The Golden Spiral
Chapter Twenty
Meditation
The Art of Drawing Cosmic Consciousness to our Individual Consciousness
There are various ways to meditate in this world... taught, self learnt, or just realized by individuals or groups. What happens in a meditative state of mind of a person is quite a fascinating story for all to know. Let me come to the point straightaway.
Meditation really means dissolution of all thought waves into that grand ocean of supreme-being, with or without any effort. Ashtaanga yoga (that which has eight limbs for practice; or attain evolutionary progress through eight phases of yoga) teaches us how to make a routine for all that has been ever linked to our own spiritual growth.
The first limb is about all kinds of abstentions, called Yama. Be it food abstentions, beverage abstentions, speech, seeing, hearing or thinking abstentions, one must be very careful about what is going to manifest faster into a gross reality and very much against nature’s laws into certain negative energy fields. [Link the Moolaadhaara Chakra]
The second limb is about regulations of what is left over after abstentions are practiced properly. This is called (truly) Niyama. One must not just sit or remain dormant after one has practiced a lot of Yama (abstentions). Instead one must keep what is remnant thereafter, into a process of constant regulation. [link Swaadhishthaana Chakra]
The third stage is called postures. (Aasanas and mudras) Whenever in the day/night we sit, sleep, stand or take any kind of a stance we must follow natural course of all those positions, and must not inculcate any abnormal qualities for these. [Link Manipoora Chakra]
The fourth stage is called Praanaayama. (Holding of the breath and regulating it to a slower pattern than what we really do daily.) Praanaayama is the key to all success from our ancient times to this day as far as spiritual growth goes. This can keep a person healthy, mentally fit, calm and quiet, un-agitated, aware of the self in many planes of consciousness, and easily lead to a zone of the supreme and dissolution of the self into the supreme being with constant practice of Praanaayama. [Link Anaahata Chakra]
The fifth stage in our spiritual growth is known as Pratyaahaara. This means withdrawal of all senses or their perceptions. The process of learning and unlearning goes on many times here and a person is said to grow psychically, mentally, and finally spiritually with this process, and is considered the midpoint of one’s path in evolution. [link Vishuddha Chakra]
The sixth stage is where when we actually start to ‘Concentrate’ on all that we thus have, remaining after we have undergone the previous stages. This is named Dharana. (Concentration) One gets to concentrate on all after he tastes what has been a passage from the first to the fifth stage at this sixth stage of spiritual growth. [link Aagnyaa Chakra]
The seventh stage is where a yogi starts to meditate without his knowledge firstly, a chance, sudden, inadvertent happening called Dhyaana or Meditation. This is a stage where the spiritual growth establishes a new world of its own and has never been tasted before and starts to get back to mundane state after a short witness of the supreme. This tasting of the supreme reality makes one initially ‘crave’, for the same again and again. However, when one tends to do it by force imagination becomes very much wayward. One gets into all kinds of concepts and false-concepts about meditation, hallucinations, schizophrenia, dreams, De Ja Vu, and OOBEs. Astral-projections, etc. happen at this stage for any yogi in pursuit of the supreme reality.
Sometimes the yogi even calls himself God (or “Aham-Bramhaasmi”). Link Laalana chakra seventh chakra in the palette with the Tenth charka Golataa, the pineal body.
Not withstanding his diabolique about this stage he gets a chance to sneak into the realms of primary zone of God after sometime of mishaps in the meditative state. This happens at the Samaadhi state or the Sahasraara chakra for the yogi. Here the yogi is able to establish clearly the link between God and himself and what really separates the two i.e. subject and the object. Once having tasted this state of mind the yogi comes down to the mundane without much effort and affirms, “The subject can never become the object and the object can never become the subject.” [Link Sahasraara Chakra]
After this starts the journey of another child into the spiritual growth of the yogi, and into another set of eight such stages continues to be searching the almighty in the universe within himself and outside of himself.
What is the MER-KA-BA? Very recently, I was introduced to the meditative technique of “MER-KA-BA” (which the Sufis called the “MURAAQABAAH”.) I could very easily visualize the immaculate nature of the creation, on being told that the MER-KA-BA was nothing but the spinning of the zodiac in the manner explained above. Only the process is explained in the MER-KA-BA as a Field of energy (magnetic in nature) that encompasses every component of the entire universe. This is in the form of two tetrahedrons, one inverted and locked into the other very conveniently, to enable the laws of physics and meta-physics become self-explanatory. The only difference that I could bring out of these two different traditions of MER-KA-BA and the Kundalini-Yoga is that the former depicts the whole process in a diagrammatic visualization of three tetrahedrons and not two. Hence it makes it even more easy for people who are ‘taught’ or made aware of an already existing ‘field’ of energy encompassing all creations independently. [More about this meditation soon enough.]
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