The Inner Pioneers: We ask questions from the inside out!

Thanks, Fred, for these insights and questions about vital things -- both everyday and fundamental.  Would that more people asked them.  They remind me that both questions and answers can come from different places in ourselves.  And so, relative to this, I would like to share a very recent experience (from the inside) and a resulting perspective.

Three days ago I returned from a meditation retreat in the Santa Cruz Mountains -- near you.  It was wonderful and I learned much that satisfied the mind.  But the most crucial thing I learned was beyond my thinking mind.  I learned that when meditating (or just going about my life), when I pay attention to my own mind and emotions (and body) in a direct, open, non-analytical way (as a pure observer with no judgments, goals, or expectations), I see, first, that emotions and thoughts of every kind come and go.  They have no enduring quality in themselves.  And the shadows are there, too, naked, flitting in and out of existence with all the rest.  It's all okay -- nothing to reject.  As time goes on I notice that there are spaces betweens my thoughts.  These spaces become more numerous and longer as my "observer" stays on the job.  And these spaces grow, and sometimes there is only empty space, which is filled with light and love.  It's simpler than simple.  Can we call this True Self?  God?  Well, these are just words.  Why pile names on it?

So I see that in the experience of (identity with) this empty, luminous space are the answers (non-verbal and comprehensive) to the questions you posed.  In one sentence, this is what I'm left with:  Everything -- all of existence (the world, all things and events, our thoughts and emotions and shadows, ourselves [all of us]) -- is shot through with luminous awareness and love.  That's it.   But it's an experience, not an idea.  We needn't even look for it, just open to it.  It's already there and always has been.  We are that.  That's fundamentally all there is.  So we can truly relax (with awareness, not laxity).   Easier said than done in this turmoil, but even if it isn't easy, it's simple -- and possible.  It's about looking "inside" as well as "outside."

Having said this, I realize that there are many paths through this phenomenal world -- and experiences -- on all levels.  For what it's worth, this is one.

Bob

I'm just adding to this thread to move it back up into the "visible spectrum" of threads so that a new member won't miss it.  Based on what she said about her journey, this might be valuable for her.

B.

I really appreciate the insights you both have presented here. I fully understand the need for meditation but I find myself in a quandary over the issue. For fully 8 months of the year 24/7, I live and work on a boat in the Gulf of Mexico. This is a noisy environment with no comfortable private place in which to meditate. I have tried guided meditations in bed before sleep but before I can build up a visualization, the guide starts speaking again and ruins it. I'm sure an accomplished meditator would have no problems with this, but me on the other hand... Are there any suggestions that either of you can offer up for someone afflicted with the monkey mind?

Peace, Love and Joy,

Kevin

Hi Fred-

Your questions remind me of the Quaker practice of asking questions / queries as a way of keeping ourselves and our meeting on track. I like the idea that they can be thought of in an individual or collective / group sense.  I did a search and picked some that I think might be relevant or interesting to our group. (Some may need a bit of language adaptation to be relevant - worship can be replaced with mediation, religious community or meeting for worship could be replaced with the gathering spot):

Do I maintain as part of my personal and family life those daily practices that focus on continued spiritual growth, with disciplined worship, inward retirement, and communion with the divine spirit?

Do I share my own faith and spiritual journey, and encourage such sharing within my family?

Am I ready to offer assistance as part of my religious community serving its members? Am I equally willing to accept graciously the help of others?

Do I recognize and face disagreements and other situations that put me in conflict with others? Do I manifest a spirit ready to give or receive forgiveness?

Do I treat adults and children alike with respect and without condescension? Is my manner with visitors and attenders to my Meeting one of welcome?

Following 2 queries are about the home, but they could apply to our On-line Home!

Is my home a place where all members of the family receive affection and understanding, and where visitors are welcome?

Is our family prepared to discuss such sensitive topics as death, faith, money, even sex and drugs, in a manner that allows openness and honesty, and also direction?

Do I examine myself for aspects of prejudice that may be buried, including beliefs that seem to justify biases based on race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, class, and feelings of inferiority or superiority?

Do I show through my way of living, that love of God includes affirming the equality of people, treating others with dignity and respect, and seeking to recognize and address that of God within every person?

Do I live in the power of that Life and Spirit that takes away the occasion of all wars?

Do I work for the establishment of alternative ways of settling disputes? Am I aware that to build a world community requires that we all face our differences honestly, openly, and in trust?

Do I treat conflict as an opportunity for growth, and address it with careful attention? Do I seek to recognize and respect the Divine in those with whom I have a basic disagreement? Do I look for ways to reaffirm in action and attitude my love for the one with whom I am in conflict?

How am I helping to develop a social, economic, and political system which will nurture an environment which sustains and enriches life for all?

How do I strive to maintain the integrity of my inner and outer lives—in my spiritual journey, my work, and my family responsibilities? How do I manage my commitments so that overcommitment, worry, and stress do not diminish my integrity?

Am I careful to speak truth as I know it and am I open to truth spoken to me?

Hi Kevin and welcome!!

I am wondering...if you could learn a brief 'meditation' or maybe it's not a meditation but maybe it could be an aid to it- that allows you to simply relax deeply and breathe easily quite quickly. I went to a workshop on developing psi abilities in May. The leader had us learn a technique to reach a relaxed state so we could better hear our inner intuitive senses. A purist could rightly claim it isn't a meditation but ...Here's a summary-it's easy:
Sit
Close eyes
Breathe
Relax all your body as best you can(the first time you do this take plenty of time-to the point of relaxing body parts like hands, fingers, forehead etc this will be 100% easier the next times when u won't need to spend a lot of time)
Out loud, (if at all possible) count backwards from 100 to 0 (or fewer if you like), and hum the numbers between...saying the next number every couple of seconds........don't worry at all if u mess up any numbers......
   ninety niiiiiiiiiiiiiinnne,ninety eighhhhhhht, etc so you don't have long silences between them, and allow yourself to be relaxed
 Now I count down usually from thirty or twenty before doing certain tasks I want to clear my mind for. Anyway, i thought this might help you reach a meditative state more easily.

I also heard Joe McMoneagle speak last week(Remote Viewer in Stargate program) and he said he practiced a form of Zen meditation(I think he said Zazen?) for many years to blank his mind. He learned to drop into a quiet mind state almost instantly. He also wanted to learn to do Remote Viewing under ANY conditions (usually people insist on a quiet room with dim lighting)so he would RV at his office desk with people interrupting him and other noisy environments (incl next to a 155mm Howitzer being fired!). I was very heartened to learn he could drop into a meditative state fast and could remain or resume quickly in spite of interruptions. I don't know if you can learn HIS way quickly or if he got there by years of practice. I only know when I use my little "technique" I get a relatively fast physiological relaxation and mental quieting that serves my purposes well. At times I have had the luxury of enough time to spend about 20 or 30 minutes meditating a day in a nearby park-on a bench. I would just try to focus my mind exclusively on my breath. After some weeks, I experienced a wonderful spiritual place I didn't expect or anticipate. I can't possibly guarantee such an experience-who knows why this happened-it might have just been the right time for me, or happened because I didn't expect it to!

 BTW-I have read that meditating at bedtime may make it hard to sleep but I haven't tried that myself.

 So best of luck in your endeavor and I hope this helps.

 Peace-Brian

Hi Kevin and welcome,

I find that a simple approach that includes awareness of body sensation works well.  Whether sitting, lying, standing, or walking, to generally be aware of the body sensation -- either in one or two places (feel on floor, butt on chair) or the entire body at once -- puts you into the present moment, where the monkey mind doesn't like to be.  To get used to this, you can count your breaths (breathe naturally) from 1 to 10 over and over again; when you lose count (which you will), go back to one with no judgment on yourself.  When thoughts come up, notice them, but don't feed them in any way, and don't cut them off.  (Suppressing them affords them a reality and a power that they don't deserve.)  At some point, either in the same meditation or down the road a piece, you can drop the counting and then just watch the monkey mind from the point of view of observer, who is not lost in thought (the opposite of the usual thing).  Eventually you may notice that there are spaces between thoughts, which is where real peace lies.  And sometimes you may have longish periods of no thinking.  While these spaces and periods are pure gold, it's counterproductive to become attached to them or to try to suppress thoughts to achieve this space.  It will come on its own if you do this without an adversarial attitude toward thoughts.   A pure observer has no adversarial attitude; he just watches without comment or judgment.  Comments and judgments may come, but they're just thoughts and therefore no problem for the observer (you).  Touching back into the body sensation (that is, including it in what you're being aware of), keeps you in the present, where the monkey mind (in his cage of the present moment) doesn't cause problems.   "He" can actually be fun to watch.

Thank you so much for the tips Brian and Bob. I found especially poiniant the bit about the adverserial relationship to thoughts because that is my exact response to them. When the thoughts creep in, I mentally tell my mind to shut up. Rookey mistake I suppose. I will definitely put these ideas into practice. I also found an interesting breathing technique fro James of the Wing Makers which he calls the quantum breath. I haven't used it with regularity but will try to work it in more often. Thanks again for the great advice.

In Gratitude,

Kevin

Blessings Hi to All Welcome Kevin,

It helps when just begining to Meditate if you can find someone who has been meditating for some time for their peaceful precence can lend you a doorway into your own.         If this is not an option, another method is to simply.....Stop and Listen....If listening outwards listen for the spaces between the various sounds you hear going eventually beyond all to the peace of deep space..... When Listening inwards listen for the sounds of the various organs.... The Liver, Kidney's, Stomach, Lungs, The Heart Beat then beyond into the spaces between the beats  and soon you will be listening to (as the song goes) to the sound of silence..... 

If the mind wonders gently bring it back to listening. You will find that in no time the breathing will slow and find its own level, and the mind will fall quite naturally into the space of silence and be stilled. (Without Force .)

With peace and Love

Hi folks,

Great thread!

Good set of questions to keep in mind Wendy.  Thanks.  I'm printing them to keep them at hand.  And good methods for meditation.  I'm in the fortunate position of having the tme to do 1 hour meditation every morning and at least 1/2 at night, just before going to sleep.  No problem sleeping, so go ahead, Kevin, and try it. 

What I'm coming to realize is "Why bother to reach those moments of silence".

As we grow up we've learned to perceive the 'world outside' through our senses.  ALL the messages from our senses go through our perception mechanism, usually on the left hemisphere of our brain, where it is analyzed, categorized and interpreted according to our past experiences and fears of what the future may bring, BEFORE it is sent to our awareness.  This is called 'the interpreter' in psychological circles, it is what Bob calls the 'monkey brain', but it is also called the ego, reactive mind, the subconscious, and a few other names. It's prime directive is to make sense of the world we perceive, and the world makes sense only when "I am right!".  Something like "What I do is logical, I'm not crazy.  Everyone else may be crazy."  And if the data perceived does not make logical sense, the interpreter is not beyond making up the missing data so the conclusion comes out the right way.  This is the mechanism we usually operate under.  This is the reason, IMO, why we are in such a mess. (For a lecture about it check this video)

But this is not the only perception mechanism we have.  There's another in the right hemisphere that doesn't add any data to the observed world (it doesn't lie to ourselves).  And, also, the heart is part of our thinking/perceiving mechanism, so then the aim seems to be the untraining ourselves from using the interpreter, to giving the right hemisphere and heart the priority, which is very difficult since we become aware of stuff AFTER it's already gone through the interpreter.

However, during the Transformation Course it is mentions, somewhere, that 'new' perception organs come into play when doing meditation.  In the Secret of the Golden Flower method it talks about "take maternal care of the embryo".  Other practices mention that the opening of the Third Eye brings about an ability to act without errors.  The Egyptians believed that we had over 200 senses.  So, it seems like it is "seeing the world through a different lens".  Now connecting this to Bruce Lipton's discovery about our genes (of which 70% or so are considered 'junk' because they can't figure out what they are for) being activated by the environment or at will, and not by some immutable biological happenstance, we can deduct that these genes are being activated to bring about this 'other' perception organs into play, into action.

The reason we need to be silent, is because we don't know what needs to happen.  Let our 'Higher Self' (or our 'Future Self' as David Wilcock says) do the internal directing.

So, it seems to me that THE MOST IMPORTANT thing we can do, now that this cluster of crisis is coming upon us, is to become aware of our Real Self.  Meditate.

Another point is not to do it out of fear... "I meditate because I want to prevent this horrible thing from happening!".  Remember this world is really an illusion.  The "war" has already been won.  We are simply manifesting how it happened.  Or to put it in Christian terminology, we are "witnessing His will". 

Namaste brother/sister.

 Kevin- you have those thought interruptions-I used to hate that so much. I was really obsessed with them for a long time and that obsession made me give up meditating-thinking I wasn't good enough or healthy enough of a human being to meditate...Then I heard a few different meditators emphasize being gentle w/yourself and even to thank your mind for it's contributions. When I started to have compassion for my own mind and thoughts, I found I wanted to thank it sincerely. I really GOT IT that my mind was doing the absolute best job of supporting me that it could muster. This made me grateful instead of hateful-LOL. Mentally now, it's a partnership. My ego knows I'm not trying to vanquish it anymore-that it's not going anywhere-and so it supports me in doing the meditation. At least that's my inner dialog...kinda ironic.

Peace-Brian

is for me to finally realize there never actually was a war, only the experience that we perceive as a war to be won or lost, a concept born from our dualistic and polarized training.  And we never needed saving, for we were never actually lost.  As Hidden Hand said in such refreshing manner, "saved from what?"  "there's only One of us here"

Loved this line Bob,

"So, it seems to me that THE MOST IMPORTANT thing we can do, now that this cluster of crisis is coming upon us, is to become aware of our Real Self.  Meditate."