Class 1 Meditation for beginners
How meditation works
Meditation is an extremely simple process. It follows three distinct steps:
1. We start with the superficial, scattered mind.
This is the level with which we often carry out our day-to-day chores:
get the newspaper, cook the meal,
etc. It is often characterised by lots of thoughts, positive and negative, with very little control or knowledge of how they got there. If we are often in this state of mind, we will find that we are easily distracted, have difficulty concentrating, probably worry about unimportant things and have little understanding of the real 'us'.
2. By virtue of our heart's concentration we can progress to deeper, analytical thinking.
When our mind is focused completely on one thing, we are the most efficient and purposeful in our thinking. This is the basis of the rules of
'time-management': to be focused absolutely on one task at a time. The analytical level reveals the deepest we can go with thought.
3. From this very deep thinking we enter into the intuitive state.
Revelations, "I know this is right" feelings,
inner strength, creativity, joy, peace and love are some of the expressions of
our heart in this state. When thinking stops and intuitive experience takes over, this is meditation. We
may call these moments, 'Aah' moments. These moments are where the deepest moments of revelation and intuition are born, and we reveal our real self.
The task of meditation is to enter the very focused thinking of the analytical mind, and from there the shift to the intuitive mind or heart takes place automatically.
The highest experience in any endeavour is a meditation experience. Every endeavour goes through similar processes to eventually arrive at meditation experiences.
If, for example, we want to become a pianist, we first have to train the body and the mind to have the correct finger technique etc. For a footballer,
it is the right kicking style; for a rock-climber, the right moves... So we concentrate past the
superficial to the analytical mind and learn and practice as efficiently as possible.
As we progress however, there are moments where our consciousness is
effortlessly transported past the analytical to the intuitive or higher mind or what we may call the heart. Examples of these intuitive or meditative
moments are typically where a team works as one, a runner experiences a 'runner's high', a bushwalker ceases to be an observer and merges into the feeling of the forest and becomes a participant,
or when a sports person hits 'the zone'.
As we know already these moments are usually:
Memorable - when we look back on our lives these are the moments that we recall.
Fulfilling - they are the reason we spend hours at our endeavours so we can get a few moments of meditation.
Accidental - imagine how much better our lives would be if we could meditate at any time we chose.
Next page: The Seven Keys to Meditation and our free Guided Meditation exercise