Sit a while. Think over how you feel, how you felt. If nothing else, you will be aware of a deep sense of calm and peace. For however brief a moment during the Calm Technique, you would have tasted real peace. Even when those moments of peace are just fleeting glimpses of a higher form of consciousness, they are moments that can have the most extraordinary calming influence over your whole day. And in time, over your whole life.
If at any stage you find it absolutely impossible to keep your Calm Expression in mind, don't let it bother you. Most people will only succeed for a few seconds in the early stages. Just listen to your breathing and enjoy the peace of doing absolutely nothing for a while until you can resume 'hearing' your Calm Expression. This is still meditation. On the other hand, if you find yourself deeply troubled about something, perhaps work pressures or family problems, postpone your meditation until you have a more ordered frame of mind. Then do the Calm Exercises before you begin.
As you can see, the Calm Technique is incredibly simple to perform. The paradox is that its simplicity is also its difficulty. Ironically, the principal problem you will experience is just accepting how very simple it really is. The human mind thrives on distraction and drama, it convinces you that there is no such thing as a 'simple' experience. It urges you to believe that you must make a greater intellectual contribution than you do. How can you experience a higher form of consciousness by employing less of your intellect? How can you improve your capacity for thinking by employing no thoughts? Only experience in the Calm Technique will fully answer these questions for you. Until you can recognize and accept this experience in its own right, you need only understand that your intellect and ego are self-supporting parts of the same. The combined might of these two elements make it very difficult for you to appreciate any higher consciousness, especially a higher consciousness that can only be attained by transcending their influence altogether. Yet, when you are no longer distracted by the prattle of uninvited thoughts, when you can transcend your own ego and intellect, you will know otherwise.
THE CALM TECHNIQUE
1) Create the right environment.
2) Adopt the correct posture.
3) Listen to your breathing. Let it relax you with each breath.
4) 'Hear' your Calm Expression emanate from your Calm Centre. 'Hear' it repetitively in your mind.
5) When thoughts distract, gently turn the attention back to your Calm Expression.
6) Don't worry about whether you're doing it right.
7) Sit in contemplation for a few moments when you're finished.
Let me assure you one more time of the simplicity of the Calm Technique. Approach it with an open mind and it will have a positive influence in your life. Dismiss your preconceptions and, within a few weeks, your own experience will tell you that it has been worth the effort.
THE OBSTACLES
Because the Calm Technique is such an uncomplicated, easy-to-understand exercise, the major problem most people experience is believing it could possibly be so simple. It can. In fact, once you can accept its ease and simplicity, there should be only two other obstacles you will have to contend with: unwanted thoughts and impatience.
UNWANTED THOUGHTS
In the West, where meditation is generally associated with religious thinking and prayer, a vivid imagination and lively thought processes are highly prized. In the East, and in schools where meditation is used to enrich everyday life, the thinking process is viewed with much less reverence. Thoughts are often considered to be mere distractions and a hindrance to effective meditation. With the Calm Technique, for example, the prize is the absence of uninvited thoughts, imagination and sensory perceptions. And it is towards this end that the Calm Technique is devoted. It is not thr Calm Expression, or the posture, or the frame of mind which produces this wonderful calming influence and expansion of awarenes, it is the absence of unrelated thought brought about by centring the attention.
But is that not an escapist ideal? Aren't we overlooking the majesty of the mind? Is not the mind really the person?
Most of us tend to think of ourselves as the product of our minds and our mental attitudes. Yet it is these very mental attitudes which limit our development as human beings. How often have you wished you could think another way, that you could have stronger willpower, that you could convince yourself there was no reason to feel anxious when there was no reason to feel anxious?
You've heard it said many times that all of us only use a tiny part of our mind/brain (meaning consciousness), and that if we could ever realize its full potential, great things could be achieved. The purpose of the Calm Technique is to expand your awareness way beyond the boundaries of yout conventional way of thinking and imagination. But first you have to learn to control your thought processes, to train your mind. To elevate your consciousness. You are probably well aware that there are areas of your consciousness which do not function in the usual 'verbal' or 'visual' way. Words such as 'intuition' spring to mind, where you 'sense' something that is beyond the scope of your normal sensory organs. Or 'inspiration', where no matter how hard you try, you cannot satisfactorily verbalize or visualize this experience.
So, during the Calm Technique, the normal workings of your mind continue, but they do not dominate your consciousness. They cease to be the totality of your awareness. During such an activity not only do you enjoy the Calm State, but you have access to regions of your consciousness which you may never have known existed. The Calm Technique will eventually lead you past the boundaries of conventional thinking and imagination, where you will discovet a whole new world of peace, creativity, insight and wisdom.
-- This excerpt was taken from The Calm Technique by Paul Wilson
No comments:
Post a Comment