Check out another post for meditation
http://www.yogaforums.com/forums/f16/meditation-techniques-5813.html#post30405
to be simple, I think its best to learn from a teacher and then as one develops a guru. Experience is utlimatly the only useful form of education. Intellect alone won’t bring results, it may guide and inform, but it is the practice that brings results.
[QUOTE=cass;26566]I am new learner to meditation and i am currently attending a basic course at a center in my country. Not sure if i can mentioned the name here, i will not at this moment.
I am just curious and want to know more, the below comment is just personal feelings and doubt. Please let me know if i am not allowed to share anything sensitive as mentioned below.
During the course, we discussed about who we are, who is god, and they teach on simple mediation technique.
The center has a hall with red lights on and everyone sit comfortably meditating with the red lights on. I was abit freak out and i have many questions to this. The teacher will not be able to answer to my question.
My understanding that we meditate to have a peaceful mind and to calm our thoughts. But, what my meditation teacher was saying is that meditation is the only way to reach the supreme soul and connect to GOD. I disagree at this point as i think meditation is not the only way to connect to GOD. I had a feeling that the teacher is trying to say that only through meditation ( on the way they do ) that we are able to connect to GOD and clear all our sin. It is the way that we prepare ourself to surrender to GOD and let GOD bring us to another world when the world is ending. I was also told that GOD has communicate with their choosen one to send us the message.
I am not very religious, but i believe GOD is the creator of everything we are enjoying now in this life. I trust all religion only teach us one thing , is to do good, nothing less than that.
Has meditation got to do to connect to god? I have only touch on sutra patanjali chapter one.Patanjali did not mentioned anything about this on meditation. What he mentioned was to find an object and concentrate. The aim of yoga is to break out unit consciousness into universal consciousness by letting go our ego and do good. It is also through yoga , that we find the peace of mind , bliss , enlightenment to reach samathi ( long lasting happiness
). In order to apply yogah citta vritti nirodhah is to meditate to be at peace. But , to be at peace, we can do many other things. Like, if i am concentrating on driving , clear my mind , then i am meditating. Another example is that only when i am doing my asana , my mind is no where else but on the mat concentrating on eveyr breath and movement , can that be a meditation too?
Am i trying to absorb too much and confused my self ? Or i just make it too complicated to understand ??[/QUOTE]
Hi Cass,
This thread is really a good one because you have a good question and you got great answers. I am just wondering if you have found what you are looking for. I hope you have found meaning when you meditate and instead find answers instead of questions. Dont worry what you are going through is a normal thing. We all ask questions and know that “when the student is ready, the teacher will appear”. You got good teachers in here. Namaste!
You can see my article on meditation here.
It’s the first in a series… more to follow later.
Hope it helps!
With love,
Ben
Meditation practices can be used for all sorts of purposes.
Like Habituating mind to build character. Like lets say: I don’t like frowing so much. I want to smile all the time! How lovely that would be. So you sit and do analytical meditation for a while. You analyse smiling. You go over smiling forwards and backwards with all kinds of questions? Why do I want to smile? Oh Because It makes my face look good, and it brings me good friends, and makes life more fun, and makes me smile even more. What does smiling mean? It means I’m happy! Is smiling good? Yes silly smiling is good. So you go on in that way until your tired of it and then you focus on smiling nonconceptually. Just rest on smiling without thinking about it.
So over the course of time by going in this way you will transform yourself into a smiling machine!
This is the the way to habituate the mind to build character if one so desires to do such a thing.
You could use it to solve problems. Whatever they may be.
So for the Big G. To meditate on the Big G you’d maybe start by visualizing the Original Gangsta symbolically. The Triangle is best, however you could personify him if so inclined.
Then you could hold the visualization and make the mind more forcefull by singing or mentally singing any one of his BAGILLION names. You could contemplate the various qualities - if so inclined. If you start crying. Thats pretty good.
All this stuff only serves to focus the mind towards the Suchness, the Thatness, the most awesomeness. While embodied the yogas are the means to realize.
You dont’ have to meditate on the Absolute to understand intellectually the profound connection.
Yoga is however, the means to Realize within your own being this connection. Face to Face so to speak. First hand experiential knowledge.
Realization and Faith are a little different.
There is no purpose to meditation whatsoever, it is not a means to an end. And anything which becomes a means to an end is just a way to nourish your own egotism, which wants to reduce everything to a certain purpose. Certain things may happen as a by product of meditation, but they should not be misunderstood as goals to acheive. On the contrary, the moment you even make an effort for meditation, you have already killed the possibility. It is not something that can arise as an effort of the mind. Effort is needed, just to create a space which is prepared for it, but when it happens it never happens as an effort of the mind. Meditation requires you to remain a witness in the present from moment to moment, without identification with whatever may arise in your experience. That is why - those who set a goal for it have always failed. Because your expectations have prevented you from being a witness in the present, your clinging to desires have prevented you from being a witness in the present. When there is witnessing, there is just witnessing and nothing else.
Meditation is not a means to an end, when you are so absorbed in the process, then both the means and the end dissolve as one reality.
"My understanding that we meditate to have a peaceful mind and to calm our thoughts. But, what my meditation teacher was saying is that meditation is the only way to reach the supreme soul and connect to GOD. "
It is safe to dismiss all this as sheer nonsense. The chances are, that the same people who have been speaking to you about meditation have raised all of the obstacles which prevent you from coming to know of it.
[QUOTE=AmirMourad;55704]There is no purpose to meditation .
what about the Brahma viharas ? what about developing samahdi , do you not think that these might not have some intention ? dont you think some folk might get along better with a little structure ? a little focus on the breath perhaps, a little hatha yoga, a little study , maybe so they can get to a place of sitting for the delight of sitting , free from trying to do anything.
Im keen on just sitting , not trying to to do anything but witness , but I have in the past been looking to cultivate ways of being , certain qualities , In a non grasping unattached way of course ! ultimately maybe there is no purpose , maybe I have been wasting my time but I definately moved from a place of great suffering to one of less suffering using brahma viharas , mindfulness of breath and other meditations with intention , isnt their a discovery a realisation to be made along the way ?
[QUOTE=cass;26566]I am new learner to meditation and i am currently attending a basic course at a center in my country. Not sure if i can mentioned the name here, i will not at this moment.
I am just curious and want to know more, the below comment is just personal feelings and doubt. Please let me know if i am not allowed to share anything sensitive as mentioned below.
During the course, we discussed about who we are, who is god, and they teach on simple mediation technique.
The center has a hall with red lights on and everyone sit comfortably meditating with the red lights on. I was abit freak out and i have many questions to this. The teacher will not be able to answer to my question.
My understanding that we meditate to have a peaceful mind and to calm our thoughts. But, what my meditation teacher was saying is that meditation is the only way to reach the supreme soul and connect to GOD. I disagree at this point as i think meditation is not the only way to connect to GOD. I had a feeling that the teacher is trying to say that only through meditation ( on the way they do ) that we are able to connect to GOD and clear all our sin. It is the way that we prepare ourself to surrender to GOD and let GOD bring us to another world when the world is ending. I was also told that GOD has communicate with their choosen one to send us the message.
I am not very religious, but i believe GOD is the creator of everything we are enjoying now in this life. I trust all religion only teach us one thing , is to do good, nothing less than that.
Has meditation got to do to connect to god? I have only touch on sutra patanjali chapter one.Patanjali did not mentioned anything about this on meditation. What he mentioned was to find an object and concentrate. The aim of yoga is to break out unit consciousness into universal consciousness by letting go our ego and do good. It is also through yoga , that we find the peace of mind , bliss , enlightenment to reach samathi ( long lasting happiness
). In order to apply yogah citta vritti nirodhah is to meditate to be at peace. But , to be at peace, we can do many other things. Like, if i am concentrating on driving , clear my mind , then i am meditating. Another example is that only when i am doing my asana , my mind is no where else but on the mat concentrating on eveyr breath and movement , can that be a meditation too?
Am i trying to absorb too much and confused my self ? Or i just make it too complicated to understand ??[/QUOTE]
Hi Cass. Meditation has a very practical application, however due to it’s origins (like yoga), it is intertwined with what could most accurately described as BS.
Anyone meditating to become more ‘spiritual’, or to become ‘liberated’ or closer to god, or even to become a god, has either missed the point of meditation or is in need of some serious mental care.
Meditation, put simply, is a way to focus the mind and become familiar with our mental state. It’s a way to assist us in bringing our attention back to the life we are living, and away from our day dreams.
This is a very simplified explanation, but my point is, if you are being told that mediation is for some sort of magical gateway to the divine, you are listening to a lunatic. Just keep things simple and practical, and you will never get lost.
[QUOTE=cass;26566]My understanding that we meditate to have a peaceful mind and to calm our thoughts.[/QUOTE]That?s right. The first step is to reach thoughtless awareness- Nirvichar Samadhi.
[QUOTE=Seeker33;55791]That’s right. The first step is to reach thoughtless awareness- Nirvichar Samadhi.[/QUOTE]
nirvichar samadhi happens well after the mind is calm.
So how can the very last thing be the first thing?
I’ll tell you how.
Only in sahaja yoga,
In SY everybody is told they are already self-realized. They already at the goal, even before starting the journey. What this does it breeds an attitude of spiritual complacency. After all, if you are already self-realized, then why do any spiritual work to develop yourself.
This is why SY is full of idiots who have been in the organization for years and have nothing to show for it. These idiots tried to convince me and my friends to not question anything, to simply listen to what their walrus guru says, because she knows best. SY is nothing more than a personality cult. They worship that walrus.
[QUOTE=The Scales;55859]nirvichar samadhi happens well after the mind is calm. [/QUOTE]Nir-[B]without [/B]Vichara-[B]reflection[/B].
When there is no reflection in your mind/there is no thoughts/ this is Nirvishar, [B]not after.[/B]
[QUOTE=Surya Deva;55902]In SY everybody is told they are already self-realized. They already at the goal, even before starting the journey. What this does it breeds an attitude of spiritual complacency. After all, if you are already self-realized, then why do any spiritual work to develop yourself.
This is why SY is full of idiots who have been in the organization for years and have nothing to show for it. These idiots tried to convince me and my friends to not question anything, to simply listen to what their walrus guru says, because she knows best. SY is nothing more than a personality cult. They worship that walrus.[/QUOTE]Doors of Sahaja yoga are open and a lot of people claim that they achieve SY but SY is state, not certificate.
[B]First only couple of threads of Kundalini get awakened but GOD?s realization is final goal.[/B]
[QUOTE=Seeker33;55910]Nir-[B]without [/B]Vichara-[B]reflection[/B].
When there is no reflection in your mind/there is no thoughts/ this is Nirvishar, [B]not after.[/B][/QUOTE]
sure buddy.
whatever you say.
[QUOTE=The Scales;55859]nirvichar samadhi happens well after the mind is calm.
So how can the very last thing be the first thing?
I’ll tell you how.
Only in sahaja yoga,[/QUOTE]
there are multi planes in every dimension. after nirvichar, The real game starts, infinity. just drink the nectar. no one tells you any thing, you are completely alone and in Brahmaanand.
its up to us how to take the reality behind the custom of rituals.
aum
Far out!! This thread is not going to help!!! 
I can see why poor Cass is so confused… this thread has officially left planet earth. NOTE TO CASS: Try to take advice from the earlier replies, and don’t make it complicated like these numb nuts have
@so called yogi.
The only reason you made that joke is because you are an idiot who can’t tell apart fact from sensationalism.
heard it longtime back.
[QUOTE=bjoy;55979]@so called yogi.
The only reason you made that joke is because you are an idiot who can’t tell apart fact from sensationalism.
heard it longtime back.[/QUOTE]
?? I can’t respond to something that doesn’t make sense.
God then posts a cherub at the entrance to the Garden of Eden in order to block the way to the Tree of Life, “lest he put out his hand … and eat, and live forever.”