One Foot After The Other Into Perfection

         "If you want to experience enlightenment in a simple way, all you have to do is stop your thoughts. When there is no thought in the mind, no thought of no thought, when the mind is quiet and it rests but is fully alert, we experience a little bit of enlightenment. A little light will filter in.". ~Rama

Every brilliant journey begins with the first step. How do you start meditating and allowing your being to dissolve into the endless ocean of eternal perfection? It's easy to start. What makes it easy is your decision to be committed to meditating every day. Once you come to that decision, it will be something you love doing, like taking a shower, going hiking, finding a glimmering surprise, having sex with someone you love. Meditation, when done correctly, brings you into the oneness, into the beauty of existence - something we all seek, but usually in transitory ways. Meditation is not transitory in that the awareness you experience becomes who you are. It brings new colors into the palette of your daily experience - new colors that you can paint your daily painting with. And as you experience new and varied things with more awareness, you begin to love the expansive perspective meditation gives you. So, it's not hard to meditate, just as it's not hard to shower, or have a great meal, or find a new mountain to hike.

Every meditation is different, though, and the important thing to remember is not to judge your meditation. Allow yourself to experience whatever comes your way, with the intent of not letting yourself get caught up in thoughts. Instead, gently move your mind back to your focus. As Rama said in his talk, The Awareness of Meditation (click to follow link), it's not so much being creative in your meditative practice that brings you to perfect awareness, it's consistency. So, start building up momentum by meditating each day for a short period of time, once a day, preferably in the morning to start your day off feeling high and clear. Try meditating for 15 minutes. Sit on a pillow, or against the wall, or in a chair - as long as your back is straight. Have something in front of you to focus on, such as a rock, a yantra, a flower or a candle flame. Focusing on something inspiring in front of you helps you to wrangle all your wild thoughts into one corral - one focus. Once you've done that, it's much easier to discard them.

Focus until you feel your mind is still. Then, move your mind to a chakra. Chakras are energy centers that have various attributes associated with them. The concept of energy meridians in the body is part of the ancient understanding of the orient that is just making its way into western civilization now. But these concepts have been well developed and understood for centuries. Human incarnation - this world, is made of the union of matter and energy. Yet, no one teaches us about this energy and how to deal with it, to take care of it, to cherish it, and keep it healthy. Yet, without energy, we die. So, coming to understand energy and how it plays out in our lives is inherent to becoming an empowered meditation practitioner. This starts with understanding the subtle physical body, which is our energy body. We have seven major chakras, starting at the base of the spine and moving up our energy spinal cord, called the shushumna, to the crown chakra. Rama describes it in his talk The Subtle Physical Body (click to follow link), as follows:

"The subtle physical body is made up of ether. The physical body, according to the ancient yogis, was made up of fire, water and air. These elements, these three elements, would constitute the physical condition. Think of them as symbols. There's not too much that I can say or explain about them. It's something that you just have to feel inside yourself.

Think of fire as heat - one aspect of the kundalini or of the infinite awareness, one way of seeing life, the fire of the sun that generates life. The fire of the sun is in the solar plexus, in the navel chakra, and in the root center, the base chakra at the bottom of the spine. Think of those two chakras in your being as fire.

The heart chakra and the throat chakra you can think of as water, if you will. The lower three chakras could be fire, and the chakra, the energy center, in the center of the chest and also in the throat would correspond to the element of water - just to try to give you a sense of the tonality of these things of which I speak, for which there are few if any words. Air would be connected with the third eye, between the eyebrows and slightly above, the Agni chakra, and the crown chakra would also be connected with air."

So, you start your meditation by focusing on something outwardly as suggested above, then you close your eyes and bring an internal focus to one of your chakras. Start with your navel chakra which is located just below your belly button. Imagine yourself as a luminous egg, and right at the core of that egg, right in the center, is your navel chakra. It is the chakra of power, will and strength. When focusing on it, you draw from the bottom three chakras. Focusing on it will not only help you wrangle your thoughts together so you can discard them more easily, but will also begin to engender those qualities in your life. Chakras are also a doorway to the fields of energy beyond the physical, which is the whole point of bringing an initial focus to your meditation - to move you beyond the physical. As you continue your meditation, move your focus to your heart chakra. This chakra is located exactly where you point to yourself when you say "me". It is referred to as the throne of consciousness. This is where your spirit resides and is the source of who you are. This is the chakra of love, beauty, compassion, joy and silence. Focus on the heart chakra, and you will begin to engender these qualities more strongly in your life. Then, move your focus up the shushumna to your third eye chakra. This is located in the center of your forehead, an inch or so above your eyebrows. This is the chakra of intuition, intelligence, wisdom, vision, clarity. Focusing on all three of these chakras in concert during your meditations will bring tremendous balance to your life, but will also give you an immediate boost in being able to move from the physical plane to the planes of energy, and eventually, to the causal planes - or the planes of light. A great talk on this is Meditation (click to follow link).

At the end of your meditation, it's great to bow - as a gesture of gratitude. In bowing, we begin to reverberate with the essence of existence that is within us, we acknowledge that with reverence, we give our meditation away to eternity, and simultaneously, we realize that we are a tiny drop in the endless ocean of awareness, making sure to allow the purity of our meditation to pervade our awareness with humility and understanding.

If you meditate every day, you will start picking up a momentum, of strength, power, clarity, joy, lightness of being and unadulterated love. You'll begin to feel whole, like you don't "need" people in your life to make you feel okay, to fill a hole that comes with being alone. You'll realize that you are connected to all of existence - you are perfect in your essence. If there are people in your life, you'll have so much more to offer, because you won't be needy - you'll be free. Free to listen, free to love, free to give, but also free to walk away if that's what's right. Being whole in life is called Integrity of Being. It means that you are happy with who you are, and who you're becoming, and ultimately, you actually welcome being no one in particular, because that means living in the fullness of truth beyond the limiting ego - as buddhas before you have done. You accept yourself as a being in progress. You accept wherever you are right now, while also continually moving your mind out of the negative patterns that defined you, that were conditioned into you and that made you unhappy.

From Alaska-in-pictures.com

Your meditation practice will ensure a life that's filled with extraordinary adventures - explorations into the mysteries of existence. You'll begin to see life in its myriad forms, colors, understandings and connections. To see, amidst the chaos, illusion and horror that humankind has perpetrated onto this earth is the most beautiful gift that is available to us, and that we have to offer each other. May your adventures be filled with beauty, light and love.