Which Meditation Techniques Are Right For You

Meditation Truth

(Reprinted with Permission From the Excellent library of articles on Meditation at   http://advancedmeditation.com/cmd.php?Clk=2721602)

Which Meditation Techniques Are Right For You

Posted: 18 Dec 2008 04:17 PM CST
If you’re looking for meditation instruction or want to learn some meditation techniques, whether you’re looking for meditation and relaxation techniques, or if you want what you might call spiritual meditation techniques, whether you need anxiety relief, and whether you’re looking for meditation for beginners or advanced students… no matter why you want to meditate, you might want to realize that there are different types of meditation. And not every meditation technique is right for every person.

There’s a reason why Tiger Woods doesn’t play football.

There’s a reason why you don’t want see Henry Kissinger on Dancing with the Stars.

There’s a reason why, as it’s said in ancient texts, the Buddha taught 84,000 different meditation techniques to his 84,000 different students.

There’s a reason why in Hinduism they say that each person has his own god and must discover his own way of praying to and, ultimately, becoming one with that God.

And the reason is obvious: we’re each unique.

Who you are is different than who your neighbor is.

So it’s helpful to work with the way you are, rather than fight the way you are.

In other words, if you are Christian, you may want to explore Christian meditations.  There are dozens.

If you are Jewish, there are many Jewish and Kabbalistic meditations.

If you’re Hindu or Muslim or Buddhist, there are meditations that emphasize the beliefs and ideas inherent in each of those religions.

If you don’t think of yourself as religious, you might want to take a moment to think about your own personal nature, your own psychology.  For example, are you someone who enjoys sitting still in a quiet place, or are you someone who needs to be moving in order to process information? Are you someone who is able to feel sensations in your body easily, or is your body just that thing that happens to be attached to your head?  Do you enjoy probing philosophical ideas and looking for the way things work?  Are you better at following instructions, or would you rather have the barest bit of direction and then go off on your own? Do you easily get absorbed in something that you’re reading or in your own thoughts or feelings, or does your mind easily move from object to object?

You see, none of these are a problem.  There are meditations and meditation techniques designed to work with any one of those situations… and many that I haven’t even brought up.

I have a good friend who was one of the first Western meditation teachers. And asking him to sit down and keep his attention focused in one place for an extended period of time doesn’t produce deep meditation results for him, because that’s not the way he’s built.  But practices that allow his him to move his attention throughout his body, from experience to experience, and investigate deeply what he’s experiencing and how he’s experiencing it… well, with that technique, he’s an ace.  If he had gone to a meditation school that said, “Concentration is the only kind of practice,” he would never have become a great meditation master.

Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a test that you can take, a meditator’s personality test, the Minnesota Multiphasic Meditation Personality Inventory, that identifies different characteristics that you have and different meditation techniques that might fit who you are.  So you may have to poke around a little bit.

This is where your discerning wisdom is important. Because some meditation teachers will say their technique is “the only one” and that you can’t go jumping from practice to practice.  “Like digging a well,” they’ll say, “you have to just keep digging until you hit water.” That’s a great metaphor, but sometimes there’s no water where you’re digging!

So the best suggestion is to find a meditation practice that gives you immediate results, and then dig there for a while.  And if it doesn’t continue to give results, you’ll have to decide for yourself whether you’re trying to dig a well in the desert, or whether you haven’t dug deep enough.  My recommendation is trust yourself rather than getting answers from anyone who has a monetary interest in you agreeing with them.

In other words, if you ask your teacher, “Should I stay, or should I go?” and they say “Stay! And you need to come to the advanced workshop for $5,000,” then, personally, I would go to another meditation teacher.

It’s not uncommon, and in the Tibetan tradition for teachers to say to a student, “I can no longer help you. Here is the name of someone I’d recommend you study with instead.” If your meditation teacher isn’t willing, or able, to make that kind of suggestion then you might consider that important information.

I don’t think that meditation requires believing everything the teacher says.  It’s about becoming independent, and discovering and trusting what is genuinely authentic for you.  Be careful, if someone suggests that they know better.

From Meditation Truth
http://advancedmeditation.com/cmd.php?Clk=2721602

where there are numerous other highly entertaining and interesting articles on Meditation.

Shampoo Series – “In my defenselessness my safety lies.” Lesson 153, A Course in Miracles

There is no incompatibility between me and Paul that total defenselessness wouldn’t solve. That may be true with everyone, of course. There is only One of us here.

“Defenselessness is strength. It testifies to recognition of the Christ in you. Perhaps you will recall the text maintains that choice is always made between Christ’s strength and your own weakness, seen apart from Him. Defenselessness can never be attacked, because it recognizes strength so great attack is folly, or a silly game a tired child might play, when he becomes too sleepy to remember what he wants.

Defensiveness is weakness. It proclaims you have denied the Christ and come to fear His Father’s anger. What can save you now from your delusion of an angry god, whose fearful image you believe you see at work in all the evils of the world? What but illusions could defend you now, when it is but illusions that you fight?”

The full text of this lesson is found here:

 http://miraclevision.com/acim/wbk/pc/workbook153-1.html

 The terminology of A Course in Miracles is very Christian. I like that.

Katie says, “Defense is the first attack.” 

Can you find that?

Think of 3 ways you can prove that thought from your own experience and understanding.

Love, Ann

“Peace in our minds and in our lives is a cause-effect relationship.”

                                               – Ann O’Johnson

5 Minutes to Deep Peace on Thursday 9/13

You will be entertained at the very least and enlightenment is an option.

http://advancedmeditation.com/cmd.php?Clk=2095310

Thursday, 9/13, there is a teleconference call where you can learn more about this. There will be sample meditations and a chance at a free gift worth $400.

http://advancedmeditation.com/cmd.php?Clk=2095310 

Trust me. You want to try this. The IAM Meditations are the product of the fertile mind of Steven Sashen who is also responsible for much of the Shampoo Method we talk about here every day.

It’s completely safe. I’d trust this guy with my life.

This feeling, this is what we have all been looking for our whole lives. It’s like coming home.

Love, Ann  

Shampoo Series – Handling Criticism

Say I told you that you were a 500 pound green alien?

Would that bother you? No.

You don’t believe you are a 500 pound green alien. You don’t even think they exist.

But if I told you that you were too fat or too dumb or a failure or whatever your own pet insecurity is, yes, it would bother you a lot.

It would also bother you if you thought I was fat or dumb or a failure, but I’m sure you could care less if I were a 500 pound green alien, other than you might want to capture, study or talk to me.

Why?

Because you believe it of yourself.

And you don’t like it.

In other words, you agree!!!

And you don’t like that in yourself.

Do you see the way out?

Would you like to reduce the stress and enjoy it the next time someone criticizes you/agrees with you?

Try saying this: 

“I can see that. What do you suggest?”

Try it. See what happens. 

Many thanks and much love to Steven Sashen who taught me this much truer perspective on annoyance.

Love, Ann

Peace Now

Do you know how to find World Peace?

The IAM Meditations are the simplest, most profound and deepest I’ve ever been. Peaceful, not stressful.

Just wanted to share, in case you’d been thinking about it.

http://www.advancedmeditation.com/cmd.php?af=570391

I’ve been meditating for 40 years. My mother taught me to meditate when I was a child. I started delving deeply into finding more peace and more spirit in my life very early.

I agree completely with Steven:

There is no reason to sit on my butt in a cave for 30 years feeling like I’m not “getting it.”

http://www.advancedmeditation.com/cmd.php?af=570391 

World peace starts with peace in my own mind.

There is no other way.

It’s free to try it.

Love, Ann

“Peace in our minds and in our lives is a cause effect relationship.”

Instant Advanced Meditation – Free Sample
http://www.advancedmeditation.com/cmd.php?af=570391

“And I dreamed I saw the bomber death planes
Riding shotgun in the sky
Turning into butterflies
Above our nation

We are stardust, we are golden
We are caught in the devil’s bargain
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.”

                       – Joni Mitchell
                         Woodstock

“If you have to, use words.”

My friend, Jared, sent me this quote today.

St. Francis of Assisi once said, “Go out and preach the Gospel, and if you have to, use words.”

That’s a tough one sometimes.

Blessings, Ann 

Born Again Hypocrisy

One of my biggest objections to fundamentalist Christians is the hypocrisy.

Not only does the Bible contradict itself in many places, but the people who profess to follow the Bible literally invariably make exceptions to suit themselves.

Such was inevitably the case with this man, Bryce. He called me last night to let me know that he had met the “perfect girl.” She is Catholic. He is not. That is going to bring him some unexpected challenges, depending on how strict she is with her Catholicism. For example, he may have to join her church to get married.

But that is nothing.

He says she gave the “perfect answer” to his question about whether she believes in pre-marital sex. She is fine with it, but told him that she would respect his beliefs.

So, are they going to wait till marriage?

No! 

He has decided that “that doesn’t really work in this day and age.” I can’t for the life of me figure out how the “day and age” affects this one bit. It doesn’t, of course. But he didn’t bother about that. He just wants sex.

If you read my blogs, you will see that I am all for people having sex. It isn’t that.

I don’t care for liars and hypocrites.

Sure, we all lie to ourselves, and often. But once I catch it, I like to know the truth and then live by that.

I prefer to be around people who at least want to know the truth.

Bryce has as much as said that he does not want to know the truth.

So much for his Christianity, hmm?

Love, Ann

Evangelical Methods

In the continuing saga of my discussions with my born-again friend, Bryce, he recently asked me, “If what you believe is wrong, would you want to know?”

That is a hard sell question designed to get only an answer of “yes.” It gives the person no real choice of what to reply…  Unless that person is smarter than most people, that is the only answer they could give.

Of course, I would want to know.  But it does not necessarily mean I would come to agree with him.  

I did not answer yes or no, but went into my explanation of why his minister and I would be wasting each other’s time by asking him to check your Inner Wisdom in the form of your contraction/expansion feeling.  (see any of my blogs on truth or lie)

Hard sell techniques, including evangelism, will use a series of questions like that to force the person into predictable replies so that they can be manipulated into doing what you want them to do. These will  be full of false logic. 

For a list of logical fallacies and how to spot them, see:

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/index.html#index 

I would bet that he was coached by his minister to ask that.

Used car salesmen make great evangelists, too. The technique is the same.

That is why I prefer to teach a person to find their own internal truth/lie response. That way I CANNOT manipulate them. They are checking with THEMSELVES, not following a forced pattern of questions to control them and manipulate them.

My biggest problem with evangelical and fundamentalist churches and people is that they are pretending to be the authority, when the real authority is your personal connection to God Within.

Van Morrison titled a whole album with a thought that sums it up: “No Guru, No Method, No Teacher.”  

Why?

We have a Teacher, born inside us.

Jesus told us two very very important things, which would be enough all by themselves if this was all we knew:

“Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven.”

and then He told us where to look:

“The Kingdom of Heaven is within.”

 I had an interesting moment when, a couple of days later, I was talking with Bryce, and I asked, “If what you believe is wrong, would you want to know?” 

He told me we could no longer discuss religion because the Devil is using me to try to sway him from his path. 

Okay.

Amen

Namaste

Om Shanti

Hare Om

and all that stuff like that there.

Love, Ann

More Questions & Answers on Religion, Spirituality, Fundamentalism and Truth

Okay, class. Welcome to today’s lesson, where we will um… do whatever we do.  🙂

There will be a short review of definitions. The definitions are my wording. They are found in other places, as well.

God – The Whole that is greater than the sum of the parts.

Religion – The codification of one person’s enlightenment or awakening experience, usually.

Religion is also often a set of rules telling people what will save them or make them happy, which almost never works 100% because it cannot account for individual, group and cultural variations, nor is it based in Truth, but in fact is only an attempt to control groups of people through fear. (See definitions for truth and lie.)

Sin – to miss the mark. It’s an archery term. Look it up.

Sinner – someone who misses the mark. 

Heaven – a model of a “good” place where “good” people go after they die, used to control people while they are alive. OR how we feel when we notice the truth, a sense of bliss and connection.

Hell – a model of a “bad” place where “bad” people go after they die, used to control people while they are alive. OR how we fell when we lie, a sense of separation from God and others, a sense of loneliness.

Spiritual – something beyond the physical, sometimes described as energy, God, chi, prana, life force, The Force, grokking, etc.

Spirituality – attitudes, practices, ways of living that connect us to something that feels like it is beyond the physical.

Mystic – one who feels a direct connection to Spirit or God in some way. Most religions have them. We call them Christ, Krishna, Buddha, Mohammed and Moses. There are other mystics, too:  saints, poets, artists, scientists and teachers. You know them.

Addiction – Anything we habitually and compulsively try to substitute for our Source, which I call God.

Truth – that which feels expansive, happy, right and joyful when you say it to yourself and check the feelings in your body. These feeings are usually described as light, open, expansive, etc.

Lie – that which feels contracted, unhappy, wrong and upsetting when you say it to yourself and check the feelings in your body. These feelings are usually described as heavy, tight, closed, contracted, etc.

Here is a way to check what it feels like when you lie:

Can you remember a time when you lied to someone you loved? (We’ve all done it.)

Feel the physical feelings in your body when you remember this time you lied to someone you loved. (Not emotions like sad or angry, but physical feelings that you feel in your body.)

Got it? Great.

That is how it feels when you lie to someone you love. Sometimes it is a similar feeling with a similar “flavor.” For example, maybe you felt a tightness in the pit of the stomach. Later, you check another thought that is a lie, and you feel nauseated and sick to your stomach. Close enough. Both are how you feel when you lie to someone you love.

Finding the Truth feeling is an interesting one. I used to tell people to think of their name (if they’ve got a nickname it doesn’t work as well) or a math equation, like 1 plus 1 equals 2. That will sometimes get you to a feeling of openness, lightness, expansiveness, but not necessarily.  Just keep checking thoughts. You’ll find the feeling. You’ve felt it hundreds of times in your life.

*************

Okay, that’s it for definitions right now. If you want other things defined, write a Comment. I’ll add it if it fits.

The impetus for writing this particular blog comes from discussions I’ve had recently with a gorgeous man with long hair who is just this close to what I would want in a husband. He feels about the same about me. In fact, if we had similar spiritual paths, we’d even be able to share our work, which for me would be a total dream come true. Long hair, shared sexual preferences, all wonderful, but without the shared spirituality, no go. I love him. I just don’t see sharing my life with him.

He is a fundamentalist Christian. Let’s call him Bryce.

Now, don’t get me wrong here. He has every right to think that way. We had to talk about this, though. He calls himself a “new” Christian. About a year ago he had what sounds to me like a totally valid spiritual experience. He was pissed off about his wife leaving him. He talked with a minister who told him to go home and pray. He went home, knelt on the floor and had a very angry loud conversation with God.

Next, he felt a wave of bliss wash through him. He says it was like honey.

The way he describes this tallies with my own spiritual experiences. I sense he is telling the truth and that he really did have an experience of God. He has had this again a couple of times.

Note that there was no minister, no Bible, nothing like that intervening between him and this experience. I’ve had similar experiences in so many ways and so many places now that I cannot recount them all.

What I disagree with is when Bryce then takes this experience and thinks that because a fundamentalist Christian minister told him to pray, and then this happened, that everything this minister says is true. *sigh*

A friend of mine told me the Mormon church uses this same tactic to convert people. They tell them that if they have this experience it means Mormonism is true.

Does it? Check! How does it feel in your body? Tight and contracted?  Or open and expansive?

The Christian religion as we have it today was largely based on the work of the apostle Paul. The model of God is that of a “king.” Why? Because that is what illiterate people 2000 years ago could understand. People working fields and trades for a living didn’t have the time or the luxury back then to learn to read. Things are a little different now in many parts of the world, especially the US of A.

The “king” model works pretty well, even today, for illiterate or under-educated people who have not learned to question things and think for themselves. Hell, it works for some educated people, especially, those with some reason to want someone else to do their thinking for them. People who want things in black and white, all spelled out.

This includes my very own sister, God love her.

She was going through drug recovery and working the 12 Steps. I totally support the 12 Steps themselves, by the way. They do a world of good. The groups have some beliefs that are untrue, but the 12 Steps tend to work to bring people to truth.

Step 1.  Admitted we were powerless over (name your addiction).

Step 2.  Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. (True, a problem is never solved at the level of thinking that created it. Einstein noticed that, too.)

Step 3. Made a conscious decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood God.

This is where my sister and I diverged. She spent 3 years trying out various ways to understand God. She did my own very favorite spiritual path, A Course in Miracles. All of it. Every one of the 365 daily lessons. And when she was done with 3 years of exploration, she decided to be a fundamentalist Christian, to home school her children and to teach them Creationism.

She has every right to do that. If you ask me whether I’d rather have a sister who is addicted to drugs or a sister who is a fundamentalist Christian, the answer is a no-brainer. If that’s the choice, she can be as fundamentalist as she wants. At least she is not evangelical, meaning she is not out there trying to tell others what to believe.

And she even lets me say whatever I wish to her children. She says they are going to have to learn to deal with it in the world, so they might as well hear what I really think. She’s a jewel and I love her.

But back to Bryce.

He has a GED because he had to quit school to raise a child at a very early age. He makes straight A’s when he is in school, but he hasn’t had a lot of education in logic, logical fallacies, or thinking for himself.

He was abandoned by his parents at a very very young age, like before high school. He lived on the streets and had to learn to fight. Heartbreaking in a way, if you knew him. He’s as gentle a man as you’d ever care to meet. (Gorgeous, too, but I digress.)

So, it makes sense that without parental guidance from about age 12, that there is still a 12-year old type of thinking he has, still some desire to find an authority to tell him what to think.

He just doesn’t quite trust himself. He can feel the contraction in his body when he lies. He tells me he does, anyway. But he doesn’t think he can make good decisions (particularly about women). Frankly, if he had checked that contraction, he might never have been with some of them. I don’t know. Not that his reality should have been any different than it is. He’s a fine man, as is. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. He, my sister and I are all living proof. We’ve all had direct experiences of God… and I mean in our bodies. Undeniable, immistakable. No question in our minds or hearts.

I don’t know what Bryce (or anyone else) needs to do with his life, his beliefs or his religion and spirituality (two different things – see definitions). That’s totally his business.

Sure, I love talking about it.

He asks me questions. I answer.

He makes statements I can’t agree with and I explain my perspective.

Or not.

He’s trying to go with the idea that the Bible is literally true. I wouldn’t do that.

Here’s a list of inconsistencies in the New Testament alone:

http://www.thenazareneway.com/new_testament_biblical_inconsistencies.htm

If you’d rather read it in fiction, pick up a copy of Robert A. Heinlein’s JOB: A Comedy of Justice. Great reading, very educational. Fun.

That’s part of what this blog is for me:  fun.

Thank you for visiting. Make Comments below, if you wish.

Love, Ann