How to meditate: a greate piece of advice and a terrific experience August 15, 2011

image by axinia

This is an amazing story I have got from a friend who is practising Sahaja meditation. However the coolest thing about it is that this meditation technique can be applied apart from any spiritual practice, for it works perfectly FOR EVERYONE, especially for those who find it difficult to meditate. There is no strain about it, no concentration is needed and yet it gives you the perfect effect of thoughtless awareness/mental silence, the true goal of any meditation…

Here is the story: Please read, try it out and share your experiences!

“I had a pretty interesting experience last year I’d like to share. Back in 1996 I was lucky enough to travel to Hong Kong with Shri Mataji and one morning when all the yogis were out, she called me in and said, ‘I’ll teach you how to meditate.’ I was quite excited by this…face to face with my Guru, learning the art of silence directly from her.

‘Just watch your thoughts’, she said. To watch them, she added, your attention peels away from the thought process and the two waves (the thought wave and the attention wave) hit each other and cancel out (reverse oscillation she called it).

Then the vilambha state begins. She said that you can do this anytime…driving your car, washing the dishes and you can be in total detached silence.

… It worked amazingly well. I was able to hold the thoughtless state for as long as I liked.

Now, cut to last year and I was going through a tough time at work. I really lost my cool a lot and was as undetached as you can get (sorry to say). The crunch came when my boss, a hard living, heavy drinking, chain smoking English guy told me to be detached!

Staying in the present leads to happiness – study proves February 12, 2011

 

image by axinia

 

I love these sweet studies that prove some old wisdom – it is so lovely to see how someone is trying to prove the obvious. But probably we still need that kind of certification?

 THE STUDY:

 Using an iPhone app called trackyourhappiness, psychologists at Harvard contacted people around the world at random intervals to ask how they were feeling, what they were doing and what they were thinking.

When asked to rate their feelings on a scale of 0 to 100, with 100 being “very good,” the people having sex gave an average rating of 90. That was a good 15 points higher than the next-best activity, exercising, which was followed closely by conversation, listening to music, taking a walk, eating, praying and meditating, cooking, shopping, taking care of one’s children and reading. Near the bottom of the list were personal grooming, commuting and working.

When asked their thoughts, the people in flagrante were models of concentration: only 10 percent of the time did their thoughts stray from their endeavors. But when people were doing anything else, their minds wandered at least 30 percent of the time, and as much as 65 percent of the time (recorded during moments of personal grooming, clearly a less than scintillating enterprise).

On average throughout all the quarter-million responses, minds were wandering 47 percent of the time. The figure surprised the researchers, Daniel Gilbert and Matthew Killingsworth: “I find it kind of weird now to look down a crowded street and realize that half the people aren’t really there,” Dr. Gilbert says.

Highly insightful: why it’s so hard to become happy, what is dramatically wrong in our child-care and how to overcome it June 23, 2010

There are very few books that can deliver some truly fresh, insightful information. Most of the things have been repeated for ages. One of this rare, uniquely insightful books is “The Continuum Concept: In Search of Happiness Lost” by Jean Liedloff. (1975)

 

Jean Liedloff, an American writer, spent two and a half years in the South American jungle living with Stone Age Indians. The experience demolished her Western preconceptions of how we should live and led her to a radically different view of what human nature really is.

And that is:

• the aggressiveness is NOT in a human nature, and even children may never fight! “Not only did they not fight, they never even argued. This is not at all what we have been taught human nature is — boys will be boys. So I thought well maybe, boys won’t be boys.”
• every human being is born as a happy, confident, stable personality. “Society is unpleasant, dangerous, unhappy, alienated, and unstable because in childhood our nature — being confident, joyous and loving — has been undermined and we simply live the way we are expected to. What we believe is what we make our experience into. And what we believe is what we have been taught to believe by our parents and our experiences.”

Jean Liedloff claims that it all our problems can be traced back to the general misconduct of child-care and upbringing. We’ve got disconnected to the natural/true method ages ago, no wonder the evolution has taken a somewhat weong track…

She discovers that the basic difference in what the indigenous people do and we don’t – is the so called “in-arms period”: from the birth till the baby starts crawling, a mother carries it 24 hours a day on her body (including sleeping in one bed). A child gets an enormous dose of security and happiness, since there is nothing more important and beautiful for it than the mother.

 

 Let’s have a look at the common practice in the modern Western childbirth and child-care. A baby experiences:

Cool breeze proven by science May 26, 2010

At long last scientific verification of “cool breeze” has been published in a scientific journal!

Although studies on cool breeze have already been done in India by Prof UC Rai, they were not published in journals accessible to Western scientists.
 
The small study demonstrates a skin temperature reduction on the palms of the hands during the experience of mental silence, arising as a result of a single 10 minute session of Sahaja yoga meditation. However when people (non-meditators) were asked to do a simple relaxation exercise, under the same conditions, their skin temperature increased which is the opposite of what occurred for those using the mental silence approach to meditation.

 
The outcomes of this study therefore suggest that “thoughtless awareness” is both experientially and physiologically different to simple relaxation.
Interestingly, all other studies of (non-Sahaja Yoga) meditation  that have studied skin temperature show that skin temperature either increases (i.e. the hand get warmer) or does not change during the meditation session, leading scientists to assume that meditation is the same as relaxation, which also provokes skin temperature increases.

 So this study not only shows how Sahaja Yoga is different from other forms of meditation but also supports the idea that meditation is more correctly defined by the experience of mental silence rather than relaxation. This definition of meditation may well be the best way to differentiate meditation from relaxation, hypnosis, sleep, reiki, chi-gong, TM and other practices.

Manocha R, Black D, Ryan J, Stough C, Spiro D, Changing Definitions of Meditation: Physiological Corollorary, Journal of the International Society of Life Sciences, Vol 28 (1), Mar 2010

Read the whole article here.

My favourite Zen story December 18, 2009

Zen is one of the few spiritual practices that teaches thoughtless awareness. Nevertheless, it is often hard for me to comprehend. Probably because the approach – how to come to thoughtless awareness – is still mental (the way I come to it is more physical).

 

Zen stories are popular and I like some of them a lot. Here is the winner of  my personal Oscar. In a simple yet outstanding way it describes how our brain works.

  

Two traveling monks reached a river where they met a young woman.

Wary of the current, she asked if they could carry her across.

One of the monks hesitated, but the other quickly picked her up onto his shoulders,

transported her across the water, and put her down on the other bank. She thanked him and departed.

As the monks continued on their way, the one was brooding and preoccupied.

Unable to hold his silence, he spoke out.

Crème de la crème of this blog (30 out of 300 posts) October 29, 2008

My passionate reader, Sahaja has suggested me to make a list of my favourite  1000petals reads. I have a widget listing the most popular posts by my readers, but they are not necesserily the ones that I love the most 🙂

My favourite posts give a short and clear impression of the core values of this blog.  If you like the first abstract, just click on the title to read the whole post.

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GENERATION S

They live almost the same life as others. You will not check them out of the crowd by their funny dress – they look quite ordinary. They behave as normal, nice people – you will not notice anything special at first sight. However a little more attentive look will identify this new generation.

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Positive thinking? No, thank you!

I am probably one of the most positive people you have ever met (even being able to claim that is a sign, isn’t it). In fact I think positive all the time and it is difficult for me to see a problem somewhere where most of the people see it. But since I heard about the concept of positive thinking several years ago I keep opposing that theory, trying to explain the unnatural character of it. Here are some quite strong arguments.

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I do not believe in God.

I do not belive in God. And I never did.

I grew up in the Soviet Union with my both parents being convinced atheists. However my grand-grandparents who were born and grew up in Czar Times, were very religious. One grand-grandmother was known to be a holy person in her village; another one could heal with praying.

 Once, when I was 8 years old, I bet with my grand-grandma Nura (who was a deeply religious Christian-orthodox) that God did not exist. I said: “I will spit now in the sky. If there is God he will punish me immediately!” – Nothing happened afterwards; I won the bet and was even more convinced in my atheism.

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Freedom is Ego

Freedom is the favorite mantra of the western society. It is the magical word people use left and right to explain their most odd interests and ideas. Freedom is on top of the value system. But how can anybody be free and make choices based on so called freedom when he does not know himself??

We feel that we are free to make our choices: the choice between toast or sandwich or maybe the choice between pizza or pasta. Fine.

Now the clothing: how can we be free persons if we are actually forced to buy the things that are right now in, otherwise we just don’t get anything else in the shops.

No need to mention so called political freedom when every President selections our poor brains are being manipulated to such extend that God save us from knowing it in details!

Pouring love down is so… exciting! October 23, 2008

image by axinia

How often do we feel love? True love, pure love, unconditional love? Someone said that Love is something what multiplies when you share it. And how very true it is!

I have noticed that to increase the amount of love in my life has become so easy since I… pour it down around myself. The Love grows like a snowball and creates a kind of a buffer around me, and whatever happens  – many negative things just can not pierce through! Feeling love, giving love, accepting love becomes such an exiting occupation. Can it be THE RULE of the game of life that we all trying to find out?

Pouring love down means to me:

–saying “I love you” every time I feel love – and that, to everyone from my boss to a newly met person.

–saying “I love you” to people who are close to me at least 20? 50? 100? times a day (never counted that exactly thought) 🙂 And showing my affection to them!

–saying “I love” to something I really enjoy – any kind of activity, food, objects, whatever makes me happy. Not the mere “I like”!

–giving flowers spontaneously – to my best girlfriend when she is sad or to a nice waitress in my favourite cafe (mind that I am girl myself :))

The purpose of the Japanese Gardens July 12, 2008

 image by snutur

In Japan we had a great master whose name was Vidhitama. He was the disciple of Lord Buddah and he went to Japan and started the Zen system. Zen means meditation-dhyana – and he wanted people to become “thoughtlessly aware”. He found out many ways of making people “thoughtlessly aware” – the tea ceremony and the temples that they have, are all meant to create thoughtless awareness.

I was amazed that none of the Japanese knew what the purpose of these gardens were. There is one garden which has some moss on top of a hill in a very small area and it is very interesting. You have to see the flowers and other foliage there through a magnifying glass. And this should amaze a person and one should become thoughtlessly aware.

Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, META MODERN ERA

I did it! – I watched the match Russia-Sweden on TV June 19, 2008

 Russian fan in Vienna (image by axinia)

I really watched the match! 🙂 For someone who does not watch TV since years it is really something special. I used to watch football some years ago, so I basically know what it is about. Not every play is captivating, some are really boring. This time I was lucky enough to enjoy a good play – the young Russian team was fast and successful.

Austria is in football mood now – I would not say that Austrians are great fans and keen on that thing, but marketing and PR people are doing a their job and the crowd is being brain washed to participate and buy all sorts of products in connection with that. At some point it gets too much…

Now let me use this topic and share my thoughts on football.

WHAT I LIKE ABOUT FOOTBALL: watching a play, following the ball attentively one gets thoughtless. that is almost like a mediation. It is a great effect. Apart from that one is not alone and is kind of connected to millions of others watching it at the same time. Thus, football is a kind of a collective mediation.:)

WHAT I DO NOT LIKE ABOUT FOOTBALL:

7 ways to open your heart or how to feel love April 22, 2008

 photo by axinia

 

 

Following the love-flow of my last posts, I want to share with you some things one can help to feel love if you don`t. Why? You don`t believe it works?

The human heart gets closed every now and then. How often do we really feel our heart open, filled with love and joy? I believe that if it is not the case, we should try some “tricks” out. For the open heart is the source of joy and never-ending energy, good will and good mood.

These are things that open my heart, always. I wonder it works with you same way or may be you want to share your tricks?

 

1.Express your tenderness – at least to your relatives and close friends. Hugs and gentle touches not only feel like a balsam for the other, but also make you heart melt with gentleness and love.

 

2.“I LOVE” – is the most powerful mantra! It is not common in every culture and may sound rather bold at times, but it works! Obviously the message of this word is so magically strong, that it can dissolve a lot. Say it! I use this word often for telling about things/people I love. Or saying it to people I love. I can even say it to my boss, if I feel so.

 

3.Listen to the “happy” music. Normally I prefer Classical Music (Indian and Western), but sometimes I really feel like listening to some very simple “happy” music like ABBA or Al Bano & Romina Power (this stuff makes my heart leap with joy!) – may be because this music was created and sung by the couples in love?