I’ve been stalling on my meditation post, and I think the reason is mostly that there’s SO much ground to cover, I can’t find a good place to jump into it. Another part of the reason is that it seems to me not to be in any way near the fringe, which is what I thought this blog would be about. But it’s my blog and that realization gives me a toehold into the matter, so here we go.
The thing is, meditation is such a basic thing in the sense that it’s a base for so many other interesting things. I’ve heard of it being used for everything from simple relaxation to achieving immortality. I expect most of us come in somewhere between those two goals. The important thing is that with meditation, you can clear your mind, focus on one thing (or no thing) and use that as a stepping stone to greater awareness in any area you choose.
It doesn’t have to be fancy. If you want to study a system like yoga or TM or some of the more involved Zen techniques, you can, but at its core meditation is starkly simple. Alpha waves. That’s it. With practice or natural talent, you can go deeper into theta and delta waves but if all you achieve is an alpha state, you’ve got it. We all slip into alpha and deeper all the time, in and out over the course of any given 24 hour period, so I know you can do it.
Of course, part of the point is to be more conscious of the process, which can be something of a paradox at the deeper levels of meditation. If you’re emitting delta waves because you’re in stage 3 sleep, you’re not meditating. You’re just sleeping. There’s no directiveness, no intent. (Unless you’re meditating to cure your insomnia. In that case, you’ve nailed it.)
Other than that, it’s largely personal preference. Sure, there are people who say you MUST learn a certain technique or you’re not “really” meditating, or insist that you use a particular method for certain uses. I suppose there are probably some forms of meditation that might work better than others for, say, automatic writing or remote viewing or healing, but what it comes down to is that the best method for you is the one you can do. You can clear your mind completely or use mantras or visualize or focus on a goal or a Bible verse or a magickal intent or your breathing or physical relaxation of your muscles or WHATEVER YOU PREFER to get your brain to start sending out those yummy, languid alpha waves. It depends on what works for you, and what you want to accomplish with the practice.
What meditation can help you accomplish is an endless list. You can relax, have personal ephiphanies, improve your intuition or observational skills, lower your blood pressure, even keep yourself from mauling annoying coworkers. None of these things seem at all strange to me. But the practice deserves mention here, since it’s also helpful in getting in a state of mind to do other, more fringey activities.
It’s too soon to tell whether I’m immortal, though.
