There Are Many Ways To Meditate – Pt. 1

by Robert Wilkinson

So often we are told we must meditate in a certain way to get “best results.” Is that necessarily true? I have found there are many valid meditations, and each works its magic to align our mind, consciousness, and Spirit.

I last gave this to you a little over a year ago. The original 2006 article was inspired by a client who asked me about meditation. It’s been completely rewritten to flesh out some concepts and make it more readable.

In some ways, to put it simply, prayer is when we talk to God, while meditation is when we listen. There are many ways to listen, and many ways we are focused or unfocused in our habits of listening. It helps if we can still the mind and stop the endless chatter of the mind that keeps us distracted. If our mind is talking it is not listening.

There are many valid ways to meditate, and I have found that some techniques work better than others at different times in life, due to all kinds of individual differences. Sometimes it means detaching from the senses, other times detaching from the mind, other times detaching from an old comfortable way of meditating, or even detaching from an opinion of what meditation is and is not.

There are sitting meditations, walking meditations, meditations that help you get out of your own way, meditations in spaciousness and luminosity, and many other ways to meet and greet God, our Soul, our Higher Self, our Eternal Self, our Absolute Consciousness, or whatever other way there is to describe it. As I see it, meditation is a technique of attuning to All-That-Is, depending on whatever aligns us at that time in our lives and awareness.

I have always felt there are many different meditations that are valid for developing different aspects of our Being. For instance, I know that meditating on "Light on the Path" opens pathways to eternity and infinity without the mind getting in the way. Of course, so can meditating on a picture of a sunset.

On a personal note, in 1976 I was staring at the diagram of the planes of consciousness and how the Hierarchy of Masters fit into our cosmic scheme near the beginning of "Initiation Human and Solar." Though I didn’t think I was “meditating” on that Cosmic Blueprint, while I was pondering it I was opened up to a radically altered state that took me places I had never before experienced, beyond duality, beyond questions, beyond answers, beyond anything that we think matters here on Earth.

Even after I came down from the initial transcendent experience, each time I looked at that diagram I was taken into a higher state than I had ever experienced. I described what I could of that experience, as well as my NDE in 1984, in the August 2014 article Is There A Soul, Is There Life After Death, and What’s On The Other Side which I’ve linked to at the bottom of this article.

So I was opened up three times in one week to a state of extraordinary awareness outside of worldly forms and perspectives into infinity and eternity, and the transcendent experience has never left me even though I am still in my mind and body most of the time. I didn’t think I was meditating when these happened, but I suppose what occurred could be said to be the intention of meditation, which is to reach a non-dual, transcendent state of pure consciousness beyond forms.

Other simple meditations are to sit and count 1-2-1-2-1-2 until you lose focus, and then pick it back up again without getting hooked by how or when you lost count, and where your mind wandered. Another form of meditating is doing a mantra, or chant of sacred words, over and over until you lose your sense of separation from the Universe. Some do this concurrent with a Mala, or string of 108 beads, where they repeat the mantra over each bead, stopping at 108 to merge with the Absolute, before picking up the mantra again for another round. This is where the rosary came from.

Then there is a simple walking meditation, where you focus intently on lifting your foot, moving your foot, placing your foot, aware of where your balance is, where your breath is, where your body stiffness is, and each individual function in your body movement. On a related note, both Tai Chi and Chi Gong are meditational forms, as is any martial art.

I have been told over the years that listening to the tracks in my chart readings constitutes a meditation in itself, since fairly quickly the logic centers of the brain are overridden by a direct experience of the wholeness of your Being shown to you from a larger angle of view. I use the approach I do to provide a gateway to my clients so they can experience their lives and narratives in an entirely different way. Through that perspective my clients are reminded that though we may have a body, feelings, and a mind, beyond it all we are an Eternal Consciousness having human experiences.

Ultimately all meditation is to teach you how to disengage the brain, emotions, or any need to control or judge perception. So to study higher conceptual integration techniques (like advanced astrological chart analysis) is as valid a meditation as sitting still in quietude. Losing the separate self in art is another meditation, as is losing the separate self in profound contemplation of any gateway to transcendent experiences.

In any meditation, once our mental opinions and resistances and judgments are stilled, time will no longer be seen as a hindrance. Then we can breathe into the eternal process, and experience the ebb and flow of our awareness through many different frequencies of thoughts, feelings, and actions, without getting hung up on any specific thing. That allows a pure experience of All-That-Is from a different perceptual context.

Keep feeling your union with the beyond, and learn how to observe your mind's tendency to override, to grasp, to judge, or to distract. Then learn to regard it as something YOU use when it's not using you, and see the body and feelings the same way. Learn to move, not with the lower, but with the higher.

Detach from the conditional, and embrace the Eternal. Detach from fear, and embrace Love. Detach from wanting to know you are meditating correctly, and you will learn to meditate.

In parts 2 & 3, we’ll explore more themes about meditation and entering into altered states as a gateway to holistic awareness. As I promised you earlier, here’s Is There A Soul, Is There Life After Death, and What’s On The Other Side

Copyright © 2014 Robert Wilkinson

Comments

[Phoebe]

Amazing Robert. Thank you.

[Nic]

Glad you have picked this subject up. Your post is very clear and comprehensive, as usual: Spot on! I will keep my mind detached while waiting for parts 2 and 3! (hehe).
Blessings be to all