About meditation practice
Thanks to AMS for their contributions in this section
QUESTION: IS IT DIFFICULT TO MEDIATE?
It is NOT difficult to meditate, in fact, it is quite simple and very relaxing.
QUESTION: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF MEDITATION?
The purpose of meditation is to bring about a balance and harmony between mind, body, and spirit. The harmony already exists; all it requires is conscious recognition and experience. Although problems and situations occur in everyday life, meditation helps you to maintain a sense of peace within yourself.
QUESTION: WHY SHOULD I MEDITATE?
Meditation expands your awareness and unfolds you inner knowingness. Meditation awakens virtues and positive qualities in you. Thousands of scientific research studies in the past 30 years have shown the benefits to the body, mind, behaviour, improvement in quality of life, and self-esteem.
QUESTION: WHAT IS PERSONALIZED MEDITATION AND HOW IS IT DIFFERENT FROM OTHER GROUPS?
To be truly effective, meditation practices are individually prescribed and individually taught. There are many types of meditation techniques and an infinite number of variations within each category. The precise combination of practices that a person needs are dependent on many factors. For this reason Gururaj's meditation techniques are individualized by highly trained teachers.
HOW DOES MEDITATION HELP TO OVERCOME THE CONTINUOUS STRING OF PROBLEMS EVERYONE SEEMS TO ENCOUNTER?
When you meditate you allow into your consciousness - meaning what you allow yourself to think - some subtle (more real) energy. This helps still the mind. Stillness builds and builds, gradually. And so do the benefits that come from using meditation regularly in your life. You begin to perceive every situation with more subtlety. Your strength, confidence and calmness build up, the more you meditate and let go of redundant mind conditioning. You find more peace of mind. Consequently problems affect you less than they did when you were reliant solely on the ‘vicious circle’ of thought. Fears recede considerably, including the subconscious fear of death, thereby allowing one's potential to free up.
Practising regular meditation, and other types of yoga, helps to build more grey matter, which leads to greater understanding. Consciousness expands unnoticeably; it's a natural process, showing up in the way we handle difficulties without getting too ruffled.
QUESTION: IS MEDITATION A RELIGION?
No. Meditation can be for everyone. You don’t have to be a religious person to meditate, nor do you have to follow a certain philosophy or belief system.
Religions may differ at lower levels, but the meeting ground of all religions, at their highest level, is that God is love and love is God. If you are a Christian, become a better Christian, If you are a Muslim, become a better Muslim. If you are a Jew become a better Jew.
QUESTION: HOW LONG DO YOU MEDITATE?
The length of time depends on the individual and their experience. Most people meditate for 20 minutes, twice daily if they can.
QUESTION: DO I HAVE TO SIT IN A YOGA POSTURE TO MEDITATE?
No. You sit comfortably or lie down to meditate. Allowing the body to be comfortable is important.
QUESTION: WHAT KIND OF MEDITATION DO YOU RECOMMEND?
Classes beginning with breath observation followed by simple mantra meditation which allows one to experience deep relaxation. Complementary practices include visualization, mindfulness and 'letting go' management. Individualized mantra and chakra (swirling energy) techniques are necessary to get a deeper functional aspect for practicalities in everyday life to improve substantially.
QUESTION: WHAT IS GURURAJ’S MESSAGE?
People today function with a highly developed level of mind, yet the heart or compassionate part of ourselves is underdeveloped. That is where our teachings differ from most of the systems in the world; with our practices there is a simultaneous development of the mind and heart. The message is age old, but presented in its modern context.
About society, religion and science
Isn't all this Meditation and Realisation stuff just another religion?
Most religion is based on belief - belief in what somebody else says. Realisation is actual because you experience it. When you experience actuality you don't need belief. Obviously, if people have a religion it's often because they are searching for truth. People who meditate or try to realise actuality are probably searching for truth too. That's where the similarity lies. But what you conclude, from any degree of realisation, is that each of us is responsible for our own evolution. In this respect, it's the opposite to the religions that purport the theory that someone (or something) else is responsible for us.
Fortuitously, updated science has brought us the acknowledgement that we are many more dimensions than the 3 dimensions our senses perceive. And, other dimensions are simply finer energy molecules than the ones we experience with the 5 senses. Science is truth, not conjecture.
To repeat, you can prove the science for yourself. Everyone can experience the consciousness of all dimensions, which proves what we are - consciousness. Full consciousness confirms nobody else made you or put you through all the experiences you've had.
This is not meant to decry religion. People with faith in anything get support from their focus. Sincerity counts above all else. The more focused we are, the more we drive ourselves forward. It doesn't really matter what imagination we're focusing on. Everything in the mind is imagination.
What is the experience of all consciousness like; the 'dawning'?
It's not a eureka moment. Whole consciousness is natural - and happens to us degree by degree as we put the mind into a less dominant position. Expanded consciousness is a re-cognition of what's already known. In full consciousness we immediately recognise that the all-consciousness state has been going on all the time - and we've been living it all the time (although obliterated), in parallel to the superimposed restricted consciousness that the senses cause. When experienced, there is no doubt that whole consciousness is our actuality.
Can I expect self-realisation to happen during this lifetime?
Gururaj (quote): "Expect nothing, work at it with conscious effort. But yes, it can happen this lifetime. It can happen in the next minute, if you are ready. Your job is getting yourself ready. It's here right now - not somewhere else - obscured by that misty-ness of the mind. You're fully developed already. The truth is that you allow the mind to form this barrier, not someone else. When that penny drops - I mean, when it really drops - you will rapidly clear the mist."
What exactly is the fourth dimension? Can you describe what it's like?
The fourth dimension is countless trillions of particles everywhere, travelling to and fro in all directions. In terms of our solid realm, they are inside and around everything existent. If we could see them, they would look (more or less) like a thick soup. The particles are electrically neutral but they can transmit vibration because they are so tightly linked. This vibrational transmission allows what the mind, based on light reflection and interpreted by 5 relatively blunt senses, interprets to be solid matter.
Why is it so convincing that I’m solid matter and the objects around me are solid too?
Our consciousness, predominated by the mind while we are embodied, is restricted to a quirky little angle of perception. We use the analogy that reality is a diamond and we are seeing a particular angle of light reflection through one of its multiple facets on the surface. Quantum mechanics says the interpreter (us) perceives particles as separate from each other; our 5 senses make unreality by rejecting reality. In actuality everything is the same energy. Varying vibrational frequencies are existent and, at a very low vibration of energy, separation appears to be valid. But, by examination, solid matter has no foundation.
How is the fourth dimension more real than the third if, the higher we go, solid matter fades into the background?
Like the 1st & 2nd, three dimension consciousness is an angle of perception; an idea. The fourth dimension is an idea too but a greater degree of truth than the third. Only all the dimensions perceived together, as one, gives the full picture of actuality - our whole consciousness.
Think about the two dimensional face on a cube. The two dimensional face exists only because the three dimensional cube has qualities that allow the single face to be seen. Without the cube being existent there is no two dimensional anything. The two dimensional face can't exist as a stand-alone reality. More dimensions have to be present for two dimensions to be perceived.
It's the same all the way up the scale of dimensions of consciousness. The third dimension doesn't exist unless the fourth dimension allows it to be there. The fourth dimension doesn't exist unless the fifth dimension allows it to be there. Etc., etc.
How can I ‘dump the illusion’?
Take on a bit more consciousness (see Expanded Consciousness ). Acceptance and letting go of this illusion releases attachment to mind impressions, which are intellectual interpretations and not actual.
Why should Grace come into play in the Law of Attraction? (It seems such a religious expression).
Grace is a word meaning subtle energy of all dimensions. The word mostly used for it, throughout the world, is Shakti - an expression originating from Vedanta in the East. The only difference between truth (now proven) and religious expressions is that science shows us that everything emanates from finer particles in a natural progression. Some religions postulate that an entity somewhere (not proven) designed it all and placed everything here.
If you ignore the law of Shakti (or grace if you prefer) you’ll probably make little or no progress trying to manipulate the Law of Attraction. Shakti is the all encompassing subtle energy that supports everything. Nothing ever happens without it. You can’t even move your arm or your eyelid without the support provided by the greater dimensions within us. The fourth dimensional ‘soup’ of energy radians (invisible but now proven) is the manifestor of everything solid. The 5th dimensional (timeless, spaceless) particles manifest the 4th dimensional soup .. and so on. Shakti runs right through every dimension. Nothing would exist without shakti, the eternal Isness.
The Law of Attraction depends on how much shakti you can get to operate on your behalf, which in turn depends on how much you deserve. Respect your Karma and your Samskaras (evolutionary patterning) and remove (mostly subconscious) guilt, which is easy when you get it into perspective, and you’ll crack it in a flash. Ignore these incredibly simple fundamentals and you’ll carry on as you are – going around in circles getting nowhere. That’s the whole story. You can get a great deal of whatever you like if you’ll simply learn the lessons you're here to learn and then get on with putting it all into practice. It’s like being at school. You couldn't do maths tables in your head until you sat the lessons and practised what you’d learned over and over again. It’s no more difficult than that. Guarantee to Make The Law of Attraction Work is just a lesson in effective visualisation.
Why are relationships imperfect?
They rely on the three dimensional perspective. If you see another person in terms of their differences to you, you start to criticize, judge, etc. When you take on the perspective of 'I AM YOU', which is more real, more actual, (because everything is interconnected in the finer dimensions of us) you flow more easily with the truth; everyone's view is different, because as individuals we all have a different set of experiences, and we don't rely on anyone else to make our life perfect; we rely on ourselves.
Why didn’t my school teachers supply these answers to my questions, since the facts here appear to be far more important than maths and history?
Most people are resistant to taking on the latest truths. Like the discovery, in the 16th century, that planet Earth is a globe. It probably seemed like a joke at the time (500 years ago), being asked to accept that water and unfixed objects wouldn't fall off a spherical world. Gravity had not been discovered at the time, so the 'new truth' was hard to take on. Today, we are asked to consider the (newly established, sub atomic) truth that we are 99.999999999% nothing i.e. we are not really solid matter. It takes many decades, often centuries, for this sort of thing to be comprehended and for those in authority to allow us to accept it.
Elucidate: What is love (and truth, and god)?
In trying to define real love, it might be appropriate to say it’s ‘the harmonious workings of nature, including the source, without any individual mind coming into play’. What we feel for each other is not real love, although the word love is (mis)used all the time. What humans call love is mostly need, desire, admiration, fixation, infatuation, mostly engendered to avoid loneliness and finding a comfortable way through life. It’s all sense based, unless a person discovers and uses unconditional love, which has no need whatsoever. This is often displayed by a parent’s love for a child. There are obviously other examples too but most people are trying to get something for themselves because they're trying to get everything to work out satisfactorily. This process blocks the flow of nature; blocks real love.
Truth is actuality. Is real love truth? Yes, because truth means actuality. Anti-truth is rife on Earth, typically when we try to avoid truth, even the truth about minor situations, in order to avoid short term (mental) pain. The same applies to the ‘big truth’ – and that’s maybe why we try to put responsibility for our existence on to something or someone else; an unseen entity. The paradox is that accepting the truth might sting a bit at first, because of our mind conditioning, but accepting truth is a genuine medicine for solving most problems. It’s a pity more people don’t use it as the panacea it is.
God can be said to be truth and love because it’s a word used to denote both actuality and the harmonious flow of nature. Whether a god is looking after us is a different question: Are we responsible for our own evolution or can we hand this over to another 'character’? On this point, we can be certain science has shown that we ourselves are multi dimensional, which concurs with reports from thousands of humans who glimpse pure consciousness. As far as I know they don’t sense any person, authority, judge or creator. They experience Is-ness; the boundary-less infinity - the phrase first used by Prof. Stephen Hawking. That’s what we are.
We are now absolutely certain that everything in existence emerges, grows, then recedes and dissolves back to its original elements, including universes. The mind, being an interactive cluster of electrical impulses (we call impressions) depends on individual experience. Accordingly, we view love/ god/ truth as a consequence of how much consciousness we allow ourselves. Illumination comes from sincere focus, which can be achieved with or without a set of religious beliefs.