Tag: meditate

The meaning of life, and how to be in the world but not of it.

Q: Why are we here? What is the meaning of life?

A: The meaning of life is experience.

Q: Can you offer advice on how we can be in the world but not “of” the world?

A: This means that you live in this world, you incarnate in here, but you are also aware of: more than this reality, awareness itself, and what your spirit came here to do.  So you are aware of these three realities.

Incarnation allows our spirit to experience what it wants/needs to experience in material form, and awareness makes us automatically aware of this.  All three need to be attended to in order to be a fully integrated being.

Some religions and teachings focus on the materiality of this incarnation only. Others teach you to transcend this material world completely, that this world is just a dream.  Both have something missing from the big picture.

While it is true that you want to transcend this material world, it is more accurate to say that you want to transcend the idea that only the material world exists, to become aware of awareness itself, and to become aware of your intuition, which is a window into viewing what your spirit longs for, what it came here to do.  But how does one do this?

The first step is to become aware, to allow yourself to believe that there is more than just the material world.  This belief allows for the reality of awareness and spirit to enter into your conscious awareness.

Once you become aware of this expanded reality, focus on your awareness.  When you do this, you more consciously live your life, allowing you more of a bird’s eye view of what is happening so that you can act more in line with what your spirit has come here to do.

So, step one, open yourself up to awareness.  Step two, put your attention on awareness.  Step three, become fully aware of what you are doing.  Step four, you will naturally develop your intuition, one of its functions being to make you aware of the longings of the soul.  This is a continuing, meditative existence.  It is a continual process. In this way, you are living in the world, but are aware of much more.  You are in the world, but not of it.

As an aside, I think I should talk a little about the material world, intuition, and awareness.  

Open your eyes, and you see the material world.  It is what is.  That’s easy to see.  When you look at the world, what is looking is awareness.  It is happening automatically.  So the material world is what is, and awareness is what sees the material world.

If you focus on awareness, eventually you will also become aware of intuition.  What is intuition?  It is an internal, automatic knowingness that is in constant communication with you that is often overlooked because of our natural preoccupation with the material world.

To become more aware of intuition, focus on awareness.  This will make you more present in the moment to experience your existence more fully and automatically develop your awareness of intuition.

These three things — the material world, awareness, and intuition — seem pretty simple then.  The confusion comes about when the ego steps in.

While awareness makes you automatically aware of the material world and your intuition, sounding very simple, what your ego does is come along and comment on everything.  It makes so much noise and is present so much of the time that people think that their ego is what they are.

To help yourself out of this confusion, once again, concentrate on awareness.  This will allow you to see your ego for what it is, an automatic movement, based on past fear that occurs within your consciousness.

Once you see how automatic it is, and that it occurs within your consciousness, it becomes another thing, just like someone’s voice or a TV in the background, as you observe your life.

Different types of meditation. (Part 2)

(continued from previous post)

There is meditation of ego consciousness.  This meditation is not best done in a quiet space, unlike the awareness meditation. It is analogous to a meditation on the inner parent consciousness.  It is actually best done while partaking in your everyday activities.

During this meditation, you watch your ego, as you go about your activities of daily living.  You watch yourself eat breakfast, you watch yourself read the news, you watch yourself watch TV, you watch yourself go to work.  In this way, you become very aware of your ego, and as you become more aware, you naturally align yourself more with your higher self, your witness consciousness.

This can become very automatic, and is a great meditation to perform every day.  Most people know about sitting down or lying to meditate, but do not practice this type of waking, day-to-day meditation, and, therefore, their sitting or lying meditation is confined to the meditation cushion instead of filling their daily lives.

In this way, you can perform sitting or lying meditation for years with little to no change.  Incorporate waking walking meditation into your life, consistently, every day, for a huge shift in consciousness.

It is important to note that the parent consciousness often does not accept the animal consciousness (inner child), or the adult consciousness (witness consciousness).  It is often the source of criticism, prejudices, and strife, both inwardly and outwardly.  Also, by not accepting its other parts, its keeps us stressed and limits our spiritual growth.

It is important to note that the parent consciousness (ego) is rooted in fear, and its biggest fear is losing control.  It sees accepting the adult and child consciousness as losing control, and this is why it is constantly at war with them.

There is also a meditation of the animal consciousness, or what is known as the “inner child.” This mediation is best done by watching what happens when you are stressed, upset, want something, and so on.  It is the part of you that wants what it wants, when it wants it, and if doesn’t get it, it will pout, be outwardly aggressive, inwardly aggressive, or passive aggressive.

It is important to watch this part of your consciousness when it arises, and not take action on its behalf.  Taking action based on the feelings of the inner child will most often result in unwanted repercussions later on or immediately in life.  This is also the most difficult meditation to perform.  To watch your animal consciousness in the heat of an argument is a very difficult and advanced thing to do.  

So, as you can see, all three meditations bring you back to the ultimate meditation, the meditation of consciousness.  Perform the inner adult (witness) meditation during times of peace, the inner parent (ego) meditation during your daily life, and the inner child (animal consciousness) meditation during times of stress.

All three will strengthen your higher self, or witness consciousness, and ultimately allow for a more peaceful, happier life.

Different types of meditation.

Q: What is meditation? What is the best way to meditate?

A: First, it goes without saying that there are many, many different ways to meditate.  To determine the best way to meditate, you first have to decide what you are going for.

It’s best of course to be completely honest about this.  If you say that you are meditating on awareness, but the whole time you are concentrating on opening your chakras, your results are going to be very mixed up and inconsistent at best.

Are you trying to manifest money? A lover?  Are you trying to relax? Are you trying to open up the chakras, or open up to the siddhis? Or are you trying to become more aware of awareness itself?  I’m going to tell you about meditating on awareness.

First, most people in meditation circles are aware of meditations based on awareness.  This is best done in a relatively quiet space, where you are really doing nothing but being aware, aware of where consciousness takes you.  This is really a meditation of witness consciousness, or your higher self.  It is also akin to becoming aware of the inner adult persona, who is balanced, rational, and loves all parts of itself like its children.

This may become a meditation where you become very aware of the automatic nature of your ego, constantly making noise, trying to figure and refigure things out, in the past present, and the future.  It’s curious how the ego is constantly trying to rewrite and reconfigure events of the past, the present, and the future.

This meditation may also make you much more aware of your surroundings and/or the constant presence of peace which surrounds and envelops everything, like the air we breath.

But there are other meditations of awareness.  These are important because to be free of the dominating nature of the ego, we must be aware of and accept all parts of ourselves at all times, whether it be while it’s quiet, noisy, during the day, and during times of stress and conflict. Only by knowing all the parts of ourselves and accepting them can we be free.

Continued in next post.