All journeys must start from where you are. Meditation is a journey into the very heart of ourselves so let’s first of all find out where we are presently.

Get yourself comfortable, sit still, do nothing, only move if you have to and let’s observe what we have to start with.

Typically, what is found are thoughts coming and going, fluctuating emotions or a particular mood, feelings and sensory perceptions such as sights and sounds. We must also include consciousness or the awareness that enables us to experience all of the above and our sense of self that appears to be the one having all the experiences. This would basically sum up the bare minimum of what most people have when they start meditation.

Meditation is unique in that it is not about doing anything, so if possible we do not want to add anything more to what we are already doing.

Doing does not only include any physical activity but also all mental activity. Doing also includes actively trying to stop anything you are doing.

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Posture

Sit or lie in as comfortable a position as you can.

If sitting on a chair put your feet flat on the floor - do not cross legs.

If sitting on the floor - cross legs.

Keep back, neck and head in a straight line.

Sit as symmetrically as you can

Place hands open, in your lap or on your legs and do not interlace fingers

Relax.

Meditation

All meditations should be done with full feeling. In other words engage your capacity to feel completely – don’t hold back. You can develop your capacity to feel over time, enabling you to feel better in both senses of the word. None of these meditations are designed to be done in a dry, mental, unfeeling and detached way. If you are asked to detach yourself from something it is usually only in order to feeling something greater. The main way you experience everything is through feeling – even thought is known by being felt. So even if you do not consider yourself a feeling type of person, you do, in fact, do nothing else but feel!

Meditation - Breathe in the good, breathe out the bad

A good exercise to use at the start of a meditation period. Do it with your body, thoughts, emotions and anything else you want to transform. It can also be done at anytime during the day to help restore your balance.

Meditation - Follow the breath

Allow your breathing to occur naturally; do not try to control it. Feel the chest rising and falling, feel the air as it enters and leaves the body and hear the sound of the body breathing. This meditation exercises and disciplines attention. As you notice your attention wandering bring it back to noticing the breath. Remain relaxed and indifferent to whatever else is going on so that when you are distracted by thoughts or other things you can bring your attention back to your breathing.

See the following page for how this meditation naturally progresses.

Meditation - The Breath

Phase 1

Counting the breath

Either count up to a comfortable number as you breathe in and again as you breathe out or count each breath as it enters and then leaves the nostrils, for this count up to ten breaths and then start again. When your attention wanders or other thoughts intrude start to count the breaths again.

Phase 2

Following the breath

As concentration improves and the activity of the mind subsides the breath can be followed at the nostrils as it enters and leaves the body without the need to count.

Phase 3

Stopping thought

At some point thoughts will stop. This is not something to strive for and will happen of its own accord if attention is persistently kept on the breath.

Phase 4

Observing without thought

Once thought stops it is then possible to observe experiences as they arise within consciousness, such as feelings of the body, sensations and emotions, as they are without the mind intruding with naming, strategies, concepts, judgements, opinions and beliefs.

Phase 5

Returning to the source of thought

Awareness rests at the source of thought and attention is not distracted by thought. As thoughts arise attention rests in the place from whence thoughts come.

Phase 6

Peace and wholeness

Having become aware of the body without thought intruding and likewise aware of the mind without being distracted by thought there develops, quite naturally, a sense of completeness and wholeness rather than many fragments of experience. The sense of peace that comes with this, glimpses our true nature when the mind has relaxed and we have returned to a natural, joyous state of existence.

The mind

This refers to the mechanism that has thoughts and perceptions. It can be thought of as the same as the brain or larger than the brain, practically at this stage in meditation it makes no difference, later a distinction between brain and mind is useful.

Thoughts

Our main concern is with the day-to-day thoughts that we are aware of. These can take many forms such as an internal verbal dialogue or images.

Unwanted thoughts are a major cause of stress. Through meditation exercises we learn to discipline our mind to reduce these unwanted thoughts.

Attention

What is it? Attention is what links us to what we are aware of. For us to register an experience our attention must be directed towards that experience. This can be used to our advantage in pain control by putting attention on something other than where the pain is coming from.

Where does it originate? Attention is a function of consciousness.

How do we control it? We can control attention by an act of will. If your will power is weak meditation can help make it stronger enabling you to control your attention.

What to do when your attention wanders? Use your will to gently bring it back to where you want it, for example on the breath.

Being in control of your mind

During the course of growing up it is unlikely that we were ever taught to control our minds. We were taught to use it effectively but not how to switch it off once we had finished using it. As a result, our minds and thought tend to run out of control. Meditation aims to bring back the correct relationship that we should have to our mind. Thinking is a capability we have that is very useful in particular situations. At other times it can be intrusive, unwanted and unhelpful. So the mind and thinking should be like any other tool we use. If we need to use a hammer, we get it out, use it and put it away; we don’t hammer away unnecessarily all day. So it should be with the mind, we think when we need to and allow the mind to be peaceful the rest of the time. Unfortunately, our attention is too easily drawn to and distracted by thought and we can end up being the slave of our mind rather than its master. Meditation gives you the opportunity to be the master of your mind and thought and also gives you an appreciation of what else there is when thought subsides.

The thinking mind

One of the main purposes of meditation is to control the thinking mind. The thinking mind could be compared to a car. Now a car is very useful but we need to know how to drive it. Continuing the analogy, many people seem to have their foot hard on the accelerator all the time. Is it any wonder that the thinking mind is out of control? With meditation we can learn to take our foot of the accelerator, however, the car doesn’t immediately come to rest, it coasts for a while. Here we could liken the use of the mantra to having our foot on the brake.

After a while of having your foot off the gas the car eventually stops and you can step out and enjoy the fresh air and the view. So it is with the mind. We can stop giving so much of our attention to the thinking mind and in time we can get to know the world beyond the thinking mind.

Some of the signs that you are succeeding in this endeavour are a reduction in anxiety, a sense of peace within, an increase in awareness and greater energy towards the outside world. One attitude that is common among meditators is to view the thinking mind as “the enemy”. I have found this to be a serious mistake and prolongs the whole process of going beyond the mind. There are several sayings that emphasise what I’m talking about.

· What you fight stays before you. The reason for this is that in fighting something you give your attention and energy to it and what we want to do is have our attention and energy elsewhere.

· Focus on what you want not on what you don’t want. So if you want to “feel better” then focus on “feeling” better.

· Use it or lose it. We can use this to our advantage by not using our thinking mind so much so that gradually it loses its power over us.

It is useful at this point to remind you of an alternative to thinking that can be used instead of the laborious process of thinking. Unfortunately, as you may have guessed, it’s a faculty that is not generally well developed or even encouraged, it’s intuition or what you might call “instantaneous thought”. Intuition generally diminishes under the “use it or lose it” rule. So my suggestion - use it! You’ll find in meditation that flashes of intuition and inspiration will come upon you. They have a totally different feel to thinking and you’ll soon recognise their unique quality. Don’t discard them, trust them, use them and your intuitive faculty will regain its power.

Meditation - Be aware of sounds

Be aware of what you can presently hear. As the meditation progresses you may become aware of the more subtle sounds going on inside your body. Gradually relax the habit of naming and locating sounds. Finally become so absorbed in sound that you become one with it. If your attention wanders bring it back to what you presently hear. This helps develop the capacity to be in the here and now.

The mind processes two kinds of thoughts, perceptual and conceptual. Perceptual thoughts are those connected to our five senses (visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, olfactory and gustatory, VAKOG for short). What we see, hear, touch, smell and taste are connected to our present place and time, the here and now. These kinds of thought are more basic than conceptual thought. Conceptual thought involves a higher brain function and developed after our capacity for perceptual thought. It is not as connected to the here and now. Conceptual thought begins when we start to think about things and can be one of the major causes of stress and anxiety. Part of what meditation aims to do is bring thought out of the higher, stress-inducing mode of conceptual thinking and into the calmer, lower function of perceptual thinking. This is a move toward the eventual stage of no thinking and a peaceful mind.

Stress and, anxiety what are they?

We can feel stressed when we have to do more than we are comfortably capable of. When life seems to demand more of us than we can comfortably give, the feeling we get is called stress. Life is in a constant state of flux or change and we can comfortably manage a certain amount of this. When life changes more than we are comfortable with we feel stress. Hence, the top 5 stressful situations are death of a loved one, arrival of a newborn, divorce, moving house and marriage – all situations of great change. One way in which meditation helps is by making us more comfortable with and therefore, more able to deal with change.

Anxiety is concern or worry over some thing or event that is uncertain, which disturbs the mind, and keeps it in a state of painful uneasiness. Meditation helps by releasing us of concern, stilling the mind and allowing us to feel comfortable with uncertainty.

What to do

By meditating regularly you will become adept at controlling the runaway mind. You will be able to access peaceful states of mind and also develop a feeling-connection to what is unchanging. By being able to freely feel that aspect of yourself and life that is always unchanging you are better able to allow change to occur while at the same time feeling relaxed and at ease. Likewise, by developing an appreciation of the inherent mystery of life you will feel more at home with the inherent uncertainty of life.

Accessing and Sharing Your (Real) Feelings

To function as aware adults, particularly in relationships, we need to be able to be in touch with our real feelings. We also need to be able to share these in 'clean' or authentic ways with other people. This may take a little practice if we have been told for most of our life that it is not OK to do this. Feelings are a real and natural part of living. Not having feelings is only a short step away from not being alive. There are many healthy ways to feel our feelings and share them with others.

There are some things to avoid if you want to connect with your feelings in an authentic way and when it comes to sharing feelings with others. As with any other part of personal growth it helps to have a few guidelines for communicating about ‘feelings’. The trouble is that remembering ‘guidelines’ involves logical thought and thinking is the very thing that breaks the connection with real feelings. The following points may however be worth keeping in mind.

1. There are no ‘bad’ emotions but there are many inappropriate ways of expressing them. We often misinterpret feelings or report our feelings inaccurately. Any statement about a feeling that includes the words ‘you’ or ‘because’ suggests an inner self is probably doing the talking. A person in an aware adult state talks about his or her feelings more inwardly. It might just be ‘I feel joy’. Or they might describe the adult state of being (I am happy, I am angry). On the other hand, a statement ‘I feel you are lying’ is a thought, not a feeling. ‘I’m feeling sad because you are so angry’ is not a 'clean' way of communicating a feeling. An interpretation of another person’s feelings as in ‘I feel you don’t care’ is not describing the speaker’s own feelings which might be fear, pain or anger. It’s much the same with a prediction about what another person might do, ‘I feel afraid you are going to leave me.’ These are all indications that the inner selves are doing the talking not the aware adult. An ‘I’ statement free of ‘you’, ‘because’ or any other kind of explanation is the only clean or authentic way of sharing a feeling verbally. Fortunately there are lots of non-verbal ways and most of these are more accurate and honest anyway.

2. We are also inclined to attribute the cause of our emotions to others (He makes me feel ...) or as an outcome of things we are doing, assigning the reason for the feeling to our actions (‘When I am doing this I feel ...When you do that I feel .....’).

3. People who are uncomfortable about your feelings are usually people with poor boundaries. Don’t let their criticism or questions stop you having your feelings and experiencing the gifts that come from regularly acknowledging what you are feeling.

4. Asking someone for an explanation will block all but the most powerful emotions. An even better way to stop them experiencing an emotion is to tell them they shouldn’t feel that way and then ask for an explanation as to why they are doing so. (Did this happen to you as a child?)

‘Real’ feelings and ‘safe’ feelings

When people are asked how they are feeling, the most common answers ‘I feel good .. bad... OK.. all right .. rotten .. fine .. great.. down .. up ..’ are not describing real feelings. Rather, these terms suggest that the selves are playing it safe by avoiding sharing real feelings. The list of ‘real feelings’ below helps people separate real feelings from the ‘safe’ kind above. It also highlights the truth that experiencing and being aware of feelings, even negative ones, is a healthy process. Each authentic feeling brings deep and valuable gifts with it. Here are some examples of authentic feelings: - Lonely, alone, joy, well being, pain, sadness, anger, fear, love, shame, exhilaration, guilt, worthwhile, worthless, confused, devastated, insecure.

If you would like a more comprehensive list of feelings please ask to see my list of over 1000 feelings.

50 Defences to feeling

Defence strategies hide from us how we really feel. While they reduce our anxiety, they also distort our perception of reality. We lose touch with our own authenticity and that blocks our pathway to soul consciousness.

Resource lists are intuitive tools to help us get feedback from the subconscious about what is important for us. Scan the list below quickly, noting which blocks catch your attention. From the items you checked off, you could pick the top seven and explore these in a journal.

1. accusing

2. acting out - giving expression to forbidden desires without concern for negative consequences.

3. aggression

4. arguing

5. analysing - a belief that since we understand and can interpret defence strategies, we have cleared our repressed feelings and do not need to work through them.

6. arguing

7. assertion

8. avoidance

9. blaming

10. challenging

11. cockiness

12. compensation - hiding a weakness in one area by excelling or being rewarded in another.

13. compliance

14. complaining

15. compromise

16. confusion

17. control

18. criticism

19. deception

20. defiance

21. denial - refusing to acknowledge the thought or feeling.

22. devaluation

23. discounting

24. displacement - channelling thoughts or feelings to a neutral or weaker person or object.

25. dissociation

26. distrust

27. emotional insulation - withdrawing into inaction so one doesn't get hurt.

28. explaining

29. externalisation - pinpointing outside forces as the cause of one's behaviour so one doesn't have to accept personal responsibility for their actions.

30. fantasizing - not paying attention or using daydreams to escape an uncomfortable situation.

31. humour

32. identification - identifying oneself with a prestigious individual or institution to build one's sense of self-worth.

33. intellectualisation - coming up with highly intellectual reasons or convincing arguments to justify the situation and keep attention away from feelings.

34. introjection - adopting external values and standards as one's own to ensure those standards are not used against him/her.

35. isolation - separating feelings and thoughts that are connected

36. isolation of affect - "thinking" feelings rather than actually experiencing them

37. judging

38. justifying

39. laughing it off

40. lying

41. manipulation

42. minimizing - writing off problematic events and behaviours as being too minor to worry about.

43. passive aggression - indirect and unassertive expression of aggression towards another.

44. projection - perceiving that another has our thoughts or feelings so we don't have to own them.

45. rationalization - thinking up reasons to justify what's happening while ignoring one's feelings.

46. reaction formation - unconsciously thinking, feeling and acting in ways that are opposite to how we really think and feel.

47. regression - slipping back into old, often immature, ways of behaving to release the feelings.

48. repression - burying thoughts and feelings in our unconscious so we no longer have memory of them.

49. ridicule

50. seeking approval

51. self-deception

52. shouting

53. silence

54. smiling

55. sublimation - channelling socially unacceptable feelings into a socially productive activity.

56. suppression - some awareness of a thought or feeling, but we try to hide it.

57. threatening

58. undoing - doing the opposite of how one feels to try to negate the feelings.

59. violence

60. withdrawing

Living in the Present

The present can be seen as a fleeting moment between the past and future. If that’s how we view it then it’s likely we don’t have time for it. To improve the quality of our present we must devote some attention to it. If we’re not careful very little time is spent actually in the present moment, therefore, we experience very little that is actually presently the case. We end up wallowing in regret and nostalgia for the past, or anticipating, desiring, fearing and dreading the future.

The past can seem like some kind of force that’s propelling us into the future. The future can seem like some kind of destiny that awaits us. When we live more in the present those forces diminish. We can be what we are, freer of our past and future. When we live more in the present then the past and future are not so connected and this liberates us from the forces of predictability. Living in the present is an art, that when mastered, simplifies life and allows for more enjoyment of life. It’s the past and future, that when allowed, complicate and diminish the enjoyment of the present. When we’re present everything just is what it is. A child’s experience and view of life is less complicated than an adult’s because it has less past to dwell on and less anticipation and fear of the future. Unfortunately, we all too easily lose our childhood innocence and become blinded by the past/future view of life.

Here are some suggestions for developing the art of living in the present: -

1. By being more aware of what we presently feel and perceive and what’s presently going on, we can cultivate a greater emotional commitment to the present. This emotional commitment prevents us from being bored with the present and so we’re less likely to dwell on the past or future.

2. If we observe ourselves we’ll find that fear and desire take us away from the present moment. So when we notice ourselves being “taken away” by fear and desire, we can gently bring ourselves back to what is presently the case.

3. We can easily define ourselves by our past - our qualifications, our achievements, etc., but in doing so we limit ourselves. We can realise something far more profound about ourselves by allowing ourselves to remain undefined and limitless.

4. Both the past and future are best defined by our feelings about them. If we do this, it means that neither past nor future are fixed, because we can always change how we feel about them and how much we feel about them.

5. If we appreciate everything we have in our life we can be constantly satisfied in the present. However, if we only appreciate things when they’re new we end up with a “more, more, more,” mentality in an attempt to satisfy us.

During meditation you may have noticed that the breathing, when left to its own devices, settles into a relaxed pattern and can basically take care of itself. We can interfere with the breathing and make it faster or slower, but in general we’d find it more beneficial to let the breathing take care of itself. The same principle that’s evident in our breathing can be applied to our life in general - if we interfere less with our natural functions then they tend to work better. Most problems involve the past or future, the present has few problems - just our basic needs - so if we focus on the present many presumed problems will cease to be of concern to us.

Meditation - Feeling meditation

Be aware of what you are presently feeling, then feel into it, through it and beyond it, relaxing and releasing it into the feeling beyond. If you continued this process through to the end you would end up with the “greatest” feeling. This feeling is one of love, bliss, oneness; the feeling of pure being.

This exercise can be done at anytime. As you become more sensitive to the feeling dimension of your being you will notice how you come to feel the “lesser” feelings and also how to quickly release them into a greater feeling. For example, you notice you feel stressed then you feel through it, relaxing and releasing the stress into a comfortable and calm feeling and so on.

How to feel more

When we experience something unpleasant it is easy to flinch. Sometimes we forget to “unflinch” when the experience passes and so remain in this constricted position. Gradually, over time we carry more and more of these reactions in our system. It can often be seen in people’s posture and how they walk and move. Constrictions in our feeling capability show up physically, emotionally and mentally and can manifest as various illnesses.

This meditation and practice reverses this process by feeling into whatever feelings come up and then feeling into, through and beyond into the greater feeling from whence they came. Once you get the hang of this you can do it at any time by releasing any feeling into the greater feeling beyond it.

How to feel better

Effectively the lesser the feeling the more unpleasant it feels and so by feeling beyond what we are presently feelings we will end up feeling better. Even feelings that you perceive of as pleasant can be transformed into even more pleasant feelings.

Stress, worry, fear and anger – how to transform these and other feelings

The only thing you have to be prepared to do is feel these feelings. Generally, when we experience unpleasant feelings we do whatever we can to feel something else and so those feelings do not get transformed. By choosing to feel into these feelings and then through and beyond them we transform them and each time we feel similar feelings we can more easily do this.

All lesser feelings are a limit on feeling. At some point in meditation you will come across these limits in your ability to feel. For instance, it is common at some point to come across a feeling of fear, often for no apparent reason. Normally, when we feel fear we move away from it but then it will always be there, limiting our capacity to feel. If instead you have the courage to feel it fully you can go beyond it. On the other side of fear there is usually a blissful feeling of freedom that you may never have felt before – fear has kept you from it. This exercise opens up a whole realm of pleasant feelings that you may not have experienced in a long time, possibly never.

Taking meditation into everyday life.

The principles that are evident in meditation can be used in everyday life. Feeling through and beyond lesser feelings, being in the present, putting your attention on the breath or senses can all be done in any moment.

Meditation - with eyes open

This is generally more difficult than with eyes closed because we are easily distracted by what we see. To do this successfully we must be able to access the meditative state stably and then when opening eyes do not pay any attention to what you see, relax the eyes, allow your vision to be blurred or be more aware of your peripheral vision. Some meditations involve focusing on something specific that you can see such as a candle or a mandala. In these cases you use the object of focus very much like you use your breathing or what you can hear as an alternative for your attention to focus on rather than dwelling on your thoughts.

Meditation - while being active

Keep the activity simple, something that requires no thinking. Relate to what you are doing through your senses and thereby be present. When your attention wanders bring it back what you are feeling or your other senses.

How to practice letting go, relaxing and allowing

One of the things that makes meditation different to most other activities is that it is not about doing something. It is about doing nothing. When we engage in something and want to get results we do things like setting goals and targets, coming up with a plan, striving in an effortful way, trying hard etc. Meditation and life eventually confounds all those endeavours and that is maybe why some people find it difficult.

By now you may have discovered that doing nothing is not as easy as it may first appear. Many of the things we do we are not conscious of and so part of the process of progressing in meditation is becoming conscious of what we are doing and then relaxing that activity and stopping it. Many activities stop simply by us not giving energy and attention to them. Most of these unconscious activities originate in the mind and are actively created there. Some examples of what we create are stress, anxiety, worry, desire, the sense of time and space, the feeling of being separate and emotions.

So how do you succeed in relaxing? Well, just because you do nothing does not mean nothing is happening. Things are always happening, the impression that you are doing something comes in part from you trying to control what is happening. If you stop trying to control what is happening things still happen but maybe not how you want them. So one aspect of relaxing is to release control of events. When we successfully do this it can be pleasantly surprising that what happens is more enjoyable than when we are trying to control events. So that brings in another aspect, that of allowing. You find, if you allow, that there is an intelligence far greater than any individuals that is functioning in the world and can also function in you and through you, you simply have to allow it. It sometimes shows itself to you as inspiration, intuition and revelation. Once you have realised that there is an alternative to you being in control and you learn to trust it then you can relax into it rather like you might relax into a comfortable chair. You couldn’t do that unless you trusted it to support you, well so it is with this superior, creative force of intelligence of which I speak.

The more you are able to let go of what you are hanging on to the more of the depth of profundity of life will be revealed. Obviously, letting go of some things can be pretty scary because that puts you in touch with the unknown but gradually you can allow this process and in the end you will have no choice as to whether or not you enter the great unknown. The present truth is that you are already in the great unknown, you maybe just don’t realise it yet. We deal with the great unknown and life as a mystery in week 9.

Meditation - Letting go

Whatever is before you relax your hold on it, release it and let it go. In this way, do this with everything that arises before you, be it a thought, a feeling, a state, an emotion, a sensation or whatever. Let go of hope, desire, need, ambition, fear, self, friends, family, intimates, possessions, status, opinion and all else. You will gradually and effortlessly fall into the unknowable infinity that is your true self.

Attitudes and how to change them – what is attitudinal healing?

The world in which we live is shaped by our attitudes. By changing our attitudes we can therefore change the way we perceive the world. Put another way; the world we see is a projection of our state of mind. By changing our state of mind we change the world. The world we see is not fixed it is always viewed through somebody and each of us has certain biases that colour our view of the world. Meditation aims to remove those distortions so we begin to see the world in a true light.

Attitudinal healing - the 12 principles.

1. The essence of our being is love.

2. Health is inner peace. Healing is letting go of fear.

3. Giving and receiving love are the same.

4. We can let go of the past and the future.

5. Now is the only time there is and each instant is for giving.

6. We can learn to love others and ourselves by forgiving rather than judging.

7. We can become love finders rather than fault finders.

8. We can choose and direct ourselves to be peaceful inside regardless of what is happening outside.

9. We are students and teachers to each other.

10. We can focus on the whole of life rather than the fragments.

11. Since love is eternal, death need not be viewed as fearful.

12. We can always perceive others as either extending love or giving a call for help.

Consciousness, what is it?

There are two popular views as to what consciousness is, one it that it is a function of the brain the other view is that consciousness is the primary phenomenon of reality and that all else is secondary to it.

There are many levels to consciousness, the sub-conscious, the unconscious, cosmic consciousness, super consciousness and more. In the end there is just consciousness and it is what enables us to have experience and be conscious of experience. When experience subsides as in deep meditation and deep sleep then there is only consciousness and we exist in our most basic, relaxed state. The reason deep sleep and meditation refreshes us is because we return to our source condition of pure consciousness. It is possible for consciousness to be the primary condition of our day-to-day waking life as well. In this disposition everything is viewed from the perspective of consciousness and felt to be included in consciousness. In this disposition no fear is felt and great peace and calmness pervades the world and all experience.

Meditation - Notice all experience arises within awareness

Put simply there is experience and there is the awareness of experience. Experiences arise to and within awareness. Initially, experience is something you are aware of, so it appears that experiences arise to your awareness. As this meditation deepens experience is felt to not only arise to awareness but also within it. There is seen to be no “you” apart from experience and awareness. Any “you” felt to exist apart from experience and awareness is found to be merely another experience.

There is typically a great feeling of liberation and freedom when there is the realisation that the feeling of a separate self is only another experience within awareness.

Your sense of self and where it comes from

Your sense of self, of being something or someone or of simply being comes from consciousness and is the same as consciousness. If we relax everything so that all thought is gone we continue to feel that we exist and what we end up feeling is consciousness.

Feeling separate and the root cause of fear

In deep meditation it is possible to feel the oneness of consciousness. It is also possible to feel this oneness at any other time. The reason we don’t feel this oneness is that we actively create the feeling of separateness. This activity is one of the last to be released as we relax deeply.

The result of this primary act of separation is to bring about the impression that there is a separate “me” and everything else that is “not me”. This feeling of there being a “me” and a “not me” is the root cause of fear. From this initial act all sense of dilemma and problem arise, before this when there is primarily the feeling of oneness no problems exist. So the approach to life that meditation offers is not to solve problems but to get to the place where no problems exist. This place is not one of hiding, running away or impotence, far from it. It is the most intimate involvement in life and relationship because there is no fear to hold you back only the feeling of love that freely embraces.

The mystery of life

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
It is the source of all true art and science.
He to whom this emotion is a stranger,
who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe,
is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."

Albert Einstein.

We generally live under the impression that we know all kinds of things, that we know who we are, what we are and where we are. Most of what we presume to be knowledge is in fact just familiarity. If we see or feel something often enough we think we know it but we have no more idea what it is than when we first saw it, we just have a sense of familiarity with it. We can know all kinds of information about things but we never know what anything is in any absolute or ultimate sense.

There are 3 ways in which we can know something, firstly we can know something by thinking about it, secondly we can know something by feeling it and thirdly we can know something by becoming it. This would be similar to knowing something second hand, knowing something firsthand by direct experience and knowing something by being it. So this applies to knowing ourselves, we can firstly think about what we are, and then move on to feeling what we are and finally simply be what we are.

Another mystery is why we do what we do. Initially, you may think you know why you do something but upon examination you will find that ultimately you do not.

Think of anything you do and ask yourself why you do it. Then, when you have the reason, ask yourself why that reason is true. This process will eventually lead you to the point where you don’t know why, you simple do it. An obvious example would be why you love someone. It is possible to go into all kinds of psychological explanations but they to will lead to an unknown mystery.

So although we might consider ourselves rational and logical we do not know why we do what we do.

The mind is what “knows” but the mind is not rooted in any absolute knowledge so it can appear to know anything and everything but that knowledge is only a creation of the mind.

The mystery of life not only applies to the world in which we live it applies to ourselves as well. This mystery is infinite, unknowable and within it arises our mind and its generated knowledge but we don’t even know what knowledge is! The knowing mind is a mere puddle in the infinite ocean of mystery.

It is good to be aware of the underlying mystery of life and to be able to feel it, feel its mysteriousness. The feeling is far more pleasurable than the feeling of certainty that any presumed knowledge gives us.

So I guess what drives me is pleasure although I don’t know what pleasure is I get the most pleasure through the appreciation of the freedom and liberation that living in mystery gives.

Meditation – Feel the mystery

Consider any object and ask yourself what it is. If possible feel what it is, feel into its mystery. Consider any action and ask yourself why you do it, continue until you come to the mysterious origin of the action. Consider where you are and once again continue until you feel the mystery of where you are.

The language of meditation

As the experiences of meditation progress it can be found that conventional language is not very good at describing what is experienced. The main problem is that language tends to imply a subject/object view of life and as meditation progresses this view dissolves and there is not so much sense of you and something else there is more just a sense of there only being one.

In order to be able to talk about my experiences, about 20 years ago I became interested in finding language that could truly reflect my experience. One of its basic characteristics was an absence of words like “I”, “me”, “you” and “they”.

In the end all language has its limits and what is experienced in meditation can be very hard to put into words to begin with. However, over the years, I have gathered language that is capable of describing it, although obviously it is not the same as the experience, realisation or state itself.

Meditation - Circular breathing

As you breath in, feel energy moving down the front of your body, turning round at the base of your body and then, as you breath out, feel it flowing up your spine. You may feel energy continue up the spine and into the head and even beyond. This meditation exercise helps to conserve outward going energy and attention and promotes balance and equanimity.

Meditation - Discriminate between yourself and experience