Tag Archives: beginning meditation

Deepening in Your Experience of Meditation

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By George A. Boyd © 2017

Most meditators begin meditation learning to collect their attention and reaching the stage of mindfulness, where they are consciously present and they can monitor the content of their experience arising in the present time.

Meditation deepens when attention begins to move along the thread of consciousness and moves through the dimensions of the mind. Depending on your dominant mode of inner sensation, this takes the following five forms:

  1. Feeling – You feel deepening bliss as you move along the thread of consciousness.
  2. Hearing – You hear a series of high frequency sounds that correspond to each the resonant seed atom of each vehicle of consciousness at each level of the mind.
  3. Primary visual – You witness different colors and patterns arise at discrete levels of the mind.
  4. Cascading visual – You behold different symbols and images arise within each vehicle of consciousness.
  5. Discerning visual – You clearly visualize each vehicle of consciousness, its content, and its structure.

Whatever your primary inner sensing mode, it is important that you verify that you are moving along the thread of consciousness and are accessing deeper layers of the mind. This conscious movement is a sign you are actually penetrating into successive bands of your awareness and gaining insight into their contents.

After some practice of meditation, you will recognize each level of your mind and discern its unique function. At this stage, you can begin to practice landmarking.

In landmarking, you are able to identify which vehicle of consciousness that your attention is contemplating, and notice that each level of the mind has distinctive content. Like assigning number to each floor on an elevator, you begin to know what level you have ascended through the bands of the mind.

We explore the levels of the Conscious, Subconscious, and Metaconscious mind in our Introduction to Meditation class, This course is suitable for those of you who have never meditated before, are not aware of the levels of the mind, and have no experience with the process of attentional introversion.

This course prepares the non-meditator to subsequently unite attention with the three immortal essences—the attentional principle, the spirit, and the Soul—and perform the more advanced spiritual practices that become possible when these essences are activated. We introduce these more advanced practices in our intermediate courses, the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation and the by-mail and on-line Accelerated Meditation Program.

We encourage you to develop your meditation to the point where you can consciously move to deeper layers of the mind and not just float on the surface. Learning to follow the thread of consciousness with your attention is a marker of this transition to deepening meditation, and ultimately leads you to the capacity to do conscious inner work.

Coming to the Doorway of Meditation

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By George A. Boyd ©2016

Those who have never meditated before may find there is no apparent path for attention out of the brain—or may find themselves in an intermediate state. These pre-meditation states, and initial entrance to the state where one can meditate are briefly described below.

  1. Mind like concrete – You are only aware of your brain. There is no apparent path outside of this state of awareness.
  2. Mind like asphalt – you are aware of a background or surface behind the brain, which appears to be solid and darkened. There is no apparent path outside of this state of awareness.
  3. Mind like snail – You are aware intermittently of an inner point of light behind the two eyes, and a coiled, spiral or chamber-like structure that resembles that of a shell of a snail or nautilus. You do not see any apparent way to lift up into the light that appears there.
  4. Mind like styrofoam – You are aware that the light that you saw in the point between the eyebrows appears to be diffused and circulated in a cellular structure, but it has no apparent direction, and no path out of this matrix can be discerned.
  5. Mind like transparent tube – You become aware of the thread of consciousness for the first time. It is visible as a transparent tube filled with light, but when you try to enter it, you keep slipping out. Initially, you might find it difficult to stay in it, but with further practice, you can hold your attention in it steadily, and begin to travel in it.
  6. Mind like lotus flower – Your attention appears to collect in a ball of mind stuff. You experience being fully present. This is the state of mindfulness. The tube of light appears to connect with this lotus from the heart area below, and it appears to extend beyond the medulla center, tracking upward at about a 15-degree angle.
  7. Mind like flowing river – Your collected sphere of attention lifts up into this tube of light, and rests in a series of focal points in each successive form or vehicle of consciousness. This is the beginning of the state of meditation.

If you find yourself in states one to five, the pre-meditation states, there are several ways to transcend them and move to the place where you can begin to meditate. These methods include:

  1. Light Immersion – This occurs when a spiritual Master or advanced disciple sends the Light of Attunement to you, and you ride this current of Light and Fire into the state of mindfulness and meditation.
  2. The Hansa Breath – This is a meditation we teach that helps many meditators collect their attention into mindfulness and then, to begin following the thread of consciousness.
  3. Sustained chanting – Some people find that the resonance of their inner vehicles of consciousness through occurs during chanting lifts their awareness into these higher states of consciousness, and their attention is drawn upward through the vortex of energy that this method generates. Some people may have the same response to prayers that are repeated many times—for example, Catholics may repeat the “Our Father” or “Hail Mary” prayer, as their fingers move on a rosary, hundreds of times.
  4. Awakening of the Kundalini – People who experienced a spontaneous or induced awakening of their Kundalini Shakti may find that their attention is irresistibly drawn up into higher states of consciousness through this means. Similar experiences occur when people experience the Holy Spirit infilling the receptacle of the Christ Child nucleus of identity: this inner anointing may also lift the attention into union with this center.
  5. Sustained use of breathing techniques (Pranayama) – Some people find that rhythmic and deep breathing methods allow them to awaken their awareness into the state of the medulla lotus and arrive at the state where they can begin to meditate.
  6. Guided meditation, hypnosis, and movement meditation – Some people respond well to listening to a guided meditation or can readily go into a deeper state through meditation. For others, either specialized postures or movement [like those used in hatha yoga or martial arts] or deep relaxation exercises can ease them across this barrier into the medulla center.
  7. Transformational method – Use of a transformational mantra can actively dissolve this apparent veil that forms in the mind that keeps attention in the intermediate states, and allows attention to collect in its core essence as the sphere of mind stuff. Kriya Yoga, another transformational method, may have analogous effect. We teach you how to activate your transformational mantra in our intermediate courses.

The helix of the mind must release the impressions that have built up in the zone below where the lotus flower dwells in the medulla center, which is the seat of the ball of attention. The meditator can either open through this veil through methods one to six, or dissolve it entirely with a transformational method. We recommend beginning meditators learn these methods, so they can transcend these pre-meditation stages into the state of consciousness where meditation is possible.