Pineal Gland Mediation: spaciousness and letting go of the analytic overlay

As described in my last post I've been doing pineal gland mediation using a mix of techniques from those outlined by Jill Ammon-Wexler I experienced three stages to the mediation:

1. Relaxation - Breathing, letting go muscle tension, forgiving and letting go any baggage or future fears and slowly bringing the wandering mind to the focus point of the meditation
2. Focus - focusing on the third eye and becoming aware of colours played on the screen behind the closed eye lids and awareness of sensations which a friend tells me are called "Nyam" in Tibetan Buddhism.  Then letting go of my attachment to these things, releasing all expectations and assumptions about the meditation session and going into next stage
3. Spaciousness - one of the best descriptions of this I found on a page put out by Krishnamurti Australia http://www.krishnamurtiaustralia.org/articles/meditation%201.htm "The meditative mind has no horizon... Meditation is opening the door into spaciousness which cannot be imagined or speculated upon... Silence and spaciousness go together. The immensity of silence is the immensity of the mind in which a center does not exist. The perception of this space and silence is not of thought." 

Russell Targ in Limitless Mind pulls ideas from Dzogchen to explain the distinction between conditioned experience and naked awareness as it relates to the experience of remote viewing.  Naked awareness arises when you let go of analysis, memory and imagination (the analytic overlay) and simply experience, naked of conditioning or expectations.  I think this has direct application to mediating where the need is to:

• let go of the past and future and be mindful in the now (this includes forgiving the past and letting go of fears for the future in preparation for meditation).
• let go of what we are told to expect in meditation, including this blog post
• let go of our memory of previous meditations that might give us expectations in the present
• witness the experience rather than analyse it
• quiet the imagination.  If shapes or colours appear on the screen behind the eyes I don't analyse or try to interpret them or try to imagine greater detail in them. Just observe, let it be and let it pass.

Some of the Nyam, or sensations, that I have experienced so far during meditation, at random times and not all together, are:

• a tingling over the third eye
• a tingling over the crown chakra
• skin crawling sensations in the scalp
• a lightness around the eyes
• a lightness in the head - not as in light-headedness - more like a cool, relaxed lightness.
• heat in the body, particularly the hands
• and a headache centred on the third eye, which I only go once and I think this came from getting stuck in the focus stage of the mediation, that is not releasing.

All these nyam are potential distractions, I witness them and let them pass. The time I got a headache I just stopped the meditation and had a break from doing any more mediation til it passed.

Gluten Free Vegan Scones

Pre heat oven to 220C
In a mixing bowl put
1 cup sweet sorghum flour
a table spoon of chia seeds
a table spoon of psyllium seeds
rub in about two tablespoons of coconut oil into the mixture
Add just enough water (usually only a tablespoon or so) to get a mixture you can knead in your hands. The mixture must be firm.

Shape into scone size amounts and put on a tray, greased with coconut oil and set aside for 5 minutes to allow the chia and psyllium to swell - this creates a semi-raised texture. They still won't rise as much as true scones but they are yummy and for non sugar eaters like me the sweet sorghum flour makes them taste quite sweet.
cook for 20 minutes
makes about 5-6 smallish "scones".
Blueberries or other flavourings can be added to the mixture to vary.

Learn a language using visualization

Certainly vizualisation shouldn't be the only method you use to practise and learn a foreign language but it can be a very effective way, especially when you're somewhere native speakers of the language are rare.

I'm currently enjoying an older out of print book called "Breakthrough Greek" to develop my understanding of modern Greek a bit further.  The beauty of their approach is using short dialogues with explanations on the facing page. I first read the dialogue through without reference to the vocabulary or explanations and see what my brain can work out based on what it already knows or can guess.  Then I read the vocab and explanations and reread the dialogue and practise saying it out load.  I've already learnt the alphabet but if I was learning that too I would write the passage out.  I then visualize having the conversation with another person. I mentally substitute some of the words with others I know. If the dialog covers stuff that's very new to me I leave it for a day or so then come back to it - this gives my brain time to have rewired. When I do meet a helpful native speaker I try some of it out.

Pineal Gland meditation part 2: surfing the brain

This is about my third week of meditating on the pineal gland using the techniques outlined in Jill Ammon-Wexler's ebook on the pineal gland. What I've learnt so far is not to try too hard or get hung up on the results. If my mind wants to wander then I let it muse a bit, valuable insights come from this, then I gently steer my focus back to resting my minds eye at that point between the brow. Sometimes the indigo colours I get at the start of mediation elude me and when that happens I surrender all expectations and either send love from my heart chakra to my third eye or do a breath through my nose and sending it towards the third eye, down into my abdomen and then breathing out through the mouth to really let go.

Once I'm "in" and my focus locks on then so far there seems to be a couple of distinct stages.  The first stage is experiencing the colours and lights on the screen behind the eyes.  This is heightened by wearing a light proof mask and using a darkened room.  I got a mask off ebay that has built in therapeutic magnets for the acupressure points and this seems to help greatly.  What I experienced last night during this phase was a world of light and an awareness of my body as light.  I experimented with how different thoughts and feelings and attitudes affected this light. I can't quite find the words to describe it yet.  The second phase I've experienced when I do a long mediation, about 40 minutes in the screen show stops and there is a sense that there is only consciousness and there is a sense of being everywhere and nowhere. Struggling to express it - it seems to be a loss of the sense of locality.

I'm still sometimes using Brainwave Tuner app on my android tablet, which I updated last week from the lite to the full version. The best one for me has been the sleeep induction which use to take me to the edge of sleep but I don't let myself go to sleep.  From my reading about brainwaves this would seem to be the best way to get into the delta waves of lucid dreaming or insights.