By Jason Compton
(This article originally appeared on the Gates of Mysticism website and is published here with the author and site’s permission)
Many people believe they know what meditation is, and they do, but only in the most basic sense. If you look up meditation you will find such simple explanations as what I pulled from Wikipedia in about thirty seconds: Meditation refers to any of a family of practices in which the practitioner trains his or her mind or self-induces a mode of consciousness in order to realize some benefit. The Wikipedia article then goes on to state that it is an internal practice, lists history, and lists the benefits of meditation in a way which doesn’t explore what I feel meditation is all about. The definition and content of such articles are essentially true, but there is far more to meditation than simply going into a hyper-internalized state of being, and the benefits range from the personal to the metaphysical and occult. My goal for this article is to take you a bit beyond the basic definition of the word and show you the benefits of meditation as well as give you an insider look into the practice.
To me, meditation isn’t a focusing of the mind per se, it is adjusting your mind to exercise it in a way that goes beyond the bounds of what a mind in its normal awake state can do. Sometimes this means focusing it, sometimes calming it, sometimes shutting it off as much as possible, and yet other times heightening it’s activity to accomplish things you couldn’t do with normal awareness. I also meditate simply to re-center myself after a chaotic day, a practice which is commonly called grounding in occult practices, or to look inside myself to do inner reflection and introspect.
One thing I do in a meditative state everyday is I stop focusing on random thoughts, and instead focus purely on my senses. This brings me to (what I discovered a few years ago) what scientists and hypnotists describe as a light meditative state in which parts of the brain stop doing what they normally do to enhance a singular purpose of the mind. It took me a full year to learn to go into this state when I was young, and I use it primarily to keep my mind sharp and to sense things around me, and see the world in a different light. A bird becomes more than a bird, for example, it becomes a vibration of sound and light which can be observed in impressive detail. Memory improves when I am in this state and I can remember exacting details of the bird that I was not able to remember before. I can do the same thing when I focus on energy as well and while in this state it becomes much easier to work with energy closer to the physical level of existence, a practice which I do every day mostly to pick up details I would otherwise miss in the world around me.
A different kind of meditative state that I go into is focusing the center of my awareness elsewhere other than my head. When I say awareness I am talking about the physical place people feel that their awareness is located, including their self awareness. Most people feel their center of awareness just behind the eyes and nose close to the center of the head. What this meditation does is move that center of awareness to other parts of the body or, more impressively, out of the body altogether in what for lack of a better term I call a mental projection. Note this is far different than an astral projection in that the body does not need to be in a mind awake body asleep state associated with a projection (or, indeed, what most people consider a meditation,) for this to occur. Since I am focusing primarily on a single point, this is a meditative state which, I learned a few years ago from reading up on hypnotherapy and a few scientific studies, re-focuses the brain and puts much of it into an “automatic” mode, more specifically motor control. I have found that I can still move around while the center of my awareness was elsewhere. This has brought me leaps and bounds in my personal development for helping people heal, distance healing while typing on the computer, and exploring the universe in general.
A third kind of meditation I go into I use for personal development, personal healing, and Astral Projection. This meditative state requires that I be in a very comfortable position, preferably laying down, to accomplish. I later learned the specifics of what goes on during this. My brain slows the parts of itself that control motor functions down so I can focus purely on thought. During this time I can move my awareness throughout my conscious mind and focus in on particular thoughts I am having, stop those thoughts, make them run faster, and explore the how’s and why’s I am having them. This is the most powerful form of introspection that I undertake and I personally believe that it has helped stop me from becoming stark raving mad. I can also explore my subconscious in a deeper form of this state, and that has also helped clear me of many personal problems I used to have.
To me, meditation is a way of exploring both myself and the world around me through a different set of eyes, both physical and metaphysical. I can interact with parts of myself and the energy and thoughts around me through meditation, which I do on a daily basis and for many reasons such as healing others, helping myself, and finally learning about the universe around me. I have a personal quest for knowledge and self improvement which, without meditation, would be difficult, long, and I dare say impossible. Meditation is powerful tool that can be used for things besides the occult, you can look at yourself in a new way and view the world around you with eyes that see the world in a different way, and you can use meditation to calm yourself after a tough day.
There are many resources on meditation out there. None of them are wrong in their approach and I find that finding the correct approach for you is a very personal journey. I personally suggest the works of Franz Bardon as a starting point, and you can also look into specific classes in your local area, as having a teacher walk you through meditation is a wonderful and enlightening experience which I believe everyone can benefit from trying. Seeing a hypnotherapist or just someone who has a hypnology license is also a great way to get into a meditative state, though it can get expensive. I suggest lots of research into metaphysical sites as people on spiritual paths have been exploring meditation the longest and hardest, and finding someone with many hours or even years of meditation under their belt is a great starting point. A bit of advice is to find out how many hours of meditation the teacher has undergone, as someone can have done years of meditation yet not racked up as much experience as someone who is a monk but only had meditated for a month.
It is also important to keep in mind that experiences that you have in a meditative state, including going under hypnosis, can be very powerful and compelling. An open mind is required when going into the deeper meditative states since what you are seeing can be representative visuals. What I mean is that you may see yourself in a house from long ago, but that might not necessarily be you that you are seeing and the house might not have ever even existed. Your subconscious could be trying to communicate something to your conscious mind and when it does it often uses visualizations and representations, and in more powerful cases it will communicate thoughts and ideas directly without using words. These ideas can come in the form of you getting a sudden idea in the center of your awareness suddenly that didn’t come from your conscious. Sometimes these experiences can cause people to pull out of a meditation very suddenly as they don’t recognize what is going on. If you do have an experience that scares you or you don’t understand there are many avenues for you to explore what the experience is or what it means. A psychologist, if one is easily accessible to you, is a good step as sometimes scary experiences can represent inner conflict or troubling memories and pain that we have.
I have had many troubling experiences myself during meditation, each time I got through them I ended up a better person for it. One time I found myself in my inner mind and being the extremely troubled lad that I was, I found myself surrounded by things that wished me harm. After fighting them off and dealing with the how’s and why’s they were there I became a much calmer person, and felt much more at peace with myself and the world around me. The first troubling experience you have is always the hardest to work through, but once you do it will become easier and easier to work through them until you find that these experiences are years between each other.
This is not to say that all experiences when you meditate are going to be negative experiences, or that each time you meditate you are going to be doing introspection. The truth is that meditation is different for each individual and the experiences they have when they go further into the recesses of their mind vary greatly. If you are having troubling experiences it would be best to take it as a sign that there are simply some things inside yourself that you need to work out. You cannot truly be harmed by anything you see in a meditative state unless you allow yourself to be harmed, just remember that what you are seeing is a part of yourself and face it boldly.
Most experiences are going to be enjoyable and teach you more about yourself. I once found myself in the presence of a beautiful dragon during meditation. The dragon made me feel protected and safe, and I also felt a lot of love coming from it. After working with it for a long while I found a way to bring up this part of myself at any time and it has boosted my confidence and improved my demeanor.
Another experience that I had was probably one of the most powerful and compelling Astral Projections I have ever had. I was seeing just how far down my mind I could go one day, exploring the extremes of my mind when suddenly I found that I was approaching a blue and white ring of light. Part of why I went this deep into my mind was to explore if I could emerge on the other side and this felt like a validation of that theory. When I went through it I saw a beautiful phoenix on the other side and a calm but surprised voice on the other side spoke my name. The love that I felt from this being was so powerful that I was shook to my core, and I was pulled right out of the projection (much to my dismay.) I knew I wasn’t in my mind anymore at that point because I could no longer feel myself or my inner workings around me, as I had become very familiar with in projections.
The above experiences show two extremes of a specific form of meditation where you go deep inside yourself. It is the most common form of meditation and perhaps the one that changes people the most. I hope some of you reading this has took something out of it, and that it peaks your interest in trying out this very helpful practice.
About Jason Compton:
Jason Compton is a general practitioner of the occult and combines a few practices to form a loose likeness to what Franz Bardon teaches in his books. He loves painting miniature figures, playing video games, and is currently making plans to write books both for literary and informative purposes. You can find him at http://www.gatesofmysticism.net or anywhere on the net where occult sites can be found under the online alias of Spectral Dragon or variations thereof.