MEDITATION GUIDE FOR BEGINNERS & ANYONE HAVING PROBLEMS MEDITATING
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
BRAINWAVES IN ORDER OF DESCENDING FREQUENCY
STEPS TO CREATE A SUCCESSFUL MEDITATION PRACTICE
FOCUS ON RELAXING YOUR MIND & BODY
MEDITATE IN THE MAXIMUM POSSIBLE DARKNESS
WHAT TO DO BEFORE LISTENING TO THE GUIDED MEDITATION
INTRODUCTION
What if I told you that the biggest misconception and the biggest barrier to meditating easily and successfully, is the that you must empty your mind and stop all thoughts? . It all boils down to erecting a barrier this “thou shalt not think.” idea makes about as much sense as “Thou shalt sit crossed legged with thumbs and forefingers touching. At this stage of my own meditation practice, there are times when my only thought is; “When am I going to be able to start thinking again?. I would have to say that from about two weeks into my meditation practice, emptying my mind was no longer a focus or goal.
This post was conceived to especially help those of you who are just beginning your meditation practice with the intention that it will provide you with the answers and the guidance when you need it most. When you may still be at the stage of trying to figure out how to quiet your mind, and go into deeper more profound states of meditation. That often elusive quest to get it right, is the bane of meditators.
Now even though the information was initially put together with the intention of guiding those new to meditation, it quickly became obvious that the information would be equally helpful for anyone who feels that they have yet to get their meditation practice just right. You might have been told that in order to be able to meditate, you need to quiet your mind. Thats true to some extent however that old way of thinking, doesn’t tell you how to quiet your mind. And worse it only focuses on one small aspect of successful meditation , the part most likely to cause you frustration and feelings of failure.
Being able to go into a deep meditative state whenever you wish, is dependent on your ability to deliberately change your brain waves state and go into those states that support deep relaxation and meditation. It therefore makes sense to learn a few basic facts about your different brain wave state; what they are and what each does. .
Not only are there are different meditative states, there are also different ways to use those elevated states of awareness and consciousness that arise when you get your meditation right. Since your meditative state, meaning how profoundly you’ve moved away from your everyday alert actively thinking and processing Beta brainwave functioning mind, is related to which of your different brain wave types are dominant.
Brainwaves are classified as Gamma at the top of the frequency range, followed by Beta, Alpha, Theta, and Delta. Without getting too deep into any complex and unnecessary explanations of brain waves types, frequencies and amplitude, there are 4 important facts that you absolutely need to know, and furthermore keep on mind as you restructure your meditation practice. to make meditating easy and filled with rewards
1. There are 5 types of brain waves most commonly described in the textbooks
1. Each brainwave type control different states of consciousness which range from sleep to actively thinking.
2. Different types of brain waves can be produced simultaneously by the brain, however the dominant brainwave that determines your state of mind at any given moment.
3. There is a brain wave state that combines being extremely calm and relaxed, with loss of body awareness, and at the same time remaining alert and focused
That last brain wave state is what I call the Zen state. And I’ll tell you about my own experiences with that state in a moment. As a result of the many astounding experiences that I’ve had. that were associated with my meditation practice, I’ve been able to dissect and understand out several useful steps that will be very helpful. to you. Though for a very long time, I used to think that my successes with meditating was just a lucky a fluke. And it was only later after years of prolonged searching and trying to understand all that had happened, that I could see that there was a clear path that I had followed by instinct or intuition.
During my searching, I was sometimes surprised to find that some of the recommendations and advice that were being given about good meditation practices, echoed exactly what I had instinctively done in my own practice without the benefit of good advice. Now these were not always things that were necessarily evident. One example of one such advice, that wasn’t necessarily evident, was to ‘look up at the Pineal Gland with eyes closed while meditating.
That was something that at the time I couldn’t figure out, as to why I always found my eyes turned upwards by themselves, as it if I was looking up at a space in the middle of my head towards the back. I discovered that this was an action that had links to advice from Eastern groups including Tibetan monks. It was then that my having instinctively done so, finally made sense. As the popular dictum goes; “where attention goes energy flows”
After becoming interested in and studying both hypnosis and Neuro Linguistic Programming NLP), I was finally able to appreciate that I had discovered a real road map. That map included my self talk, instinctive actions, purposeful and focused deep breathing, and a mind set from the very outset that assumed that I would develop a successful meditation practice. And that as a result great things would happen that would change my life. .
Now in case you haven’t read this elsewhere on the site, I’m just going to quickly mention the biggest outcomes of my early and ongoing meditation, without going into the details. The first was my Kundalini Awakening within the first few months, and then finding that both my intuition and extra sensory perception had gone into overdrive. As well s numerous mystical experiences over the years with light, other dimensions, energy portals and experiences that for now remain under the label of the enigmatic.
STEPS TO CREATE A SUCCESSFUL MEDITATION PRACTICE
It’s crucial for you to begin with the right mindset. Even though I know that for many, it’s quieting the mind that seems to be the most challenging, at least on the surface. Having the right mindset is going to set up the outcomes you want. So begin your meditation practice with the assumption that what you’re about to do, is destined to end in success. You don’t have to know how each step to success will unfold, you simply accept that success is the only possible outcome. Do some self talk; tell yourself that you’re about to transition into a Zen Monk (that’s hat I told myself) or whatever represents your estimate off the highest order of spiritual and personal growth.
A great meditation practice that produces physical results and takes you into the realm of the inexplicable, has very little to do with rational expectations. In every sphere of life, as well as in meditation, you get what you expect . With the only difference being on how much focus and determination you apply. So here are those simple steps in a quick pared down list.
1. Begin with the right mindset; ie there’s only 1 possible outcome
2. Use Intention, expectation, and assumption
3. Focus on physically relaxing your body and mind
4. Meditate in maximum darkness
Doing so allows you let go of uncertainty, and dampens the tendency of the human mind to become overactive in the early stages of meditation. You’re really using two laws here. One is the Universal Law of cause and Effect. At its most simple, it means that outcomes have an origination cause. You sit down to meditate with the assumption that you will be able to meditate successfully, is the cause. The effect is the successful outcome of your meditation.
USE THE LAW OF ASSUMPTION, INTENTION & EXPECTATION. = CONFIRMATION BIAS
The Law of Assumption on its own is extremely powerful. Look at this way, let’s put aside meditation for a minute. And let’s say that your intention is to achieve a healing for yourself or someone else from a serious disease. Or perhaps you want to create a different and particularly challenging goal. Starting with the Law of assumption guarantees your success. Because it exempts you even thinking about how the result will come about or of entertaining doubt.
Assumption leads to expectation and it also leads to a kind of confirmation bias. In the sense that you are only see one possible outcome. And crucially assumption allows to you to let go, and allow the non physical part of your being to manifest the result.
When you do an online search of this law , which was brought to the collective attention by author Neville Goddard. However you’ll invariably see it described in ways that water down its power as attempts are made to explain how assumption works.
So here is the correct way to use this powerful law to meditate successfully, or to manifest anything thing else. When your mindset is correct and you’ve made the assumption that success is yours. You believe that it’s already done. There’s nothing else to add, discuss or attempt to figure out. Because It’s already done.
FOCUS ON RELAXING YOUR MIND & BODY
Rather than trying to empty your mind. Focus instead on physically relaxing your body, combined with calming your feeling state. This means that you should begin each meditation period by focusing on changing your brain wave state. And before you ask, you don’t need any technical knowledge. It simply means relaxing your body to an extreme degree. Through deep breathing while giving yourself the same quiet or silent command to your subconscious mind to relax. I think that you’ve probably heard or read opinions on how difficult it is to get your subconscious mind to listen and do what you want. Not true.
Just deep breathing and then exhaling slowly ( at least twice as long as the inhale) while focusing on your breath, automatically triggers a response from your autonomic nervous System to slow down your heart rate, breathing and blood pressure. When your body becomes very relaxed, your brain wave state is automatically changed. Usually to the Alpha brain waves becoming dominant, since Alpha waves are representative of calm, relaxed, alert states..
While you can meditate anywhere including outdoors in nature. for your indoor sessions remember to use darkness as often as possible to enhance your meditation sessions.
Your Pineal Gland is triggered to be more active during the absence of daylight or artificial light. Darkness has affects both the ease with which you’ll be able to relax, as well as a direct, though as yet, undefined, effect on your Pineal.
It is possible to experience momentary flashes of bright light inside your head when meditating in darkness. While this isn’t a necessary experience, should it happen ,just simply allow it to pass, and continue with your meditation.
Over the past 18 years of regular meditation, I’ve experienced this phenomena on and off,
MEDITATE IN THE MAXIMUM POSSIBLE DARKNESS
When you’re meditating indoors and aiming for that profound state of meditation that i’ve just described, then near or complete darkness will be your ally. Use a black meditation eye mask, one of the newer 3D sculpted foam filled ones that offer good light blocking. Right from the start of my own new meditation practice, I used an eye mask to cover my eyes during my meditation sessions, though it was an old fashioned type that was flat. And to block out even more of the light as I meditated, I did two more things; I covered my head and face with a towel and I sat on a chair in the darkness inside my bedroom closet .
Now I know that sounds crazy and it probably created an even crazier mental image in your mind. Why did I do all that and was it necessary?. The fact that I assumed that I would get meditation right, allowed the non-physical part of my being to guide me into taking the right actions that would produce the successful results that I expected.
The Pineal Gland, aka the 3rd Eye, secretes the hormones serotonin and melatonin as well as the hallucinogen N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) As far as the secretion of melatonin i concerned, the Pineal is more active in darkness when it is triggered by the diminishing light at the end of the day to secrete melatonin to help us to sleep. There has been, and continues to be, ongoing research into the reasons for, and many other aspects of DMT, such as what it is meant to accomplish inside the body, however so much still remains unclear. notwithstanding, zi propose that a reasonable assumption to make, is that DMT secretion is also triggered by darkness. Hence the benefit of meditating in darkness.
Within a very short time ( weeks if my memory serves me), of first starting my meditation practice back in 2006, I would regularly find myself outside of my body, looking at myself sitting in meditation. The part of me that seemed to be on the outside, seemed more like my mind in a physical point of awareness that could move around and see independent of my eyes.
I’ve had, and continue to experience many more unusual happenings during my meditation sessions. And I’ll write about some more of these in a second post designed for those who already have established a good meditation practice and are interested in advancing into further mastery. For now, I’v created a free guided meditation that you can listen to as often as you wish. In order to help you launch your mediation practice successfully.
ABOUT THE GUIDED MEDITATION
Since deep, calm and alert relaxation precedes meditative states, this original guided meditation was specially made for you in order to give you the experience of having your body and mind deep relaxed. Use it repeatedly to easily create the subconscious patterning that automatically shifts your mind into a state of relaxed, conscious awareness every time that you sit down to meditate.
The meditation gently guides to focus your attention on your breathing to enhance your relaxation, while remaining in a state non attachment to the dictates of your everyday busy mind.
WHAT TO DO BEFORE LISTENING TO THE GUIDED MEDITATION
This guided meditation is designed to create the physical responses that naturally happen in your body, as you go into a mediative state and as that state deepens with changing brain waves states. Repeated us of this guide meditation will make each of your succeeding meditation sessions, easier to accomplish, enabling increasingly profound states of meditation. You on your way to meditating successfully.
Before you begin the guided meditation, take a few moments and decide what it is that you want from your meditation practice. Keep it precise and short. Just choose the top one or two things. Don’t worry if you have several goals for your practice. You’ll be able to add any remaining ones later. Once you’ve made your decision, next choose a comfortable chair or a cushion that you’re going to sit on. You may, if you prefer or if you need to, sit in a semi reclining position if that is going to be more comfortable for you. Just Be sure that whatever position you choose, that it’s one that you’re going to be able to keep so that you wont be distracted by having to change position later.
Place your chair somewhere quiet that can be darkened. And also make sure that this space is away from distractions and electronic devices. Finally you’ll need to have an eye mask or something that you can use to cover. your eyes. Set up your meditating space and all the things you’ll need before beginning to listen to the meditation. Listen to it often to embed the subconscious patterning of quick and easy meditative states.
