Lesson # 13

Lesson # 13

Meditation: This meditation is upon the love of the Creator/Divine. You can conceive of the origin of this energy however you like. By visualizing it flowing through you, it will have transformative effects on you.

Start by relaxing. You can sit or stand for this meditation. Bring your attention to your heart chakra. Now let it rise to the center of the universe (however you see it), and as you inhale, draw down a brilliant white light into your crown chakra. As you exhale, let it flow into your heart. Continue to inhale the white light of love and exhale it into your body until you feel you have permeated every cell in your body.

As you continue to breath deeply, let the light radiate from your heart center and fill your aura. Watch it with your mind’s eye as it flows out to fill the room you are in, the building, the area, city, state, country, continent and planet.

Keep breathing as you see it flowing through you to immerse the whole planet, and every living thing on it, in love. Hold this as long as you feel comfortable, and then simply let go of the image, and open your eyes.

I like to smile to myself before I begin this meditation, but it is not necessary. With practice, you will find that you feel good, and are smiling by the time you finish.

There are five points of advanced meditation, at this stage.

1) Time: It is best to do this at the same time everyday. A set schedule makes it easier to stick to it. Having a friend to meditate with helps too.

2) Place: You want to start your practice off in a quiet location where you will not be bothered. Eventually, you will be able to do these things anywhere, but for your formal practice, you do want somewhere where concentration is easier for you. Also, if you are working with another person or group, you must have ample space for everyone.

3) Posture: Good posture, spine straight, solid tripod (your butt and feet if sitting in a chair, your butt and knees if on the floor), head up, deep breathing, &c..

4) Breath: Most meditation just require you to breath deeply, form the abdomen. Some have specific breathing patterns.

5) Subject: Each meditation has a purpose. Zen meditation is just to sit and be where you are. Chakra meditation focuses on an energy center, the one given above develops Divine love.

Other topics of meditation include : love, happiness, compassion, stillness, a rose, a lotus, crystal ball, lighted candle flame, bowl of water, The Creator/Divine/God/dess, a Divine spirit, founder of a religion, and so on…

Whatever you meditate on you will become more like. All meditation helps to still the mind, which leads to inner peace and happiness.

The teachings also instruct you that you can meditate on a master, spirit guide or divine spirit, but I will not include these here, as this is part of the religion.

You can also meditate using colors. You can take a symbol and combine it with a color, such as a rose, which represents love, and combine it with white to meditate on pure love.

Use your creativity to come up with more examples.

It will take a while, but you want to build up to at least 30 minutes of meditation per session. You will only be able to hold an image or idea for a few moments at first, then with practice, you will be able to concentrate longer and longer.

Also, when practicing meditation, don’t try to make the mind be quiet. That only makes it worse, because you are thinking about not thinking! Rather, focus on your practice, and when the mind wanders, as it will, acknowledge it and return to your practice.

At the Zen center where I sit, they teach us the four encouragements, Don’t move, don’t speak, don’t peek and do your best. I like to think of it as stillness, silence, focus and do your best.

Eventually, no matter which type of meditation you do, your mind will quiet. Don’t try to force this to happen, as you will only be fooling yourself. You will only be thinking about not thinking, and this is not the same as the mind quieting spontaneously. Your mind will rage and throw fits. That is all normal. Just let it pass. Accept it, be aware of it, let it go and return to your practice.

In time, the mind will tire itself out.

There are many sensations which can happen when you begin to enter into deeper states of meditation. You may feel hot or cold, feel like you are floating or very heavy, you may wobble or even hear a click in your head. None of these mean anything. They are just indications that something is happening, and you should bring your attention back to your practice when you notice them.

The pattern is 7-1-7-1. You need to be aware of your heartbeat, at first you will have to take your pulse to do this, but with time you will relax and become sensitive to it, and you will feel your heart beating in your body.

Inhale to the count of 7 heartbeats. Hold the breath gently for 1 heartbeat. Release the breath to the count of 7 heartbeats, and pause for one heartbeat. This is one cycle of the cosmic breathing rhythm.

With practice, you will get the hang of this, and you will not have to count your heartbeats, you will just breathe in the rhythm of 7-1-7-1 with almost no thought about it.

This chant can be done aloud or silently in your mind.

When doing this chant, you can repeat it several times per breath or you can make one recitation of the chant last for one breath. Either way, you want to empty the lungs totally, and fill them totally while using this chant. This will draw the energy up into your chest. As you chant, direct the energy, along with the vibration of the chant into your brain and third eye. This process should be repeated several times per session.

It is said to start the process of opening the solar plexus chakra to give you radiant health, increased mental, psychic and intuitive abilities.

You can do this exercise with the moon too, without the risk of eye damage. You will just have to look at the moon a little longer.

You can also hang some poster board on a wall, yellow and black are recommended. You will want to stand at least a few feet away from each poster board, though the distance will depend on the light bulb, your eyes, and the size of the poster boards you have. Focus a 200 watt light bulb on the center of the yellow poster board, and concentrate on the circle of light. Hold this for a few minute (it says 10-15, but I don’t think it takes that long). Next, hold your hand up in front of the black poster board. Concentrate on your energy, and on emanating energy from your hand. Let your vision blur a little and look around the hand, or past the hand. Don’t look right at it.

It says it can take 30 days before you start to see faint images of auras around things, but most people start to see them much sooner, in my experience.

Another exercise you can do is to sit facing the yellow poster board. Chant a short mantra, like om manay pad me hum. Gaze at the poster. Pick one spot and keep your eyes focused there. Repeat the chant over and over, trying to see the chant written there before you, with your mind. You may find that you just start chanting mentally, and that is good. Your breathing may become very slow, or stop altogether at times. Pay no mind to this, and focus on your chanting and your gaze. You will feel the third eye opening after several sessions. You may even see a vision of something, but keep your mind on the chant, and your eyes on the spot on the yellow poster board.

At some point in the practice, you may perceive a bright light, if so, keep your mind on it until it fades away. If this happens, when it fades, let go of the meditation, and relax completely.

Other methods include: crossing your eyes; focusing on your third eye point; gazing at the tip on your nose with eyes open or closed; gaze at a candle flame with eyes out of focus so there are two flames and focus on the space between them- you can do the same with your fingers using one or two- using two candles- a partner’s eyes.

There are many ways of doing this, look some more up for yourself, and try them out.

You can use a crystal ball or a dark bowl of water to develop the third eye as well. Simply work in a dimly lit room. You can look at the reflection of a candle flame in the crystal or the bowl, or just gaze at the black emptiness.

Staring at the clear blue sky is said to help too.

Sit in your meditative position. The material suggests the lotus position for this, but sitting “Indian style” seems like it would work better. Place your elbows on your knees and close the opening to your ears with your thumbs by gently pressing the ear tab towards the ear canal. Close your eyes, and keep the shut. Spread your fingers out over your forehead. Putting your middle fingers gently on your upper eyelids and your ring fingers on your lower eyelids feels the best for me, but try different locations for resting your fingers.

Inhale deeply, and chant both audibly with your voice and silently with your mind:

Aum manay pad me hum.

You want your mental voice to be high pitched. Pay attention to the vibration of the vocal chant in the back of your throat and mouth. Follow or lead the vibrations up into the brain. Flex your eyebrow muscles and bring your attention to the third eye location, trying to see out of your forehead. Perform this chant forcefully, one chant per breath, for seven breaths. After several session, try to perform the exercise while not in the sitting posture. With some practice, you should be able to perform this chant mentally, without any physical indication that you are working on your third eye.

This exercise works with the following two to develop your abilities.

This breathing set works in cycles of four breaths. Three deep inhalations with normal exhalations, and one deep inhalation with a forceful exhalation.

Lay down on your back and inhaling, expand your abdomen fully without moving your chest. Exhale normally, and relax. Do this three times On the fourth breath, as you exhale, forcefully try to pull your navel towards your spine, grunting (like a pig) in a sharp and jerky breath. Now, as you do the three deep breaths, focus on bringing your awareness outside of your body, floating above you. Do the forth inhalation and sharply exhale while grunting.

Keep up the cycle of three deep inhalations/exhalations to on inhalation/sharp exhalation grunt until you get tired or lose concentration.

This is said to develop telepathy and the ability to astral travel.

A variation of this is done sitting on your knees in the dragon asana (legs under you, Japanese style). Place your hands, palms down on your knees, and perform the breathing cycles. Exhale fully. Most people find that curving the spine forward during the sharp exhalations makes this more effective. This variation is done primarily to clear stale air out of the lungs, rather than develop any psychic powers.

Watch the breath cycle of the other person, and match your breathing to it. Once your breathing is in sync, concentrate on mixing your aura with their’s. Now, begin to try to influence their breathing cycle. Try to bring their breath to the 7-1-7-1 cycle. Start by bringing your’s to this cycle and focus on slowing their breathing rhythm to match it.

Once both of your breathing cycles are on the 7-1-7-1 cycle you are both in attunement. This is the time to place your thought in their mind.

If you are working in a group, then I would recommend chanting (om manay padme hum, ra ma, or whatever) as a way to harmonize the breathing of the whole group. Chant for a few minutes (at least 5 minutes if this is the first time the group is doing this, after that 5 minutes will be more than enough). Then proceed on to the 7-1-7-1 breathing cycle. Sitting close together, holding hands can facilitate this process. You may even want one person to count out loud until the group gets into the rhythm.

The Order goes on to give direction on how to do this. It suggests that you sit over the person while they sleep, and harmonize with them. This just sounds creepy to me, and I prefer to work with people while they are awake. Once attunement is attained, you begin to chant your goal/affirmation/chant for what you want to achieve. If the person wants healing, see and chant that they are healed. If it is quitting a habit, see and chant that they re free of it. If you are working in a group, then you should all chant the same thing.

This method can be used at a distance too, but you may want to have something of their to hold, or something to represent them, such as a poppet, symbol or picture. I prefer pictures myself. The rest of the procedure is the same, except that you see them in your mind doing the 7-1-7-1 breathing.

Inhale again, do the throat lock and exhale with your cheeks relaxed while whistling. If you can whistle this way, don’t worry, just blow out of the pursed lips.

Lay still for a while, and visualize white light penetrating every cell in your body. This will rejuvenate your. Try not to move, just bathe in the white light. When you are finished, give thanks.

Some characteristics of the earth element are: non mutable, strength, stability, solidness, massiveness, insulator, receptive, feminine.

Its faults include: dullness, tardiness, laziness, unreliability.

Air (movement, wind, thought &c..) acts upon earth (materialism, stability, practicality, bulk) to produce the effect of applying the intellect to practical and materialistic goals. Air moves the earth. This is what is known as common sense, and can be used to increase one’s common sense, because it loosens up the stability of air while grounding the flighty air element.

Fire (life force, creativity, destruction &c..) acts upon earth ( see above) to produce the effect of warming the earth. Will power imposed for material effects. Fire adds creativity to earthly and mundane projects. Too much and it can char the earth.

Water (psychic, feelings, emotions &c) acts upon earth (see above) to produce the effect of making muddy earth. Water washes it away, making the earth much more mutable. It also indicates being emotional about physical possessions. Good for a career in acting, or using love or psychic abilities to advance oneself financially. Can cause the sense of stability to suffer.

Earth acts upon earth to produce the effect of total materialism. No motion, very practical. Totally stable condition.

Spirit (the all, everything) acts upon earth to produce the effect of life revolving around religion and spirituality. Good for a career in religion or spiritualism. Income coming from religion and spiritual sources.

End Lesson 13