Meditation

Vipassana

Vipassana means "to see things as they are."

A Vipassana retreat is a silent retreat done over a course of 10 days (or more).

In Vipassana one is training the unconscious mind to overcome the old habit pattern of reacting to cravings and aversions.

It is the process of purification of impurities of the mind. By practicing Vipassana one is untying old knots which bind one to misery.

One does this by releasing "Sankharas", which manifest as sensations in the body.

Sankharas are knots/blocks/traumas which are stored in the body as emotional memories, that were created in the past from resisting or clinging to our reality.

They result from our aversions, cravings and attachments to the situations in our lives.

Sankharas are what create our automatic tendencies, our unconscious reactions, patterns and habits.

During the meditation one directs attention within the framework of the body, simply observing pleasant and unpleasant bodily sensations.

These sensations are ever changing; arising and passing away, arising and passing away.

The unconscious mind is always aware of the sensations of the body. By bringing conscious awareness to these sensations, one is making the unconscious conscious.

During a Vipassana retreat the unconscious continues to work at night.

By simply observing these impermanent changing phenomena without attachment or identification, one is developing equanimity.

Equanimity is liberation.

Kriya Yoga

Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda is a great introduction to the importance of breath in meditation, and an introduction to the miracles of a powerful form of meditation known as Kriya Yoga.

The Human body is essentially an electro-magnetic system, built of self-healing organic components. The 7 point chakra system of eastern philosophy has been discovered to be nervous system projections of the brain.

By addressing these 7 projections of the brain, and by freeing up trapped energy along the spinal cord, specific meditation techniques can help one live a calm, fulfilled life where one understands one's true nature, and one's relationship with the Divine.

Author Forrest Knutson shows you how to achieve in very little time what it takes dedicated monks 20 - 30 years to achieve.

He achieves this through his vast experience in learning meditation straight from the masters, and combining this with his comprehensive understanding of the human nervous system, from a western scientific standpoint.

Hacking the Universe Forrest Knutson Mastering Meditation Forrest Knutson

Forrest has distilled the essentials of meditation in a way no other westerner has done before.

If you would like to get started on a meditation which is easily explained and gets straight to the point, Forrest Knutson is the person I recommend to learn from.

"The practice of Kriya Yoga is to cleanse your stored information in your body computer " - Sri Ashok Singh,

(from YouTube video by forrest Knutson entitled "Interview with Sri Ashok Singh on Kriya Yoga and Maheshwari Dubeyji)

Another excellent book on Kriya Yoga was written by Ennio Nimis, and can be downloaded here:

http://www.kriyayogainfo.net/Eng_Downloads1.html

For more information regarding the philosophy behind meditation, a good resource is The Eternities, A Vedanta Treatise:

Vedanta Treatise