MEDITATION – is not quite a proper term. It became widespread in the West when the champions of eastern self-development methods (Svami Vivecananda, Shri Chin Moy, and others) just borrowed this word from the vocabulary of European theosophical community.
As homage to western mentality, it was done to ease understanding of some terminology for western people.
Although the word “meditation” may be used to describe psychophysical “medium” between sleep and being awake, it reflects the main point not to the whole extent. Besides, psychophysical states practiced by theosophists of the 19th century, Europe did not have much in common with the states practiced by Eastern Masters.
The word meditation originates from the words medium and media that mean “the middle” and “something or somebody who stands between”. In this connection we may remember the mythical sorceress Medea.
This way theosophists and mystics of Europe used to stress their ability to contact the supernatural during their trance and to be the mediators between that “weird” world and “this”.
Later, the Chinese Qigong Masters used the word meditation as a term while teaching western students.
Often meditation is understood as concentration, in other words – exertion of mind and attention.
But here, the proper state is total and complete relaxation.
***
So, what state do I mean now?
This article is written in the first person. Formerly, I had read many books on meditation to understand what on earth it was, but failed to understand anything; besides, different sources used to describe it differently.
Some said meditation was concentration. Some – as if it were “dissipated attention” when you are trying to keep an eye in both hands at the same time...
Only after some years of regular Wu Chan Zhong Qigong practicing I found the interpretation of my own and now I have some experience of the discussed psychophysical states.
Now I would like to share my experience.
There is a special state in which all of the above mentioned positive processes start. It is when invigoration and recovery starts automatically; when a huge amount of positive Qi is generated; when the Great Brain restores itself and when consciousness and ability to understand broaden… this is when Satori… Samadhi… Enlightenment… may come.
All the great spiritual systems and schools have taught only this; the State itself… Only this state is really important, everything else is just vanity…
The problem is that such things are impossible to be expressed with the words, they can be grasped only while in a deep inner practice of the State itself.
How can you explain to the blind what a sunset is? You can only suggest that he practice special exercises and wait until he regains his sight and sees the sunset.
When special brain zones open, then these particular states come and bring particular sensations, understanding, comprehension; when attachments of the tensed mind vanish and you find yourself here and now in the field of the heightened awareness not overshadowed by any relative interpretations that have become “real” for people only due to their habit and some events of evolution; when your clear vision displays the Genuine Reality -- it is impossible to explain to someone who has never experienced these states and have his Brain Zones sleeping… Alas!
Take for example my student and myself… we get stimulation through these or those sensory organs; each stimulation is perceived and understood by both of us provided that we both have common organs of sense and some common experience. This is why we can share this experience, i.e. words, opinions, delight we both felt... we may share impressions hoping for understanding; although even in this case, people sometimes are not ready to understand each other, are they?
But the stimulation of organs which none of us possess ... there is no way to express it... If your student has never had fingers on his hands and he wants to know what it feels like to caress a woman’s nipples... When he grows fingers and when he is bestowed by nipples... then let him touch – he will understand the sensation…
Here is another example: everybody knows what Love is, but nobody succeeded in its definition.
Doesn’t it seem to you, that whatever we have tried to say about Love seems dim and incomplete... There are so many things devoted to love... there are poignant, poetic, artistic, philosophic or even medical quotations, proverbs and sayings, compositions and thesises, rhymes and poems, and even novels... But none has been able to give a definition completely reflecting the subject.
That is why definitions are not worth taking as gospel... Even the texts of Holy Scripture are only conditional models.
The truth cannot be depicted by words, it can be only felt and experienced... as love.
Here is the main difference between priests and masters-practitioners: Priests, whatever confession they belong to, if, having never been in love, when asked about Love; will describe the subject, trying to give you more or less apt, live and wise definition based on the feelings of their prophets and teachers who used to feel Love...
Masters will act differently. They won’t be telling us about Love... what’s the use of telling about Love to someone who has never felt this... Whatever you say is not Love... What’s the use in any definition for the one who is only looking for Love?.. A tale about bread won’t appease hunger! In comparison to the priest, the Master will somehow create the situation where you fall in love yourself... It is the mission of Master not to tell us about the truth, but to give it to us... No tales and stories would never explain why the hell you, a ninth-grade schoolboy, have been wondering near a girl’s porch till five in the morning in December wearing light shoes!.. Even you do not understand it yourself already… This is like Satori.
What is this State about which I am trying to tell you about, when I have already written that it cannot be described?
OK, I will describe in detail, stage by stage, how it goes with me. But, please, remember, it will be a poor and incomplete description, and the understanding you may get from the reading will not completely correspond to the State itself.
***
When I am practicing this or that exercise in order to get the State (as an instrument for the further “work”) it starts with the “stage” of relaxation.
All the “stages” are, of course, only some generally agreed sections, phases, milestones. These milestones are needed for the only purpose, - to understand processes starting in you. The State and its stages are characterized by certain accompanying psychophysical phenomena and by these phenomena manifestation it is possible to notice these generally agreed stages or sections of the State coming...
Well, first, there is relaxation in still and comfortable position which has nothing in common with “meditative” yoga postures as these postures are not important here.
When I was beginning to practice, - in one and a half or two years I got some next to acceptable results, - it took me from 5 to 40 minutes, depending on various circumstances, to cover this stage.
Then comfortable state starts: I do not have any desire to move ( and if the exercise is dynamic I stop it).
I will repeat again, this Stage is called relaxation in Wu Chan Zhong Qigong, and when practicing the first step of WCZ Qigong, we have to come to this basic state. The whole purpose of first step is to learn to relax properly. Only then moving forward makes sense.
To get deeper into the State you just should be sitting and waiting. Not even ”waiting”, for waiting to some extent can be classified an action. Just “be sitting”, - it requires some time. You should not even be trying, - regular Qigong practicing provides conditions for coming to the certain States.
After some time I feel some kind of enlargement within my head and the pressure increases.
The Master says that sooner or later this will be gone and all the sensations produced by our body come from some problems that still exist and have not yet been cured by the practice…
I see the bright light, sometimes flashing, sometimes steady... This moment my organs of sense may mislead or trick me; for instance, I hear the sounds from the left though I know for sure that the source of the sound is placed to the right of me (switched radio next door, in granpa’s room)...
This is the deeper phase of the State; we are trying to develop it using “tools” of the 1st and 2nd steps of WCZ Qigong. This basic phase is called the State of “silence”.
The length of this period varies too…
Then it comes lightness and I am dissolving... can’t express it in better words...
This Stage, this phase, is called “the Pause”.
I lose the sense of my body, forget about its existence.… To say that this State is the absence of thought is just saying nothing. It would be better to follow the words of the founder of Patanjali Yoga in defining what cannot be this State...
Never mind, I will do my best to give you the picture...
During this State time stops. You are not able to imagine how long you have been in this State unless you by chance consult your watch before entering The State and after going out of it. If you hear somebody say: “I have been practicing “State of Pause” for 6 minutes” –it means that it was not “State of Pause”; except the person checked his watch of course. But, seriously, who would do it in such a moment!
During State of Pause our mind starts to free itself from its pretexts, clear itself from self-imposed and strained standards of the world and ourselves. It is essential. To release your attachments and pretexts is necessary to be able to reach State of Pause, but State of Pause itself, in its turn, is the best sweeper of Mind. So, it is some kind of self-developing and self-upkeeping process: the further it goes the easier it goes…
While moving towards the State of Pause you may be faced with different extraordinary psychic phenomena, see Jesus Christ or Buddha... as a rule, these are hallucinations.
Sometimes you may hear someone tell you that “such and such thing is hidden in such and such place” and it may even turn to be true. But one should practice for very long time before your “hallucinations turn into real things”, before what you see is true …it may take five or ten years of practice... the thing is that during State of Pause our consciousness and our Soul start changing.
Everything written here about the positive moments and about the transformations of our Being starts to come true during this State of Pause…
The practices of all the great systems are designed to achieve this State whether it is real Yoga, Qigong, Sufism, Hesychast, Zen or any other...
Spiritual System practicing starts with the practicing of State of Pause.
Patanjali’s words about meditation are generally understood wrong and translated wrong, maybe because this is done by people who have never experienced the State and practiced neither Yoga nor Qigong...
I mean the words saying that meditation is “when the object of meditation, the subject of meditation and the process of meditation merge with one another».
”Classical Yogi” always say that meditation can not be based on “emptiness” and that Patanjali told to “have an object of meditation” and that the true meditation must be based on only “the one thing”, i.e. there must be a certain object to concentrate your attention upon.
But this is ONLY ONE OF THE WAYS to achieve the State, it is to concentrate your attention (concentration should be gentle so not to come to an overexcitation of the brain and tension of mind and body) on some object. This ensures the stimulation of the occipital part of the brain, which is responsible for visualization, and which gradually starts to dominate slightly over the frontal lobe... After some time, the frontal lobe activity decreases; and frontal lobes, as you know, are
responsible for analytic function...
When it happens, there may come the State of Pause itself and the “dissolving” I have described before. Dissolving, lightness, a slight disorientation, pause, vanishing of the object of meditation for it was needed for only one purpose – to lead to The State. When the goal is achieved, there is no need to continue the Mind effort. You do not have to concentrate on anything…
By the way, just to illustrate the analogy, - Christian Hesychast uses the method of Our Father prayer and the Reverend Seraphim Sarovsky used to say about it:
”To feel Grace we have to pray and keep vigil (read – mantra and devotion, in terms of Eastern mystics). When with the help of the prayer you brought the state of Spiritual Holiness, you must quit the prayer”. Use it! I may express it the following way: Just imagine, you invited me for a cup of tea to your place. I came and I am waiting for you to offer me a cup of tea… but you keep sitting and muttering as an idiot: “Come, oh, come!..”. The same goes for God. What are you – stupid? If Lord came to you, enjoy the fruit of your prayer, give up the means when the purpose is achieved by this means!”.
It goes something like this, or maybe a bit different. That’s the way I remembered it. Hope, Christians won’t take offence on me...
About Patanjali… Having achieved the State you should not do anything. On the contrary, action may hinder the State and constant agitation of mind won’t let you deepen the State.
There is the other statement in Patanjali describing the same thing: “Meditation is when the left becomes right and the right becomes left”.
All my Yogi associates have racked their brains, thinking over this definition and having no understanding what the legendary and long-dead creator of Yoga Sutri meant them to get...
But everything is not that complicated... I have already written about this: at first, organs of sense start misleading the practitioner and I may hear the sounds from the opposite direction or get surprised why it seems to me that I am sitting facing the wall though I know for sure that I started sitting with my back on it...
Well, it is just occurs in the beginning of the practice. In few years it usually gets settled.It seemed important the forefathers to clarify the starting processes for us; they knew we would be able to grasp the further aspects with practice as long as we have proper start, however partially or controversially they may have described it…
With further personal practical experience, disorientation in the space is not the only phenomenon you may be faced with... sometimes you realize the more delicate things lose their shape and verge... Who are you? What are you? Where are you from? Is that you sitting on the sofa or you are a sofa that is occupied by...
There is one story about a butterfly and Ch'uan Chi... Ch'uan Chi sees a butterfly in a dream and he wonders whether he is Ch'uan Chi who is seeing a butterfly in a dream, or whether he is a butterfly flitting over the sleeping person who is having a dream, in which he can’t understand who is flitting around... That is a fable about the intensity of the practice and about conscious meditation even during the sleep...
Well, what do you expect? Remember that childhood play when you interlace fingers on both hands and then turn your hands with palms facing out, and then you try to fiddle the finger your friend points at? That child’s play was enough to completely confuse your poor brain. And that confusion is nothing compared to deeper meditative states, with their sensations of heat or trembling of some parts of your body with activated Qi energy, or with visions produced by release of tension from our brain cells as our brain is still getting used to work properly under new conditions. There is only one thing to be advised: sometimes it takes years of patient waiting and you should not pay attention to all the phenomena and visions. Just practice the State…
And then … If you have been practicing the State regularly for quite a long period of time, then your breath stops. You just do not wish to breathe. From that moment on we may speak about more or less complete State. The practitioner experiences an awakening of new (extrasensory) organs of the world perception and he starts to see the world differently…
I would like to remind that WCZ Qigong calls this stage “The Pause”. To prevent suffocation, the 2nd stage practices special skin breath exercise. On one hand, it intensifies the natural skin function of absorbing the oxygen; on the other hand, it slows down your metabolism so you need less air.
With further practice and getting into deeper State eventually your heart stops beating – this is the fourth basic Wu Chan Zhong Qigong Stage and it is called “The Stoppage”. In several minutes after that the Soul may go out of the Body through Zhong-Mai channel. The body does not die, Qi “make the blood circulate” as Chinese Masters say. Temporarily energy assumes the cardiac function.
Soul also possesses its own organs of perception.
Thus, the State of Meditation is:
First of all, an instrument to develop understanding of the world and oneself, while the “Soul” is still within the body; and our perception and awareness expand due to the opening of extrasensory organs of perception, due to regeneration of Great Brain “pixels”, and due to training and development of consciousness…
During the States of “Pause” and “Stoppage” our Nature starts changing greatly.
Taoists attribute it to the development of the Immortal Embryo when what we call Soul or Spirit starts transforming into the higher and more complex energy and information structure.
At the same time our Mind clears itself from attachments, which are progenitors of all our agitations and anxious thoughts about the past or the future . And so, we find ourselves in the new place, we are coming to “here and now” and the clouded thoughts are replaced by the new enlightened Awareness. It may be the state of enlightenment “not yet for all times”, but just a satori – single, short illuminated blooming understanding, leaving the adept as soon as he quits meditating…
Second, when the Soul reaches certain level of development, it acquires the ability to consciously go out of the body and start getting to know the world and itself… it learns and develops; it remembers, for example, the skills learned during previous lives; and the person gets quite the different quality of awareness... It is the true liberation called by many cultures Salvation, because mastering the practice allows to achieve such levels of Soul development that after the body’s death the Soul consciously enters other worlds of existence, without losing self-identity or aquired knowledge.
And that is the purpose of the development, the purpose of practicing the State and all the Great Systems, because our Soul is what we are.
The Soul development and its further transformations, training, and changes is called SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT.
You may be a good person, but it mainly reflects the Mind function, the effect of your upbringing, your affections and so on. Spiritual development is something completely different…
***
I can share my personal experience…
Once, few years since time I began practicing, I started to realize that I “see” (perceive) some Being inside of me. It started to come alive. You may call it whatever you wish – an Immortal Embryo, Soul or something else...
And I clearly felt that if It was living off my “silence”. And I understood it was wrong to say that spiritual practice (so called “real” Qigong) starts when the Soul goes out of the body and acquires the ability to develop and learn...
Spiritual practice starts from the first moment, once you relax and close your eyes. Even at that moment, even during your very first and timid meditation, you start the processes contributing to transformation of the Being within you.
Awareness, Consciousness, Soul... Where is the border between the one and the other?... How all these should be named, differentiated and categorised? In China they name “all these” with one word, one philosophic category: Shen.
Due to what sources does Soul develop? Due to energy development? Due to development of the perception sharpened by meditation practice? Due to gradual and consecutive replacement of an overshadowed mind by our True Nature?
Once, you will come across this phenomenon and find Something within you.
You will feel as if this Something is feeding and growing. This is what spiritual growth is, the growth of the Soul, growth of the New Life inside of you. This Something lives on what is produced during the “quiet state”. For example, when we are doing the exercise Yang-Qi. That is why the Masters say Yang-Qi to be Rearing of Life and Qigong (or any higher practice) to be the skills (art) of Life Rearing (fostering). Everything is lucid, fair and simple. It can hardly be expressed better...
The statements like: “real practice will start only after we are able to drive our Soul out of the body”, - are simply harmful. They generate complexes, stress and an urge to speed up the events; they prevent us from appreciating our present quality true worth; they create the idea that now everything is difficult and bad and we do not have any progress, but some day in future there will be some result...
But it is not true! We already have everything in us. Since the very first moment of practicing we practice the good and proper thing. And in a proper way. When I realized that everything was going on in a right way for me at that very moment...I just calmed down.
Now I am confidently telling you: your Soul will go out when your Being grows stronger... When Zhong-Mai channel clears up during the practice of 2, 3 and 4th steps... When it is the time... And this process doesn’t hold any special value. It is of the same value as the processes going on right now in you, the processes that have been going since the first moment of the practice.
Do you understand me?
There are many aspects to the system called Human Being and the development of every aspect has it’s special importance.
I often receive letters. Sometimes they make me feel sad, sometimes they are funny. People can not stop worrying and begin to understand that the process of relaxation and the practice of The State is valuable in itself, and that they are already getting some results, no matter if they cannot see or feel them yet…
But some things of the other sort, especially connected with exacerbations and mental disorders, ambitious people sometimes prefer to flaunt in public as some kind of achievement.
One girl, for instance, complains that no one in her town is able to explain to her what has happened to her. She apparently saw herself from some distance, she was hanging under the ceiling and then had some strange visions through the third eye... she saw a dream that she would become the brightest and the most gifted student of the Greatest Teacher... and then on a Web she saw the portrait of the Teacher... and what an odd coincidence! – “It was the Master So-And -So!.. That’s why I came to School Such-And Such! But my instructor seems to have no qualification. And he does not let me go to Shaolin! But I need it, I need it desperately! I must become his personal student!..”.
There are two ways…
The first one is called spiritual development.
It is carried out through the start of the basic fundamental WCZ Qigong exercises regularly practice (it not necessarily to be Wu Chan Zhong Qigong, there are other good systems), through nourishing your spirit, rearing and developing it paying no attention to some side effects and not bothering oneself with some accompanying “boos” and visions, and through being occupied with an interesting job, family, friends...
One day you will understand it all yourself.
The mind development through the intellect upgrading, discourses, arguments, reading, has no relation to spiritual development.
The Being growing within is not a mind or logic chains in your brain neurons...
This Being is different energy and information substance...
It simply takes time...
Imagine a newborn wolf-cub in a den...
It is born blind... It has no muscles on his legs yet... It needs to develop... It has long way to go. But the development has already started and goes according to the Decree of Nature. And it demands it to start crowling and searching... Wolf-cub crowls and comes upon something warm, something wet... something tasty... Or it is not tasty? Got to try... It fumbles for this warm thing with its nose... feels it with its not yet strong organs of sense... it seems to little cub that this Is... and it seems that this Is Not... And so, - “seems to be, seems not to be” –baby wolf starts to suck milk out of his mothers teats... Now tell me, what books or disputes can substitute THIS?!
The time goes quickly and soon the wolf-cub starts to see something... some spots... but what is it? Is it worth wasting the effort and staring into the darkness? Baby should just feed and grow... Just grow and wait. And it will come, it will come its natural way. If this little silly-billy wolf-cob suddenly got the eyes of an adult wolf, it would have its little face split! The eye is something more then simply an eye... it is bunch of nerve fibres coming from an eye to the little immature brain. This little brain will simply die of not being prepared to such an untimely information and to development of alien physiological tissues…And there would be simply no room in that little skull for all the new, foreign, adult toolbox and apparatus... No, no... The face will definitely split, no doubt!
The wolf-cub should just keep sucking... And it will grow stronger one day...One day, it will timidly crawl out of the den following its mother who would watch baby’s first steps... And then... we know what happens then. We are not the first and not the last. Yesterday’s wolf-cub turns into an adult wolf and it has been going on this way for millions of years...
Everything in this world goes on this way, including spiritual development.
When your little Being starts growing, the same story happens. Feed it, take care of it, help it develop... If you suddenly see some spots, some dots and obscure motion... Just ignore it... When you really come into the light, there won’t be any silly questions like: What has it been? Why no one is able to explain?
If these questions arise, then nothing has happened yet! Do not hurry to consider yourself unique and grown up... There is yet nothing that can leave your body yet. Was it a hallucination or was it sudden flow of some inadequate part of energy and information system? It makes no difference... If we get caught in an endless loop discussing IT over and over again, wasting our time and efforts analyzing IT –then we find ourselves following the second (and the most wide-spread) way which I call spiritual jerk-off.
***
Osho Rajneesh clearly said about this: “…There are persons who come to me. I can see that I am in front of them and they cannot see me. But they say they have visions, spiritual visions. Beautiful colours float in their minds. Kundalini arises, the snake-power, the serpent-power. It rushes towards the last chakra.
I am in front of them and I can see they are blind; they can’t see me. Their kundalini is arising, and they have tremendous light in their third eye. And they have come, so that I can confirm: ’Yes, that’s so.’
If I say: ’Yes, that’s so,’ they are very happy and fulfilled. If I say: ’No,’ they are very angry. They become my enemies. And they cannot see me – but they can count the legs of the ants crawling on the moon. They are stone-blind. To hide their blindness, they create many fictions around themselves.
A man came to me. He said: ’Just as it happened in Mohammed’s life, it is happening in my life. I receive messages in the night. God Himself, Allah – He gives me messages. But the trouble is that in the morning, I always forget what the message was.’ It happened in Ahmedabad.
I told him: ’Do one thing. Keep a pad and a pencil just near your bed, and while you go to sleep,
continuously go on remembering that whenever God reveals anything, your sleep will be immediately broken, and you will be able to write. And write it, whatsoever it is.’
He said: ’These messages are tremendous truths. They can transform the whole world. The trouble is – I always forget in the morning.’
So I said: ’You do it – and whatsoever it is, you bring it.’
Next day he came. He was very much worried and sad, and depressed, and frustrated. I said: ’What happened?’ He said: ’I cannot believe what happened. Whatsoever you have said, I have followed.I went on remembering while I was falling asleep that whenever the message is delivered, I will be able to get up immediately and write the message down. And it happened as you said.’
’But then,’ I said,’why are you so sad?’
He said: ’But the message makes me very sad.’
’What was the message?’
He was feeling a little embarrassed. The message was: ’Live a little hot. Sip a Gold Spot.’ The advertisement board was just in front OF his house. He must have been passing and...
So he said: ’Please don’t say this to anybody, because I am very much frustrated. How did it happen? Is it some kind of joke God is playing on me?’
Your dreams are bound to be your dreams: ’Live a little hot. Sip a Gold Spot.’ They cannot go beyond it! Your visions are your visions; they cannot be more than you. Your experiences are your experiences. They are bound to be below you; they cannot be beyond you. Your kundalini is going to be your kundalini; it cannot be a Buddha’s kundalini.
Ninety-nine percent is the possibility that you have been imagining. Man is so poor, he imagines in millions of ways to convince himself: ’I am rich.’
If you have not been able to attain to the worldly things, then you start attaining to the non-worldly things. If you don’t have a bank balance here on the earth, then you have a bank balance there in heaven – but you have a bank balance.
Remember always: your mind is stupid. Mind as such is tupidity. Mind cannot be intelligence.
Intelligence happens only when the mind has gone. Intelligence is not the function of the mind; it is the function of the whole. Mind is stupid, repetitive. It cannot know the unknown, it can only go on repeating the known – ’Live a little hot. Sip a Gold Spot.’ Continuously looking at the advertisement board, it has become settled.
If you are born a Hindu, your kundalini will rise. If you are born a Jain, never – because Jain scriptures don’t advertise for kundalini. If you are a Christian, you will see Christ and the cross. But if you are a Hindu, Christ never bothers to come on your path. And the cross – never. You will see Krishna playing on the flute, because Krishna is advertised and Christ is not advertised.
All your spiritual experiences are nothing but conditionings that the society has given to you. Don’t rely too much on them, because death will force you to realize the fact that you lived a fictitious life – the opportunity lost.
Become aware that you have nothing. Once you feel that you have nothing, fear disappears, because fear is always part of the feeling that you possess something which can be lost – hence fear.
When you realize the fact that you don’t know anything, that you are blind, that you cannot see....
All that you have been seeing is your own projection. You create it and you see it. You are the director in the drama that you call your life. And you are the story-writer also. And you are the actor. And you are all that is happening. And you are the audience. There is nobody else. You are looking at it. You are creating it. You are directing it. You are playing a role in it.
Once this is seen – and this can be seen in a flash of light, just by listening to me rightly, it can be seen – then the whole drama disappears. This is what Hindus call MAYA, the world that you have created around yourself, which is not real, which is not there – your own creation.
When it drops, then for the first time, you are not blind; your eyes open. Then you see that which is.
Don’t go on listening to distant harmonies, and the music of the spheres, and the dancing steps of the atoms. Don’t befool yourself. As it is, you have already befooled yourself too long. No more. It is enough! Say: ’It is enough’ – because unless you are freed from your wrong notions of eyes, and ears, and riches, the right cannot become available to you.
To be freed from the wrong is to be available to the right. To be freed from the false is to be on the path of that which is real.
***
We are the ones to choose our way: The way of spiritual development or the way of spiritual jerk-off. The second way may also be pleasant but it will not bring you from the ignorance into the light, it will not solve the real problems…
The way of spiritual development is the practice of “silence” State. This practice requires 1 square metre of the space and the aspiration for practicing.
The way of spiritual jerk-off is the search for special clothes for meditation, “original” shoes “for T'ai Chi exercises”, some special swords, participating in different rituals and initiations – as if it were not possible to practice without it. There belong your “astral flying” and anxious attitude towards “vision” and”revelations”,your inscense sticks and candles, various religious artifacts. There also belong your feverish budgeting to satisfy just another acute need to visit Shaolin this year; your study of Sanskrit or Chinese language …
The way of spiritual development is the clear conscience and God inside your heart. When nothing is able to trouble your Spirit and prevent Silence from falling on you… Only for this purpose we are given The Commandments.
The way of spiritual jerking-off is when one collects different practices: the more exercise – the better… the more energy the better… the more, the more, the more…
As an ordinary jerking-off does not result in having children so the spiritual one does not bring fruit… even if you may be repeating the words “Immortal Embryo” or “the Immaculate Conception”, like a spell, ten times a day for ten years round …
The shortest way of spiritual development is the Way of Silence.
Attachment to something hinders serenity and relaxation.
Do not be bothered by any phenomena or even by extraordinary organs of perception starting to open. Miraculous abilities, - in India they are called Siddhas, - it is wonderful. But never the less, practicing is better. An increased perception and sensitivity may ease understanding of many things, lighten the way of development, but only in case you won’t get attached to these abilities, - if appeared – good!, if not, - “I do not care, I have not been thinking about it!...”.
There are not so many people who can stay indifferent to this issue, human nature is week. That is why, so not to lead the adepts into temptation, many world religions deny the development of super abilities declaring them manifestation of the vice and people who have them possessed by the Devil.
However, there is nothing bad in such abilities. What slows down the Way is an attitude towards them, the attachment.
In Wu Chan Zhong Qigong the “super ability” development is acquired independently from the basic practice; the whole practice is dedicated to rearing the State of Silence, “The Pause”. Do not be waiting for super abilities to come; say to yourself: this is not interesting to me, maybe in a hundred years or so it is to happen, now it is more important and necessary for me to be occupied with something different. For example, just to understand why my child and me are not able to find a common language. Or, how I can finally start living an adequate life and give up doing useless activities…How to heal my right leg… get married… change my job for more interesting and useful one… Decide how you may become more wealthy to be able to provide for your family and put it into practice now, in this lifetime… give up a bank account in Heaven and establish an account on earth.
And your life will improve, real results won’t take the long time!
Perhaps, the instructors should pay a great deal of attention to this matter and, if necessary, be strict to the student if he starts shifting towards the way of “spiritual jerking-off”. If a student starts practicing less and talking more about his visions and abilities it is not good both for him and for people around him...
I mean, there is no such a thing as red hot ball. And all the other things like red snake-like lines, shining blue bands of “microcosmic orbit” and spheres between the palms: they do not exist...
People say: “They do! They do exist! My instructor sees them, my friend sees them and when I am relaxed I also can see them!”...
There is a story... Some man who had been practicing all his life was walking along the road and suddenly saw in the dust on the side of the road a half-dead dog, with worms were already swarming in it...
The man felt sorry for the dog and wanted to relieve it from the worms... But suddenly he felt sorry for the worms, too, and did not know what to do...
And suddenly it flashed in front of his eyes... He gained an Enlightenment and saw laughing Buddha on the place of the dog...
He put Buddha on his shoulder and they walked together...
Soon they met a group of people sitting around a tree and listening reverently to their clairvoyant Guru, who was preaching about good and evil, about the clue of practicing, about morality, personal development and the structure of the Universe...
The man approached the group and started to listen too...
None of the disciples paid attention to him and the Guru exclaimed: “Brothers! Look at this man! Can’t you see what is on his shoulder?”...
The disciples looked at each other in surprise and shrugged their shoulders. They saw nothing.
After the sermon the disciples went away, but our character came to their Guru and said: “Now I understand that the Truth has not been hiding from me all these years, I have not been able to see it, I used to be as blind as your disciples today... The problem is not with God, Dao or Buddha... They do not hide their faces from us... The problem is our blindness!”...
- Yes, it is true!, - exclaimed the clairvoyant Guru, - But explain me why are you carrying on your shoulder a dog eaten by warms?
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The level of your vision, the level of your understanding is only your level... 99 people of 100 delude themselves and the other people telling of their visions... But 1 of 100 does indeed see something...
Do not hurry to make conclusions... Your red hot ball, all your clairvoyance is only the dog eaten by worms...
The world resembles a giant... Once Shrek told the donkey: “Ogres are like onions... Onions have layers... Ogres have layers…” It seems to you that you can see, so you gather disciples around you... but everything you see is a dog...
Even the Enlightenment or enlightened vision has several levels... Do not get stuck on them... Relax and abstract your mind... Welcome to the World of Silence!..
Thousands of charlatans and those who believe in their hallucinations turn into spiritual “healers”. What Healers can they be if their Souls have not grown strong and have not grown their spiritual “instruments” (ability of real seeing-feeling-sensing- understanding-changing-creating)...
Image Therapy (Medical WCZ Qigong module) it is only an instrument, a tool... scalpel is also a tool... it may be in the hands of a genius doctor, saving people’s lives, but it may be in hands of Frankenstein or Hannibal Lecter... If you cut your patient with this scalpel... what will YOU see? Your own dogs with worms... What will YOU do then?.. So, we shouldn’t put our dogs onto the others shoulders... There are only a few of those who can really help... If you are reading these articles, you are not these people... for those who really Achieved... they are not reading anything especially in the Internet... they have left public places... They are Self-Sufficient...
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From time to time we meet sick or twisted people who call themselves Gifted... or it happens that they are called Gifted. The same old mistake... the same old story... Have you noticed that they are practically always ill? Poor little things with their faces “split”... They’d better not be paying attention to those “spots around”, as seeing these “spots” is not the real Being’s ability to see... they should still be eating, just eating... Find the teat and suck the milk... Seems to be, seems not to be... They should come back to the practice of the first fundamental steps.
People are eager to deceive themselves and always ready to believe in their newly open talents. And they should be explained their misconceptions while they are only half-blind wolf-cubs , who instead of opening the new clinics should keep practicing Yang-Qi for next 5-10-20-50 years...
And while practicing, find an interesting and well-paid job (or launch your own business if there is some disposition toward it) and always be a balanced person. The fact is, that if you are a real master you do not generate attention. If people point the finger at you whispering at your back or grinning with the thought that you are odd... then you are not a qigong practitioner... and these people are not fools... Definitely, there is something wrong about you…
The True Vision criterion is rather simple. In this situation my teacher says: “Count how much money is in my wallet in the back pocket of my trousers... See real things… through the clothes... see the banknotes, read the bank numeration on them”….
Do reality check periodically. If you cannot see real world, do not invent visions in spiritual world...
For particularly stubborn ones the following interesting test is recommended. Consider this: if your sober brain in a normal state behaves like this… how can you trust your vision being in altered states…
…And you should not get upset if you realize that you are not ready yet...This is wrong, too... Your development is happening right at this moment. When this awareness comes, it is already a good result because this awareness triggers the work, giving a long-awaited relaxation, or at least helping to draw you away from constant reflecting on the practice and to remember that there is a great world around and some important business in it.
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What else is important in meditation experience and the State practicing...
WCZ Qigong calls this State just “The State of Qigong” and is subdivided into 4 basic stages or phases: relaxation, silence, pause and stoppage.
Yoga calls this State “The State of Yoga”. Sometimes it is said that Yoga itself is the State. Sometimes they call this State cittavrirti nirodha.
To reach meditative states one should practice the process of meditation. Sometimes both the process of achieving this state (observing, meditation) and the result (silence, peace) are called the same -meditation, observing...
In Indian Buddhism it is dhyana (“observing”, Pali language).
Chán Buddhism calls it Chán (“observing”, Chinese).
Zen (Japanese variant of Chán Buddhism) calls this State Zazen (Zen also translates “observing” from Japanese).
Thus we can see that dhyana, chan, zen - are synonyms; they mean observing, meditation. And the states of chan, dhyana and zen - they are peace and silence, achieved by observing.
In Christian Hesychast Orthodoxy (Hesychast means "silence") they call it Holy Spirit Eucharist. Entering this state Chtistian Saints achieve the Enlightenment, they call it Godness.
About the development of Soul through this method you may read in the Life Thesises by Seraphim Sarovsky “About Holy Spirit Gaining”.
How to develop the State by the methods of Wu Chan Zhong Qigong?
The whole practice of WCZ Qigong is devoted to it. In exercise description you will read a bit more about it.
If we use the word meditation we mean two things: The State itself and the exercises helping to induce The State by means of different techniques for mind and consciousness.
Sometimes meditation is said to be the absence of thought and the switching off an inner dialogue. I would like to underline that The State is MUCH MORE then just an absence of thought. I would add to this an absence of emotion and any psychophysical tensions, of “wrong” energies and so on...
Yes, I would express it this way, but it is again imprecise and incomplete...
That is why I would try to say it this way: Meditation as a State is the absence of everything that is not you. When everything “what is not you” is keeping silence, your True Nature may come into the light. Then, everything settles as it should be and there is no need any more in Yoga Sutras, the Korans, Bibles, Vedas, Tao Te Chings in order to BE, TO UNDERSTAND AND TO MOVE FURTHER.
All books like Yoga Sutras, Vedas, Bible, the holy Buddhist texts and so on, use different words to express one and the same thing – how to throw away the crutches and stand on your own two feet, how to achieve this particular State, that is called so differently in all the Great Spiritual Systems…
What the most people refer to as Yoga, in fact, often has no relation to Yoga. It is only practicing what could be called more correctly “Yogi exercise”.
The same case is with Qigong. It is usually perceived not as Qigong itself, as the State transforming our Being, but as workout or Shaolin Exercises…
It is not correct to understand exercises of any spiritual system – Yoga, Qigong, Hesychast, Buddhism, Taoism, Sufism –to be the system itself as well as practicing the State and Spiritual development.
A Yogi makes his exercises (Hatha), say, for half an hour in the morning and the rest 24 hours minus these 30 minutes he practices the State…
And only this practice makes him a Real Yogi.
Sometimes it may so happen that a Yogin practices not Hatha-Yoga as a physical training but T'ai Chi Ch'uan, and a Qigong Master practices Hatha-Yoga but not Ushu.
”Yogi exercise” or “the exercise of Qigongers” is just a warm-up, a change of pace.
The Body is only a reflection of the processes going on in our Mind and it is useless to try to reach Awareness only through the Body without dealing with the Consciousness itself.
Exercising is useful but minor component… nothing more than that.
Usually people use two objections.
The first one is that meditation is a “risky matter” and should be practiced only by an absolutely healthy people.
I can only shrug my shoulders at it.
Perhaps, this concept grows from ignorance.
Most likely, some people have burnt their fingers during incorrect practicing of the State, trying to learn meditation from books. These books were written either by dabblers or by specialists, who were trying to give demonstration of a primary effect; of cause, to master serious and complex system you should be taught by professionals. This is a serious matter, and there are no self-sufficient books available now.
The main thing is that it is meditation what makes people healthy and causes positive transformations due to which a yogi becomes Yogi, Zen monk turns Master of Zen, Christian devotee - a Saint or Prophet, and a Qigong adept – a Master of Qigong…
Liberated Mind, sharpened by meditation, is able to cure the body with just an Intention by sending it an order and a power to do unbelievable and wonderful things.
One of the disciples of the famous Qigong Master Vong Qu Kit for some years of meditation grew the finger that had been torn by a circular saw.
Vong Qu Kit himself in front of a hundred of journalists demonstrated the ability of governing Qi. He drove clouds away cutting them with the energy rays from his finger-tips.
In early 20th century one of the Qigong Masters was tested by Scientists. He was in Peking and his assistant had been sent to Paris, France. The examination counsel drove the assistant to a chestnut alley and made him move in a certain way. The Master in Peking was to repeat his movements to let the counsel compare and check them.
There is no distance for Qi. If we could imagine us taking Qi from the surface of Moon and placing it on the surface of Mars, it would happen immediately, for this is the Universe Decree – energy obeys the Mind. The problem is only in the readiness and preparedness of Mind, in practice of meditation.
The Master in Peking mentally imagined his assistant and – like a bat oriented by the reflection of its own produced ultrasound – started to locate the assistant emitting his Qi at him and accepting its reflection, he managed to repeat the movements seen by his mental vision. The scientists were staggered by the exactitude of the Master’s movements. But the most shocking was the fact that after the end of the experiment the Master fetched out of his pants pocket… several chestnuts…
There are no secrets in Qigong. Only a daily meditation practice.
If some people due to their misbelieve or greed think that the more “sophisticated” movements they do the better effect it would bring… or the more energy channels they know and practice the better it would be for them... the better stretching, the higher jumps, the more... the more... the more... –what can I do! This comes from not knowing the core... and an incredible greed...
If there are people who believe in exertion but not relaxation, if there are people who do not know the tremendous scope of meditation in mastering the body, mind and soul,- it is not new. It does not mean that the phenomenon of meditation does not correspond to everything written here. There always have been the majority of those who do not believe in practicing silence, and no explanations of Buddha, Lao Tsu or Jesus Christ can help them... When the greatest Teachers advocated meditation these people most often laughed at it demanding a “miracle” or “proof”, or they even condemned those saints and prophets who came to them with Truth... in case some of them finally accepted the Teaching, 99 of a hundred failing to get the clue fell into formalism, worshipping the external and paying no heed to the main, and got interested in the issues of minor importance like how long you must sleep to solve your problems, when and what must a person eat... what is there in a large intestine and how it has to be cleared by some special techniques... whether there are some top secret (because of their “extra power”) exercises to cause “supernatural” states... and so on... and so on... and so forth... This explains why for all the history of humanity there have been only few of the True Masters, and much more of “gymnasts” and “mechanics”, people practicing some rituals or gymnastic exercises with no purpose or sense, following some half-clear and half-forgotten rules of behavior or celebrating some religious holidays...
I will repeat myself: there are no secret techniques and no secrets at all. There are no special conditions. There are no any restrictions to place, time of day, to diet or religion... It is all so simple. And all makes sense.
I personally know useful, safe and effective exercises on meditation. I am practicing them, my colleagues are practicing them and we have positive effect and good results. I can assure you, practicing meditation not with books but with the guidance of full-blooded method and in proper fashion,is not only a safe activity; moreover, it is without a doubt a useful practice, it is the core of practice, and it is what person should be doing for good health and personal growth. The methods of achieving the State of Silence may turn out to be different, depending on a practitioner,- but it’s entirely different matter...
Of course, I have no intention and no desire to describe all the schools and physical training systems. I simply use an opportunity to share my personal experience, and it happens to be connected with the method of WCZ Qigong System practice. I do not doubt meditation in general sense, also I am sure there are many schools where meditation is taught successfully and competently... but I have a right to speak only about what I know personally and, looking back to the way I and like-minded people have come, I can recommend the methods of WCZ Qigong System.
There is the second objection. They say there is a “feedback”.
Practicing some physical forms, some magic “body geometries”, apparently you can cause psychophysical states appropriate to these forms; they say, it is possible to come to the State only through exercising, for instance, through Hatha-Yoga physical exercise…
For such “adepts” I would recommend to consult the greatest Yogin Sri Aurobindo. Let him disillusion the misbelievers, for he possesses the greater authority than I do.
About me I will say the following: I am not looking for some “super-extra-cool” workouts. It is very useful and very pleasant to take care about the Body and all these physical aspects. Not to have any motion and movement is, of course, wrong. But I do not accept extremes. Zhong Yuan Qigong is the Middle Path.
You may go to the swimming-pool or gym, jog in the morning, if you wish…
It is useful and pleasant, not better and not worse then Hatha-Yoga or Tai-Chi.
Besides, some physical fatigue contributes to the further deep relaxation and helps when practicing The State.
Qigong masters recommend: “If you practice meditation for a long time and have a sedentary life-style as well, you have to add some dynamic training or sport activity. Tai-Chi or other Kung fu style will do. Hatha-Yoga may also be added”…
Once, Patanjali came to me during my meditation.
He said: “Relax! There is no “super workouts”! All of them are the same and all have no relation to what you and me need... When I made the description of my Yoga, it used to have only Lotus Position... no other asana or exercise… But... you see... Lotus will come to you... some day... when something changes in your Mind... Those know-alls decided to stretch and show off... invented three thousand asana. I am telling you: all these asana are coming from the greed and misunderstanding... that means from the Evil One. Where there is the Evil One there is no you. Where there is no you nothing helps. Where you appear nothing else is required! Practice meditation. There is no sense in relieving the tension in your body if the tensed mind governs it. When you dethrone the power of Mind, the New Reign of Relaxation will come then. And Lotus will come. If you still need it!... Your Sharpened in meditation and Liberated Mind will mold your body in any required form, shape and state!.. My Yoga and Qigong of your Teacher are just the same, You have all in you. Want to practice asana – go ahead. If not asana but Taola (Ushu movements) – let it be… But do remember Sisyphus, who was left with nothing every night. This “feedback” of theirs is so slow!.. it may give a beginner some benefit, some knowledge of what is worth being longing for… But when they come back home from the training and quarrel with the wives… slam the door and lock themselves in their rooms… they resemble Sisyphus to me… because the stone again is in the starting point… and the tension comes back…».
All the great systems teach one and the same.
Simple things are so difficult to understand without practicing the State.
Hinduism unites Atman and Brahman.
Christianity unites God-Father, God-Son and Holy Spirit.
What does it mean?
For two millennia the Christians have been waiting for Christ to come back.
For five millennia the Krishnaits have been waiting for the promised return of Krishna.
For three millennia the American Indians have been waiting for Ketsalcoattle.
Who will come and when?
They all, Great Teachers, were speaking about self-transformation and the State of Meditation in allegory of models, parables and relative concepts.
They told us that going the way of spiritual development during meditations, when we become Bigger and Wiser due to reinstatement of the Great Brain and our Being, when we are able to transform ourselves out of the terrestrial human into the True Cosmic Being… when we first become God-Son, then we will comprehend the Absolute… Atman will unite with Brahman.
When, during the deepest State, everything what is not true us, gets quiet, we will have a chance to hear glorious music and the Voice of our Real Nature out of the settled Silence.
Quietly following this Voice and being straight and enabled, you may see the light. There, in this light, you will find yourself and so the transformation, for the sake of which this incarnate world was created, will be complete.
This way Buddha, Christ, Krishna and Ketsalcoattle will enter this word again…
The Second Advent comes from Within! All the Teachers and the Holy Texts try to tell us about this. This is so simple – they have shown the Way, have given us the Method.
There is a clever (no joking!) objection of reflective intellectuals. They are those who believe no event is possible to be urged, those who do not believe in the existence of methods and the use of any systems, they suppose that everything is unique, individual and any action can only postpone the result, they say there is no way to achieve Enlightenment, It comes on its own, suddenly and spontaneously…
My opinion is: there are very many conditions in the Universe that must fit into a Planet Parade to trigger one certain Realization or the Great Encounter.
But if you are practicing the State of Silence, you will have good chances, for you will always be on the spot of this possible Encounter. And that is all that can de done and needs to be done.
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