Response on Meditation to Hego
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@Heg said
I try to use Dragon posture in Asana, trying to remain motionless as instructed.
That's good. How long do you sit for? 30 minutes, twice daily, is a respectable goal in the beginning, though an hour is something you want to shoot for. I used to practice asana and dharana during my early meditation session, then have a second session later in the day devoted solely to asana. It is important not to stress the brain.
With being able to sit for an hour you will conquer the body's sensations and the mind itself will begin to catch a hint.
For the preparation of the room, I use incense to fill the air with a single scent, I listen to white noise or a mantra (Hari Om Tat Sat) to fill my ears with a single voice.
Do you chant the mantra or is it from an external source, like VHS or cassette? The latter, if applicable, could be distracting.
While in Asana, I inhale for 10 seconds, hold my breath for 10 seconds, exhale for 10 seconds and repeat.
This may not be the norm, nor is it for all persons, but I use pranayama as a sort of "mind cleaner" to calm down its agitation before switching to one-pointed concentration. A prep process if you will.
I try to visualize an object in front of me but when I do I lose count of my breath
.You're dividing your energy in trying to count AND concentrate. Again, that technique may work for others but I've not had success in it.
I try to calm my thoughts but they come rushing forward even more
.And they will! My dear friend, and they will!
Don't get discouraged. The trick is to ignore the thoughts that keep coming and keep the attention fixed on the object of meditation. Every time that thoughts distract you you need to escape their grasp as quickly as possible and move your attention back to what you are meditating on. There's no way around it, it just takes persistence."I breathe, and there is infinite dis-ease in the spirit. As an acid eats into steel, as a cancer that utterly corrupts the body; so am I unto the spirit of man. I shall not rest until I have dissolved it all."
Couldn't get passed the calming the thoughts part so far.
All I could achieve is the feeling of elevation from the body.Your symptom gives the cause. You have not mastered your asana yet, hence the feedback from the body, imagined or otherwise. You will know that you have trained the body when it no longer reacts as a consideration to you. It fades away into the background. Think of the chair that you are sitting on. You are sitting on it, but your mind almost certainly is not mindful of it the entire time you are taking a seat (so you are definitely not worried if the chair is undergoing a "feeling of elevation" because that is NOT the object of meditation on which your entire conscious effort is directed). When the body wants to move, or when the mind makes excuses to move the body, you MUST keep the body still. Do not give it the comfort or satisfaction of motion until the time is up. Following this advice you will win.
It should be mentioned that in addition to the outcome of success in conquering an asana, which is characterized by the body not sending any more signals to the mind while in that asana, there will be an accompanying perception of the bodily senses departing at the onset of this state of triumph. I both call it and describe it as "the melting away of proprioception and sensation." The body goes bye-bye to the awareness. This will be experienced as a "wave" and subsequent feeling of utter physical relaxation, seemingly spontaneous in nature. The contrast of comfort between this feeling and the body's normal state is tremendous. Its wonderful peace must be felt in order to fully grasp, the armchairers will completely miss out.
The utterly blissful physical relaxation of success in this .001% of meditation is only an insignificant foreshadowing of what is to come. Indeed, the body thus silenced and stilled, you can next move onto the mind. Yoga means Union.
Focusing my thoughts on a single object without my mind wandering is what I can't achieve until now. That's why I think "I am doing this wrong".
If that is what you are doing then you are on the right track. Just be aware that the mind will employ many subtle tricks to make you think that you are meditating when in fact it's just in reverie. My best advice is to take that voice or that perspective which is commenting on the progress of your meditation while you are meditating and silence it. That voice is a major obstacle and a barrier.
It takes time. If you are practicing then that is the proper thing to do. A hundred failures through trial are a million times more meaningful than not trying at all.
"Thou wast long seeking Me; thou didst run forward so fast that I was unable to come up with thee. O thou darling fool! what bitterness thou didst crown thy days withal."
Check out my own guidelines here:
<!-- l --><a class="postlink-local" href="http://heruraha.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=14646&p=99902#p99902">viewtopic.php?f=3&t=14646&p=99902#p99902</a><!-- l -->And remember, perseverance is like currency when it comes to spiritual endeavors. Whatever that means!
You're not fighting your mind, you're learning it. Like an untrained dog on a leash it will pull you this way and that. The trick is to get it to walk at your side as the loyal companion that it truly is. It barks when you want it and it silently sits at your call when you command it. -
93,
My sincere gratitude for the time you spend on helping me seekinghga. I really really appreciate it. I've read the Psalms of an Aeon from the beginning till the end, and #20 is truly a great guide not only for me but for the most aspirants. The effort you spend for me and others is beyond admirable. You inspire me, for that, I thank you again. Now,
@seekinghga said
"
That's good. How long do you sit for? 30 minutes, twice daily, is a respectable goal in the beginning, though an hour is something you want to shoot for. "According to my records, it was maximum 40 minutes so far, though afterwards I lie down in weird positions to ease the pain and numbness in my feet.
"Do you chant the mantra or is it from an external source, like VHS or cassette? The latter, if applicable, could be distracting. "
I listen it from an external source, usually from a headset to eliminate all kinds of noise in the environment. I'm so easily distracted by anything and everything. If I listen to white noise, I also chant too.
"This may not be the norm, nor is it for all persons, but I use pranayama as a sort of "mind cleaner" to calm down its agitation before switching to one-pointed concentration. A prep process if you will.
"Then I'll also try to do pranayama before the asana.
"And they will! My dear friend, and they will!
Don't get discouraged. The trick is to ignore the thoughts that keep coming and keep the attention fixed on the object of meditation. Every time that thoughts distract you you need to escape their grasp as quickly as possible and move your attention back to what you are meditating on. There's no way around it, it just takes persistence."Ah, my impatience, the desire to attain something with haste, always troubled me my entire life. I am nearly 28 and slowly began to realize my mistakes at that point. The price of my mistakes paid with the irrecoverable coin "the time".
""I breathe, and there is infinite dis-ease in the spirit. As an acid eats into steel, as a cancer that utterly corrupts the body; so am I unto the spirit of man. I shall not rest until I have dissolved it all.""
I might even use that phrase instead of a mantra!
"Your symptom gives the cause. You have not mastered your asana yet, hence the feedback from the body, imagined or otherwise. You will know that you have trained the body when it no longer reacts as a consideration to you. It fades away into the background. Think of the chair that you are sitting on. You are sitting on it, but your mind almost certainly is not mindful of it the entire time you are taking a seat (so you are definitely not worried if the chair is undergoing a "feeling of elevation" because that is NOT the object of meditation on which your entire conscious effort is directed). When the body wants to move, or when the mind makes excuses to move the body, you MUST keep the body still. Do not give it the comfort or satisfaction of motion until the time is up. Following this advice you will win."
I never thought about it like this. I was thinking being elevated is something that I should achieve or shoot for.
"The utterly blissful physical relaxation of success in this .001% of meditation is only an insignificant foreshadowing of what is to come. Indeed, the body thus silenced and stilled, you can next move onto the mind. Yoga means Union."
How I long and yearn for that Union, even though I haven't got the slightest clue about the experience itself.
"Just be aware that the mind will employ many subtle tricks to make you think that you are meditating when in fact it's just in reverie. My best advice is to take that voice or that perspective which is commenting on the progress of your meditation while you are meditating and silence it. That voice is a major obstacle and a barrier."
It is not a single voice sadly, It is the entirety of bad memories of a lifetime, self-doubts, self-critics and many more. All came to me as legions to ram down the walls of my peace of mind.
"It takes time. If you are practicing then that is the proper thing to do. A hundred failures through trial are a million times more meaningful than not trying at all."
Something I constantly try to remind myself, though easy to discard, I don't know why.
"Check out my own guidelines here:
heruraha.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=14646&p=99902#p99902"I mentioned at the beginning yet the time you spent on guiding others amazes me. Thank you again.
"And remember, perseverance is like currency when it comes to spiritual endeavors. Whatever that means!
You're not fighting your mind, you're learning it. Like an untrained dog on a leash it will pull you this way and that. The trick is to get it to walk at your side as the loyal companion that it truly is. It barks when you want it and it silently sits at your call when you command it."The wisest thing I've heard or read for a long time. When I learn about the faults and defects of my mind I truly want to change myself, however the one who learns and the one with defects is the same! It shatters the "I" in me and questions get a little weirder. In the poem "AHA" in Equinox there was something like:
"All thoughts are evil. Thought is two:
The seer and the seen. Eschew
That supreme blasphemy, my son,
Remembering that God is One."How can I unite the image of myself (the one who tries to control the wandering thoughts and self doubts) and my simple self (the one who creates these wandering thoughts). I always judge myself or criticize myself over the negative thoughts or feelings I have. Can we be truly one, can I train my mind to be loyal at my side? More self-doubts. And again when I feel like this I read:
"*Plod on, and when your legs tremble and give way under you, crawl on, crawl on if on all fours, and clench your teeth and say “I WILL”; but on! and on! and on! And behind you tireless strides along that old grey hound ever breathing forth temptations upon you; filled with crafts, and subtleties, and guiles, ever eager to lead you astray, ever ready to guide you back" *
I might have overstepped the boundaries of the original discussion and the post. Yet one question begets the other. One thought begets the other. One doubt begets the other. It is really a challenging journey however. And seekinghga my deepest thanks once again.
With love,
Hego. -
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
@Heg said
"93,
My sincere gratitude for the time you spend on helping me seekinghga. I really really appreciate it. I've read the Psalms of an Aeon from the beginning till the end, and #20 is truly a great guide not only for me but for the most aspirants. The effort you spend for me and others is beyond admirable. You inspire me, for that, I thank you again."
You are most welcome. I hope it helps.
"According to my records, it was maximum 40 minutes so far, though afterwards I lie down in weird positions to ease the pain and numbness in my feet.
"One must never switch asanas unless there is dire need to do so. I became possessed of such need from using the Dragon myself because it really hurt the ankles to sit that way for more than ten minutes, and not in a way which indicated it was a question of willpower. I stuck with it for like a month before switching to a simple cross-legged position and got my Result with that (eventually, it takes time). From my own experience I found that after conquering one asana I can sit in any comfortable or semi-comfortable position and within seconds of attempting to quiet the mind the body will shut up with its complaints. Asana seems to be one part physical to four parts psychological. In fact, asana should be regarded as a sub-category to pratyahara.
"I listen it from an external source, usually from a headset to eliminate all kinds of noise in the environment. I'm so easily distracted by anything and everything. If I listen to white noise, I also chant too."
This tells me that your concentration is still in its fledgling stage. Pratyahara, the mental function which isolates the attention from distraction, will only become strong as concentration becomes stronger. Points 1 and 3 of my Psalms of an Aeon (PoaA) #20 are directed towards this exact thing. The white noise is probably helpful but may not always be available. Crowley's "John St. John" (I forget the liber number, something in the 800s I think) is the best thing that he ever wrote on the practice of yoga, in my opinion. Also, like I said, points 1 and 3 of my PoaA #20 must be followed, more and more as time goes on.
The thing is to get those diverging streams of your thought to cease their arbitrary meandering and change course so that they can all be channeled into a singular flow of mind. What worked for me was devoting an increasing amount of time to concentration practice, and to either be chanting a mantra (mine was "the joy of dissolution all"), doing pranayama, or reading the Thelemic Holy Books, VII, LXV, and CCXX especially, when not meditating. If I was not sleeping then my mind was engaged in one of those four tasks (though you can use any practices which you deem worthy to the task at hand, these examples are just from my own experiences). It's not easy at first, the mind wants to play, but with practice it will behave. My PoaA #1 is all about the difficulties I had with maintaining this regimen at work because the duties expected there and interaction with co-workers conflicted with the development of one-pointed mind.
"Then I'll also try to do pranayama before the asana."
It took me about 2 months to go from the easiest cycle given in Liber E to one of 20secs out-10secs in-30secs hold. During the holding of the breath, kambhakam, I try to keep the mind as still as possible--nothing exists but the timer, and that barely!
"Ah, my impatience, the desire to attain something with haste, always troubled me my entire life. I am nearly 28 and slowly began to realize my mistakes at that point. The price of my mistakes paid with the irrecoverable coin "the time"."
Liber Legis I:44 can not be mentioned enough. But don't be too hard on yourself, Hego. You now recognize the issue and can work to fix it.
"
""I breathe, and there is infinite dis-ease in the spirit. As an acid eats into steel, as a cancer that utterly corrupts the body; so am I unto the spirit of man. I shall not rest until I have dissolved it all.""I might even use that phrase instead of a mantra!"
Holy Book mantras are good. Let me repeat that reading those books every day will go a long, long way to getting your mind into a unified flow. I must digress for a moment.
The most important factors which will lead to success in meditation are cultivated during the day when you're NOT meditating. I keep saying about getting the mind into a "singular flow"; a "unified flow." Every waking moment of the day not spent on concentration training needs to be spent on practices (pranayama, mantra, Holy Books, etc.) that keep the mind focused within a narrow vicinity related to meditation. Think of it this way. The things that you do throughout your day which are favorable to meditation are like a diet. The meditation itself is just the stepping onto the scales to weigh your progress. Neglect the dieting and the weigh in won't be very impressive.
If you want to succeed then your whole life must eventually be devoted to that end, every ounce of energy directed to the One goal. You have to understand that even if you were the best meditator in the world you would not get very far if you concentrate perfectly for an hour and then allow the mind to do as it wants the rest of the time. I think it is a Hindu adage that it does no good to lock your belongings from thieves for 1 hour a day and then let them open for the other 23 hours. The mind must be disciplined at all times. I cannot stress this enough. It will be HARD. The mind will resent the sudden and severe curtailing of its proclivities, but with patience the struggle will pass into harmony.
"I never thought about it like this. I was thinking being elevated is something that I should achieve or shoot for."
Levitation, sweating, and jumping around like a frog are all mentioned by Crowley (who was surely hopped up from reading the Shiva Samhita) in his books. These are distractions. If they happen, fine, but if you're meditating properly (concentrating the mind on a single object) you won't even notice.
"How I long and yearn for that Union, even though I haven't got the slightest clue about the experience itself."
This is excellent! In my PoaA #20 I describe in point 9 the conditions which bring about Result. I purposely left out description because that would just create no end of mischief by the mind (others' and my own), much like the "feeling of elevation" idea did for your focus with meditation. That you don't know what to expect will keep you from lusting for result. That's a very good thing.
"It is not a single voice sadly, It is the entirety of bad memories of a lifetime, self-doubts, self-critics and many more. All came to me as legions to ram down the walls of my peace of mind."
Those assaults usually get worse before they die down.
"The wisest thing I've heard or read for a long time. When I learn about the faults and defects of my mind I truly want to change myself, however the one who learns and the one with defects is the same! It shatters the "I" in me and questions get a little weirder. In the poem "AHA" in Equinox there was something like:
"All thoughts are evil. Thought is two:
The seer and the seen. Eschew
That supreme blasphemy, my son,
Remembering that God is One."How can I unite the image of myself (the one who tries to control the wandering thoughts and self doubts) and my simple self (the one who creates these wandering thoughts). I always judge myself or criticize myself over the negative thoughts or feelings I have. Can we be truly one, can I train my mind to be loyal at my side? More self-doubts. And again when I feel like this I read:
"*Plod on, and when your legs tremble and give way under you, crawl on, crawl on if on all fours, and clench your teeth and say “I WILL”; but on! and on! and on! And behind you tireless strides along that old grey hound ever breathing forth temptations upon you; filled with crafts, and subtleties, and guiles, ever eager to lead you astray, ever ready to guide you back" *
I might have overstepped the boundaries of the original discussion and the post. Yet one question begets the other. One thought begets the other. One doubt begets the other. It is really a challenging journey however. And seekinghga my deepest thanks once again.
With love,
Hego."Your doubts exist for a reason. Some of them are just the Ego at its self-preservation game. Yet others are the issuance of unresolved conflict within your being. The Great Work has been (aptly) called The Solution of Complexes. The legions of thought gather to ram down the walls of silence and so they must be faced, all of them. It would be tremendously irresponsible and hubristic of me to presume to tell you when, where, or how to face them. It is a large part of the Great Works of all of us to discover the manner for this on our own. The proper combinations of circumstance for triumph here are as varied as there are people on this earth. The best advice that I can give to you is to become thoroughly intimate with the statment: "Love under will." Study it. Learn it. Breathe it. Be it. You are a star, Hego. You are the manifestation of Godhead. These doubts and complexes that we all experience are as a curtain that divides the light of oneness. However, if we try to tear this curtain down violently we will only make it thicker and stronger while we get tangled... Remember, Love under will.
From your posts here you remind me a lot of myself, Hego. I know! I know! There's no cause for me to insult you! ahem What I mean is that when I first started meditating I was plagued with preconceived notions and doubt: the failure of the former to materialize only served to bolster the latter. Love functions by way of dissolving perceived boundaries. You experience doubt because there is a separation seen by you between what you think you are and what you think you should be. Want to know a secret? They're both wrong. The only way to effectively combat doubt or uncertainty is to become certain. "Know Thyself" is not just some tired axiom. It is a living and evolving formula for self transformation. You must come to terms with all aspects of yourself. It's not easy, analyzing oneself and one's motives, but it must be done. It will be done. Love under will is the way, the means and the goal. Know thyself to love thyself. Love thyself and love all.
Love is the law, love under will.
"I have hidden myself beneath a mask: I am a black and terrible God. With courage conquering fear shall ye approach me: ye shall lay down your heads upon mine altar, expecting the sweep of the sword. But the first kiss of love shall be radiant on your lips; and all my darkness and terror shall turn to light and joy."