I am an avid meditator and am curious to know what works well for everyone.

Some things to consider:
- mantras?
- breathwork
- hand posture
- your view on chakras
- what meditation does for you
- anything and everything else; meditation can be done in a myriad of ways for a plethora of reasons!

I enjoy establishing a trance and then focusing on obscure places on my body. You can actually selectively feel places on your body you forgot about! When was the last time you focused your attention on the feelings and sensations coming from your third toe to the left or the back of your knee? Give it a whirl!

All feedback is appreciated

Peace,

I don't quite understand. Please "enlighten" me lol.

Meditation for me is about tuning into the body and just letting that take me where it will,I never force myself to sit in a position , but sometimes Ill find myself in full lotus chanting. Meditation I believe should be spontaneous. Although I do set aside some time to meditate each day if I am not feeling it Ill just take a nap instead or just lay down and day dream.

its not really about day dreaming , its about silencing the internal chatter so the mind will be able to chill , infact day dreaming is the chatter we are trying to silence with these techniques

i bascily sit or lie down on my bed listening to music and paying attention to my breath at the same time

there are other techniques aswell , i learnt about paying attention to breath by reading posts from RS , before that i was trying certain eye techniques ,however paying attention to sound is my primary method to always be present in the moment , and music is Fun

i do chant a Mantra aswell yet only few times a day , as too much of Mantra chanting has been counterproductive in my experience

In my experience mantras have also been counterproductive. It is a lot easier for me to sit and concentrate without speaking. I like to sit next to a small river and listen to the running water; to allow my consciousness to flow with the sound of the water.

I have tried music, but a lot of times in get distracted when a song comes on that I know to well. I can't stop my mind from singing along.


I went to a kundalini yoga event last week and during meditation they said they like to focus there eyes upward towards their pineal gland. What does everyone feel about that?

On a side notes, has anyone realized any changes in their meditative sessions after a DMT experience? I would like to try this soon, maybe a recently activated pineal gland will allow for a deeper meditative state. Just a thought.

exactly why i listen to music without vocals , trance or chillout depending on my mood yet without vocals , also i keep downloading new tracks so an old song is rarely played



at times this has resulted in a headache , other times it has help dissolve a headache , so i am getting mixed results



yes everytime i smoke DMT , after the intense trip when i come down my mind is totally clear and it becomes more clearer every time especially if i don't smoke cannabis after coming down from DMT

Ah good idea, vocals are definitely what get to me. Do you have any bands you could recommend? I am always open to meditative experimentation.

I also got a headache from that and it was somewhat of a distraction, but the session leaders seemed very convinced that this helped activate their pineal gland for them. I was under the impression that I just did not have enough practice with this.

How long do you usually meditate for? And is meditating after a "voyage" commonplace for you?

Thank you for your replies BTW

Meditation is intended to empty you. When you are empty, YOU are. Hence

Haha, that post should have been obvious to me! I guess I was just expecting more information on what gets you to that point of emptiness. Thanks for the pun Parshvik Chintan.

Good afternoon. I have much experience with meditation during entheogen use. Particularly, my plethora of information is in dmt and dex use (and sometimes mixing the two, but I rarely do so for reasons cited in other areas of this website). It's important to focus on what the chakras mean to you, and not in general. The most important chakra, the root chakra, is absolutely critical to vitality and endurance. This can be the make or break of recovery from a bad trip. The root chakra deals with your past and where you came from--and perhaps even farther back from that--if you're into reincarnation. So to elucidate what I mean, last weekend I had the most horrible trip of my life. What I did to recover (and I did so within an hour or two) revolved around focusing on my memories of my younger life. This jogged my memory and activated rarely active connections in my own body. It also made my arms and legs feel great, which is further evidence of root chakra activation. Now, I wouldn't be making these claims under the false presumption that chakras are a "law" or even strongly supported. It is just my own experience with it. My friends have also reported similar findings, which leads me to my own confidence in its workings. If anyone has any opposite reports, I am more than open to dissenting opinions. Since this post is getting long, I'll leave it at that. The other chakras are like opening up a can of worms, after all.

Good afternoon to you as well Mind bolt.

I understand that chakras are not classified as a "law," which is why I am glad to hear some input from you concerning this matter. I have done lots of research on it, but haven't really consolidated enough information or personal experience to where it makes much sense to me.

I will have to try tapping into my root chakra next time I get roughed up in an altered state. I keep my mind open to all possibilities, but reincarnation resonates with me more than a lot of other things, so I can understand what you are getting at.

Do you only activate your chakras for specific reasons or is there a great benefit to perpetually activating your chakras simply as common practice?

Thanks for your input!

I typically start out with kriya pranayama to slow my breath down and settle the immediate mental agitation.

When I'm good and calm I switch to a vipassana style meditation and literally feel every sensation at it's source as it rises. Put in simpler terms I become hyper aware. I become aware of being aware. I hold it as long as I can...and the longer I hold hold it the deeper I go. This hyper awareness leads directly to the jhanas.

Now don't confuse hyper awareness with strained awareness. If there is strain you should also be aware of that. When I catch my mind beginning to move I note the impermanence of all things including meditation induced mental states and then I bring my attention back to my root level awareness.


My practice has evolved over the years....gosh right around 20 years now. I'm also not so rigid any more. If I have something that is really bothering me then I will do kriya pranayama to settle myself into basic access concentration and then I will put my focus on my issues as though I'm an outside referee.

I will say this though. When a person first starts there are two things that matter above all.

1) Actually putting time into regular practice.
2) Developing basic access concentration as fast as possible. You can't get anywhere in meditation without concentration.

After those two items are addressed the next thing is to remember meditation isn't about mastering a technique. It's about seeing clearly. So above all practice seeing. Observe everything including the observation itself...

That's what seems to work well for me these day's.

Peace

I will have to do some research on kriya pranayama and vipassana. I am not familiar with those "styles" as I have always done my own thing. I realize they all accomplish the same thing, but I am interested in experimenting with different aims.

Becoming aware of being aware, that is a perfect way of explaining what meditation is capable of!

I appreciate you distinguishing hyper awareness from strained awareness as this is very important to understand. Many informational readings I have done on meditation provide you with a long list of vaguely identified things that you should do. Lots of times these things distract instead of enhance.

Wow, I hope to stick with meditation for 20 years! That is impressive to me as I am going on 10 months.

Thank you joedirt

Have a great day!

I do a number of things but to quickly minimize chatter and enter a state of very relaxed but focused concentration quickly I generally like to use staring + mantras (or just vocalizations of any kind that comes flowing out)

I'm a very vocal oriented person in some ways and am told can do a lot of bizarre things with my vocal chords, so for whatever reason this has always been something thats aided me a lot in meditation.

Now that I think of it I remember Robert Anton Wilson recalling some funny mantra I've tried out a few times in the past...."shamadi shawadi shamadi shawadi shamadi shamadi shamadi shawadi"... he said "its like windshield wipers for your inner mind chatter" ^__^

One meditation that is unfortunately rarely talked about is active imagination...a lot like how Jung used to do. This can be used to enter a trance into some incredibly bizarre areas of the inner cosmos where the term "imagining" doesn't do this meditative state justice, but to get there a more structured visualization/imagination can be used. I used to take a lot of caapi and then while smoking repetitive low/medium doses of changa imagine as best I could myself expanding my awareness to that of my entire being, then my entire room, then the house, village, continent, planet, solar system, galaxy, galactic cluster, etc. After 20 or so rounds of that, things start getting really wierd..gradually you can enter a trance as the imagination goes onto some kind of bizarre alien-auto-pilot.

But I do really enjoy just sitting down eyes closed and breathing...sort of continually letting go of anything but my awareness

No matter what I do though a good yoda session beforehand, or even just a brief stretching period, aids greatly in the meditation

Man, some very profoundly beautiful things have been shared within this much welcomed thread. I really enjoyed the Zen-Zero-Emptiness entry. Smiling feels so good! This thread is already way deep and getting off to a most profound and playful start.

And I think it's quite fair to say, that whatever path or methodology of meditation we embark upon, every avenue with any depth of heart, eventually leads directly into a more attuned and incrementally more alert sensibility... one wholly geared towards living lucidly within this very present moment in earth time. Right here & now, blooming within each of our consciousnesses, joyfully entranced within this eternally present unfolding. The only moment there is... is now!

When we suddenly arrive into this focused degree attention, we are indeed meditating. The mind stops and pure awareness expands exponentially. Either through shifting from one dimension to another or simply polishing the lens of attention to this reality we interact within, meditation brings the concentration to one pin-point of focused clarity. But however we arrive is ultimately somewhat irrelevant, experientially, as all time-honored methods are equally valid, though highly variable from individual to individual.

And this is taking into account, the sheer spontaneity of the living Spiritus, the very essence of all perceivable things and further beyond. That is itself, freely unbound... and as such, is without any possible quantification by human subjectivity or encapsulated in any feasibly conceptualized, systematized or adequately describable equation.

But kudos to those fine folks who do steadfastly practice deep meditation. It's kinda like endlessly tuning a guitar (sure, I confess that this is an admittedly blatant metaphor for the human soul shifting into a more harmonious and impartial state of clear, crystallized observation of the present).

We do seem to innately and instinctively, seek direct integration and an equanimous understanding, with each expression of intent. And I feel that all spiritual methods and religious lineages are equally valid and are most honorable, with any number of valid meditation techniques. This, in and of itself, necessitates an integration and an actualization, that proves most enlightening and delightful.

And if meditation is anything, it is paying direct attention to the flow of energy as it passes through ourselves, in cosmic waves of euphoria. A pause in time, and the ensuing silent witnessing. The watcher watching him/herself watching his/herself, watching him/herself watching the play of sentient existence. In silent reflection, forever brightly we shine. Meditation rules!

I am glad to see somone else as excited and supportive of the concept of meditation! The ability to discuss and expound upon a goal to achieving nothingness is somewhat ironic, but very enjoyable to me.

It is true that no matter what level of spirituality or awareness, relgious denomination or lack of religion, living in the present moment is important. I enjoy learning about methods of meditation from people of different origins. The diverse thought processes present within our earth cultivates an even more diverse and interesting direction to quiet the mind. I would like to thank everyone again for sharing such an intimate and stunningly interesting detail about themselves

Meditation does rule! It's humorous that when you are feeling overwhelmed by a problem the further you look inward, the more you realize the unimportance of your discomfort; usually because these discomforts are a product of something that happened in the past OR have yet to happen! The present really is a peaceful thing. Oh yeah and its the only thing that exists

Keep looking inward to project love and peace outward, friends!