good state to work on chakra stuff, you'll have the focus and grounding to focus on your 3rd eye and let energy expand out of it without going into a deep trance, and you may even start seeing stuff when you open your eyes. Its pretty new to me that state. But I wouldn't be able to achieve it if I was falling into a deep trance all the time.

You can try conscious breathing or something. I usually let the breathing go natural but maybe if you take some deep breathes and try and keep the rhythm you may be able to stay "awake".

I feel just as unsure as you at this point. But anyways, I find those little things work for me.

Peace.

I wanted to also mention how unfulfilling meditation was feeling for me for a long time because I would balance out but I wouldn't get any answers. I suppose there is no substitute for thinking, or rather allowing the info to come intuitively from the subconscious. In meditation the way I learned was to remove the thoughts or at least keep them focused and singular. I find engaging a question keeps you relatively conscious in meditation, you'll start to trance though but your mind will remain and start getting intuitive answers. It really helps sort things out.

It depends what you're after. Like another poster said, you can meditate all day, just stay in your heart. I think that's why I haven't been meditating at all anymore really. I feel very centered in my heart, without any worries or problems. I guess you need to ask yourself why you were doing it in the first place and I think I got what I wanted, for now.

But yeah, identifying what it is you want to get out of meditation can really help get the most out of it. For the longest time I knew I just wanted to contemplate and get some answers from some things on my mind but I would just go about it the wrong way.. then I said hell with it, i'll sit here, eyes closed and think, we'll see what happens. And I'm glad I did, cuz I got what I was looking for.

peace.

Try different chairs!

reply to post by CavemanDD

At what point do you go into trance?

reply to post by pepsi78


Trance is gradual. An altered state of consciousness.

You can look at it like the brain going from beta waves to theta and even delta waves..

so however long it takes, think of it going like

30hz..(eyes closed, relaxed)..a few seconds... 20 hz.... 18...19.. eventually down to like 7.. or 4.. or something.

Depends how grounded you are. That is to say if you feel really restful to the point where you couldn't care less to entertain distractions of the mind and body, then it can happen even faster. I find the more I meditate consistently also decreases the time, as well it accumulates over the years as your mind is more trained. I find also if I haven't meditated in a week or something, then the first time getting back into it can be a little rough and difficult. It takes me a couple more meditations after that to fall back into it.

When you first start meditating, you may be focusing on a single concept in your mind or your breath or something like that, whatever the case, to focus your mind. You may notice after like 15 minutes your body goes a little numb but not in the sense like its *asleep / lack of blood flow*.. you just start losing awareness of it, it may feel like its tingling. About half an hour later you may feel like amazed how clear your mind has become, it really is quite unreal the first time, to be conscious but not thinking. At this point you may be in a light to medium trance... you feel withdrawn from your body and you are just a clear mind.. as you relax more and more, empty your mind more and more.. it can be an act or just a feeling.. I just feel the trance overtake me... and then it will go deeper and deeper until you get to the point where you have just a blip of consciousness... there is no mind, no body, you know you aren't asleep and you know you are alive.. but its a very low pulse. Something at this point after X amount of time usually grabs my attention.. that is to say the conscious mind comes alive again because you think of something, you are curious about a passing visual maybe.. and then bam, you're right back to the alpha level.. very light trance. At that point you may feel like your brain is firing, like its lit up all over and everything is working better, everything is clear and easy, you feel balanced, even if you are just a novice, for a short amount of time, there is nothing that you feel you need, but it will return.

At this point I usually want to move around, often I'll try to keep meditating and work with the light trance to do the real work. I look at the deep trance like a clearing away. When you snap out of a deep trance you forget everything, its like you were asleep, but you were not, though sleeping isn't far off. Just typically with sleep you lose consciousness, and that is to say if you dream you probably aren't aware. I mention it's similar though, because with practice your deep trance can do things like.. I feel like this electricity is withdrawn from the nerves of the back of my eyes and all of a sudden there is this great expanse in the middle of my head and I suddenly feel like I'm somewhere else, not in my body, and i'll see a whole 3D room, like a dream only I can never explore it, and I often get confused thinking I had opened my eyes but then I do open my eyes and see i'm somewhere else. So its similar to sleep. So going into a deep trance is similar to falling asleep but consciously aware. Sorta. That sort of describes it to me.

Like I said, these days if I simply focus on a major energy center in my body, I start getting random thoughts and visuals and thats how I know the trance is getting deep. It doesn't take long for me as long as I can get relaxed. It's actually a bit problem really. But yeah, some times it takes me only 5 minutes, less even. You just close you eyes, focus on something, you feel the shift and you hear the room pop and crack and you know its begun.

I'd also suggest that you look into energy points, and chakras immediately and save yourself the headaches and other blockages. Also don't let diagrams confuse you, you can feel where the energy points are. They are very sensitive internal areas.

www.kheper.net...

here's a decent site. I was confused about this stuff for years until I stopped believing what I read and just FELT the area. When you start meditating you'll really feel where something subtely feels "stuck". Learning about chakras helps as you work on the qualities coresponding to them to remove the blockages. You may literally feel it moving up your spine and a little trickling shock sometimes.

I don't know where you guys are with meditation. I'm just throwing this out there for newbies and saving you some trouble. The learning never stops but I'd hate to say it but there is some conflicting info out there. Take in the varying opinions and then just work out what feels right to you. Find the sensitive points and expand that feeling. Hold onto that feeling and breathe in an out of it. Imagine it doing stuff, but hold onto the feeling. Your focus directs your will. So if you feel a spot in the back of your knee that is sensitive and you feel like imaging it moving around, hold on to that feeling then move that feeling around and see what it does. Feel it expand and contract and see what happens next.

Peace.

One point which is really important for meditation to work is not to do it with the intention of "getting enlightened" , once you start worrying about that, then you stop meditating and start thinking, which kind of defeats the object.
Also, just wanted to say a good technique which works for me it literally following my breathing - not trying to control it or obsessing, just feeling the breath as it enters your nostrils, and fills your lungs, then the same with the exhale.

reply to post by CavemanDD

Easyer said then done, I can sit for 30 mins to focus on my breath, except deep relaxing state I don't go anywhere. I get to a stage where my breath will become easy and I can inhale and exhale very very easy, from there I don;t go anywhere, for haps to sleep.

reply to post by pepsi78


I'll give you a timeline if it makes you feel more confident.

I mind used to a mess, I used to be completely imcompetent, insecure and over-analyzing. All these things caused me problems.

The disciplining of the mind also takes a learning process. Picture your mind as a pattern, a puzzle or something. As you get over certain issues and understand things more its like it wants to take a more natural and efficient route. The closer you get over time to complete peace and balance.. the easier it is to center oneself and fall into deeper states of consciousness. It could be little things you aren't consciously aware of.. little fears, desires, insecurities, curiosities even, any thing that pulls you from your center. There is so much to learn, always another level. We think we hit a wall of learning and yet we learn more. We think we are perfect or that we couldn't get any better, but yet we learn and change more and more.

It's more then the meditation, its the whole self-discovery.

Anyways, a timeline. I'm just saying this is how it's gone for me.

I started off small.. just clearing my head 10 minutes every morning at work with my eyes closed. Months later I attempted a longer meditation and I finaly succeeded. Felt like there was a hole being drilled into the top of my head, very painful but rewarding opening of the crown chakra, just from achieving deeper states and feeling the beginning connection with some unified consciousness. That took me about an hour and I didn't achieve a deep trance.

Over the next year or two I would meditate, and it would take me about 2 hours to reach a deep trance. When I came out of it my head was always swimming.

Again I kept going, kept learning about myself and through that I became more centered. With the continued efforts I got to where I am today, almost not even 5 years later, and the first year I meditated like twice so I'd say it doesn't even count. But right now I can go in and out at will, it takes me only a minute really.

So from 2 hours to.. we'll say 15 minutes for a deep trance, but some days its almost automatic. All over the course of less than 5 years.

Just keep at it, have faith in yourself. It's amazing what we are capable of. Remember that the next time you do something you feel is terrible, challenging etc etc.. and you realize you manage to live through it, and that you could have handled more. Eventually you get to the point where its like yeah whatever I can handle it, it's not even negative and you pass every test that presents itself.

The more you think you see the end, the more you realize you just keep raising the bar. Just keep at it man.