Different methods of meditation and real masters

If you want to experience your mind and body holistically, you can do this in very different ways. One option is meditation. Here mind and perception open up. The term »meditation« comes from the Latin meditatio, meditari »to think, to consider, to move to the centre, to ponder« and means to go beyond the mind, to put aside thoughts, to pause and to put a stop to the constant chatter of the brain or, more precisely, of our neocortex. It has now been scientifically proven that meditation also changes the brain, and the ways in which we can meditate are extremely diverse. »How should I meditate?«
This is what Apa Pantra asked the Tibetan meditation master Sogyal Lakar Rinpoche. Sogyal replied:
»When a past thought has stopped and a future thought has not yet arisen, there is a gap. Well, make that gap longer. This is meditation.« Sogyal Lakar Rinpoche wrote several books, including the work »The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying« with a circulation of two million copies in 59 countries. He was the founder of the Lerab Ling Retreat Centre in Montpellier, southern France. Everything in meditation is ultimately about calming our mind, which is constantly asking us to think. We open the gate to our true selves and can also use sutras, mantras or affirmations to mentally align ourselves with positive experiences for the day. Meditation grounds our minds and keeps our ego in check. We become aware of consciousness and recognize ourselves. Moving into the now and turning off your thoughts is crucial for good meditation. Imagine one of those old records. Let's assume a lot of songs have been pressed onto it. The fine grooves with their different depths make the stylus of the pickup vibrate. These signals are amplified and reproduced via a loudspeaker so that we can enjoy the listening experience. Similarly, we could imagine that all the information on the record corresponds to our mind with all of its information available to it. Our senses, our perception, our »now« are where the needle is currently scanning the grooves in the plate. The vibrations create a stream of information, which corresponds to our mind and our thoughts. Ultimately, this flow of information is amplified via the brain and made available to the outside and inside world of the listener as a quality experience. So far so good. If everything runs smoothly, we hear the music on the record and enjoy a piece of music. The human being with his ego and his mind tends to constantly think into the future or the past. In analogy to the record, this would be as if, in addition to the piece of music (which the pickup retrieves from the record now), we were also listening to music that we have already heard or that is being played - as if several pickups were playing at the same time the music on a record and superimpose the actual »now« signal. Any listening pleasure would be gone. But that's exactly how our minds work. We constantly think of the future and the past and thus take the opportunity to fully experience and savour the moment. In meditation we learn again to focus and to align ourselves with one thing, even if it ultimately leads to us removing all the pickups from the record and not being able to perceive anything, until finally even the self in the now dissolves.
There are a number of meditation techniques that make it difficult to decide what is best for you personally. In yoga, for example, they range from numerous sub-forms such as tai chi, kriya, bhakti, hatha, yin, bikram and sivananda yoga to mantra meditation, tantra, qi gong, dancing and singing or even active and passive meditation techniques such as mindfulness meditation, meditation of silence, concentration meditation, transcendental meditation, bodyscan or guided meditation. For example, we can stop or reduce our thinking when visualizing sutras (these are short phrases or words), reciting mantras or just by observing our own breath. This enables us to realign our thoughts and our emotional world and to re-centre ourselves. Our pineal gland is activated and the perception potential for the interworld is expanded. The portal into the non-material world opens. In this state it is possible to be inspired or to cultivate spiritual hygiene for our often tightly timed everyday life through suitable affirmations. Another effect that occurs during deep meditation is that our »I« begins to dissolve. It evaporates more and more. We expand our perception and are only conscious observers in an infinitely large space, a self without attachments to the material world. A person's natural state of being that we can achieve by consciously controlling our attention is meditation.
According to recent studies, meditation also changes our brain. The digital magazine »Die Welt - Wissenschaft« reports that researchers from Gießen and Harvard have for the first time examined the effects of a tried and tested mindfulness-based meditation method called MBSR (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction) using a brain scan. While the participants reported that they were able to deal with stress better after eight weeks of MBSR practice, there were also clear changes in their brain structure: the grey matter in the amygdala, which is responsible for processing stress and fear, was less dense, whereas there was a greater density in the hippocampus and in regions responsible for self-awareness and compassion. Not only can we use meditation to restructure our brains, but we can also gain access to higher realities. We are able to connect with the whole universe by expanding the perception of our body-self and thereby feeling the connection with everything and everyone. We take this meditative awareness with us into our everyday world, into present reality, and transfer it to our state of being. Meditating means switching off the external senses in order to experience an expanded perception of our everyday world. With regular use, this will inevitably lead you to a higher quality of being and accelerate your spiritual growth. Meditation leads to a higher level of organization as it makes our thoughts clearer and more focused and leads us to faster spiritual growth. To recognize our innermost state of being and to change it in a targeted manner is another possibility to work on your own realization. Growing spiritually is not an intellectual achievement, but the realization of what and who we are in order to develop into an ego-free level of being. Mental and physical recovery are only side effects. In order to be able to experience ourselves holistically as a human being, it is advantageous not only to perceive the outside world, but also to recognize our inner being and thus our whole self. I would like to show you a simple but effective method with which you can recover from the stress of everyday life in the shortest time possible. It is a form of relaxation meditation that consists of repeating short sentences called sutras. Take 15 to 20 minutes to relax in a chair or, if you can, in the lotus position. If possible, you shouldn't have eaten before. Theoretically, you could also lie down, but practice shows that there is a great risk of falling asleep. Close your eyes and try to just let go of your thoughts. Breathe calmly through your nose, focusing on the tip of your nose or on the breathing itself. Breathe in and count to ten. Hold your breath and count to ten. Breathe out and count to ten again If it is easier for you, you can count to six; The only important thing is that inhaling, holding the breath and exhaling take the same length. Count only as much as you feel good and are able to do the exercise six times in total without feeling like you're getting too little, too slowly, or too much air. You will notice that your thought activity decreases. The moment you concentrate on breathing, thinking is already ceased. Consciously breathing and thinking at the same time is difficult. Close your eyes. Now use the word »peace« for example. Think of this word without moving your lips or picture it in large letters in your mind's eye. P E A C E … P E A C E … P E A C E …
Visualize it. Look at the letters and enjoy the feeling of peace. In your imagination you can walk around the word, read it back to front, picture it in colour, large or small letters, or illuminated, and even fly around it. Feel the surface of the letters: is it smooth, rough, metallic, warm, cold or made of wood? You can paint the letters in colour or make them glow. Let your creativity and imagination run wild and try to feel peace. If you are more of an auditory person, imagine someone whispering the word »peace« to you. Five to ten minutes are enough to get started. You will notice how your body slowly relaxes and your mind calms down. You become calmer and calmer. If you digress into other trains of thought, just go back to your Peace Sutra and move on. Alternatively, you can use sutras like »Joy« or »Happiness«. With regular practice over a few weeks you will feel a new quality of life and will actually be more peaceful, more joyful or happier. Extend your meditation to 30 minutes - you will notice how good it is for you. You draw into your life what you think and do every day. In addition, you will find that self-perception and the ability to self-knowledge increase and your self-confidence is positively influenced. My personal experiences after many years of meditation are a great inner peace and the security of living my life myself and not being directed from outside. In this state we are a little closer to our creator and more alert and attentive to communication. The more we get to know ourselves in meditation, the greater the certainty that there is no death and no dying. We are only involved in the repeated cycle of birth and death as long as we want to perfect our higher selves (the soul) through our experiences in the material world in order to take our place in God as mature, spiritual and highly developed beings and to be able to help other souls in their development. If we wish, at some point we will all support other people or beings on their development path and the unfolding of the divine. If our thinking, feeling and acting are in harmony with each other, we can be sure that we are on the right path of our life plan and that we are developing into higher-frequency beings. Take some time each day for meditation, prayer, or spiritual hygiene by sitting in a quiet place and just being thankful for everything as it is. Forgive those who may constantly challenge you in what you do and what you say, and feel the divinity that already resides within you. »Man is born to realize God, that is, to recognize the God-consciousness within. Always think of Him no matter what you are doing. Practice makes perfect. An ounce of practice is worth tons of theories. Theory orients the student outward, while practice directs his attention inward. Theory makes people restless and selfish. Practice, on the other hand, creates inner peace and frees him from his ego. Practice!!« (Paramahansa Hariharananda) It is best to let your inner intuition decide which meditation teacher you want to choose. A good teacher will teach you true wisdom, interesting techniques, knowledge, love, and insight at an affordable price. My personal choice fell on Paramahansa Yogananda. As a theological teacher, he conveyed exactly this to me in his lesson letters and in this way supports many people in their development. That is why I also practice Kriya Yoga. Kriya Yoga is made up of Kri = »do, act« and Ya = »God, soul«. Yoga means »unite, immerse, become one« and it teaches us to re-establish the connection between our own soul and the divine cosmic soul, to understand the unity of the visible and invisible body and to develop inner wisdom and calm. We then experience and recognize ourselves as a unity of people in God and God in people. To spread his teachings, Paramahansa Yogananda founded the SRF (Self-Realization Fellowship), which stands outside of all religious belief systems. Kriya Yoga is not a religion but a scientific technique. He emphasizes this again and again in his books. If you want, you can learn to meditate at your own personal learning speed with the teaching units offered, how you can work with energies in the body and in this way also get to know yourself. Love represents the central platform for yourself, God and all other people and living beings on our planet. The SRF sends your lesson letters practically at cost price and the lesson letters are now also available online on the Internet. The aim of yoga is to attain the state of »Samadhi«, the fusion and perfect union with God. Of course, there are a lot of wise masters on our planet who accompany the disciple on the path to God. Small local meditation groups in your area can also be a good place to learn to meditate. It is important to integrate meditation into the daily routine as regularly as possible. If we want to realign our life, become more aware of ourselves, give ourselves a new meaning in life and let our personality mature more quickly, it is advisable to repeat daily. Start with ten minutes. You will notice that the training sessions slowly get longer and longer, just like in sports. The desire for more comes naturally. Your mental condition will increase and you will miss something if you don't do it daily. Meditation is like a massage for the soul and gives you new strength and balance every day. You will find your personal balance between mind, body and soul and receive inner peace. We ensure the fastest progress when meditating if we also work with our energy centres, the so-called chakras. Chakras are vibrational energies that are located along the spine and rotate clockwise. We have seven of these energy centres in our body and these are assigned the following colours and meanings:

Crown chakra, above (20–40 cm) the head, connection to the cosmos, colour purple
Pituitary plexus, midbrain, pineal plexus, third eye, middle of the head, pituitary gland, colour indigo
Neck plexus or throat chakra, middle of the neck, thyroid gland, salivary gland, colour blue
Back plexus or heart chakra, behind the breastbone, compassion, love, gratitude, colour green
Lumbar-abdominal plexus, solar plexus, stomach, intestines, liver, EGO, colour yellow
Sacrum plexus or umbilical chakra, below the navel, pancreas, digestion, colour orange
Coccyx plexus or root chakra, at the lower end of the spine, sexual area, colour red

Two other energy centres, the 8th and 9th chakra are located above our head:

Soul chakra, colour gold, it stands for the builder of the body and symbolizes the unity with our creator
Spirit chakra, colour white, it stands for liberation and for infinity, timelessness, it is the self that is not born and never dies

In the old secret societies, methods and techniques were taught to open the third eye and thus to accelerate the spiritual path of the student. One particularly effective practice was taught in my Kriya Yoga initiation. Through the active use of the breath in meditation, life energy is led from the lower spine up to the third eye and the pressure on the pineal gland and thus on the small calcite crystals in it is increased. To do this, it is necessary to become aware of the life and energy centres in our body in order to let them flow actively from the lowest coccyx centre up into the brain and into the crown chakra. Since I made a promise not to pass this technique on to the uninitiated, I refer to Dr. Joe Dispenza's book »Get Supernatural«, in which he describes a similar method. A CD is also available for this purpose, with which this technique can be practiced. You can also download it as an MP3 file from the following website: www.drjoedispenza.de.
With this you have everything at hand to proceed with the spiritual transformation. A completely different approach to reaching expanded states of consciousness like in meditation is binaural frequency stimulation, which I would like to introduce to you in the following chapter. You can slide into deep states of consciousness in a targeted manner without great effort and without great financial resources.