Meditation is easy, natural. The experience seems to be of a pleasant state of awareness. People use a wide variety of techniques to help them meditate and reach this state of awareness.>
Here are a few techniques:
Meditation experiences are individual and unique because you and your mind are one of a kind. The meditation experience can be described to as having the following qualities:
Meditation experiences are excursions into consciousness that bypass the "real world" of our thoughts. Our thoughts are built with our language, but mediation provides an experience of the world that is not changed by ideas, concepts, thoughts, theories, formulas, beliefs, etc. This creates an experience that seems more real than waking awareness.
Meditation goals are to transcend the three illusions: space, time and personal consciousness.
Meditation experience is an inner journey to find our personal reality, our unadulterated self. Because meditation experience bypasses self-talk, the experience seems to be a more authentic experience of ourselves.
Meditation differs from the experience of trance in the following ways:
| Trance | Meditation |
|---|---|
| Awareness of the self decreases | One's sense of self increases |
| Ordinary function is bypassed | One's individual functioning is preserved or transcended |
| Suggestion is stronger than will | One's will increases |
| Participant may not consciously remember what happened | The experiences are memorable |
| The conscious mind may seem to be asleep | Our mind is active, awake |
| There may be less awareness | There is an experience of knowing |
| Suggestions evolve | Mental health and self-actualization develop |
| Creative ideas incubate | Creativity and new ideas flourish |
| Suggestion is enhanced | Associations and connections are enhanced |
| Unconscious behaviors don't seem to change the personality | Love, compassion and charity increase |
| Behaviors remain unconscious, out of awareness | Previous unconscious behaviors become conscious and controllable |
| Changes seem to just happen as a result of suggestion | There is refinement, serendipity and integration in our lives |
General Meditation Techniques