How to Meditate? Learn to Meditate? What is Meditation?

- Find your inner guidance

- Learn to relax and walk your inspired path

- Learn to lucid dream and explore inner space

- Understand the subtle body & the human energy system

- Awaken the kundalini and open the third eye

- Learn to meditate & open the chakras

- Heal the body, find your Self.

Beginning Meditation CDs:

Reading about meditation simply adds mental constructs and expectations that become barriers. Thus, I recommend that beginners listen to meditation CDs (using headphones) and read only when they are confused about a specific point. Like anything worth pursuing, meditation requires a solemn vow in order to break through the first stages of mental rebellion. Then meditation becomes a blissful, pleasurable, dynamic experience to look forward to.

Intermediate Meditation:

Learn to recognize the full range of genuine mystical highs and develop a full range of alchemical tools. The point is to learn to connect with your Inner Teacher anytime, anywhere.

Below are excepts from the book, Meditation Magic: A Course in Freedom and Dreaming (by Anami) and its course materials.

What is the Soul?
The soul is the unchangeable essence of who you are. It is the part of you that hasn't changed since you were born, and will be with you unchanged twenty years from now and forever. Your body and personality will change, but not you the soul. It is immortal and can never be hurt by opening your heart. Your ego may get bruised, but that is not the real You.

Wisdom is your radiance not the truth in your head.
When you give up everything, you discover Everything.

The soul is the Self, the Center. The experience of the soul is in the mind. In the soul you live beyond mental reflections because you are both yourself and everything you see. Within the soul is the whole universe.

When you overanalyze the nature of the soul instead of enjoying and witnessing it (explained in Week 18), energy turns to the lower chakras. When you uplift yourself, you draw up the kundalini into the higher chakras. At the crown chakra you experience the soul in its pure state beyond all dualities.

Pause and contemplate the power of these ideas. Divine contemplation* is placing your awareness on the frequency of one unlimited idea without the mind wandering. In deep contemplation, the idea dissolves into the silence of the soul. From this state, listen to your inner voices without talking back, engaging the mind, and losing touch with the present. The voices will become less active but more wise.

Finally, become silence and contemplate your unchangeable essence. Walk through your days feeling connected with everything and every person. Know that your openness will touch everyone, sometimes provoking tremendous fears within people.

As soul, these responses do not diminish your serenity. You simply alchemize people's fears with love. By contemplating the timeless silence of your soul, you will not react to the illusions of everyday life.

*The first two chapters/months of this book are more about contemplation than meditation. The CD for these chapters, on the other hand, has many meditation techniques. (by Anami)

Breathing Techniques
There is tremendous power in breathing techniques that entrain your thought waves to the slow, healing rhythms of natural breathing. This gradually awakens awareness. The reason: a conscious, gentle breath is always grounded in the present moment the place of spiritual power.

Every time your mind follows your breath,
you heal the past by returning to the present.

These techniques are safe from unbalanced activation of the kundalini. They are useless, however, unless the person discovers the Source of breath the person breathing. All good techniques dissolve as you integrate. You become One Holy Breath (Week 38).

Associate every spiritual exercise with bliss. This conditions the mind to look forward to repeating the exercises. You may just be pretending to be blissful in the beginning, but eventually, with every in-breath you will draw the kundalini up into actual bliss. Try the following techniques while walking, sitting, and lying down on your back in the corpse pose (see Wizard Rest, Week 11).

Belly Breath (CD 1) Put your attention on the gentle up-and-down movement of your stomach. Do not think about your belly moving, simply feel, feel, feel it move. This will ground you. When you feel sleepy or need more energy to concentrate, breathe deeper by filling your belly up like a beach ball on every inhalation.

Alternate Nostril Breath (Explained on CD 1) Energy Breath (CD 2) On every exhalation, simply relax your energy down into the stomach or the root chakra. With every in-breath, breathe in more love-energy up into the heart chakra. You can increase the depth of your breath by 5-20% if you like, but be careful not to shift the emphasis onto the physical level. The objective is to shift from breath to energy, then to light.

Conscious Breath (CD 2) Follow the movement of the breath with your deep inward attention. When you connect the inhalation to the exhalation, and the exhalation to the inhalation, you build a bridge between the inner breath (the prana/kundalini) and the outer breath (the respiratory system). Blissful? Yes!

Kundalini Breathing (CD 3) Bring your attention to the inner movement of your breath as it moves up and down your body. At first, the range of motion might be from the bottom of your feet up to the belly. As you become more relaxed and focused, allow your attention to gradually move up to the heart chakra. Your attention might then range from the belly to the heart.

When you are very focused in the lower chakras, then you will no longer need to imagine being connected to the inner breath (prana). The kundalini will actually rise with every inhalation.

Now bring the range of your inner attention from the heart to the throat, then from the throat to the nostrils. Finally, as light begins entering your inner vision, focus only on the in- and outflow of the breath through the nostrils. Feel the gentle, subtle sensations of air flowing evenly through both nostrils.

When the light becomes bright, simply let go of the breath and merge with the light. By doing this, you have shifted octaves from breath into prana, then from prana into light.

Bubble Breath (CD 4) With every in-breath, increase the size of your auric bubble. On every exhalation, simply relax into love and peace. Gradually, imagine that your bubble encompasses all your friends, relatives, and especially the people with whom there exists tension. Finally, let your bubble encompass the whole universe and all your multidimensional realities (Week 12). This technique is powerful only if you have mastered Kundalini Breathing.

One Holy Breath (CD 5, Week 38) In one breath you can alchemize any stuck state into immense ecstasy and clarity.

Listening Breath (CD 5) With all your attention, listen to the sound of your breath. When you enter light, shift your attention from your breath to the music of the spheres (Week 43).

Occasionally, add the affirmation "soham" as a reminder to become one with everything you see, touch, or think about. (See Unity, Week 43.) Soham means "I am That" in Sanskrit, and also approximates the sound actually made by the breath. "So" sounds similar to the inhalation, while "ham" (pronounced 'hum') sounds similar to the exhalation. If you reverse the order, it becomes "hamsa," (pronounced 'humsa') which means swan, or a soul liberated beyond the mind.

There is no magic pill
that can take away your every ill.

Emphasize what thoughts you are digesting.

Thoughts have greater impact on your body than unhealthy foods. The reason: while your body eats only a few times a day, your body continuously digests your perceptions of reality.

If you want to accelerate your awakening into light, try an enzyme-rich vegetarian diet: fresh fruits and nourishing foods such as alfalfa sprouts, vegetables, tofu, etc. Eat as few mucoid-producing (acid) foods as possible (yeasted bread, cake, dairy, meat, fish, fowl, eggs, coffee, alcohol, sugar, chocolate, soft drinks, etc.).

A gradual approach to diet change is sensible. Investigate balanced nutrition. Buy organic you're worth it! Eat foods that nourish you on all levels. Avoid being self-critical about eating unhealthy foods once in a while. "Eat to live, not live to eat."

Eat when hungry. Drink your food. Chew your liquids.

Chew your foods until they become liquids. Sip your liquids until they reach body temperature. Love your body as your Self.

In the World
Before meditation, go for a short walk. Feel tall and keep your eye focus at the horizon. With every exhalation, relax down into your body. Feel as if you are being pulled to earth by a powerful but pleasant magnetic pull. More than ever before, relax your jaw and every area of your head.

Notice that when your eye focus drops below the horizon that you are drifting into an unconscious dream state (the unhealed "past"). When your eye focus moves above the horizon notice that you may be thinking about the future (the "past" finding a way to resolve itself in the "future" via the creative process).

Keep relaxing and finding ways of enjoying each breath and opening your heart. If you do not feel this divine pleasure, know that you are only one breath away from finding It. Walk just long enough to feel energized. Walk close to your home or vehicle so that you can enter meditation exactly at the right moment when you feel a powerful wave of bliss or grace.

Consciously breathe at least five to twenty percent deeper than normal. When you find yourself not breathing deeper, realize that you are daydreaming. When you daydream, you have a hazy connection with both the subconscious (the past) and the conscious (the present). Breathe as deeply as you need to remain fully alert. As your inner connection deepens, breathe less deeply.

In Rest
Lie down on your back in a symmetrical position: position the left and right sides of your body the same. This position facilitates the balancing of the left and right hemispheres of the brain. If you have lower back problems, you may want to bend your knees so that your feet and lower back are flat on the floor.

Rest your hands on your belly and feel the belly move up as you inhale and down as you exhale. (See Breathing Techniques, Week 1; also explained on "Meditate: CD #1".) Breathe as a baby breathes: smoothly, deeply, with the diaphragm. Rest contemplating the beautiful qualities of your immortal nature. Rest with the purpose of waking up awareness of your soul.

Meditation #1
When you first sit to meditate, do not be concerned with posture. Allow your body to slump forward or backwards but not sideways. Move as gracefully as possible into your chair. Simply relax and contemplate the timeless nature of your soul.

Listen as intently as you can to the silence within your gentle soul and forget everything you hear. In other words, listen and let go. Do not place importance on anything you hear. Until you shift your attention into the Silence between thought, inner voices are simply unhealed or unprocessed thoughts.

Do not be in a hurry to find your Inner Voice. All good things come to those who wait. All hurry is ego. Answers come from being in a receptive, timeless state. Simply contemplate your soul: how beautiful, infinite, and full of pure love it is.

Do not be concerned if your body moves, but notice that every move reflects an internal reaction to a thought that surfaced from your subconscious. The more you become Silence, the more you see the nature of the mind its need to move from one perspective to its opposite; never at peace, always seeking but never finding.

As soon as you find yourself feeling sleepy, breathe deeper without compromising your gentle inner connection. Breathe less deeply as your inner connection deepens.

Meditate with both hands resting on your belly. This can be a constant reminder to stay in touch with your breath. When you begin, your breath may feel unnatural and stuttered. Instead, breathe as a baby breathes: when you inhale the belly fills up like a balloon, when you exhale, the belly relaxes into the spine.

Breathe until you feel a floating sensation. Breathe until you are a puffy white cloud floating in an infinite blue sky. Smile inside. Feel the warmth of the inner Sun. Enjoy. (by Anami)