meditation

Your current aim as you begin chakra meditations is to learn how to slow the physical vibration or frequency deep within your body. Many people do not realise that their chakra centres are far too exposed, and they are accepting or collecting vibrational patterns in conflict, these vibrations are both high and low. So often times these patterns are disorganised and untidy, and so frequently the seven layers of the physical emotional intellectual astral etheric celestial and the ketheric are abnormally increased, especially in intensity for their physical parallel. Therefore, the outcome is that they lure slow frequency forces, energy if you will that remain within their personal sphere. If you hurl yourself headlong into meditation, you will speed the whole process up. Directly rendering special stress on your organs that are too slow to cope. This then places too much stress on the chakras already in a place of conflict, which then raises the internal discord of your body. By slowing your physical vibration to a slow-paced more natural frequency than you typically use, you ease the tension and pressure that you put on your muscles.

Anxiety stops being manufactured by your biochemical processes, so you relieve the burden of any stress or mental suffering. You can now get rid of the dark sultry energy forces right away that hang on in the various chakra centres of your body. Therefore, staying within your auric field as a whole, and removing the subliminal fragments of the act of thought interference from your auric space.

Slowing your frequency or vibration?

When you start to slow your vibration, you need to sit with your back in alignment, so that your weight is balanced centrally. In order for your chakra centres to be well aligned you, need to settle any issues of bad posture.

Focusing on your breathing

Focus on you're breathing; starting with inhaling and exhaling in a balanced rhythm. It doesn't matter if you inhale for a beat of three and exhale for a beat of three, or you inhale for beat of five and exhale for a beat of five. It all depends on your own lung capacity, and what makes you pleasurably comfortable when you to breathe in a balanced rhythm. One of the most important factors now is to achieve an awareness and appreciation of a balanced breathing rhythm. Use your visualisation technique to take your awareness, all the way down to your base chakra, slowing your vibration down even further.

Now transfer yourself into the main part of this meditation exercise your vibration will intuitively arise again. Only now, your chakra centres are resonating in harmony, instead of being in discord.

In place of one individual chakra taking up all the slack for the idle one's you now have a team effort.

Breathing rhythmically should become natural to you, to slow your vibration at the beginning of all the principle meditations.

Drawing down the white Light

The stronger your visualisation the greater the significance when you bring down white light. Now start by visualising white light that courses freely like a liquid down through each of the seven main chakra centres mentioned below: The Chakra's are the centre of spiritual power in body, they are the vibrational centres of our bodies.

The Crown Chakra: This is the ketheric layer
The Brow Chakra: The "Third Eye" is the celestial layer.
The Throat Chakra: This is the etheric layer.
The Heart Chakra: This is the astral layer.
The Solar Plexus Chakra: This is the mental or intellectual layer.
The Spleen Chakra: This is the emotional layer.
The Root Chakra: This is the physical layer

Now that you've found a cosy position and now that you've found you're natural balanced breathing rhythm, and you're slowing down your vibration. You can now visualise the white light flowing down like a mountain waterfall through your crown chakra. Your crown chakra is the highest vibrational point within your body. White light should always be brought into your body through your crown chakra.

Visualise pure white light coursing freely like a liquid down through each of the seven main spiritual chakra centres:

Visualise the white light

Visualise the white light coursing like a liquid through the crown chakra. Visualise white light coursing like a liquid through the third eye. Visualise white light coursing like a liquid through the throat chakra. Visualise white light coursing like a liquid through the heart chakra. Visualise white light coursing like a liquid through the solar plexus chakra. Visualise white light coursing like a liquid through the spleen chakra the sexual centre. Visualise white light coursing like a liquid through the root chakra. Visualise your spiritual chakra centres as being a hollow infrastructure, then as each one fills up with liquid white light. The liquid white light coursing into that chakra and as it does use your awakening perception to inhale breath into that chakra. As you perform this visualisation the chakra centre will become warm and in due time hot.

Now that it is hot you will now know that the chakra centre is completely full with white light, and it's time to move on to the following chakra centre.

Most people haven't done this before, so take time to practise this feel and become intuitively aware of the vibration. The white light has a smooth languid sensation as it courses freely through each chakra centre. By now all your chakra centres are full and they should all be coupled into each other, with an influx of white light.

Anchoring yourself into the earth

The roots of a large tree spread deep underground, anchoring the tree into the earth, use your creative visualisation to imagine roots, going down from your body plunging into the depths of the planet and spreading out, just like the roots of that tree. Envision the prominent bulky roots extending downwards below the surface, broadening from the base of your spine. These roots are the essence that will, enable you to draw into your body the positive frequency of the mother earth. You are now beginning to feel the awareness of a reaction from the planet deep below the surface coursing into your space. As this occurs, you visualise the bulky roots that are beginning to entwine with the waters inside the planet's core, these waters represent the unconditional love, healing the rarefied energy of the Earth.

As your roots entwine with the Earth energy use your senses to experience the awareness of unconditional love. Drawing the Earth energy into your roots, visualising the rainbow of colours spreading upwards flowing languidly into your physical body. The colours black and white are what is needed if you consider that both black and white are a continuous distribution of coloured light.

Every colour vibrates at its own aural and visual frequency, whichever colour rises into your physical counterpart, is the healing colour that you need at this time.

Progression in your meditations

As you become more adept at your meditations colours will change as your vibration changes. Working with meditation exercises that entwine us with the Mother Earth gives us strength, entwining with Mother Earth promotes our healing energies that are beneficial for you. This exercise of embedding yourself creates an anchor to Mother Earth before you begin any meditation work.

Anchoring yourself and learning to access white light at the same time

Envision a budding rose still waiting for the impetus of food from Mother Earth. The rose waits patiently for the sun to help it germinate. When you bring down white light through your crown chakra, you entwine with the higher principle that also resonates with the sun. So in essence you become the most central and material part, you become that rose.

Bringing white light down through your crown chakra through the top of your head and you anchor yourself at the same time as you entwine with the essence of the Father's energy of Heaven that is represented by the white light, and the essence of the Energy of Mother Earth.

When you do this you merge the essence of Mother and Father, integrating these energies you are neither male nor female, neither father nor mother. You now consist of two integrated parts of the aspects that are best for you at this particular time.

The meditation used here is to obtain a positive focus to transmute and free any unwanted slow frequency energy forces. That collect within your inner and outer auric space, the auric space which most people call the aura, encompasses the body in the shape of an oval. The oval that surrounds your body should be even in shape, and it should spread out to about one metre equidistantly. The outer auric space that is the buffer zone, lies beyond that. This zone usually prevents negative energies and energy interference entering your auric space, unless you are in good health.

This zone spreads out to about five metres around your aura and the zone make up the entirety of you auric space. The average persons auric space would be six metres in all directions. However, there are a lot of people out there with an auric zone of less than thirty centimetres. If they are ill there may be no protective zone at all!

There may be distortion so when astral entities contact or touch the outer sheath of your auric wall, entities move in with relative ease. It is then that entities are capable of causing harm. The colour black as used here in this meditation is the sum total contains all the colours of the wavelength and stands for balance, wholeness and power.

It's unfortunate that the general feeling about the colour black is negative, people think black is cheap it appeals to the mass taste and is regarded as being of lower in quality. People have been taught that black implies disgrace, it's wicked and sinister and is something that causes great agitation and anxiety, by the expectation or the realisation of danger. The fears about blackness have been exaggerated by minds that should know better.

The fact is that black as a colour is warm and is restorative in nature, its vibration is also slow compared to that of white light.

So if you use black constructively, the structure of any atoms can be rearranged. Therefore, by using black in a constructive way, you can actually rearrange any atoms that might be carrying a negative charge.

How To Do A Spectroscopic Healing Meditation

Align all of your chakras by sitting with your back straight. Slow down your vibration by taking a few deep breaths, then bring white light down through your crown chakra, let it flow like a mountain waterfall into your heart chakra, then anchor yourself into the Earth.

This meditation carries the white light into your heart chakra at this point, at this point white light enters your heart chakra a major signal, is released which will circulate around the body. This creates a stabilising energy from the heart centre, if there are any problems in any of the lower chakra centres, the energy from the heart centre the full vibrational sequence of your body can be raised.

Drawing the black restorative energy up from the feminine essence of the mother Earth and into your roots, the roots of a large tree spreading deep underground, anchoring the tree into the earth, use your creative visualisation to imagine the roots, going down from your body plunging into the depths of the planet and spreading out, just like the roots of that tree. Envision the prominent bulky roots extending downwards below the surface, broadening from the base of your spine.

Even if the energy does not flow freely upwards, use your in-breath technique to carry the black vibration up through the prominent bulky roots that you have visualised, through your feet. Your awareness of the harmony and the restorative powers of which black represents are now coursing into your body. Visualise your the black energy flowing into the lower part of your body, visualise the restorative powers flow into all the major organs.

As the black restorative powers flow though you body, symbolise the nature of any irregularities of any aches and pains, problems of a physical or an emotional nature as a piece of ice, all the warm black energy to wash over it like the rise and fall of a tidal current across a sandy beach. Visualise the restorative black energy high up in your body.

Now move back to the white light coming through your crown chakra and increase the white light by indicating to your higher self that you are ready now to receive more energy.

Identifying that you have a profusion of white Light energy materialising, and swelling above your head. As the white Light increases, feel it coursing through the crown chakra and down through your body like sea waves coming into an estuary. This washes all the black energy out of your body and out of your auric space.

This entire exercise sequence of bringing black energy up, filling your body, absorbing any irregularities, and washing it out with white Light should be done three times to be safe. You may feel an accumulation of intense warmth in your heart centre, as the white light increases. You might feel the intense warmth in your hands as they rest over, or close to your heart chakra. You may also feel a sensation of gentle warmth gradually develop through your body, beginning at the base chakra centre and moving up into heart chakra and your body might become intensely warm.

Meditation comes in many shapes and sizes. Here are a few of the most popular meditation techniques. One is sure to be right for you.

Zazen

Zazen is the sitting meditation of Zen Buddhism, but many so-called “Zennists” who don't practice Buddhism practice zazen. Zazen can be accurately defined as “just sitting” and is exactly that — just sitting. It doesn't require any religious or philosophical affiliation. All it requires is the ability to apply the seat of the pants to the floor and stay there for a while. Sounds easy, you say? Hardly. For those of us accustomed to accomplishing something at every moment of the day, just sitting is quite a challenge.

But just sitting accomplishes something amazing if it is practiced every single day for an extended period of time. The mind becomes calmer. The muscles stay more relaxed. Stress fails to get the rise out of your body and your mind that it once did. Suddenly, you hold the reins, not your stress. Suddenly, priorities seem clearer, truths about life, people, and yourself seem more obvious, and things that used to stress you out seem hardly worth consideration anymore.

Just sitting doesn't remove you from the world, however. Choosing not to worry, dwell, and obsess about things means you can concentrate on the real business of living. Just sitting teaches you how to be, right now, in the moment. As your mind opens up, the world opens up, too. All those anxieties suddenly seem like ropes that were tying you down. Just sitting can dissolve the ropes and set you free to really be who you are and live the life you want.

That may sound like pretty powerful stuff, especially as a result of just sitting there. Can just sitting really do all that? Believe it or not, it really can, and you'll only begin to perceive its power if you try it and stick with it. The power of zazen isn't really so mysterious. Just as exercise trains the body and just as regular, targeted exercise can train the body to do truly amazing things (think about gymnasts, acrobats, Michael Jordan … ), zazen trains and exercises the mind.

All those worries and anxieties, the panic, the nervousness, the restlessness, the inner noise are holding you back from your true potential the same way being out of shape and undisciplined holds you back from athletic potential. Just sitting is the way to train your mind to let that stuff go.

From the Buddhist perspective, zazen is thought to be the path to enlightenment because thousands of years ago the Buddha attained enlightenment while “just sitting” under a bodhi tree in India. He sat and sat and sat and continued to sit, and legend has it that he proclaimed (I'm paraphrasing), “I'm going to sit here until I perceive ultimate truth, and that's final.” Supposedly, it took about one night. Then, he understood the meaning of all existence. This was, of course, after six years of intensive searching for truth.

Enlightenment may or may not be your goal. But whatever the case, learning to sit, cultivate stillness and inner silence, and become fully and totally aware of the present moment makes for powerful stress management.

How to Practice Zazen

You can learn zazen at a zendo, a place where Zennists or Zen Buddhists gather to meditate together. The rules for meditation will depend on the individual zendo and whether or not the zendo is based in Soto or Rinzai Zen (differences include things like whether you will sit facing the center of the room or the wall).

Or, you can learn zazen on your own. While, ideally, you should be able to practice zazen under any circumstances, you can help yourself along, especially in the initial stages, by practicing zazen in a quiet place where you're not likely to be distracted. Set aside about five minutes your first time out, then gradually work up to fifteen to thirty minutes once or twice each day. Increase your meditation session by about two minutes each week.

To begin zazen, sit cross-legged or on folded legs (sitting on your feet), with a firm pillow under your hips so that you aren't sitting directly on your legs. Make sure you are wearing enough clothes to stay warm, or wrap yourself in a blanket. Sit up straight, feeling a lift from the crown of the head toward the ceiling and an open feeling in your spine. (In other words, don't scrunch over.) Keep your shoulders back, your chest open, and place your tongue on the roof of your mouth. Look down, but don't hang your head. Your focus points should be slightly downward and your eyes relaxed. Now, unfocus your eyes just a little so that you don't really see what's in front of you. This will help you to focus inwardly.

Rest your hands in your lap in either of these two positions: Rest your left hand, palm up, in the open palm of your right hand. Bring your thumbs together so the tips touch just slightly; or make your left hand into a loose fist and rest it inside the open palm of your right hand. Rest your hands against your body about two inches below your navel.

Keep your mouth closed and breathe through your nose. At first, practice concentrating by counting each breath. In your mind, count from one to ten, with each full breath (inhalation and exhalation) constituting one number. Or, simply follow your breath, keeping your awareness focused on the sound and feel of your breath moving in and out of your body. Don't try to control your breath. Just notice it.

Soon, you'll probably notice that you aren't paying attention to your breath, or even counting. Your mind has wandered! Notice it, then bring your attention back to your breath. Keep going for five minutes. Once you get really accomplished at focusing, you won't even have to count. You'll just sit, breathe, and be.

And that's it. Sound too simple to be true? Zazen is simple, but it isn't easy, for several reasons. Let's be frank:

It's boring, especially at first.

It's really hard to sit still.

It's difficult to “just sit” when you know how much you have to do.

It's hard to justify the time when you don't see immediate results. (We are so impatient!)

Your mind will try to talk you out of it. Discipline is hard and your mind will resist the effort.

At first, you'll think you are hopeless and could never do it.

It's frustrating when you can't concentrate on anything.

It's frightening to confront some of the emotions that arise unexpectedly.

Dropout rate is high. Most people don't keep it up long enough to see the benefits.

But what happens if you don't drop out? What happens if you sit through the boredom, sit despite the other things you think you should be doing, sit out the frustration and the fear, sit until you've learned how to really sit still, physically and mentally? The answer is simple: Clarity, peace, acceptance, satisfaction, and, yes, a whole lot less stress.

Walking Meditation

In Zen, walking meditation (kinhin) is the counterpart to sitting meditation (zazen), but walking meditation doesn't necessarily have anything to do with Zen. It is what it sounds like: meditation on the move. Walking meditation is different from sitting meditation because you have to be thinking about what you're doing so that you don't wander into traffic or bump into a tree. On the other hand, it isn't really so different, because in sitting meditation, you become acutely aware of your surroundings. They just aren't changing the way they change when you walk.

Walking meditation is excellent as an alternative to sitting meditation. Some people like to sit for most of their meditation session but then spend the last few minutes in walking meditation, and for some, who practice sitting meditation for longer periods of time, walking meditation gets the body moving periodically without breaking the meditative flow.

But for most people reading this book, walking meditation is a great way to enjoy walking and reap the benefits of meditation at the same time. It's also great for people who simply refuse to sit still. Walking meditation can be a good way to ease into the meditation concept without the commitment of sitting (and sitting for even five minutes is a fairly serious commitment for some people). It's an enjoyable form of meditation that can serve as the basis for a meditation practice, or as an occasional alternative to any other form of meditation.

How to Practice Walking Meditation

To practice walking meditation, first decide where you will walk. You can do walking meditation outside or around the room. You should have a prepared path in mind so that you don't spend time thinking about where to go during the meditation. Know exactly where you are going: around the block, to the end of the path, around the periphery of the living room.

Begin by spending a moment focusing and breathing, to center yourself and prepare for the meditation. Then, taking slow, deliberate steps, walk. As you walk, notice how your breath feels as it comes in and out of your body. Notice how your limbs move, how your feet feel, how your hands and arms hang, the position of your torso, your neck, your head. Don't judge yourself as you walk. Just notice.

Once you feel you've observed yourself well, begin to observe the environment around you as you walk. Don't let it engage you. If something you see sets you off on some long, involved path of thought that has nothing to do with how you feel walking through the place you are walking, then as soon as you catch your mind so wandering (and it will so wander), gently bring your thoughts back to your breathing.

While new to walking meditation, stay with your breath for a good long while. Before you can start noticing and focusing on the rest of your body and your environment, you need to be able to focus on the breath. Otherwise, your mind will be all over the place.

Start with five minutes and add two minutes every week until you're up to fifteen to thirty minutes of daily walking meditation. Or, alternate walking meditation with another form of meditation every other day. Or, once you are up to fifteen to thirty minutes of daily meditation, spend the first or last five to ten minutes of each session in walking meditation.

Yoga Meditation

Yoga, practiced in India for thousands of years, even before Hinduism arose, may be the oldest of all meditation traditions. While hatha yoga, the yoga most known to people in the West, focuses on postures and exercises, these are designed to get that troublesomely twitchy and unfocused body under control, so that meditation can be more easily practiced.

While yoga has many different sects that believe slightly different things and orient their meditation and other techniques toward slightly different directions, many forms of yoga have certain things in common:

They believe that throughout the body, channels of energy run up and down. Along these energy channels are chakras (wheels of light), or spinning energy centers (see “Chakra Meditation,” a little later in this chapter). Chakras are focal points for energy in the body and represent different organs in the body, different colors, and different aspects of the personality and life force.

They believe that deep at the base of the spine is the seat of kundalini energy, sometimes called “serpent energy” or “serpent power” and likened to a coiled serpent waiting at the base of the spine to be awakened. Kundalini energy is thought to be a powerful force that, through the proper practice of postures, breathing, and meditation, can be activated or awakened. As kundalini energy awakes, it rises through the body, activating each of the chakras in turn until it reaches the seventh chakra at the crown of the head, resulting in an intense physical experience that actually, it is said, physically restructures the body.

Most of the yoga practiced today is profoundly influenced by a text called the Yoga Sutras, which describes and explains yoga via a long list of aphorisms that were written thousands of years ago by a man named Patanjali. Many of these aphorisms can be seen as ancient and interesting approaches to stress management, which, in a sense, they were, for isn't stress what keeps us from enlightenment, and isn't seeking enlightenment about ridding ourselves of obstacles like stress so that we can perceive the truth and finally be wholly happy?

In the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali described the Eightfold Path to enlightenment. The steps aren't necessarily to be followed in order; in a sense, though, they are progressive. (Note the placement of meditation.)

Yamas, or lifestyle guidance. If you want to make your path to enlightenment (and your path away from stress) easier, these are the things you should not do. You should not lie, steal, be greedy, commit violence, or let yourself get carried away by lust or disrespect of other humans. Pretty good advice!
Niyamas, or more lifestyle guidance. These take the form of healthy places to focus your attention and energy, including purity (keeping both mind and body clean), contentment, discipline, studying oneself, and being devoted to something. Also good advice.
Asanas, or yoga postures. These are designed to help you gain mastery over the body.
Pranayama, or breathing exercises. These are specifically designed to infuse the body with life-force energy (called prana in yoga).
Pratyahara, or learning to become detached. Now, we're getting into familiar meditation territory. This step is about learning to step back from the world and your own thoughts, feelings, emotions, and sense impressions, to view them with an unengaged, unbiased eye.
Dharana, or learning concentration. This is also familiar meditation territory. It involves concentrating on something — a sound, an object, a thought — until the boundaries between you and the object dissolve and you are one.
Dhyana, or meditation. In this step, all the previous steps come in to help out. The lifestyle guidance sets the stage, the asanas and pranayama prime the body, and the detachment and concentration discipline the mind. The goal of yoga meditation is to recognize your ultimate oneness with the universe, which can result in a state of pure, joyful bliss called samadhi.
Nirvana, or ultimate bliss. This is the final step and the final goal of the Eightfold Path. It is what happens when we finally recognize truth and our oneness with the universe. It is enlightenment. (And it's a pretty stress-free way to live!)

Maybe the yoga path interests you, and if so, you should certainly go out and learn everything you can about it. If not, don't be put off by all these steps. This is just for your information. You can still practice yoga meditation without committing yourself to an all-out yoga lifestyle.

How to Practice Yoga Meditation

To practice yoga meditation, first choose a quiet, comfortable, warm place where you are unlikely to experience distractions. If possible, turn off any sources of noise and anything that emits electricity (TV, stereo, computer — but leave the refrigerator plugged in so as not to spoil the food!). Take off any jewelry, especially anything metal. Electrical currents, metal, and anything encircling a body part can disrupt the flow of energy.

Wear something comfortable. Take off your shoes but keep your socks on if you think your feet will get cold. Wrap yourself in a blanket to keep warm if necessary.

Sit cross-legged, or in the half lotus position, with one foot placed, sole facing up, on the opposite thigh. Or, if you are very flexible in the hips or experienced with yoga asanas, sit in the full lotus position, with legs crossed and each foot placed, sole facing up, on the opposite thigh. To create additional stability, sit on a small, firm pillow so that your knees point toward the ground, forming a tripod.

Next, put your right hand, palm up, on your right knee and your left hand, palm up, on your left knee. You can leave your fingers open or make a circle with each index finger and thumb or middle finger and thumb. Making these circles with your fingers is meant to keep energy concentrated in the body rather than allowing it to escape from the fingertips during meditation.

Rock back and forth and side to side on your sitting bones to find a nice, stable, center position. Imagine the crown of your head being lifted up as the tip of your tailbone sinks down, lengthening the spine and straightening the posture.

Next, simply begin to notice your breath as it flows in and out. Inhale and exhale through your nose, or inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth. Once you feel relaxed, think or say a syllable, word, or phrase, called a mantra. The traditional mantra of yoga meditation is the sound/word “Om.” Say it slowly on the exhale of the breath. Let the “M” resonate through your body.

“Om” is meant to imitate the sound of the universe, from which everything originated and of which everything is a part. Some people think of it as the sound of God. By saying/making this sound, you can feel a connection with the universe, and that is the philosophical basis of yoga (and Hinduism) — we are all one with the universe; all matter, all energy, everything is connected; everything ultimately merges together; beneath the surface of reality, which we experience with our senses, all is really just one. Some people who practice meditation like to use the mantra “One” instead of the mantra “Om” because it more directly evokes, to them, this idea.

Repeat your chosen sound with each exhalation for five minutes on your first time out, then increase the time in meditation as instructed. Yoga meditation feels good. It feels spiritual. It can be a counterpart to any religion or practiced by itself. It can be an energizing spiritual reinforcement, which is important for getting stress under control. If you are feeding your spiritual side, you tend to be less stressed out by the less important things in life.

Shavasana

Shavasana, or the corpse pose, is actually a yoga asana, or exercise — one of those postures designed to help keep the body under control so that it doesn't interfere with the pursuit of meditation. And shavasana does just that — it helps to rein in the body and get it working the way it is meant to work. For that very reason, shavasana is an excellent stress management technique.

Many yoga teachers consider shavasana to be the most important of all yoga asanas. It is both easy and challenging because all you do is lie on your back and relax, but … you actually have to lie on your back and relax!

How to Practice Shavasana

To practice shavasana, find a comfortable spot on the floor. A bed usually isn't supportive enough, but you can lie on a mat. Lie on your back with your legs about two feet apart and flat on the floor, your arms flat and away from your body, your palms facing up. Let your feet fall to the side.

Now, begin to relax as you breathe in and out through your nose. As you breathe, concentrate on fully relaxing your body: bones, joints, muscles, everything. Let it all sink comfortably down toward the floor. Don't worry about how you look or what you should be doing. Just let it all go. Relax deeply. Stay in this position for five minutes to start, and work up to fifteen or twenty minutes.

This pose is great after a yoga routine or any other kind of workout. It's also an energizing way to start the day and a relaxing way to end the day. Doing shavasana is like pushing the RESET button on your personal computer. It lets your body reset itself, realign itself, re-energize itself, and reverse that insidious stress response.