I have been practicing meditation now for about 1 month--since May 15th-ish or so. I have not been perfect with my schedule. In the beginning it was very hard. I could only focus my mind for about 2 minutes at a time, and sit still for about 10 minutes. I skipped days here and there. I tried to commit to 30 minutes in the morning, and 30 minutes in the evening. Sometimes I only got in about 10 minutes in the evening before getting so tired I fell asleep. Hah! But I've gotten progressively better and better at it, until now I crave it. I feel uncentered if I don't meditate in the morning and the evening. I notice an immediate change in my mood. So I think I will keep up this practice.
I've begun reading "The Ways of Perfection" by St. Teresa of Avila. I have never read her books before, though it's been recommended to me. As I work on the final stages of Our book, where I discuss the various Roots to the Tree of Life, I am reading a lot of different books by different religions and researching what they teach. Never before have I done such a deep dive before into all the different religions... but this Work must be done.
I am shocked to find that Teresian Prayer and Vedanta Meditation are almost the same thing.
Vedanta Meditation
I will elaborate. Here is an example of the meditation I am learning at the Vedanta Center in Seattle:
Swami Satyamayananda instructed us to begin meditation by sitting still with good posture. Regulate your breathing. Close your eyes and focus them on a point just past your chin. Keep your eyes and your hands still, as that will help your mind become still.
Then, become aware of your body. Become aware of how we sit, then our posture, then our throat, then our breathing. Focus on breathing for a while, maybe a few minutes. Just feel yourself in your body.
When you first start meditating, there will be a "settling in" period. It used to take ten minutes or more to get my mind to settle down. My thoughts were very disruptive, and I'd get stuck in worrisome loops.
So, as Satyamayananda described, during this process, thoughts will arise and fall. Feel yourself in your body and know that your thoughts are not who you are. Create distance, like watching a TV screen in your mind. Watch your thoughts rise and fall. Observe them impartially, like you are watching TV. Try not to get swept up in them, but if you do, gently break away and let the thought go. It will feel difficult at first, but over time, by doing this, you'll be able to push the thoughts far away, until they become like a thumbnail image, very small.
Do not worry that you can't control your mind. Nobody can have absolute control. The mind is meant to think! That's it's purpose! So it will think no matter what. The point is to become detached from the thoughts, and no longer identify yourself with your thoughts. Observe them, don't chase them. Learn to see your thoughts as separate from yourself. Swami tells us a metaphor: imagine your mind throws out cookies (thoughts.) Don't pick up the cookie! Let the thought pass through you.
Then, as you are sitting and meditating, feel yourself expand into space, larger and larger than your thoughts, and push your thoughts farther and farther away, until they become very small and insignificant. For the first couple of sessions, we only practiced this far. This was the goal in the beginning.
Once we got used to "settling in" and quieting the mind, Swami taught us the next step in meditation. Now, after detaching from your thoughts and becoming comfortable in your body, change your focus from the point beyond your chin. Focus instead on a place deep inside of you. Envision a golden light in your chest. Then, plunge in! Enter into the golden light and rest there.
After doing this a few times, it is okay to begin to focus on an image, if there is a specific deity or symbol representing God (like the Cross, or the Buddha, or Kali) that helps you focus your mind on God. Focus your mind intently on the image of God.
Then, you can repeat a mantra. A mantra is a word that help you focus your attention on this image of God. I mantra might begin as "God, I pray for peace and understanding." But eventually, it becomes just one word, repeated over and over with focused intention: "Peace peace peace peace." Something like that. The intention is the full prayer, but the word is only "Peace." This helps the mind focus. Swami explains that every thought is like a packet of spiritual energy. If we can focus all of our spiritual energy and intention on a single thought, it becomes a powerful mode of inner transformation.
Remember to remain relaxed while you are doing this. Sometimes I will realize my face has become tense was I focus on my image of God (I always imagine the Tree, with gold light pouring from its roots.) When I noticed this, I relax my body.
Eventually, as you do this, you will feel lifted up, your mind pulled into a state of happiness, even intense joy and bliss. You may also feel like you are expanding outward into space, into a deep peace. These are good things. These are states of consciousness. Allow yourself to focus on the golden light, or the symbol of God, and focus your mind until you feel yourself open up and become expansive, without borders, and the exterior world is very far away.
Monks can go hours in this state without breaking their focus and concentration. The Self, the Spirit of Life within you, will rain down Life into your body, regenerating cells, balancing hormones and chemicals in your brain, until you feel happy, refreshed, and at peace. This process is also called "Flow" and it's similar to a runner's high. Just like a musician can lose themselves in the flow of playing an instrument, the goal is to lose ourselves in the "Flow" of meditation. It's incredibly rejuvenating for the mind and body!
I have just reached the point in meditation where I am beginning to experience this "Flow." It is an addictive feeling for the brain. Now that I am experiencing it, I find that my brain craves to be in it more and more. Which is why I think I will make meditation a permanent part of my daily routine. Ideally I hope to dedicate an hour in the morning and an hour at night to it. As you meditate more and more, apparently you can maintain this state of "Flow" all the time. I can't even imagine!
Teresian Prayer
Due to living in a Christian country, I find that certain parts of Vedanta lack familiarity due to the cultural difference. Because there is a lack of cultural familiarity, cultural "ownership" let's call it, the teachings feel a little out of shape for me, like clothes not quite cut to size. I wish I could have grown up in India where I can fully appreciate the profound teachings of Hindu mystics as part of my own childhood and assimilated culture.
Ironically, this sense of distance has been bridged for me, because I began reading The Ways of Perfection almost at the same time I started learning how to meditate, which is St. Teresa of Avila's famous book about prayer. I am shocked to discover that what she called "contemplative prayer" is almost exactly the same as what Swami teaches in Vedanta. Because of my Christian background, St. Teresa speaks to me on a more personal level, putting this spiritual practice in Christian context.
St. Teresa describes this process for her nuns like so:
"Consider that it is well worthwhile for you to have understood this truth: that the Lord is within us, and that there we must be with him.
"The intellect is recollected much more quickly with this kind of prayer... it is a prayer that brings with it many blessings. This prayer is called "recollection," because the soul collects its faculties together and enters within itself to be with its God. And its divine Master comes more quickly to teach it and give it the prayer of quiet than he would through any other method it might use. For centered there within itself, it can think about the Passion and represent the Son and offer him to the Father and not tire the intellect by going to look for him on Mount Calvary or in the garden or at the pillar.
"Those who by such a method can enclose themselves within this little heaven of our soul, where the Maker of heaven and earth is present, and grow accustomed to refusing to be where the exterior senses in their distraction have gone, or look in that direction, should believe they are following an excellent path and that they will not fail to drink water from the fount; for they will journey far in a short time.
"Those who know how to recollect themselves are already out to sea, as they say. For even though they may not have got completely away from land, they do what they can during that time to get free from it by recollecting their senses within. If the recollection is true, it is felt very clearly; for it produces some effect in the soul. I don't know how to explain it. Whoever has experienced it will understand; the soul is like one who gets up from the table after winning a game, for it already sees what the things of the world are. It rises up at the best time, as one who enters a fortified castle to be safe from enemies. There is a withdrawing of the senses from exterior things and a renunciation of them in such a way that, without one's realizing it, the eyes close so as to avoid seeing them and so that the sight might be more awake to things of the soul.
"... And even though it isn't aware of this at the beginning, since the recollection is not so deep -- for there are greater and lesser degrees of recollection -- the soul should get used to this recollection; although in the beginning the body causes difficulty because it claims its rights without realizing that it is cutting of its own head by not surrendering. If we make the effort, practice this recollection for some days, and get used to it, the gain will be clearly seen; we will understand, when beginning to pray, that the bees are approaching and entering the beehive to make honey. And this recollection will be effected without our effort because the Lord has desired that, during the time the faculties are drawn inward, the soul and its will may merit to have this dominion. When the soul does no more than give a sign that it wishes to be recollected, the senses obey it and become recollected. Even though they go out again afterward, their having already surrendered is a great thing; for they go out as captives and subjects and do not cause the harm they did previously (ie. no more troublesome worries or fears about day-to-day concerns.) And when the will calls them back again, they come more quickly, until after many of these entries the Lord wills that they rest entirely in perfect contemplation."
"I consider it impossible for us to pay so much attention to worldly things if we take the care to remember we have a Guest such as this within us, for we then see how lowly these things are next to what we possess within ourselves."
