Soul Hiker » Meditation

The Fountain Meditation Technique to Replenish your Life Energy

Gilbert Ross — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 12:00:20 +0000

This is a guest post by Jill Magso from the Silva Team

When our personal fountains of good will seem to have run dry or our stores of energy too sorely taxed, it can be difficult to believe that the source for all goodness and good will is really ours all the time. We often speak of filling up our tanks or replenishing our stores, but we rarely take the time to do so. And it is uncommon to be able to actually feel the well bubble up in our body, bringing life, energy, optimism and discernment to our entire psyche and everything we do.

Each one of us, left to our regenerative devices, bathed in a little loving kindness and given just a little space, can feel the fountain of optimism and cheer at least begin to percolate beneath the rocks. Our bodies and minds have within them the blueprint for healing and re-fueling. Sometimes all you need to do is prime the pump to feel the milk of human kindness begin to flow through your veins, into your own heart, and through you out to those you touch.

For today, notice when you feel your personal well of kindness being drawn upon, either because someone is making a withdrawal or a deposit, and notice how full or empty you feel. Simply by paying attention, taking note and being compassionate for our own needs we can begin to clear the way for our own fountain of good.

Step by step to the Meditation:

Find your comfortable seat with your sitting bones pressing into the surface beneath you and your heart lifting from the strength of your connection to the Earth. You can either sit Japanese style on your knees or with crossed legs in easy pose.

Begin with breath observation. For five breaths simply be breathing, noticing how your body moves to accept the breath and then to let it go.This is a guided meditation for which we’ll remain seated. As you inhale, imagine that you are growing roots out and down from your tailbone and deep into the Earth. Follow them with each in breath as they travel down, seeking nourishment and water. Feel them grow strong and begin to work their way between clods of Earth, dislodging small stones as they travel ever downward. Allow every inhalation to swell your roots and give them the energy to dig deeper, connecting you to the Earth.

When you feel completely stable, steady and fed, bring your awareness back up and into your heart. As you inhale begin drawing sustenance up from the Earth, through your roots and up the center of your body into your heart. Allow this feeling to collect here on every exhalation, spreading as a pond would gather from a spring bubbling up through the Earth. Continue for a minute or two inhaling up through your roots and into your heart, until your heart feels like it’s about to run over.

Just as your heart-pond is about to spill over its banks, take your next inhale and continue the path up through your heart center, up and out of the top of your head as if it were a great fountain that upon exiting your head split in every direction and then fell back to the Earth to pool around you and soak back into the Earth. As you inhale, draw this up through your center to the top of the fountain, a few inches past the crown of your head. As you exhale, imagine the stream splitting into infinitely sparkling differently colored lights and falling back down, creating a pool of light and color around you on the floor. Allow this liquid light to pool around you, and seep back into the Earth as a puddle would after the rain.

Stay here, inhaling up through the center of your body, and exhaling down and around your body in a great three dimensional circle, a cycle, a circuit of light, color, energy and health.

When five minutes have passed by timer or by music, bring your attention back to the feeling of your breath moving in and out of your body. Opening your eyes, reach your arms up and over head and draw your hands down in front of your heart.

Jill Magso is a member of the Silva Team and contributes to spreading enlightened ideas and sharing teachings about meditation practices. The Silva Method encompasses a variety of powerful exercises that take you deep into Alpha and Theta levels of the mind so that you can work within your subconscious as well as your conscious mind.

Save the World: Live in Balance & Inner Harmony

Gilbert Ross — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 21:24:04 +0000

Life is in perfect balance & harmony. It is in dynamic balance or equilibrium, meaning that although it is in constant flux, with things coming and going out of existence, the net effect is total balance.

It is also in harmony because its different forms fit in and blend together. Observing nature you can see a lot of example of co-evolution and interdependence between life forms.

One life form depends on an opportunity or set of circumstances put forward by another at the right time and in the right amount.

Even violent burst of nature such as natural disasters are in harmony with the cause and effects of life seen through a larger timescale.

The Predicament of Modern Man

It is partly due to our nature and partly due to the hectic and chaotic environment we have created that we often fall out of balance and lose harmony within ourselves and with nature. This is the predicament of modern man.

Carl Gustav Jung had stated that modern Man is in a pathological state of neurosis because as cultures and civilizations evolved, Man became more rational and control-driven but in the process his psyche became more disassociated from it primitive and spiritual roots. He got rid of superstition but also lost meaning, balance and harmony in the process. He became disenchanted with the world of spirit and soul.

So it seems that as we culturally evolved our consciousness became more separated and cut off from the universe around us. This pathological state of neurosis, as Jung describes it, is the cause of so much stress, anxiety and depression – the three most common symptoms of the modern world.

As we lost our link with the spiritual dimension, we lost our balance within ourselves and harmony with the natural world around us.

But if loss of balance and harmony are such a common trait of our time, then it follows that restoring balance and harmony should also be a major top priority concern for humanity and its future. Is it not?

I cannot imagine how the world can survive if the human mind remains eternally unawake or if Man grows more out of balance with himself and in disharmony with his environment.

And this is why so many visionaries, futurologists, spiritual teachers and bleeding hearts are continually reminding us that there must be a shift and evolution of consciousness for humanity to survive. There must be a radical shift in our way of doing things whereby we restore the balance by getting more in touch with our spiritual nature and the intuitive, feminine side of our psyche.

We have to relearn our ancestral paths and regain ancient wisdom blended with life-enhancing technology. But we have to come to that point as a collective by starting from the individual.

Future Possibilities

We must find ways to regain that balance in our everyday lives. And this has become my latest contemplation – is there a universal language, a blueprint to easily teach the path of balance and harmony to individuals regardless of their cultural background or mental disposition? Perhaps this is not possible. If no one came with a simple answer in millennia it means that there is no simple answer period (the simplest and most powerful answer that comes to mind is meditation but this has remained far from being taught and practiced universally as there are religions that do not recognize it – specifically Roman catholic and Islamic cultures).

Or perhaps now is the opportune time as we have more technology and relatively more understanding of the human brain. Who knows? I am imagining a holistic system incorporating known traditional techniques such as visualization, breathing, meditation, basic Tai Chi movements together with highly advanced biofeedback devices with sensors and intelligent software (attached to our brain and nervous system via wireless micro-electrodes) able to entrain the mind into coherent patterns of activity such as those obtained by seasoned meditators. The difference is that instead of needing many years of meditation it takes just few minutes and can be practiced at schools since an early age.

We have programmed humanity for ages through educational and religious institutions with wrong types of programs such as fear, scarcity, competitiveness, greed, attachment to superficial values, and God knows what. Wouldn’t it be better to program it to become more attuned with itself and its environment? To restore balance and harmony?

If the generations to come had pretty accessible ways to learn how to develop mental balance and harmony from an early age through simple ancient and modern practices then it would mean that stress, anxiety and depression not only can be tackled but prevented from arising in the first place. What would this mean on a global scale? Think of drug abuse, suicide, crime, domestic violence, road accidents, bad decisions, sore relationships, intolerance, street violence and a million other things being drastically reduced. Think of more people being calmer and happier. What would the net effect be? Happier and healthier people in society would mean a synergistic positive effect. It would mean (or perhaps I am drifting off too far here) the so much talked about quantum leap in the collective human consciousness.

The Strength of Non-Resistance

Gilbert Ross — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 20:52:12 +0000

Ancient Eastern Philosophy has taught a lot about the concept of non-resistance. This view has been deeply rooted as a cultural way of life as can be most popularly seen in the martial arts for example.

Most internal martial arts such as Tai Chi, for instance, are built on this principle of non-resistance and ‘action without action’ (Wei Wu Wei) or effortless doing. The idea behind this principle of effortless action is that when you don’t resist or work against the energies around you but actually work or flow with them, you become aligned and in equilibrium in such a way as to obtain a ‘soft and invisible power’.

The adept martial artist knows how to use the power and momentum of his opponent to overcome him with out exerting any force or power.

Non-resistance is like the nature of water. The strength of water lies in its ability to flow around obstacles and in its suppleness. Its force is soft yet powerful.

On the other hand, resistance is friction, an act of opposing, blocking or impeding something. It generally implies working against natural forces as opposed to working with them.

Here are a few points which highlight this negative aspect of resistance to give you an idea of how it might affect your daily life:

• Resistance always involves using energy-dissipating action. Did you ever realize how much effort and energy is needed to resist something as opposed to accept it? This is in line with the Eastern philosophy of effortless action.

• It makes us block the flow of life’s energies. Notice yourself when you are passing through a phase of resisting or opposing something such as an idea or part of your life. Your energy is always on the low side. You are out of balance and moody.

• As an effect of the above stress builds up. You start experiencing inner conflict and anxiety.

• Resistance makes us unreceptive to new ideas and intuitions. It blocks our intuitive channels.

• It sabotages our creativity, mental clarity and focus

• It stops us from appreciating the moment.

How to learn to flow without resistance:

• Avoid trying to always be in control. This is a cultural habit more common in Western cultures. We want to be constantly in control of our life, work, relationships, finances, etc. We feel that if we lose control, we lose the race, we lose our life. Of course the opposite is true. When we learn not to control everything we embrace life with more power and consciousness.

• When something unwanted happens to you, be aware of your resistance towards it. Shit happens. Calm down and try to shift your perspective to one of acceptance. Ask yourself “How can I use this?” or “How does this affect the bigger picture of my life?”

• Be open to your feelings without criticizing yourself. We all have an internal critic installed which pounces on us when we perceive we did something out of line. This has the negative effect of making our feelings shy away. By allowing more of those feeling to flow out, we encourage the practice of non-resistance.

• In relation to the above point, when you are having an idea, let it flow without trying to classify it, reason it out or evaluate it. We sometimes tend to over-rationalize ideas which effectively has the effect of promoting resistance to it.

• When you are practicing awareness, meditation, relaxation or simply appreciating a beautiful moment you will undoubtedly be bombarded with a thousand distracting thoughts that divert you off course. Don’t try to resist or control anything. Just acknowledge them and let them flow. The very act of resisting trips your circuits and conscious thought kicks in.

• When you are listening to something new that diverges from your opinions and background beliefs try not to resist it or deny it. Think of expansion and diversity of opinion as being healthy, strong and life affirming.

• Do not deny or resist failure. Recognize it and accept it.

How to Meditate while Being Active

Gilbert Ross — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 21:36:41 +0000

When we hear about meditation most of us think of a person sitting down in a traditional meditative posture such as the half lotus position with a straight back, closed eyes and a very still body.

Of course the above picture is a very common one and it is a correct one too. This is one of the best ways to meditate and still the mind – with a still body and a quiet mind in a tranquil ambience. But this is not the only way to meditate either. In fact the concept of meditation can be practically stretched to include other forms which do not involve a sitting still posture.

Some meditations are done when the body is active such as when walking or doing some physical activity. In Zen Buddhism, walking meditation is a well known and established form of meditation.

Is it possible to meditate while walking, running or being active?

Yes it is. Meditation is not about switching off your mind but about switching it on. It is about opening up your awareness to your surroundings and inner body. It is about tuning in to the present moment and living the freshness of it instead of blurring in to hazy thoughts and daydreaming.

So it is possible to be more mindful and aware while walking, cycling or running because your mind becomes engaged in the awareness of the surroundings. The body would be moving but the mind would be defragmenting and settling into stillness.

How to do meditation while active?

There are many different ways to do active meditation but all methods depends on directing your awareness into the activity you are doing irrespective of what that activity is. It is about opening up your perceptual awareness and letting your mind flow in sync with your activity.

Here are a few tips to practice mindfulness meditation while in activity:

1. Before engaging the activity stop for a few minutes to prepare your mind on the objectives you want to reach. This is like affirming to your self what you want to achieve. This is an important step for it directs your mind to stay on that track instead of wandering about distractively. I call it the warming up of the mind. Before we start a physical activity or sport we stretch our muscles and warm up our bodies. Same thing with the mind.

2. When you start the activity take some time to direct you awareness to your body. How does your body feel in general? Are your energy levels high or low? How do your muscles feel? Is your breathing deep or shallow? How do your feet feel? What is your general mood? Are you feeling any subtle energies changing in yourself as you do the activity?

3. Now turn your attention to your surroundings. If for example you are walking, enlarge your observation window to include those details that usually go by unnoticed. Patterns in buildings and stone, colors, shapes, sights, smells and sounds. This is mindfulness meditation in action. Your perceptual awareness expands until your mind opens up to a new dimension and everything becomes alive.

4. When your activity is over, take some time to observe how your mind feels different now. Are you more relaxed and focused? Are your thoughts more coherent? Is your general state of being more peaceful and calm? This exercise is important to extend your awareness also into the benefits of the meditation itself so that it becomes reinforced into our mind.

Overcoming Fear and Breaking Free from its Tyranny

Gilbert Ross — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 20:13:04 +0000

Fear is a cruel tyrant and we all know it. It debilitates us and immobilizes us, by restricting our possible responses to life and thus severely limiting it.

It effectively sabotages us from succeeding in reaching a goal or achieving happiness and peace of mind.

Fear can make us reject an opportunity to make a public speech, hold us from applying for that perfect job, keep us back from making that fantastic trip or keep us awake at night worrying what might happen to our loved ones when they are out of our sight. The examples are endless and I don’t need to illustrate further – I’m sure you get the gist of it.

Some people live in constant fear; some others face fear from time to time when it creeps out from some hidden corner and surfaces to haunt their days and nights.

The fact is that fear is a form of feedback about potential or real danger in our environment. Physically it is associated with a part of our brain called the ‘amygdala’ situated at the tip of the temporal lobe.

It is the part of our brain responsible for the flight, fight or freeze response to dangerous situations. No doubt, such instinctive responses were greatly helpful to the survival of our ancestors in the past. Yet as societies grew increasingly more complex and human lifestyles changed radically, this primordial survival instinct started sometimes coming at odds with everyday life situations that do not require such drastic responses.

The effect of that was an embedded sense of fear that manifests itself in many forms such as anxiety, worry, lack of sleep, nervousness and uneasiness, etc.

There are several types of fears we all face in modern life scenarios:

There is fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of loneliness, fear of mediocrity, fear of change and the unknown, fear of getting old, fear of something bad happening, fear of embarrassment, etc. The list is very long.

How do we overcome these fears if at all possible? How can we control them or stir them away? How can we turn fear into love and happiness?

1. Awareness: The biggest and most effective step to overcome fear is being aware of it. First, you have to identify it, recognize it in any situation, name it and spot it out from other emotions. If you can’t identify it, it will pass by unnoticed and play its game without rules. Secondly be aware of subtle inner feelings that give rise to, or accompany, fear. These could be bodily feelings in the chest, throat or abdomen. They can also be non-bodily feelings such as feeling stuck or imprisoned and limiting and self-defeating thoughts.

2. Calm down: The second step that comes after being aware that you are in a state of fear is calming yourself down. Ideally it is someone else that should calm us down since the other person would normally be in a less subjective and emotional state. In the absence of another person we have to remind ourselves to calm down. This is crucial. By being aware that you are in an irrational state of fear, you can observe yourself. The observer in you is important for it helps you observe things more objectively, without judgment, from an almost ‘third-person’ point of view. If we lose that self-awareness, we practically lose everything including our sanity.

3. Burst the irrational bubble – ask analytical and rational questions: The third step to get out of the subjective and irrational state of fear is by asking ourselves rational questions. This is like someone snapping the finger in our face, trying to wake us up from a state of trance. “How real is this fear?”, “How can it help me?”, “Is it justified or is it blown out of proportion?”

4. Meditate regularly: The reason why me and other people writing about personal development, make very frequent reference to meditation (and awareness and mindfulness) is because it is such a fundamental key to mental health, balance and overall well being. It is never enough to stress its importance. Meditating regularly helps us keep in balance, in perspective and in a calm state of mind, hence in the best possible gear to overcome, or better, prevent fear.

5. Stop feeding fear with your energy – break the habit cycle: Fear does not survive on its own – it needs you – specifically it needs your negative energy to grow. By implementing the previous four steps, you are breaking the cycle that forms chronic fear and anxiety. Being aware, calming down, being analytical and meditating regularly together help you form the opposite habit – that of living fearlessly.

Click here to transform fear into love

Proactive resolutions for 2010

Gilbert Ross — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 09:09:40 +0000

Photo by pfala

In a recent article I published on Lifescape artists I suggested that there is a psychological loophole in the way we look and talk about New Year resolutions.

For starters, the word “Year” in New Year, subconsciously (and wrongfully) suggests a timeframe we are bound with. Hence, we covertly hint to ourselves that whatever we aim to achieve is only bound by a year and not a lifetime.

The linguistics of it can provide the weakly resolute mind a stage trick – a back door out. Personally, I think that talking about ‘New life resolution’ rather than ‘New Year’s resolution’ might avoid this problem…but breaks from tradition and common forms of speech (can’t have everything can’t you?).

Secondly, the type of resolutions we often make are more about sorting out lifestyle habits that swayed out of line –smoking, drinking, excessive eating and accumulating clutter – rather than life changing ones.

They are reactive rather than proactive.

I would like to drop a few suggestions about some proactive ‘New Life resolutions’ you might take for 2010….and hopefully, all the years to follow.

Business & money:

Start up that project or business venture you have been secretly aiming at or saving money for. Now is the right time…it always is.

Sometimes we keep on deferring things because we say to ourselves that this is not the right time. We keep on thinking that something else must happen before, some sign that shows us that the time is right and the moment is ripe.

Of course this is not so. It’s a trick of our subconscious.

The first step is the hardest but once you do it you’re already half way through.

Health:

Go make that long due check up at the clinic, that blood test, stress test or whatever you have been putting off.

Be proactive towards your health and not reactive. OK, exercising and eating a healthy diet is definitely a proactive thing to do also. But we must follow them with the objective of starting a life changing habit and not just for the short term such as losing that extra pound gained during the holidays.

Relationships:

Mend those broken relationships and family ties. Make up again with loved ones. Go talk to that relative or friend you haven’t been keeping in touch with due to some past argument or quarrel.

Put your pride and hurt behind. Be the first one to take the step and break the ice. Sometimes it is the only thing that is needed. The other person could be secretly wanting to make up but didn’t find the courage to take the first step.

Heart:

Plan at least one meaningful act of kindness. I’m sure that we all do random acts of kindness throughout the year. Be that helping a friend in need, lending an ear to a troubled co-worker or giving some money out for charity.

Yet planning an act of kindness is like putting more intention and deliberation into it. In the planning comes the preparation and the in the preparation we are setting our heart to be more proactive and open up to love and meaningful coexistence with others.

Lifestyle:

Simplify your lifestyle. In our hectic environments we chase all sorts of things and struggle to fit all our plans and goals in our daily routines.

It’s a constant balancing act trying to accommodate more and more into our agendas. Our lifestyle becomes increasingly more complex and strenuous at times.

We all want the best for us and our loved ones but sometimes things get out of hand and we lose perspective of our true goals. This causes stress and anxiety.

A good resolution would be to look for a way to do less instead of doing more. This takes us to the next point.

Productivity:

Focus on what’s relevant.

It’s a good thing to strive towards a more productive life filled with more rewards and excitement.

The problem is that we often pick up goals along the way which are not necessarily relevant to our true purpose. This can effectively be counter-productive.

What should be relevant after all is having meaningful goals. Goals which are authentically ours and not imposed on us by social pressure or peer consensus.

All the rest can be cleared off to make way to do what we really are enthusiastic about.

This is the real meaning of doing more with less.

Spirit:

Last but not least are spiritual matters – that corner of our lives we often leave empty.

Try out some practice which combines together mind, body and soul.

Examples are Yoga, Tai Chi or meditation.

Meditation has been a life changing practice for me and I intend to catch on with Tai Chi as my next goal.

Developing Awareness – Part 2

Gilbert Ross — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:18:46 +0000

Photo by mslori411

“Awareness implies that you are not only conscious of things (objects), but you are also conscious of being conscious. If you can sense an alert inner stillness in the background while things happen in the foreground – that’s it! This dimension is there in everyone, but most people are completely unaware of it”. Eckhart Tolle – A New Earth

I wasn’t planning doing a second part to ‘Developing Awareness’ today, exactly following the first part. I was planning to let some other few articles in between.

However, I was flipping through pencil-written bookmarks and side notes I left on Tolle’s book*, when I came across the verse quoted above. It struck me a second time as being an important practical tip worth noting and sharing.

I would also love to hear your thoughts on this.

The alert stillness in the background:

This phrase says it all. For me it completely defines what I feel during mindfulness meditation.

It can be called stillness because your awareness feels still, centered, grounded and solidly whole but at the same time it is alert. Sounds like a contradiction but it isn’t.

The alertness comes from the freshness of being grounded in the present and the aliveness of giving soft attention to your surroundings and experience. You are there present with your being not floating in some hazy daydreaming or in anxious thoughts about things you have yet to sort out.

This alert stillness can be described to be in the background because it doesn’t come out in the forefront of your consciousness and awareness in any obvious way like thoughts or perception. It is subtle and sedimentary. It is felt when the constant stream of thought subsides and there is less intensity in the forefront (that is why some point at the ‘gap between thoughts’ as the access point to your inner awareness). The foreground noise is cleared and so the background signal emerges clearly.

When I first succeeded in having a proper mindfulness meditation experience it was nothing like I had previously expected. Before that day I had imagined that in a purely meditative state, the mind will be purely absorbed in nothingness as if no thought existed. When I then experienced a state of mindfulness meditation, I could exactly describe it as “an alert stillness in the background while things happen in the foreground.”

Thoughts were still happening in the foreground (although less in number and intensity) but they did not distract me or annoy me because my awareness was grounded in the alert stillness in the background.

Does this ring any bell to you whether in meditation or otherwise? Did you have any experiences of the alert stillness in the background?

Space Consciousness:

Tolle uses the concept of ‘space consciousness’ to describe this undercurrent of awareness. Space consciousness can be distinguished in contrast to ‘object consciousness’.

Object consciousness is when your reality is fully anchored to the world of objects and believe that there is nothing more to it. It is unfortunately the reality of most people who take life at face value. For them the only concrete reality is that that of things, objects, thoughts and petty human conventions. There is nothing more than that.

“Space consciousness means that in addition to being conscious of things – which always comes down to sense perceptions, thoughts and emotions – there is an undercurrent of awareness.” A New Earth

This Dimension is there in everyone:

This awareness Tolle is pointing at is easily missed because of its subtlety yet it is there in every human being. It is there in you right now. It is always present there in the background but we are never taught to single it out. We take it for granted that outer reality and thoughts about that outer reality is everything there is.

If you do not have a concept of something, you can’t see it even if it stands right in front of you and slaps you in the face. We can only recognize patterns that we have a previous concept of. It’s the same thing with the awareness of our inner stillness – our space consciousness.

Since we are not guided into being aware of it, we never identify it even if I’m sure that everyone experiences it at some point in time.

The bottom line is this: If you have at least a foundation of it as a concept and recognize that it exists, the mind can more easily identify it when it arises.

The second step is watching out for it. I suggest using the observation on awareness I laid out in part 1.

Once you recognize it as part of your experience you know where to look for it next time because you would have opened up the space for that possibility. You would start having a ‘feel’ of your inner space – your space consciousness.

*(Even though I read the book some time ago I still keep it as a reference for some notes and concepts. The book was given as a gift by my special friend Valerie who I thank from my heart. )

Developing Awareness – Part 1

Gilbert Ross — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:53:42 +0000

photo by h.koppdelaney

Awareness is fundamental to all human activity. It is the basis of all our mental states and processes, creativity, perception, knowledge and culture. Everything starts from awareness. It is the portal between consciousness and the world around us.

Recently I have become more and more intrigued by the idea. The more I learn about it, the more I realize how it pervades everything we do and that by learning to focus it, expand it or redirect it consciously, we can transform ourselves by gigantic positive leaps. It’s the key to greater inner peace, happiness and self-mastery. In fact there is no possible way one can walk on the path of self-mastery without learning to direct his awareness.

The different faces of awareness:

At a very basic level, you are aware of everything you do. When you walk around, prepare coffee, look for your keys, drive home, read, etc, there is always awareness going on otherwise you do not operate. However, many of these tasks happen on a subconscious level rather than on a conscious one.

When you start learning to ride a bike or drive a car, you are conscious about all your steps and movements. Once you learn the task, it starts becoming more automatic and subconscious. You are no longer conscious of every thing you do while you are driving but you are still aware at some level (obviously so, otherwise the roads would be a catastrophe everyday). This type of awareness however is not very thick and focused.

There is another level where your awareness is more focused. For example, when you are interested in something, you start paying attention to it which means that you slightly focus your awareness on the object or event.

When you concentrate on something or you are totally absorbed in the task at hand (what psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi called being ‘in the flow’), your awareness is focused like a laser beam on the subject, closing off all signals from the rest of the environment that might distract you. Your awareness intensifies and deepens on the subject in the present moment. There is a strong sense of aliveness in it because your heightened awareness enriches the perception of the world around you and your relationship to it.

This type of awareness, as observed from studies carried out on seasoned meditators such as Buddhist monks, is linked with a certain coherence in brain wave patterns. In our day to day mental tasks, our mind is somehow ‘fragmented’ and our thoughts point out at different directions. Our brain wave patterns are incoherent.

The diagram above shows the 2 basic levels of awareness

Individuals who have trained their mind through practices such as meditation, have the ability to consciously redirect their awareness to higher levels of consciousness and ‘defragment’ their mind to a more coherent unity. This why meditation promotes calmness, focus, improved memory and heightened awareness, amongst a long list of benefits.

The good news is that this ‘higher-level’ awareness, so to speak, can be trained and developed.

Being aware of your awareness:

The first step to developing higher awareness is being conscious of it. You need to start training yourself to be aware of your awareness. By getting in the habit of observing how it behaves you start learning to redirect your focus from subconscious awareness to conscious and more coherent forms of awareness.

In short, this means being more conscious and pro-active of your usually passive and subconscious actions, beliefs, emotions and reactions to life. This is why awareness is directly linked to self-mastery.

I invite you to try out these short but insightful mental observations. They only take a couple of minutes. They are simple and can be carried out as many times as you like, anytime, anywhere. The more you do the more you grasp the feel and movements of your awareness (don’t do these steps in one go – try them out each at a time at your leisure).

Here we go:

1. Take time to notice what it feels like to be aware. Stop for a moment to be aware of your awareness. Don’t classify it or judge it, just notice it. How does it feel?

2. Now find any object (could be your own body or feelings) and be aware of it for more than 30 seconds without distraction. Is it any different from being aware for just a fleeting moment? Does your awareness solidify with time?

3. Are you at all aware of your internal sensations? Try to be aware of your current state of mind – is it relaxation, boredom, curiosity, impatience? What about your feelings? Your energy levels? Is your awareness more inclined towards internal or external stimuli?

4. How about your awareness of the present moment? The awareness of external and internal sensations that unfold moment by moment in the present. Can your awareness hold on to your present ongoing sensations without drifting off in thought or imagination in the past or future?

5. When you observe your environment, does your awareness shift from one object to the next hastily and erratically? Or is it more gentle and observant of each item? Try to move your awareness from one thing to the next and speed it up then slow it down. How does the difference feel?

6. Try also noticing the difference between expanding and narrowing your awareness of your environment. I find it easy to do this on my body before meditation. I focus my awareness on just my breathing first. Then after some time I expand it outwards to include the other bodily sensations such as my hand, feet, head, etc. I also expand it towards my internal feelings and states of mind then narrow it down step by step to my breathing again.

7. Another thing I do when doing mindfulness meditation is shifting my awareness across sensory modalities. From seeing to hearing to touching to tasting (not always), to smelling, and ultimately internal sensations. This and the previous exercise are the most useful steps in developing and expanding your awareness.

When you start getting closer in touch with how your awareness behaves and affects your everyday tasks, you also start to understand how to give it more space to grow. You start finding it easier to consciously direct it, focus it or expand it. This can have big positive effects that you start slowly observing in yourself day after day.

You become more focused when you do something or you start becoming more aware of things you don’t usually do. Your mind becomes more open to ideas and feelings. You become more in tune with yourself and your environment.

You also communicate better because you become more sensitive to the subtle messages in other people’s behavior.

And ultimately you also start feeling expanding as a spiritual being because your consciousness is expanding. Awareness is the food of consciousness. So the more you enrich and open up your awareness, the bigger the natural growth of your consciousness.

In part 2 I’ll be writing about the relationship between awareness and emotional balance and also about how to develop awareness through meditation.

How to find and recognize your inner voice

Gilbert Ross — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:35:23 +0000

Have you ever been in a difficult moment where you needed to take an important and quick decision but didn’t have the answer there and then? And did it ever happen to you that in such a situation you suddenly ‘hear’ an answer in your head out of nowhere that leads you out of your predicament? That’s your inner voice.

The inner voice is that subtle message that you sometimes pick up but feel is coming from somewhere different than your thoughts or the usual internal commentary in your head. It has a different tone and a different purpose.

Your inner voice can be your guide, your ally and your friend in need that speaks up in those moments when you really need an answer. Sometimes we have to take an action or a decision but the information we have is limited. Your inner voice serves as a priceless feedback.

Your inner voice helps you take wiser decisions and it keeps you in perspective by guiding you in the right direction and giving you information in the form of hints which you would otherwise have missed or overlooked.

How to find you inner voice:

A common question that I’ve been asked when the subject of inner voice comes out is “So how can I find my inner voice?”

To be exact, we don’t find our inner voice but our inner voice finds us. What we can do to facilitate this is to open up and tune our ‘internal antenna’. I’ve noticed that although some people like myself have always found it very natural to be inward looking and sensitive to subtle things, most people are more externally driven, so listening to their inner voice could be a possibility that they never opened themselves to.

If you are such a person you need to start forming some habits that help you redirect your awareness inwardly – to your feelings, ideas, energies, motivation, etc. Here are a few things to do:

Spend more quality time with yourself. A lot of people are quite uncomfortable by themselves. They always need company and when they are alone they try to avoid themselves by getting occupied doing something else. Quality time alone means shifting your attitude from ‘not being around anyone’ to ‘being with myself’. Take time to listen to yourself, observe and write down your thoughts, feelings and ideas.

Disconnect your devices and connect with yourself again. We are getting so connected to things and systems that we are gradually disconnecting from ourselves. Internet, personal mobile devices, PCs, TV, phones, whatever, have not only consumed our free time but have consumed the relationship with ourselves. Sitting in a waiting room anywhere, you always see people who haven’t raised their eyes once from their mobile phones in one hour – texting, playing, etc. Put down your phones or whatever and absorb your environment, think, imagine, create in your head.

Find time to quiet down your mind. Practice daily any activity that helps you achieve this – meditation, yoga, stretching, walking, running, listening to music, cycling, having a warm bath, etc. One thing you can do anywhere is observing your breath. Focus on how your lungs and belly feel as you inhale and exhale.

Learn to ‘feel’ an answer and not think of an answer. This is important, because your inner voice is more connected to your heart channels than your mind. Your inner voice is ‘felt’ – it’s not a result of your thinking. So when you are alone, ask a question and try to ‘feel’ the answer. It’s counter intuitive I know but first experience will clear this out for you.

Observe your feeling and emotions. Be more attentive to what’s going on inside of you. If you never pay attention to your inner movements, the chances are that your inner voice would have been rendered a bit dumb. Observing your feelings is giving a message to your inner voice that you are listening.

Learn to listen more to your inner currents rather than the outer currents. What I mean is that often people are used to finding cues and points of reference in other people or in situations around them instead of inside of them. Try to observe this happening. When you are in doubt, let’s say you lost your way, what do you do first? Some people would spontaneously ask the first person passing by or look around them to get an idea (which of course is sensible). Thinking about it, the first thing I do is stop to tune into my gut feelings or intuition (kind of checking out if I received any messages in my inbox!), secondly I ask people.

Learn to step aside for a while when you are trying to solve a problem instead of trying to think and think about it. Just stop. First of all if you are thinking you are closing off the space for other type of ‘messages’ besides thought. You are closing off the other ports. Secondly, by stepping aside you are sending a message to you inner voice to step in.

How to recognize it:

A second common question that is asked about inner voice is “how do I recognize it?” or “How would I know it’s not my thoughts or my imagination?”

First of all it has to be cleared out that your inner voice is not part of your thoughts or the vocalization of your inner commentary. It’s deeper than your thoughts. It’s not even your imagination or your visualization – these are all products of mental processes.

Your inner voice is found in the space between your thoughts. It’s part of your inner consciousness that’s connected to your being and not your doing. It’s part of your authentic self, your higher self.

I have summarized a few tips on how to recognize it:

Your inner voice is not to be mistaken for your inner-critic those self-criticizing (and often self-defeating) thoughts. Your inner voice is your inner coach.

It ‘sounds’ and ‘feels’ gentle, wise, lucid, focused and sensible.

It is not to be confused with your thoughts or your mental chatter.

It is usually accompanied by a feeling of centeredness and peaceful confidence that is usually found in mindful states.

In fact your inner voice is a mindful state because it is heard when you rise above your thoughts or mental chatter and start listening.

Since it is more connected to your heart than your mind, it is more to be found in feelings rather than in reasoning, imagination and thought.

Use your emotions as a guide. The feeling that usually accompanies your inner voice is that feeling of ‘something just clicked in the right place’. It’s a feeling of reassurance.

Don’t expect too much. If you expect some ‘type of voice’ you will miss it when it comes.

You will recognize that it has a different ‘tone’ than your thoughts and the message is subtler but deeper.

The little sacred rules of inner peace