Meditation Basics
The Basics of Meditation
(Information in this article was provided by Jacob of the FIGU forum)
The Will and Meditation
The will only has it's influence on meditation that it induces a concentration, you build up a will to concentrate, but as soon as that concentration is present the will becomes void, the will just gives the command to start a meditation concentration, and nothing more. The will is a thought process on its own, as long as its present in the material consciousness, it obstructs the material consciousness of gaining a meditation concentration because a active thought is present.
Compare it to the starter of a car, the starter is only important to start the engine, but not past that point, it would be very damaging for the car if the starter would keep on running.
Meditation and Thought
Meditation concentration is all about a clear view, clear recognition and clear insight, all these processes are purely observational, this means that there is only a pure observation with absolutely no thought at all, because thoughts pollute the pure observation with elements like value judgements or stray thoughts.
Stray thoughts like "What is for dinner tomorrow?" or "I forgot to close the front door", value judgements like "I am not concentrating the right way" or willful thoughts like "I have to meditate now" or "I must now meditate."
Also any thought that induces a feeling of bliss or happiness are completely wrong because they are generated by the material consciousness and material subconscious out of false thinking and beliefs.
Meditation requires a very serious and objective commitment in order to lead to results.
Meditation Basics
The most easy form of meditation is the meditation that deals with concentration on the nostrils and observing the unobstructed and natural flow of air passing that point. Breathing is a natural human process that can be observed from its beginning until its end (breathing in, breathing out).
Important is that you need to keep your breathing natural, there is absolutely no need to adapt your breathing for your meditation exercise.
In fact if you do change your breathing, it means that its a willfull action resulting from thoughts, and any thoughts during meditation are stray thoughts and hinder meditation itself. So, concentrate on your breathing, let it go as it always go, and dont alter it in any way. When stray thoughts do occur, you need to be passive violent about that and ignore them and refocus your attention on your meditation concentration.
Stray thoughts acts much like fire, as long as you keep on pouring gasoline on it, it keeps on buring, when you stop, the fire dies.
The same goes for stray thoughts, as long you keep on giving them attention in your mind, they will keep on comming back, when you ignore them and focus back on your meditative concentration you will notice that over time and with perseverance the stray thoughts will become less and less.
In all these things patience is a virtue and it will take time before a meditation concentration is reached.
Euphoric Meditation
Euphoric meditation is willfully generating thoughts of bliss, joy and well being, these thoughts have a direct influence in the psyche by generating similar feelings.
Because the consciousness is focussed on these feelings a delusion occurs because these feelings are purely generated from the consciousness and don't have any realistic foundation. These delusions can have such a severe impact that the person who practices this meditation form will become unable to seperate reality from fiction.
When this occurs it will have damaging effects on the psyche and can cause a mania and schizophrenia that will be hard, if impossible to heal.
