You Are What You Think

Souls, Minds, Bodies & Planets

2012-03-29T21:02:00.002-07:00

The first installment of a two-part article by Mary Midgley.

What does it mean to say that we have a mind-body problem? Do we need to think of the relation between our inner and outer lives as business transacted between two separate items like this, rather than between aspects of a whole person?

‘Mind’ and ‘matter’, conceived as separate in this way, are extreme abstractions. These terms were deliberately designed by thinkers like René Descartes to be mutually exclusive and incompatible, which is why they are so hard to bring together now. In Descartes’ time, their separation was intended as quarantine to separate the new, burgeoning science of physics from other forms of thought that might clash with it. But it was also part of a much older, more general attempt to separate Reason from Feeling and to establish Reason (mind) as the dominant partner, Feeling being essentially just part of the body. That is why, during the Enlightenment, the word ‘soul’ has been gradually replaced by ‘mind’, and the word ‘mind’ has been narrowed from its ordinary use (“I’ve a good mind to do it”) to a strictly cognitive meaning.

As part of this civil war between reason and feeling, notions of mind and body were flattened out to look parallel and to give a convenient answer to a vast metaphysical question which we would surely now consider ill-framed. This was still the old pre-Socratic question; “What basic stuff is the whole world made of?” And the dualist answer was that there was not just one such stuff but actually two – mind and matter.

This sweeping approach was typical of seventeenth century philosophy. Perhaps because of the appalling political confusions of that age, its thinkers were peculiarly determined to impose order by finding simple, final answers to vast questions through pure logic, rather than attending to the complexity of the facts. In philosophy, as in politics, they liked absolute rulings. The grand structures that they built – including this one – supplied essential elements of our tradition. But there are limits to their usefulness. We do not have to start our enquiries from this remote distance. When we find the rationalist approach unhelpful we can go away and try something else.

Now, officially, we English-speaking philosophers have done this already about mind and body. Half-a-century back Gilbert Ryle’s The Concept of Mind persuaded us to stop talking in terms of a Ghost in a Machine. But our culture was much more deeply committed to that way of thinking than we realised. Existing habits made it seem quite obvious what our next move must be. We could at last triumphantly answer that ancient, pre-Socratic question – which was still seen as a necessary one – by once more finding a single solution for it. We could rule that everything was really matter. We could keep the material machine and get rid of the mental ghost.

So behaviourist psychologists tried this. Through much of the twentieth century, they successfully vetoed all talk of the inner life. People who wanted to seem scientific never mentioned consciousness or subjectivity at all. But this turned out not to work very well. A world of machines without users or designers – a world of objects without subjects – could not be made convincing. Gradually it became clear that the concept of the Machine could not really function on its own because it had been engineered in the first place to fit its Ghost. Accordingly, some thirty years back, scientists suddenly rediscovered consciousness and decided that it constituted a crucial Problem. But the concepts that were available for dealing with it were still the ones that had been devised to make it unspeakable in the first place.

This is our difficulty today. Colin McGinn has stated it with admirable force in his recent book The Mysterious Flame; Conscious Minds In A Material World (Basic Books 1999):

“The problem is how any collection of cells… could generate a conscious being. The problem is in the raw materials. It looks as if, with consciousness, a new kind of reality has been injected into the universe….How can mere matter generate consciousness?…. If the brain is spatial, being a hunk of matter in space, how on earth could the mind arise from the brain?…This seems like a miracle, a rupture in the natural order.” (pp.13 and 115)
“One area of human enquiry constitutes an anomaly, a black spot into which the light of reason seems not able to penetrate; the subject we call ‘philosophy’….What we call ‘philosophy’ is a scientific problem that we are constitutionally unequipped to solve… The mind-body problem is the same kind of problem as the problems of physics and the other sciences; we just lack the conceptual equipment with which to solve it.” (p.212, Author’s emphases)

Now it is surely good news to find a respected analytic philosopher recognising that there are limits to our power of understanding. But I think that a great part of this particular difficulty arises from a more ordinary source – namely that our tradition leads us to misstate the problem. We don’t need to fall back on McGinn’s rather desperate solution of positing a cerebral incompetence. Philosophical problems are not just scientific problems that happen to be rather awkward. They are problems about how to think. And here, as so often happens, the best way of dealing with them is to start again somewhere else, thinking differently.

I suggest that we start by considering the relation between our inner and outer lives – between our subjective experience and the world that we know exists around us – in the context of our lives as a whole, rather than trying to add consciousness as an isolated extra to doctrines in physics conceived on principles that don’t leave room for it. The unit should not be an abstracted body or brain but the whole living person.

To see why this is necessary, let’s look back for a moment to Descartes.

As I have suggested, one factor that led him to call for dualism was the wish to establish Reason as an arbitrator to deal with disputes between warring authorities in the world. And what made this need pressing at that special time was the advent of a new form of Reason in competition with the older forms – namely, modern physics.

When that impressive discipline was launched into an intellectual world that had been shaped entirely around theology – and where theological opinions were dangerously linked to politics – some device for separating these spheres was needed. That device ought to have been one that led on to Pluralism – meaning, of course, not a belief that there are many basic stuffs but a recognition that there are many different legitimate ways of thinking about the different patterns in the world. Instead, however, the train of thought stopped at the first station – dualism – leaving many passengers still stranded there today.

For instance, dualistic trouble erupts when people raise the problem of Personal Identity, the question of what a person essentially is. Analytic philosophers have often discussed this, usually setting out from Locke’s famous example of the Prince who changes minds with the Cobbler. Their thoughts about this story have produced a striking crop of science-fiction, asking whether various kinds of bizarre beings would count as ‘the same person’ when they had been metamorphosed in various equally bizarre ways. The answers tend not to be helpful because, when we go beyond a certain distance from normal life, we really don’t have a context that might make sense of the question at all. And – as students often complain – these speculations are rather remote from the kind of problems that actually make people worry about personal identity in real life. Those problems mostly arise over internal conflicts within us and we will come back to them presently.

Professional science-fiction writers also have trouble with this topic, because their art is deeply committed to dualism. Their characters keep jumping into other people’s bodies, or having their own bodies taken over by an alien consciousness. It even happens in Star Trek. But these stories are strangely limited because they proceed on such an odd assumption. They treat soul or consciousness as an alien package radically separate from the body. They go on as if one person’s inner life could be lifted out at any time and slotted neatly into the outer life of someone else, much as a battery goes into a torch. But our inner lives aren’t actually standard articles designed to fit just any outer one in this way. The cobbler’s mind needs the cobbler’s body. Two people with different nerves and sense organs are not likely to perceive things in the same way, let alone have the same feelings about them, nor could their memories be shifted wholesale to a different brain. Trying to exchange bodies is not like putting a new battery in a torch. It is more like trying to fit the inside of one teapot into the outside of another, which is something that few of us would attempt.

It is surely interesting that so many writers of science fiction have signed up for this strange metaphysic. It shows how natural dualist thinking still is today. This attempt to simplify the relation between our inner and outer lives by talking as if they were quite separate items makes it even harder to connect them sensibly – even harder to see ourselves as a whole – than Descartes had already made it.

Descartes did occasionally worry that soul and body might be linked in some way. He wrote:

“I am not only lodged in my body as a pilot in a vessel.... I am besides so intimately conjoined, and as it were intermixed with it, that my mind and body compose a certain unity. For if this were not the case, I should not feel pain when my body is hurt.” (A Discourse on Method, tr. John Veitch, Dent & Dutton 1937 p.135, emphasis mine)

But unfortunately this didn’t stop him arguing the rest of the time that the separation is absolute, making the soul a simple, pure, unchanging spark of consciousness. He speaks of the body as something outside it, something foreign that the soul discovers when it starts to look around it. (The pilot wakes up, so to speak, to find himself mysteriously locked into his ship). The natures of these two substances, he says, have no intelligible relation.

This isolated soul is, of course, well-designed to survive on its own after death, which is something that concerned Descartes. But the after-life is not the first thing we need to consider when we form our conception of ourselves. The first thing we need is to view them in a way that makes good sense for the life that we have to live now. By making our inner lives so thin and detachable, Descartes put them in danger of looking unnecessary.

With the advance of the physical sciences, matter increasingly looked intelligible on its own. Mind and body did indeed start to look more like ship and pilot, and people began to ask whether the pilot was actually needed. Perception and action were physical processes that could go on very well without him. So the behaviourist psychologists dropped him overboard, leaving a strictly material world of self-directing ships – uninhabited bodies. Descartes’ theistic dualism turned into materialistic monism.

This is the awkward background against which everybody now suddenly wants to talk about ‘the problem of consciousness’. It explains why these enquirers often see this as a problem of how to insert a single extra term – consciousness – into the existing physical sciences.

In attempting this, they are trying to revive Descartes’ highly abstract soul – his pure spark of consciousness – and to fit it in somewhere in the study of the physical world. Since the whole point of separating it off in the first place was that it couldn’t be handled by physical methods, this can’t work. Human beings are not loose combinations of two ill-fitting parts. They are whole, complex creatures with many aspects that have to be thought about in different ways. Mind and body are much more like shape and size than they are like ice and fire, or oil and water. Conscious thinking is not, as Descartes said, a queer kind of extra stuff in the world. It is just one of the things that we do.

Both the extreme abstractions that have so far been used are misleading.

To consider the mental end first – we need to drop Descartes’ idea that the inner life is essentially a simple, unified, unchanging entity, an abstract point of consciousness. A thinking being cannot be like this. To think is to deal with the complexities of the world, so whatever thinks must itself have an inner complexity. It needs to grasp conflicting considerations.

Nor can it be, as Descartes said, unchanging. Our changeableness is just what makes our problems over personal identity, and these are very pervasive. We often have to consider, not just “is this man in the dock still the same person that he was?” but “am I myself altogether the same person? Am I (for instance) really committed to my present project?” or again “which of us inside here should take over now?” A friend of mine used to complain that he unfortunately consisted of a committee whose members often disagreed, and all too often, the wrong person got up and spoke. And of course these committees within us are not isolated, like the Cartesian soul, each in its own ivory tower. We are social beings whose inner lives are profoundly shaped by those around us. All this makes our lives much more difficult than we could wish, but it is also what makes them interesting.

Of course it is true that, in a way, each of us is just one person. But such unity as we have is not simple and given. It is a difficult ongoing project, something continuously struggled for and never fully reached. Carl Jung called it ‘the integration of the personality’ and thought it was the central business of our lives.

Plato, who was a very different kind of dualist from Descartes, thought these conflicts were internal to the soul and constituted its primary business. The soul (he said) is by no means a unity. It is constantly tormented because it is divided into three parts – good desires, bad desires and Reason, who is the charioteer trying to drive this mixed team of horses. This is, of course, primarily a moral doctrine. But it is also an integral part of Plato’s metaphysic and the reasons that he gives for it are thoroughly serious.

The difference between these two dualist views shows plainly that there is not just one way of dividing up a human being. No single perforated line marked ‘tear here’ cuts off soul from body. Different cultures notoriously use different conceptual maps here, dividing the self in different ways. None of these ways of dividing is specially ‘scientific’. Each of them is designed to bring out the importance of some special aspect of our life. McGinn’s proposal to treat a problem that visibly arises from recent trends in our own intellectual history as something necessarily afflicting the whole human race because of its evolutionary history strikes me as somewhat odd.

Plato’s main concern was with emotional conflicts within the self. Descartes, by contrast, was chiefly disturbed about an intellectual conflict between two different styles of thinking. These different biases led them to different views about what a person essentially is. But they were both rationalists. They both wanted to settle the matter by crowning one part of the personality as an absolute arbitrator and calling it Reason. They were not prepared to leave the decision of inner conflicts in the hands of an internal committee. Perhaps, however, some of us may now think that the committee system, unsatisfactory though it is, is actually the least bad option available.

Mary Midgley lectured at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, until the Philosophy Department there was closed down. Among her best-known books are Beast and Man, Wickedness, The Ethical Primate andScience and Poetry.

Preksha Meditation and Health

2010-12-19T02:41:00.000-08:00

"Dhyana " means the concentration of mind on one object. At any given point of time the mind is said to work on a lot things, places, persons etc. however when the mind is made to detach itself from all these distractions and focused on one entity then concentration is said to occur. According to Hatayoga, Dhyana (meditation) is the most important gate to attaining Samadhi(eternal happiness). The ultimate aim of Yoga is to attain Samadhi.

Samadhi is that state of mind where there is only eternal happiness, there is no pain or sorrow and all beings look only for happiness. When Dhyana happens it takes ultimately the form of Samadhi, or ultimate and eternal happiness. From ancient times a lot of methods of Dhyana came to be practiced, one amongst them is Preksha meditation. It means "see thyself" here seeing does not mean external vision, but a concentrated impartial perception, subtle consciousness by mental insight. Preksha is derived from the Sanskrit word "Pra + iksha" which means to observe carefully. The mind never relaxes even when we sleep. Through Preksha the mind is given auto-suggestion to relax. It is true that breaking the thought process is extremely difficult however it is not impossible. When the mind is constantly studied it becomes all the more restless. In Preksha Dhyana no thought is forcefully stopped. Instead the art of merely observing the thought process without forming any reaction or attaching the self to it is developed. By doing so thoughts themselves cease to come. So the technique of Preksha is a practical way and a powerful instrument for establishing the restless mind.

Preksha Dhyana is the technique of meditation for bringing about a change in behavior, modifying and bringing about an integrated development of personality. It is based on the wisdom of ancient philosophy and has been formulated in terms of modern scientific concept.

Following are the various types of Preksha meditation

Svasa Preksha ( means the awareness of breaths)

Breathing and exhaling is an automatic action of the body. With some practice we can increase the duration of the time in between the breaths also we can lower the count of our breaths. The practice of Svasa Preksha causes amazing results not only on the neuro system but also on the internal organs. When the breathing rate is regular the efficacy of the mind gets increased.

Sharira Preksha (perception of the body)

In Sharira Preksha the various organs and body parts are observed minutely one-by -one with closed eyes. The mind studies the whole body from the top of the head to the toes of the feet and all the body parts are focused on. The vibrations occurring on them blood circulation, biological functions are studied. Merely by observing the mind gets so sharp that it gets the healing power.

Chetanya Kendra Preksha(perception of the physique centers)

Preksha of various glands, endocrine system is called Chetanya Kendra Preksha. Our body is sorrounded by an electro-magnetic field. There are specific zones in our body that are prone to these electro magnetic fields. Once we concentrate on these parts of our body through Chetanya Kendra Preksha we will be able to overcome our anger fears and endless worries. By meditating at the naval region our adrenaline glands get activated.

It is difficult to define the sweetness of sugar without actually ever tasting it, it is difficult to learn swimming without going into the depths of water so also it is difficult to explain Dhyana without ever experiencing it. So we have to learn the technique of meditation with the help of some experienced experts. Preksha Dhyana can be learnt and practiced by anybody, normally a ten day camp is a suitable means to acquire a basic training.

For merely relaxing oneself from tension and fatigue 15-20 minutes are sufficient. For a successful meditation session no fixed time can be prescribed. The practitioner has to look at his convenience and the purpose.

Perception technique

Posture

Posture is an important feature of the exercise. The practitioner must remain quiet, motionless and alert for the duration of the exercise. Strain or discomfort must be avoided during the session. Any of the following postures may be chosen-

Lotus Posture (Pdamasana)
Half Lotus posture( Ardha Padmasana)
Simple posture ( Sukhasana)

Mudra-The position of the practitioners hands is called Mudra.

Keep your right hand on your right knee and likewise your left hand on the left knee, palms facing upwards. Touch the index fingers to the tips of the thumb. Keeping the spine and back upright keep the eyes closed lightly.

1st Step

Relaxation (Kayotsarg) For a successful session of meditational practice, it is necessary to relax the whole body tension.

Concentrate your mind on each part of the body from the toe to the head part by part one by one.

Allow each part of the body to relax by the process of auto suggestion and feel that it has become relaxed.

2nd Step

An internal journey(Antaryatra)

This exercise promotes better generation of the nervous energy which is essential for the subsequent meditation practice.

Maintain the posture focus your full attention on the bottom of the spine called the Sakti Kendra direct it to travel along the spinal cord to the top of the head-Jnana Kendra. When you reach the top, direct it to move downwards taking the same path until you reach Sakti kendra again. Repeat the exercise for about 5-7 minutes.

With complete awareness notice the life energy and the vibrations occurring in the back of the spinal cord.

But why do we chose this method?

Starting from the Sakti Kendra (i.e. the anterior end of the backbone) the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous systems reach towards the Gyana Kendra ( the top most region of the head where the head-Knot is tied). When these two get activated the life energy gets increased.

3rd Step

Breath

Breath is the source of vital energy and the source of life.

a) First make the breath slow and rhythmic. From both the nostrils breathe out air slowly and then breathe in very slowly. Practise this for at least 2-3 minutes.

b) Now bring your attention to the naval region, observe it with closed eyes, while breathing out it comes in and while breathing in it expands. Perform this technique for at least 5 minutes.

c) Feel the breathing has become slow, deep and rhythmic.

d) Shift the attention from the naval and focus it inside the nostrils, at the tip of the nose. Now become fully aware of each and every breath. Not even a single breath should come in or leave without your knowledge. Feel the freshness of the incoming breath(oxygen) and the warmth of the outgoing breath( carbon-di-oxide).This exercise is also to be performed for 5 minutes.

If the mind wanders away from the breath then hold the breath for a few seconds (Kumbhak). But beware not to force the breath in. Do not stop thoughts forcefully even if they keep coming one by one then only observe them without getting involved. Once the art of observing is perfected then the thoughts will stop coming by themselves

Maintain awareness during the whole Sadhna practice.

In the end take one or two deep long breaths and open eyes slowly to end the practice. For the beginners a practice of 15-20 minutes is sufficient and can be increased slowly with practice. We will go into greater detail later on.

Some empirical results of Preksha Dhyana

1 Balance between activity and rest: relaxation.

2 Development of will power.

3 Purity of the mind.

4 Increase of the tolerance power.

5 Peace of mind.

6 Change of mental attitude

7 Prevention and cure of psychosomatic diseases

8 Effortless concentration: freedom from nervous and emotional tensions.

From the works of Acharya Mahapragya

Compiled by Mrs. Vidya Jain

Kayotsarg

2010-10-18T22:05:00.000-07:00

If we wish to regain
Peace and Happiness,
we will have to affect
a balance between
Action and Inaction.

- Acharya Mahapragya

Kayotsarg: Self Awareness by Relaxation

Kayotsarg is a great solution to mental and emotional stress.
A Mantra for emotional well being.
A Must to combat the stress of modern days urban lifestyle.
Its a practice to switch off the mind for a while.
A great method for realizing separate existence of soul from body.
It gives a way to come face to face with the Self.
It's a key to dissolve the 'I'.

Kayotsarg literally means abandonment of body, thoughts and mind and get absorbed only in the conscious self. It also means Self Awareness by complete relaxation and inactivity. It is an important meditation in Preksha meditation system.

Procedure

Take the concentration to the big right toe of right leg. Suggest it to get relaxed and feel it. Similarly take the concentration to each and every part of the body one by one, Suggest it to get relaxed and feel it. Bring the entire body, from toe of right leg up to the head to complete relaxation.

Once the body is completely relaxed, the muscles get demagnetized, the flow of nerve current reduces and breathing calms down.

In this calm state, recall the fact of separate existence of soul from the body. Soul and body are two different entities. The soul is different from the body. Try to feel this fact. Try to live this fact.

Getting deeper with the fact, now simply feel the existence of soul. Completely forget about the body. Try to be with the self with out any hindrance. Forget everything. Just be in this state of emptiness for as much time as you like. Get deeper and deeper into the emptiness, into the meditation.

This state is condusive to come face to face with the self, to come closer to the self. In this inactive state when all the bodily activities are low, there is a good chance to see the activities of consciousness, to come closer in witnessing the consciousness.

Online Audio for this meditation

Play this half hour audio to practice this meditation:

Kayotsarg: Self Awareness by Relaxation

Which posture and when

It can be practiced in standing, sitting or lying down posture. Important thing is maintaining immobility of body. If one is tired or as a beginer, lying down posture could be more convenient. If someone wants to practice in morning or already feeling relaxed then standing posture could be the choice. It can be practiced anytime in a day. A good suggestion is to practice it in same time every day. Practice it for 30 mins, 45 mins or more as per interest.

Some Facts

Observations have shown that half hour of meditation is more refreshing than 2 hours of sleep.
Keeps the heart healthy, very good for people with heart complications. Thousands of patients with heart related problem got cured through kayotsarg in Adhyatma Sadhana Kendra, Delhi and in other Preksha centers.
45 mins of regular practice is very helpful for curing sleep disorders.

Complete detail on Kayotsarg can be found online in the book

Preksha Dhyana: Self-Awareness By Relaxation

The greatest achievement of our lives is ‘Peace Of Mind’.

Without it, life becomes dreary.

Achieving such calm should be the ultimate goal of our life.

- Acharya Shree Mahapragya

The Restless Mind - The Constantly Thinking Mind

2010-09-12T19:05:00.000-07:00

The natural tendency of the mind is to be restless. Thinking seems to be a continuous and ongoing activity. The restless mind lets thoughts come and go incessantly from morning till night. They give us no rest for a moment. Most of these thoughts are not exactly invited; they just come, occupy our attention for a while, and then disappear.

Our true essence can be likened to the sky, and our thoughts are the clouds. The clouds drift through the sky, hide it for a while and then disappear. They are not permanent. So are thoughts. Because of their incessant movement they hide our essence, our core, and then move away to make room for other thoughts.

Thoughts resemble the waves of the ocean, always in a state of motion, never standing still. These thoughts arise in our mind due to many reasons. There is a tendency on the part of the mind to analyze whatever it contacts. It likes to compare, to reason, and to ask questions. It constantly indulges in these activities.

Everyone's mind has a kind of a filter, which allows it to accept, let in certain thoughts, and reject others. This is the reason why some people occupy their minds with thoughts about a certain subject, while others don't even think about the same subject.

Why some people are attracted to football and others don't? Why some love and admire a certain singer and others don't? Why some people think incessantly about a certain subject, and others never think about it? It is all due to this inner filter.

This is an automatic unconscious filter. We never stop and say to certain thoughts 'come' and to others we say 'go away'. It is an automatic activity. This filter was built during the years. It was and is built constantly by the suggestions and words of people we meet, and as a consequence of our daily experiences.

Every event, happening or word has an affect on the mind, which produces thoughts accordingly. The mind is like a thought factory, working in shifts day and night, producing thoughts.

The mind also gets thoughts directly from the surrounding world. The space around us is full of thoughts, which we constantly pick, let pass through our minds, and then pick up new ones. It is like catching fish in the ocean, throwing them back into the water and then catching a new ones.

This activity of the restless mind occupies our attention all the time. Now our attention is on this thought and then on another one. We pay a lot of energy and attention to these passing thoughts. Most of them are not important. They just waste our time and energy.

This is enslavement. It is as if some outside power is always putting a thought in front of us to pay attention to. It is like a relentless boss constantly giving us a job to do. There is no real freedom. We enjoy freedom only when we are able to still the mind and choose our thoughts. There is freedom, when we are able to decide which thought to think and which one to reject. We live in freedom, when we are able to stop the incessant flow of thoughts.

Stopping the flow of thoughts may look infeasible, but constant training and exercising with concentration exercises and meditation, eventually lead to this condition. The mind is like an untamed animal. It can be taught self-discipline and obedience to a higher power. Concentration and meditation show us in a clear and practical manner that we, the inner true essence, are this controlling power. We are the bosses of our minds.

Meditate on your soul

2010-08-27T17:35:00.000-07:00

I now withdraw my attention away from the world around me.........
My eyes are open and rested.............
I focus my thoughts energy on myself ....
I the being of light.........
Thoughts of the outside world gradually fade away as I feel a burden being lifted from my mind.......
I see my physical on the screen of my mind ...
I realize that I am not my physical body, it is merely an instrument for the transport of my soul.....
I am an eternal point of life positive energy....
This point of energy is the life force of the body......
In this state of awareness I become pure energy and consciousness........
Thoughts emerging on the screen of my mind are being viewed like watching a movie on a picture screen......
I allow the negative thoughts to pass without being distracted by them .......
For I am an eternal radiant light ..
Shinning like a star in the midnight sky........
I concentrate my thoughts on this one aspect ...That I am a concentrated spark of light ....
Radiating light and love to the world.......
As my thoughts concentrate I fill with power ....
I become light .....
floating......
I find deep peace within.

It is best to meditate on a daily basis.

Meditating every day will make the mind healthy, positive and prosperous.

Waves of light meditation

2010-08-27T17:30:00.000-07:00

Begin by finding a quiet spot where you will not be disturbed.

Take the phone off the hook.

Turn off your mobile phone, radio, and television, as well as any unnecessary electrical equipment in the area immediately surrounding where you will be meditating.

Sit or lay down in a comfortable position. This could be on the floor, cross legged with back straight and hands resting on knees, palms facing upward and thumb and first finger held together in the traditional meditation position (you can rest against a wall if you like), or in an arm chair with back straight, feet flat on the ground, and hands resting on thighs with palms flat. If you choose to lay down, this can be either on the ground with feet shoulder width apart, back straight and hands resting gently to the sides, or on a bed in the same position.

Close your eyes. Take a deep breath, hold it in and tense up every muscle you can. Exhale and release the tension. Repeat this twice more, making three breath/tensions in total.

Visualize your muscles becoming relaxed and saturated with a brilliant, white light. Start at your toes and work your way up to the top of your head, pay particular attention to the shoulders, jaw and facial area, and any other area that may be causing you particular concern. All the while taking gentle, deep breaths.

If you hear sounds such as cars passing by, people talking, dogs barking etc. Just let these sounds pass over you. Do not judge these sounds, simply allow them to occur and fade away, all the while taking gentle deep breaths.

When you feel sufficiently relaxed, visualize the white light that now soaks your body starting to form waves that travel from the top of your head to the tips of your toes. Visualize these waves starting very small and gradually building in intensity, to a level that you feel comfortable with.

Visualize the waves washing away any negative thoughts or negative energies, these thoughts or energies can be visualized as black clouds which are engulfed by the white-light, and gradually disappear, ‘washed’ clean by the waves of healing energy.

When you feel sufficiently ‘cleansed’ by the white light waves, visualize them gradually decreasing in intensity, until once again the white light is as calm as the surface of a pond.

When you feel that the meditation has finished, gradually and gently bring you attention back to your surroundings, and slowly open your eyes. Personally I like to do a few stretches after meditation and just “chillax” for a few minutes before moving on with day to day things.

Peace be with you.

Mathew

The time is always right to do what is right. - Martin Luther King Jr.

Meditation on Positive Thinking

2010-08-10T20:50:00.001-07:00

I sit relaxed
And begin to harness the power of my mind
For this meditation
We will allow the natural thoughts To flow
I have a thought that I am a peaceful positive being
I create the thought that I am a positive individual
And I maintain positive thoughts in every situation
I seek solutions to problems
And I focus in on the answers And not on the problems
I constantly fill my mind with positive powerful thoughts
I focus to replace the negative thoughts with positive thoughts
So that the light of positive thinking empowers me
These real thoughts bring a good feeling in my mind
I am a powerful positive being
I am a being of light
And as light I am carefree
As light I am beyond the dramas and chaos of those around me
My only important task is to be powerful in positive thinking
When I have tension I am creating positive thoughts
I do not experience any tension
I am positive powerful being of light
I am an eternal being of light
Any thought that is negative I let it pass
And keep the shining powerful mindset in place
I constantly generate positive powerful thoughts
Positive powerful thoughts are those of an eternal nature
They are who I really am
Just an eternal wonderful, radiant being
Of positive energy
And in this light my positive mindset cannot be shaken
By any adverse or negative situation that is around me
For I am the lighthouse
Shining within the storm of negativity of the world
But this powerful light I will forever keep ignited
And I let love be the eternal oil
That fuels this eternal flame of light
And a love to keep myself illuminated
By this meditation
That I will forever practice.

Hope you enjoy this positive thinking meditation

Thinking

2010-08-05T18:59:00.000-07:00

All of us have an "Inner Observer" who comments on what we do.

Worry can make a small problem big.

To change your attitude, change your mind.

You are responsible for your thinking. Change your thinking and life will get better. But, what thoughts do you change? Your troublesome thoughts about a situation can easily be found in your self-talk. Self-talk is that inner running dialogue you have with yourself. It is what you tell yourself about life's situations.

All of us have a voice that talks to us. You might think of it as your conscience. It might be that "inner observer" who seems to sits in the corner and watches everything you do. You may recognize it as that voice that starts talking to you upon awakening in the morning. Sometimes it may wait until you look in the mirror before it actually speaks. It is that voice that says, "You sure are handsome." or "What a wonderful person you are." Or "You are going to have a great day." It might say, "You are so slim and your hair looks beautiful." If you don’t' recognize this voice then yours may be speaking to you in a different tone. You might be hearing, "You look like crap today" or "You sure have gained a lot of weight." "Your hair is a mess." "It's is a terrible day! Get back in bed." This voice, the negative, critical one, is one of the main reasons we have so many problems. It can destroy resiliency by opening the flood gates and draining away your energy.

This voice can make anything worse. You may be like most people and know how to take any small problem, think about it for awhile, and have a bigger problem. That little voice keeps telling you what might go wrong. All of the dark possibilities are pointed out. The imagination creates a very bad situation. The problem goes from a mild annoyance to a major catastrophe as you convince yourself that the imagined situation is the real situation. You are now busy confronting a problem that only exists in your mind.

Any response, at this point, is going to be out of proportion to the original problem. The normal reaction to the original problem is most likely some degree of emotional distress. If you have been laid off from a job, you may be feeling some combination of tense, worried, anxious, sad, irritated, frustrated, or angry. All of these are normal emotions for the experience. However, that inner voice may be busy exaggerating, " This is horrible and terrible. It is the world’s worst thing. You will never find another job. You are a hopeless and helpless person. No one will ever hire you. You won’t be able to pay your bills. You will lose everything you have. You should just give up." With such a running dialogue you will soon fall into depression or become enraged at your imagined mistreatment. In a deep depression you may decide that the situation is hopeless and become suicidal. In a state of rage you may act in an inappropriate, violent manner towards your former employer. Either reaction is too intense because the response is to a situation you have created in your mind. Change your mind, your attitude, and the problem can shrink back to its original size. The original problem may be bad enough but it is not the catastrophe you have invented.

To change your attitude you must change the inner dialogue. To change the dialogue you must catch it in action. To do this you have to pay attention to yourself. You must engage in self-observation and listen for that inner voice.

The next time that you find yourself feeling "bad" don’t start asking, "Who did this to me?" Don’t start looking around for the external cause of your problems. What you should do is to ask yourself, "What have I been thinking?" "What have I been telling my self?" You may find that your inner dialogue has put you deep into emotional distress