Awhile back I started an article on meditation but it soon became clear this was more like a small book than a blog post. I decided to write on just one aspect that is less understood in the west. Sound.
First though I should clarify what I mean by “meditation”. I refer to a mental practice that turns your attention within and takes you into silence. I don’t mean dance, prayer, listening to CDs, or other things that may fall under the banner of the word – however valid they may be.
As I’ve mentioned before, awakening is a process of Self waking to Itself. It has nothing directly to with anything we do or practice. However, a practice can help to speed and smooth the process immensely. Especially a practice that connects you to Self. When Self becomes more familiar with the person, it prepares the ground.
Adyashanti indicates* meditation is to loosen the bonds of mind or thoughts on consciousness. It has the effect of breaking up the underlying structure of the story and ego. While you can do inquiry or mindfulness and pick off each of your resistances one by one, by dipping into source you can clear in large batches. It’s like a tree – do you work on each bud and leaf or do you go to the root? This takes care of much of the noise and burden without doing anything else.
Then all you have to do is clean up the bits left over, the stuff you’ve held active even with presence. Much easier task, even if they are the hardest nuts. And that inner connection to source makes everything else more potent – your prayer, yoga, intellect and doing. Just consider – when are you more productive? When you’re happy and rested? Or when you’re tired and anxious?
Because meditation supports the root, the secondary benefits are legion. Hundreds of scientific studies have confirmed this. If you have not found something that connects you to silence, I would certainly recommend it. For many, it’s the most important thing you can do with your life and it benefits everything. This is why I place meditation first in any list of practices.
Personally, I’ve seen effortless meditation to have been the most effective for the most people, but some do find results in other things. Just 2 key points:
1) Keep it simple.
Too many practices are cluttered with ideas of correct posture, alters, beads, and other paraphernalia. If you like that stuff, great. But it’s not about doing it right, it’s about NOT doing. If they get in the way of letting go, let them go.
2) Keep it simple.
Many practices I’ve seen also complicate the technique itself with requirements, turning it into a difficult task. Small changes can make the difference between a difficult practice and an easy, effective one. This is about letting go, not building it up. No force or will required. Just allowing.
Amongst the range of meditation techniques out there, the most common traditional ones involve use of a mantra or sound to lead the mind within. Most westerners are unfamiliar with these ideas, so here’s a brief review.
Mantra
The science of sound or mantra is very ancient. When we understand that everything we experience arises from consciousness, we discover the first quality is vibration. We can experience this vibration as sound. That sound leads to what we experience as the world. Thus, there is a relationship between sound and the effect it has. For example, we can all think of how different types of music may affect us