Meditation is inner astronomy. You discover the stars, the moon, and the sun are all inside you.

What is Meditation?

Most dictionaries define the Western (Jewish, Christian, Islamic) meaning of the word 'meditation,' but usually do not describe the Eastern (Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist) concept of meditation. The most appropriate dictionary definition I could find reads as follows: "If you meditate, you give your attention to one thing, and do not think about anything else, usually as a religious activity or as way of calming or relaxing your mind." This definition very subtly implies that meditation means thinking about something, be it religious or mystical in nature, and that a constant thought process goes on while one meditates. The purest Eastern definition of the word 'meditation' means not thinking at all, but rather focusing the consciousness on the cosmic whole, "the all and the everything" as George Gurdjieff called it, without thought, judgment, or distraction.

We define the word 'meditation' here as the art of consciousness becoming aware of itself on the grand and cosmic scale. Meditation cannot honestly be called a science because any real science requires objective testing, which is not currently possible for the practice of meditation. The real art of meditation is beyond thought, beyond society, and beyond time.

Why meditate?

Meditation brings a sense of fullness and completion and is the only permanent source of tranquility available to human beings. All other forms of serenity are temporary and dissolve into conflict and chaos over time. The euphoria of drugs quickly lead to misery and self-destruction. The wholesomeness of love, so beautiful and ethereal, is a relatively short lived and fleeting experience. As J. Krishnamurti said, meditation brings order and "That order is the order of the universe. It is irrevocable and doesn't depend on anything." Meditation is the eternal essence of nature taking on conscious form within the mortal human frame.

Meditation is also an adventure of self-discovery. How can you live without knowing who or what you are? If someone asks you who you are during the day you may state your name, as if a temporary label actually means something important. Ask yourself who you are when you are in deep sleep, unconscious and without even a dream to prove that you exist at all. Ask yourself who you were ten months before you were born and who you will be just one moment after your body dies. Meditation increases awareness of the natural phenomena that is actually going on behind your own eyes. Self-knowledge has intrinsic value, even without the indescribable bliss nature generously unleashes in those who practice meditation with sincerity and patience.

Sitting Meditation

Classic sitting meditation is a vital part of all meditation traditions and has taken many forms, some more effective than others. Some traditional approaches demand that the student sit motionless for hours on end, as if becoming a human statue is the only key to enlightenment. A more scientific approach does not make the human body our enemy, but rather works with our natural physiology to allow more intense meditation with less effort and discomfort. Masochism is not an effective path to self-realization.

Begin by finding a relatively quiet place to meditate where you will not be disturbed. All forms of classic sitting meditation should be done in silence, with no background music. You can sit cross legged on a meditation pillow or in a comfortable chair. Eyes may be fully open, half open, or slightly open, letting in just two small slits of light. Meditating with eyes fully closed is fine as long as the room remains brightly lit so that enough light passes through the eyelids to keep your brain alert. Meditating with eyes closed in a darkened room presents fundamental physiological problems.

When you sit quietly with your eyes closed in darkness your brain interprets this situation as a signal to start shutting itself down for sleep. Sleep inducing hormones such as melatonin are released that make you drowsy at the same time your circulation and heart rate are reduced due to lack of movement. You feel as if swept away on a sea of quiet relaxation. This pleasant experience may be light sleep state hypnosis, not meditation at all, and thus do you no more good than taking a nap. Meditation means that you are relaxed as if sleeping but your consciousness is fully and intensely awake. If you meditate with your eyes closed the room must remain very brightly lit so that a significant amount of light passes through the eyelids.

The second defense against sleepiness is to break up your meditation into three fifteen minute sessions that are easy for your body to tolerate. Sit quietly for fifteen minutes, then stand for two minutes, then sit for another fifteen minutes, then stand for two minutes, then sit for a final fifteen minute session. This 49 minute technique can be done once a day, twice a day, or three times a day for intense practice. You can time yourself by making a tape recording with the sound of a bell or a gong to let you known when to stand up, sit down, and begin and end the meditation.

This technique largely eliminates the problem of cramps, soreness, and numbness in legs often experienced by students attempting to sit for longer periods of time than the body was naturally made to sit. The standing breaks increase blood circulation which helps wakefulness. Comfort is maintained and we avoid the light sleep state hypnosis problem mentioned earlier.

The transitions between sitting and standing in this method are an opportunity to practice meditation in action. Normally, unless we are physically ill, our waking lives are spent in motion and activity. Meditation must not be thought of as something that is done only in a physically rigid state far removed from the world of work and play. The goal is to become meditative continuously so that your very being becomes cosmically conscious, permanently and irrevocably. When you stand up and sit down during these meditation sessions, feel the inner flow of meditation continue. Observe that your body is moving but your existential identity remains the same.

What do you do while sitting?

The most basic approach to meditation is to relax, let go, and do nothing. Surrender to the moment and watch yourself as a silent witness. If thoughts come to mind, then observe the thoughts without adding to them by your active participation. Be a detached and passive observer and simply feel your most basic and fundamental being. This inherently immense being has been respectfully called the ground of being.

The enlightened teacher J. Krishnamurti used the term "choiceless awareness" to describe his own meditation method. This means being conscious without the thought process choosing something smaller than your vast fundamental being to focus on. Consciousness is like a glass ball floating in the depth of space. Light and sensory input flows into the field of consciousness from all directions. When you think, you focus your attention on just one area of sensory input or you create a thought from memory stored within the brain. With choiceless awareness you are not thinking or remembering, just floating and letting sensory input flow through you from all directions without manipulating that input with the thought process. You live in the moment and become totally open. This openness attracts energy from all sides of the universe which pushes you even higher.

Krishnamurti's choiceless awareness is the same "methodless method" that Zen monks call "mindfulness." Hindu yogis sometimes call it "one pointed vision." A more accurate term might be one object vision. This means that you observe yourself, the sky, the trees, and the entire universe as one object. You no longer see the world as a multitude of parts and disconnected events. Instead, you accurately perceive the observer and the observed as exactly the same thing, with no artificial wall of separation blocking the limits of consciousness. This singular entity becomes acutely aware of itself in all its vastness. The one cosmic being, as Krishnamurti said, is "beyond time" and is "untouched by thought." The revered sage Ramana Maharshi described it as "infinite" and "bigger than the human race."

Another useful method is to lend special awareness to the breathing process felt in the belly. Just behind and below your navel (belly button) lies the hara, which is felt as an ethereal ball of energy. The hara is a natural balancing point of your consciousness that can be thought of as the center of your subtle body. No one really knows what the hara actually is, but we can use it to our advantage. When your consciousness is centered at the hara instead of in the head, your thinking process slows down and can even stop. When the thinking process slows down you can relax in the expanded world of pure being. Trying to stop distracting thoughts by will power alone often leads to even more thoughts and a self-defeating inner struggle. By transferring your center of awareness to the hara thoughts gradually disappear on their own without any inner conflict. This is why you see Buddha statues with a big belly. This is an esoteric message that the hara is a key to meditation.

Sit quietly and focus on your belly as it moves in and out as you breathe. Over time the hara point will become more noticeable as your meditation grows stronger. We all feel the hara when startled or in intense danger. Sudden emergencies, such as near collisions on the highway, tend to activate the hara center. You get a "gut reaction" from sudden danger. You can nourish the feeling of the hara by simply paying passive attention to it. This relaxed concentration is very close to doing nothing yet it is still a subtle effort. Drinking herb tea or hot water before meditation sessions relaxes the gut and facilitates awareness of the hara. Overeating and consuming cold drinks tends to make hara awareness more difficult.

WARNING Avoid the use of mantras and long repetitive chanting. Repeating the same words over and over is a method of forgetfulness which will bore the mind and leads to the light sleep state hypnosis problem mentioned earlier. I would define a mantra as the repetition of words, usually meaningless, for a period of two minutes or more. Mantras have traditionally been used for hours on end by students who become mentally calmed and dulled by their use.

The use of meaningful incantations, described in detail in the next section, is quite different than mantras use and can help bring consciousness to greater clarity. Words can help because the human brain is a word machine. Our minds are computers that process symbols, and words are symbols. For example, repeating the words "I am the space...I am the space...I have always been the space" for a period of up to two minutes can be very helpful in focusing consciousness on the infinite. Do it much longer and the words lose their meaning. The exercise then degrades into a mantra, defeating the purpose of increasing wakefulness.

Mantras have proven to be medically helpful for some because they can unleash hormones that temporarily calm the mind. Mantras are healthier than taking tranquilizers, but are fundamentally different from meditation, which relies on the purifying fire of self-observation. Self-observation is a difficult task that requires courage and an endurance of character and spirit. Real meditation has the real payoff of leading to a naturally calm and expanded state of consciousness, not just an artificially silenced mind that remains fundamentally shallow.

A self-inquiry incantation

There are powerful words that can help your meditation, but they form a strategic questioning, not a mantra. Ramana Maharshi was a beloved Indian teacher who reached enlightenment through self-inquiry, by asking the most fundamental question "Who am I?" Here is a self-inquiry technique that expands Ramana Maharshi's method to make it even more powerful. Speak out loud the following incantation with total intensity before and/or during formal sitting meditation sessions. By the term "total intensity" I mean the same level of intensity you would feel if you were just told that you had only one hour left to live. Be emotional, be Italian, use your hands and body language if it helps. Plead with the universe the following question.

What is this ball of consciousness?...What is this ball of consciousness?...What is this ball of consciousness? - You can repeat this question up to a dozen times if the spirit moves you.

I am not this library of memories.

I am the space...I am the space...I have always been the space. - You can repeat this statement up to a dozen times.

I cut these bonds of attachment now! - This last phrase is optional.

Do these words sound silly? Laughter is good for meditation and the words are humorous, but the method itself is deeply serious and actually works, often with startling, electrically shocking power. You invoke this questioning incantation from the hara center, not from the head. Resonate the words deep inside you, without thinking of intellectual explanations of who you are. Just asking this question is purifying and ennobling. Self-inquiry is a very fundamental and innocent endeavor, and you need an innocent and totally open mind to see reality directly, without the distortions of memory and thought.

Over time you will find the words become a trigger mechanism which allows you to instantly drop all peripheral involvement and come home to your true cosmic being. We all have the same essential being and that being is cosmic. No one is left out of this universe. If you are a part of the universe you are all of the universe! The small 'I' is dropped and only the big 'I' remains. Then you can have a good belly laugh and that is the way I end most of my own meditation sessions. I meditate until I start laughing from the hara center. Then I know I am cooked!

The statement, "I am not this library of memories," means that you are not just a collection of images of past events stored as memories in the cells of the brain. Memory is the foundation of the false self, which is the small, temporary, and highly limited self which we feel as the 'me' and the 'I'. Human beings are not mere fragments of the world of illusion that Hindus call maya, the ever changing peripheral world of transient events. We are at our core and heart the changeless being beyond the realm of the senses. Our true and permanent identity extends far beyond birth and death and beyond simple pleasure and pain. We are the infinite void from which all is born. That is the meaning of the statement "I have always been the space." Nothing is bigger than space and space contains all that exists.

When speaking the optional phrase, "I cut these bonds of attachment now!," it helps to slap the back of the right hand against the palm of the left hand upon saying the word "now!" Reverse hands if you are left handed. This creates a loud cracking sound which adds drama and helps wake up the central nervous system. You can use this questioning technique only at the beginning of formal sitting meditation sessions or you can repeat the incantation every five to ten minutes during the session to help keep yourself focused. Combining this self-inquiry incantation with the mirror gazing technique described below creates a super-method of great power and intensity.

Word exercises are not for all students of meditation. If you try them and feel nothing then concentrate on other methods first. As you slowly change your methods will change with you. A method that is unusable now may be of great help to you in the future.

Mirror Gazing

Some students find the use of a mirror virtually doubles the power of their meditation sessions. Sit in front of a mirror and gaze into the reflected image, setting your focus just above the head so that you view the wall behind you. Looking directly at the face or eyes may be too intense an experience for many students, or may lead to silly concern about personal appearance. Using this technique, one only views the physical body as a shadowy peripheral silhouette. Continue gazing for twenty minutes, allowing the eyes to deeply relax their focus.

Enjoy the mirror gazing for twenty minutes, then stand for two minutes, maintaining the heightened awareness as you change position. Then resume sitting in quiet meditation for a further twenty minutes with eyes almost totally closed, allowing in just two slits of light. This mirror gazing technique takes forty two minutes, but may be extended to one full hour if desired, with eyes open and eyes closed sections remaining equal. Please practice this method no more than once a day to avoid eye strain. Strong meditation techniques are medicine and you should not overdose on any one particular method. Combining the mirror gazing technique with the self-inquiry incantation previously detailed can increase its effectiveness tremendously, creating a super-method.

Eye Gazing

To do this technique you must have a partner of the opposite sex, preferably someone you love. It is similar to the mirror gazing technique described above except you that look into the eyes of your loved one. Sit together, staring softly into your partners eyes for twenty minutes. Then stand silently for two minutes. Then sit in quiet meditation with eyes almost totally closed for a further twenty minutes. This technique can readily lead to romantic intimacy so pick your partner carefully.

Cathartic Dancing Meditation

Cathartic Dancing Meditation is a cosmic powerhouse that can be used by students in good health with a normal cardiovascular system. As it is a physically strenuous exercise, one should get a complete physical examination by a competent doctor before experimenting with this technique. Explain the method to your doctor and ask if it would be physically dangerous for you to do. He won't understand your motives for wanting to do it but he can tell you if he thinks your body and heart can safely handle it. As with jogging or mountain climbing, you must practice this method at your own risk.

Cathartic Dancing Meditation is similar to Rajneesh Dynamic Meditation but is simpler, easier to do, and is more likely to keep you interested month after month, year after year. Neither method is really new. Sufis, Druids, and countless other esoteric and tribal cultures have used similar techniques for centuries. Most students will benefit from doing Cathartic Dancing Meditation daily for a period of between one and five years. After five years it has usually done its job and the student can move on to more subtle techniques.

Cathartic Dancing Meditation changes you from head to toe and benefits all the other meditation methods you may practice. It also helps develop a powerful hara center. I am reluctant to bring up the subject of kundalini (see definition near the bottom of the page) because of the common misrepresentations of its manifestations. I feel compelled to inform you, however, that this physically vigorous meditation method is the most powerful kundalini awakening technique I know of. Cathartic Dancing Meditation has three stages and lasts for forty minutes.

Stage #1 (ten minutes) Start by standing with your eyes closed and breathe deep and fast through your nose continuously. If you are only physically capable of doing deep breathing for five minutes then reduce the length of the first stage without feeling guilty. Remember that you are doing this method to help your meditation, not to physically injure yourself. Allow your body to move freely as you breathe. You can jump up and down, sway back and forth, or use any physical motion that helps you pump more oxygen into your lungs.

Stage #2 (twenty minutes) The second stage is a celebration of catharsis and wild and spontaneous dancing. Let go totally and act as an ancient human dancing in tribal celebration. Energetic, nonverbal background music is highly recommended. African tribal drum music works especially well. You may roll on the ground and do strange spontaneous body movements. Allow the body to move within the limits of not hurting yourself or others. For once in your life screaming is encouraged. You must act out any anger you may have in a safe way, such as beating the earth with your hands. All the suppressed emotions from your subconscious mind are to be released. If at anytime during the second stage you feel that your energy level is starting to decline you can resume deep and fast breathing to give yourself a boost.

Stage #3 (ten minutes) This stage is complete relaxation and quiet. Flop down on your back, get comfortable, and just let go. Be as if a dead man totally surrendered to the cosmos. Enjoy the tremendous energy you have unleashed in the first two stages and be a silent witness to it. Observe the feeling of the ocean flowing into the drop. Become the ocean.

This spontaneous dancing meditation technique is intended to grow with the student and change as the student changes. After a few years of vigorously practicing this method, the first two stages of the meditation may drop away spontaneously. You may then begin the meditation by taking a few deep breaths and immediately go deep into the ecstasy of the third stage. If practiced correctly this method is health giving and fun.

WARNING: Obviously one must practice Cathartic Dancing Meditation in a safe location and not near the edge of a cliff or on a hard surface where one might fall and break one's skull. A large room or hall with thick carpeting is good. Outdoors in the early morning on a soft and well tended lawn with group participation is best. Do it on an empty stomach and avoid falling into dangerous objects such as windows. It is allowable to briefly open one's eyes occasionally to maintain your location. Create a safety zone around your dancing and spontaneous body movements. Be courteous to neighbors and delete the screaming if it will be heard by others.

Almost all Westerners are head oriented and emotionally repressed. For us a chaotic, spontaneous, and emotionally cleansing technique like Cathartic Dancing Meditation is vital for serious progress to be made quickly. The physical benefits of this technique obviate any need for hatha yoga or traditional kundalini yoga methods. Cathartic Dancing Meditation is so multidimensional in its effects and benefits that it deserves the designation of a super-method.

Soul Awareness

This method is recommended for those students who have practiced the other described techniques long enough to gain a feeling of floating bodilessness. If you cannot feel your subtle body you cannot practice this method effectively. In the beginning, it should only be used during formal sitting meditation sessions. Latter on, after you have gained some progress with this method, you can use an evolved version of the meditation while engaged in any activity that does not require thinking or your full attention. For example, you can practice it while walking in a safe location away from highway traffic.

Begin this method by sitting with eyes fully open. Softly gaze at a blank wall, or more preferably, look out a window at a distant vista. With the mind's eye (the eye of consciousness behind your body's purely physical eyes) define your field of visual consciousness as a circle. Imagine the top of your field of consciousness as the 12 o'clock position on a clock and the bottom of your field of consciousness as the 6 o'clock position. With your mind's eye, not your physical eyes, slowly sweep your attention clockwise from the top 12 o'clock position down to the 6 o'clock position, then on to the 9 o'clock position and then back up to the 12 o'clock position. Repeat this process in the counterclockwise direction. Mentally strain to observe the very outer edges of your visual field of consciousness where the light of consciousness turns into the darkness of empty space. Go on repeating this process until you feel you have had enough.

This is a soul awareness exercise, not an eye exam, and that is why it is recommended only for students with a number of years of experience in meditation. After practicing this method for some time one can begin to transform the method into one of sudden expansion of awareness. You can gain the ability to perceive the complete 360 degrees of the outer edges of your consciousness in one jump. This feels like stepping back, literally out of your own mind, and looking back into your mind from a close and friendly distance. You become identified with the void and space around the flame of consciousness and this makes the flame grow even brighter. This truly esoteric method is difficult to fully explain and there are aspects of it that you will have to learn on your own through practice.

One discovers from this technique that our visual field of consciousness is roughly football shaped with greater width than height. This is because our brains evolved out of a need to look for food and danger more on the horizontal axis than on the vertically axis. To survive you need to be aware of what is on your right and left more than what is directly below your feet or above your head. This soul awareness method has a deprogramming effect that allows one to appreciate the play of existence as an ever changing drama. You feel as if you are in it but also out of it and beyond it. Combining the advanced form of this soul awareness method with the self-inquiry incantation described earlier creates a powerful super-method.

This is an easy technique designed to quickly sweep the clutter of thoughts from your mind. It can be used before starting formal sitting meditation sessions or anytime during the day you feel you have lost your existential focus. Begin by placing both hands behind your head with fingers interlocked. Rest your hands at the point where the neck and the head meet. Then sweep your hands over the top of your head. This can be done either slowly or quickly as you prefer. Imagine that your hands are gathering up all your thoughts as they move. When your hands reach just below your forehead, use a flicking motion as you simultaneously unlock your fingers and throw your hands away from your face. Feel as if all your thoughts are being swept out of your eyes and discarded. Do this between ten and twenty times as needed, and then relax and enjoy the inner silence. This method takes less than one minute to do and can be used at bedtime to help free the mind from the problems of the day.

Sweeping House with a Kicker

A variation of the sweeping house technique is to add a breathing stage after the sweeping stage is complete. Place your right palm (left if you are lefthanded) on your forehead and place your left palm on the back of the right hand. Now take 4 to 7 deep breaths through the nose and feel as if you are drawing the air way down to your belly. Fully exhale in a normal and relaxed fashion after each breath. This breathing technique is not yoga bastrika. It is ordinary deep breathing done with intensity and fullness. After exhaling the last breath, sit motionless a few moments with your hands still on your forehead. Cooperate with any upward flow of energy you may feel. This energetic method can be done every 10 minutes during an hour long sitting meditation session to create a mild and safe kundalini technique.

You can be creative

After you have become comfortable with the meditation techniques individually you can learn to incorporate them simultaneously to multiply their effectiveness. For example, combining mirror gazing, hara awareness, the soul awareness technique, and the use of the self-inquiry incantation can be an extremely powerful super-method. There are no rigid one size fits all meditation techniques. Follow your intuition and let the methods evolve to fit your own individuality. Don't take the time suggestions for methods as rigid limits. If you desire to extend your meditation sessions then go with the flow.

The wanting mechanism

What is one of the most important factors in keeping us diverted from meditation in the here and now? Look inside your mind and find the wanting mechanism. The wanting mechanism continuously constructs images of new experiences the mind desires, derived from memories of the past. The mind becomes enamored with these new fantasy images and is diverted from what actually is, here and now. The eternal cosmic consciousness exists here and now, never in the future, and never in the past. Future and past are illusory and do not exist in any real physical form outside of projections of the mind. What exists now is everything, and you already have it. You only need to become conscious of your own wealth.

If everyone in the world suddenly became enlightened, in my opinion, the human race would come to an end. There would be a lack of sufficient desire to keep people motivated enough to have families, raise children, grow crops, and protect society from all the natural threats, from disease to ecological disaster. That said, I certainly believe that enlightenment is a desirable goal for those who really want it. But you can see the impossibility of the situation. When you "want" enlightenment your wanting mechanism is still active and enlightenment will not happen to you. So we can breathe easy that everyone in the world will not become enlightened, all at the same time, anytime soon.

Ask yourself these questions.

1) If you want something, how can you stop thinking about it?

2) If you don't want anything, what is there to think about?

3) If you don't want anything, is there anything to be angry about?

4) If you don't want anything, is there anything to make you unhappy?

5) Rocks and other inanimate objects do not want and do not suffer, but they are unconscious and dead. How does a living human being enter a no-wanting state while fully conscious and filled to the brim with life energy? That is the incredible contradiction and difficulty in becoming enlightened.

At some point on your own noble path you will see very clearly that wanting is a barrier. That realization may hit you suddenly like a freight train (my blood is still on the tracks) or gradually creep into your consciousness over time. Only when you see it clearly on your own should you try to step back from the wanting mechanism. Until that right time occurs you will be needed to save this beautiful planet earth, to raise families, and to be good citizens. Take meditation one step at a time. Do not try to imitate the final steps into the abyss while you are still at the foot of the mountain.

How long should I meditate?

The time a person needs to spend in formal meditation sessions to gain maximum benefit depends on ever-changing individual circumstances. If you are meditating with a group you will gain from the group energy and go further with less effort. If you are fortunate enough to be living close to an enlightened teacher you may be able to absorb some of his high energy without any effort at all. If you are meditating alone, without support from others, then you will have to do all the heavy lifting yourself.

My general recommendation is that 1 hour a day spent in formal meditation sessions is a minimal effort. Meditation only works for those who are hungry for it and if you cannot spare that small amount of time for meditation then you will probably not gain substantial results. Most people will be helped significantly by meditating 1 hour a day, but progress may be so slow that you barely feel it. If you wish to go faster, so that you can feel the wind in your hair with clearly recognizable progress, then I suggest 1.5 to 2.5 hours a day.

Two 45 minute sessions, one in the morning and one in the evening, works well for most people. Adding a third 45 minute session in the afternoon is stronger medicine if you can manage it. Spending more time than that in formal meditation sessions becomes difficult for most people as it takes you away from family, friends, job, and social responsibilities. A specific recommendation for young, physically fit beginners would be to practice Cathartic Dancing Meditation in the morning and one of the quiet sitting meditations at night.

It is of paramount important to practice mindfulness throughout the day. To be of any real value meditation must become a full-time way of living rather than a strictly segregated activity. Choose methods that make you feel more positive. Meditation should be a form of cosmic hedonism, not a penance one must perform as an obligation.

I have no idea how to answer that question as I am just a fellow student myself. I do not believe the old scriptures nor do I trust the word of pundits and self-proclaimed "masters." It may take 10 lifetimes or 1,000,000 lifetimes.

Meditation is a pleasure in itself and the healthiest approach is to enjoy the journey without thoughts of gaining a pot of gold at the end of some distant rainbow. Ask yourself who or what will reach that imagined goal? If our petty little minds reach enlightenment, then will we be enlightened at all? Thinking about goals takes us further away from choiceless awareness, relaxation, and ecstasy, and is thus counterproductive. It is best to fully enjoy the journey of meditation without seeking any title, credentials, or an ultimate brass ring that we can selfishly own and brag about to others.

Things to do, things to avoid, and things to consider

The fastest meditation method is to live in the company of an enlightened human being. Enlightened teachers can expand your consciousness without the slightest effort on your part. All you need to do is to be open to the spontaneous transfer of energy. Fully enlightened human are very rare. There may have been as few as seven fully enlightened teachers in the 20th century. I do not know of any fully enlightened teachers still living today, but that does not mean they do not exist. More enlightened souls will be coming in the future and it is your challenge to find them while avoiding the many fakes.

When it comes to teachers, even fully enlightened teachers, take the best and leave the rest. No human being has ever been perfect and without major flaws and limitations. Only myths can give the illusion of perfection and that is why most of society continues to worship invented myths rather than accepting reality as it is, warts and all. Enlightened humans are vastly expanded human beings, not perfect human beings.

It is my educated opinion that the traditional guru-disciple relationship is now passé and inappropriate for Western students of meditation. The East has always had an imperial and authoritarian model for the teacher-student relationship. The West must develop its own Jeffersonian model based on science and fact, not on myth and tradition. Be a devoted disciple, but make your ultimate guru the all and the everything, the ultimate truth of the total cosmic existence. Use teachers as temporary tools on your path to self-realization, but do not allow yourself to become the captive servant of one fallible human mind.

* Definition: kundalini (k¢n´de-lê´nê) noun of Hindu origin. Physical and sexual energy that lies dormant at the base of the spine is activated through esoteric kundalini practice. This energy is directed through the kundalini channel in the etheric body upward to the top of the head.