Meditation doesn't have to be 'spiritual'

Although meditation is very often, if not always, associated with some spiritual practice, it doesn't have to be. There are very good rational reasons to meditate, and don't worry; you don't have to visualize Lotus-gardens or Buddhas to get the benefits.

Meditation is just one thing: being aware of what's going on inside of you. Most of the time most people look out upon the world and most of the time most people think about all the stuff out there. Meditation is to be aware of what is going on in your mind.

You can meditate anywhere and anytime. You don't have to sit down, you don't have to be isolated, you don't have to be calm.

In short: Forget all the stuff you've heard about meditation. You only have to do one thing to get started: Notice your self.

Now, some people do this without even thinking about it. It's just a way of life. I do it all the time. I notice as much as I can.

But why should you even bother? Because it pays. You will learn things faster. You will be calmer, most of the time. And when you lose your calm, you will regain it faster. As you start meditation, you will gain more and more control over your life. When something happens, you'll be better at handling it. When everything goes wrong, you'll find a way out faster.

So, how do you do it? Simple. Just notice what happened. What did you think? What did you do? What happened? Every time you notice yourself you store data about your self. And when your brain has enough data, it will tell you something you never noticed about your self. Oh, the reason people get pissed off at me is that I actually sound pretty arrogant sometimes. Oh, the reason he pisses me off, isn't that he's just annoying, but that he's existence reminds me how fragile I am sometimes.

And every insight, banal and simple as it may seem, will slowly transform your life and you'll suddenly find yourself master of your own mind. What that means is that you'll be able to optimize YOU in any situation. Nervous when talking to people? Start meditating and sooner or later you'll be able to NOT be nervous.

And again, it's soooo easy: Just notice your self. Make your mind linger, just for at second, and reflect on what just happened. When you get more used to meditating, you'll be able to reflect on things as they are happening.

Trust me, it's worth it.

Level one in 4 steps

This post is about meditation and is about the first 4 of 12 steps towards enlightenment (whether worldly or spiritual). The first post is here.

Do you have control of your body? No, I'm not talking about moving your arms or legs, I'm talking about the inner body: the pulse, perspiration and not-moving your arms or legs.

Before we go into each step, let's have a look at what this level is about. It's about making the body stay as still as possible. Do it for a few minutes just to ground your self in everyday life and inoculate yourself from stress and panic. Do it for longer periods of time to get a more permanent calmness in your entire being.

Basically this level will make you experiment with the body by making you breathe differently. For me, there are three ways to breathe when I meditate.

• -fast and rythmic, sometimes even forceful breaths. This will make your pulse rise, it may even make you perspire and it's a forceful way to make you body do what you want.
• Slow and calm. Just breathe in slowly, and breathe out slowly. Don't worry about the rhythm, just let your breaths come naturally, but make sure that you complete every breath (all the way in, all the way out, all the way in, all the way out)
• Almost sleeplike breathing. This comes naturally when you fall asleep or if you go into deep meditation. However, its hard to come by this type of breath by will alone, because you need to slow you entire bodily system down. If you can't go in to this form of breathing at the beginning, don't worry - it will probably come by it self at some point, or you can return later after you've worked on different steps and try again - it will get easier, as you improve you meditation skills.

If you have some kind of focus, it will make it a lot easier. A good place to focus is on the tip of your nose. Notice how it gets cooler when you breathe in, and warmer when you breathe out? Good, keep noticing it and keep your focus, while you maintain your current breathing pattern.

If you're new to meditation, you might get impatient, because what you're doing seems like a waste of time. After all, you probably measure meaningfulness in ways of producing stuff or ideas, doing stuff, having obligations, stressing out over deadlines and all things that we value in life.

Meditation IS different. And it might take some time for you to realize the benefits. So, here are few ways to make it a bit easier:

1. When ever you're bored, commuting or something else: Just take a few minutes and breathe easy. I mean, why not - its not like your doing anything else?
2. Before any physical exercise breathe forcefully and deeply for 1-2 minutes. This should improve your performance. This is especially noticeable when swimming or snorkeling.
3. Before a meeting that makes you uncomfortable or gives you an adrenalin rush, go somewhere private, even the restroom or just close the door to your office if you have one, and breathe easy and calmly for 3-5 minutes (if you're already stressed, you probably will have to use some will power).

This works because it takes away the biological control of your existence. You're actually starting to break the bond between emotions and bodily reactions. It will make it easier for you to perform just as you want to perform, and it will make it easier to remain calm and undisturbed, even when that thing that wasn't supposed to happen, happens anyway.

12 steps to freedom

Freedom is to know what is going on within ourselves, so that we know why we do stuff. But freedom is a hard thing to do, and maybe that's why a lot of people use the word 'enlightenment' instead. But they are the same thing. Freedom is enlightenment. Enlightenment is freedom.

There are exceedingly many ways towards enlightenment. However, there are basic stuff that we all need to let go of. This 12-step guide is based in part on anapanasatti meditation, but almost entirely without any reference to spirituality.

The 12 steps consists of 3 levels with 4 steps in each. First level is about the getting your body to stay silent for longer periods of time.

Second level is about your emotional life and release yourself from the control that emotions have over your experience of life and the way you live it.

Third level is about the mind, and is the most subtle of them all. Can you make your mind stay silent?

How long will it take?
There's just no way of telling. You will know when you arrive at enlightenment, but until then, you'll probably realize quite often, that you need to go back to an earlier level or step.

For instance, even though you have complete bodily silence the experiences on level 2 (emotions) will probably cause your body to react. That is perfect, because any disturbance of your bodily silence is an indicator that tells you, that you've found some friction in your emotional life.

You can go through all 12 steps in one meditation, but it will probably not get you to enlightenment. That's ok though - just remember that you must practice every step until you're master it. And if you think that you master it already, do the step anyway, even for a short while, just to make sure.

How to meditate?
Basically, meditation is all about listening to what goes on inside of you. If you're a skeptical person who don't believe in spirituality, don't worry - this will not make you into a born again happy hippie. But it will bring you a much better balance in life, and just like you can become healthy and bodily balanced through training and eating right, meditation will bring your mind to stable ground and make it easy to keep it there; even when everyone else is panicking or stressing out.

A lot of guides about meditation recommends that you spend 20-30 minutes a day, every day on meditation. The truth is, you don't have to. They also recommend that you find a quiet spot and maybe play some 'spiritual' music. If that is good for you, go right ahead. But you probably don't need to.

Here's the only thing that you have to do, when meditating: You be quiet and pay attention to what's going on inside you. If you don't know how to do this, read this link (coming soon).

So, lets get started already. Here is a link to the first level.

A guide to Rational Meditation

One of the first challenges in meditation is to make sense of yourself. Oh, I know, you make total sense, but this blog is about how we navigate through our mind when we close our eyes and meditate. Most forms of meditation divides the practise in to these parts:

Body
Feelings or emotions
Mind

Athletes mainly meditate on the body, trying to tie feelings and mind into their sport. Most buddhists try to go through the body, then to feelings and emotions, then to the mind and then they try to let go of the mind. What most westernes leading a rational life tries to do, is to meditate on the emotions or the mind, both of which can come in the way of a good performance in client meetings, presentations or jobinterviews.

If you want to meditate with no particular goal in mind, the buddhist way may be the way to go. The phases of the meditations mentioned below, migh last years or they might last a few days. You don't have to go through all the phases every time you meditate. In fact, its better not to, since it'll be more effective to go thorugh one phase at a time.

Start meditating on the body. For instance, you could meditate on different body parts one at a time. Just focus on a body part trying to experience the entire part at once. Feel it. Sense it. Often you'll experience a tingling sensation after a little while, that means it's time to continue to the next part.

Meditating on the body is also very useful if you find it hard to sit still and if there's a lot of unrest in your body. On the other hand, if you find your body comfortable and quiet, you can skip this part.

Then meditate on emotions. Try to find out what you feel right now, and if you have strong feelings about anything, try to quiet them down. Try to acknowledge that the emotion is there, and then distance yourself from it. The aim is to feel at peace with your self. You can also meditate on situations where you had strong emotions or had a disconcerting lack of emotion. The aim is to find peace and quiet, in a steady and strong emotion or lack there of. When you get to the point where emotional rest comes easy, your ready to move on.

Step it up a notch and meditate on the mind. For most people this is a very tricky part, since most people believe that they ARE the mind. So, how do you do it? You do it just the way you did with emotions. You observe it and the thoughts that enter the mind. But, unlike what your probably used to, meditation on the mind is about getting free of thoughts. At first this will probably be extremely difficult, since most rational people identify with our thoughts and so have a natural tendency to let the mind roam wild. The aim is to get to a point where it's easy to empty the mind and think of nothing.

This is rational meditation, so there really is no 'right' way to go. But, most people need some kind of guide to get started. But, if you feel that the mind is the right place to start, go right ahead. If you want to evolve your meditation fast, you should start with whats  most obviously disturbing your peace and quiet, be it body, emotions or mind. It cal also be specifik emotions, specifik body parts or even specific thoughts. Just start meditating on the thing that is bugging you the most or the thing that is most disturbing for you when you try to be calm and at peace.

Remember: Rational Meditation is about getting OUT, not about getting in. Rational Meditation is a way to get out of things that holds you. Religious, spiritual and philosophical meditation is about getting IN to some kind of inner truth or higher existence. Rational Meditation acknoledge that no one but you knows what you'll find inside, if anything. Therefore we can't teach you about getting IN to anything. We just don't know what you'll find. But we can teach you about getting out of the things that bother you and take control of them.

The two worlds and the third space

There are so many different guides to meditation outthere. Are some better than others? No. They are just different, focusing on different things.To do rational meditation we need a different mental map. We need to find a way to work with meditation that doesn't refer to exotic goddesses or some mystical inner presence. We do this by dividing the mental experience.

First, there's the outside world. The shared reality in which we all live. That's the First World. We have access to this world through our senses. The Second World consists of your thoughts, your sense of things and your emotions. We constantly experience thoughts and emotions. Those thoughts and emotions are the Second world.

Now, if we go scientific, these two worlds are supposedly one and the same. In the First World we find all of reality, and our mental experience is, according to the best scientific guess, a product of our biological brain. However, there's a very clear difference between the two. While everyone shares reality, no one can share the Second World. We can talk about whats going on inside us, but words is not quite enough to describe how we feel and think.

The Third Space
So, while the two worlds are most probably a result of physics of the First World, we see it differently. We experience a distinct subjective reality that we can not share with anyone. Because we can't share our emotions and thoughts that Second World is uniquely ours.

And this leads us to the Third Space. What's in the Third Space? Your eye. No, not in a mystical sense, but in a very logical sense. How come you can think about your thoughts? Because you conceptually exists outside of them. Again, if we go scientific this Third Space must be based on the brain, somehow. But conceptually, in the way you grasp your existence, we have three parts: The first world, which we share, the Second World, which only we have access to, and the Third Room, where we observe both worlds.

Atheists, buddhists and christians
The reason why this division is neccesary, is that it is the only way to embrace most people. This world view is not contrary to scientific fact and it's not contrary to any belief-system, be it religious or atheistic. In Buddhism it's all about the Third space. It's about realising that part of your world view, and be empty of thoughts and feelings and mind. In Christianity, the important thing is how the Second World decides what you do in the First World and the Third space is where you judge what is right to do. For atheist, the Third Space is just a very cool place to explore ;)

Now, whichever type of meditation takes your fancy, you can navigate the issues with these three parts. Most forms of meditation is about separating or combining these three parts. In science we try to combine the Second World with the First World. In buddhism we try to separate the three and eventually try to exist only in the Third space. In christianity we try to align the word of Christ with the way we act in the First World and the way we think in the Second World.

While we share the First World and try to make legislation that will make it possible for all of us to live together in peace, the Second World is what makes humans unique. Animals may have a 'Second World' but it seems that only people can manipulate the Second World, only we can choose what to believe and what to think. We don't have to just react on instinct. We can reflect before we act. And because of that, we are able to shape our lives. With meditation, that gets much easier.

Meditate. Meditate Rationally. Use Rational Meditation. Follow this blog.

Doing it anywhere, anytime

When ever we change things we have to make an effort. But the problem isn't usually the meditation itself. The problem is to schedule it. For some reason it's incredibly difficult for most people to make time for stuff thats not already in the schedule. This is why most webpages and books about meditation tell you to stick to a regular and fixed schedule. They want you to take just a few minutes every day, and get used to the idea of sitting down and do nothing.

It seems that meditation is a hard sell. If it was an easy sell, you'd jump at the chance to harvest the benefits, wouldn't you? So, why is it so hard to convince non-meditators to meditate? Because it just doesn't make sense to a modern rational human being to sit down and do nothing. Forget about NOT taking the phone if it rings.

But in reality, we don't need to sell it. You've aldready bought the idea. That's why you're here, thats why you're reading this post. So, whats holding you back? The knowledge you think you need to do it right? Forget it - there's only one thing you need to know to get started. Or maybe you think you have to learn how to do it? No need, you already know how to do it. Maybe you can't find the time? Of course you can. You can do it right now. yes, right now, in front of the computer.

The sell
But what are the benefits for those of us who meditate? How will you benefit? I mean, you put in an effort, and you're supposed to get something out if it, right? You will benefit through a slight change in your mind, that you might not even notice at first. You'll get a mental antidote and slowly but surely you will be able to reflect before you act, you'll be able to change things in yourself that you're not comfortable with or not happy with.

Meditation will make you see the connections in your life that you don't see right now. And meditation will make it easier for you to succeed in anything you put your mind to. It's basically the same as what athletes have been doing with their body for many years. An athlete is working with his or her body to make it stronger, faster and more flexible. A meditator is working with his or her mind to make the mind stronger, faster and more flexible. A well trained body and a well trained mind is more resistable and can work harder and longer.

Everyone is working out these days. You want to meditate to work out with your mind. Meditate! Do it rationally. Use Rational Meditation. Follow this blog.

Starting meditation - the basic method

Remember: At this page its all about Rational Meditation. That means that it's easy to get started and you don't need to know you eastern deities or recite koans or visualize symbols. Hey, you don't even have to have groan 'ohm' again and again. All you have to do to get started is:

• Sit down
• Close your eyes
• Breathe in, pause for a second, breath out, pause for a second. Repeat again and again.
  

It's that easy to get started. And if you never meditated in your whole life, this should give you and instant tool to fight stress. Do it when you need to cool down, when you need to get back in control or when everything just seems to overwhelm you.
You can sit anywhere, it doesn't matter. You can sit anyway you like (that's right: you don't have to sit like an Indian guru with the legs crossed).

This is meditation. Now, you might think that this is a bit simplistic, comparing with other guides you may have read about. And it is. If you want to take meditation to the next level, there are a number of things you might need to take into account, but to get started this is all that you need to do.

Meditate. Meditate Rational. Use Rational Meditation. Follow this blog.

The first trick

The first obstacle to any project is always our selves. To be precise: its our minds that stops us in our tracks or just wont cooperate. No matter how good you are, you can always be better. To do that

you have to own your mind

and contraray to popular belief, few people do. Most of us are slaves to the mind, and the mind tricks us into believing that it's the other way around. Other people think that they ARE the mind. And in a scientific sense, they are. But with meditation you can learn to watch the mind in action. And if you can do that, what really happens? Does the mind split into two parts where one part is watching what the other part is doing?

It doesn't matte what really happens, scientifically. What matters is that you can do it. And how you can use that.
And if you don't know what I'm talking about here, consider this: Would you like to be able to watch you mind at work? Is there any possible benefit from being able to watch the mind working? There are plenty of benefits. One benefit is that if you can experience the mind from the outside, it will no longer be possible to con you. You will be in charge of all decisions and you will decide when to do what.

Does that sound like something that's already true about you? It might be, but odds are against it. Most people all over the world, is constantly falling for the First Trick. And there is only one way to get immunity: Meditate. But meditate in a rational way. Use rational meditation. Follow this blog to learn more.