Meditation - the revival of an ancient Star

‘Meditation’ is the new shooting star on the yoga horizon. It has been turning into the newest trend and it is set to become the number one interest of a very wide audience. No wonder the great popularity of this ancient modality has been picked up by the tabloids as the next ‘must do’ tip, as well as being extensively featured in many zeitgeist magazines. Globally recognised as a powerful self-help tool to counterbalance the ups and downs of life, meditation is scientifically validated as an immune system booster and a reliable manager of ‘Stress’. The Meditation Practice is now attracting attention on a universal scale. It is an interest ranging from the corporate world and health organisations down to the individual therapist and yoga teacher. All kinds of different fields of expertise are being inspired by its promising potentials. The aim is to become part of the “Peace & Stillness”; the new wave that raves: “It’s cool to meditate”.

Fast track meditation teacher trainings and complementary mini-workshops are already producing a significant number of so-called Meditation Teachers to meet the rapidly growing demand for the “ultimate meditation experience”. Meditation in various forms is in fact as old as mankind itself. It has undergone an evolutionary process of more than five millennia. It is somewhat surprising then that until recently, serious consideration has not been given to the questions of people’s personal safety. The standards of integrity or authenticity of the respective theory and practice remain relatively unchallenged. So does the larger issue of every meditation teacher’s responsibilities and duty of care regarding meditation techniques.

There are some poignant questions that often remain unanswered. By raising them, a context can be provided that creates the essential foundation of safety for the student of meditation. It is a basis that applies to the many different types of practice. For example, did you know that;

• the understanding of indications and contra-indications are vital to meditation teaching and guarantee safe practice?
• people who suffer from certain health conditions like panic attacks or high blood pressure should not practice types of meditation that involve excessive breath control?
• only specially trained facilitators should teach meditation to people suffering from depression?
• the meditation technique your best friend is practicing might not be the right method for you and vice versa?

Did you ever ask yourself or your instructor, what you will meet and experience in your meditation practice?  Meditation is actually a definitive process, during which everybody will in fact meet the same signposts and qualia at certain points in the process of their particular journey into a meditative practice.  There are many meditation teachers whose training would not necessarily include the answers to the questions above.

This is because despite the fact that Yoga Teacher Trainings and Continuing Professional Development courses (CPD’s) are generally very well regulated by national and international accreditation bodies; very little has been done to implement appropriate standards (or accreditation requirements for teacher trainings) in this, the field of meditation. This situation has arisen partly due to the fact that a relatively small amount of true knowledge about how to teach meditation has filtered through to us from its source of origin in the Far East. There are particular and different ways to facilitate individual students towards their objectives and a gap in the understanding of the optimum and appropriate way to do so. Regardless of the growing demand, most qualified yoga teachers that would love to implement meditation practice into their classes, refrain from teaching it due to a lack of in-depth training opportunities that are genuinely based on a secular approach.

Accreditation requirements for yoga teacher trainings today focus mainly on safe ‘Asana Practice’ and ‘Teaching Methodology’. Additionally, registered yoga schools are obliged to include a percentage of hours in ‘Yoga Anatomy’, ‘Pranayama Practice’, ‘Philosophy’ and ‘Yoga History’ in their curriculums. Furthermore, schools have to abide by clearly defined assessment criteria. They are asked to adhere to theoretical and practical exam procedures, as well as codes of conduct and ethics, to safeguard the high teaching standards you undoubtedly expect from your own yoga teacher(s). However, this leaves relatively little room in a typical 200-hour yoga teacher training to implement in-depth meditation studies into the curriculum.

Of all the areas of yogic discipline that historically evolved out of the eight limbs of ‘Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras’, none is more prone to imagination and subjective interpretation than meditation. This also applies to its underlying philosophy, which is distinct from history and in practice is far more than a series of “nice ideas”. It can be said that some of the meditation systems we come across today, have gradually evolved into a rather intellectualised structure. From this point of view, meditation can be based upon philosophical objectives that are unachievable in practice. Even in our modern times, a number of schools of thought might expect or demand their new students to sign up to a specific belief system or undergo an initiation process, which might involve exceptional (and sometimes unnecessary) sacrifices on behalf of the novice.

There is another sensitive area to which many yoga and meditation enthusiasts turn a blind eye. There are some very charismatic teachers, particularly those that enjoy attracting a great following, which in itself may not be an issue. However it can, and does lead to a great co-dependency between teacher and student in the deeper aspects of learning meditation. This can result in unforeseeable consequences, due to the lack of understanding of transference and counter-transference on behalf of the teacher. These are important issues that form the basic and appropriate boundaries of honourable practice.

The Yoga Alliance UK is the first accreditation body in the world to have specifically established new standards for meditation teacher trainings. Based on expert advice, they have created a code of practice to meet the requirements of our modern age. As a practitioner, adept and teacher of yogic disciplines, meditation and Eastern psychology for over thirty years, I trust that this will be of great benefit to ensure a safe exploration of this fine art and science. That is to the profound advantage of meditation schools and future meditation teachers, as well as to the individuals who genuinely wish to pursue such a rich and valuable practice.

These parameters of practice are now emerging as the foundation for teaching meditation, as part of a yoga teacher’s repertoire or a personal practice. While these are important developments, the main objective of meditation standards established by the Yoga Alliance UK, is to honour, sustain and maintain the timeless nature and endless value of the ancient teachings throughout, despite the contemporary demands of this exciting new millennium.

Copyright © May 2013 Alexander Filmer-Lorch – All Rights Reserved

Edited by Joanne Sarah Avison director of AOCY 

  

The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Oriah's words are a gift to every person that supports, facilitates & guides others. Revealing the knowledge & framework of un-compromised being with others, a holding space of safety in which whatever needs to happen for the struggling individual being is allowed to unfold , be recognised & mend. No doing is required on behalf of the facilitator that holds this space.

The Invitation 

'It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, 'Yes.'

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.'

By Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Universal Teachings & the Idea of Prayer

Be aware of a silent interaction, a subtle resonance and honest communication that takes place within the movement of self-remembering and prayer. Working with the ancient idea of self-remembering gives rise to the universal idea of prayer.

Both ideas act along a two-directional movement of which one part is aiming towards the internal world of manifestations, whilst the other part is simultaneously aiming towards the external world of manifestations in a state of divided attention. 

But first of all we have to ask ourselves the question why do we pray?

Most kinds of prayer carry the energy of a relatively conscious or non-conscious intent. The intention to ask for help and to open ourselves up to receive grace, or simply to connect with something higher that might lie above our ordinary life and world of experiences. 

This means that in our prayers we mainly request and assume that something will respond to our request, which is not very far off from what the ancient teachings say.

From the teachings perspective the whole universe can be considered as a ‘response to request’ dynamic.

We as human beings request and the universe responses in its total reality, the inner as well as the outer, according to mans request.

Fact is, and that is of great importance to us to know, that many people get responses to their requests they do not understand at all, which gives rise to the question how can that happen?

Now, if we consider once more that everything contained in the sum total of our universe is ‘response to request’ that includes: 

• The cross & the fine,
• the psychological & the material,
• the invisible & the visible, 
• as well as all that is perceived and apprehended externally by our five physical senses and internally by the heart and our mind,

then we can realise the outmost importance of what we actually request. 

This consideration leads to the understanding why we are getting this kind of responses in the first place.

The mystics say that ‘your being is attracting your life’. 

Subconsciously, and without even knowing it, we happen to make requests and are getting responses from the totality of the universe we don’t expect and might not like at all. 

In this case we only are aware of the response but not what triggers or excites the response, that is we only experience and see the results in form of the response. We hardly ever see the causes and only see the effects.

So, there is an idea we can find in the universal teachings that asks us from which standpoint do we actually think. 

Do we think from causes, or do we mainly think from effects? Cause or effect thinking differ profoundly, they are in actual fact worlds apart.

People usually think from the effects point of view. Thinking from the effects point of view is usually based on the state of mind we find ourselves in the moment we were hit by the effect. This means that our reaction is more likely to be impulsive and mechanical.

Thinking from causes could be seen as a more conscious way of thinking.

If we look at making a request, we have to look at from where we are making a request, as well as that we have to ask ourselves if we are making the request from our state of ‘knowledge’ or from our state of ‘being’.

Consider yourself asking for peace purely from an intellectual level, yet you are unable too see what kind of different factors govern your being at that particular moment in time. 

For example: your love for negative emotions, your adoration for self-pity & hidden jealousies, your precious collection of countless dislikes and your enthusiasm for laziness etc. Their state of being might ask for something entirely different than their state of knowledge, and the total of the universe responds to the factors in our being, which we non-consciously endorse without seeing that we are validating them.

So what we have to understand and remember is that a strong sounding and full request must include thought and will, as well as precise formulation and an emotional longing. Thought unquestionably belongs to the side of ‘knowledge’, because we only can think from the knowledge we have acquired. 

The side of our being is what ‘wills’ and as we all know, we usually only will or take action towards what we desire. In other words, where our love resides is our will and this love will only attract the response that belongs to it. That is, if we non-consciously love all our non-conscious manifestations, then undoubtedly our ‘will’ will be of this quality. Hence we might get certain responses we do not expect or long for, simply because we cannot see that we actually attracted them. 

That is, we made a non-conscious request and without fail are bound to deal with the response. So we are caught in a vicious circle in which we constantly respond to responses we have non-consciously requested.

The moment you decide to pray, pray from a state of self-remembering in which you must be conscious of yourself and of what you are praying for. You have to truly feel the meaning that is contained in what you say, as well as really feel yourself saying it. It is the deeper sense of self in you that has to pray, and not the many different features and sub-personalities that were formed by habits and conditionings.

Remember that you cannot pray nor can you self-remember unless you feel that there is a higher state in you, as well as there is something higher than you are. Pray with all your different brains or intelligences, because if only your mind prays and the hart does not participate, the response cannot reach you, that is help & grace cannot enter.

The whole man must pray. The moment all the brains in us would work in harmony we would be in harmony with all different aspects and sides in us. 

Once that takes place in one of those rare moments in our life, that very moment we are in a different state of consciousness in which we have simultaneous possession of all our different faculties. And this expansion of consciousness is what a person should possess in times of prayer as well as in ordinary life. 

Alexander Filmer-Lorch - Inspired by the fourth Way teachings, Ouspensky, Gurdjieff & de-Salzman

Terminology and History of Meditation

If one starts to enquire into the origin of meditation one soon discovers that there is very little knowledge and documented research available to how, when and where it actually originated.

According to findings in history and literature the origin of meditation dates back more than 5500 years around the same time when writing was invented.

The earliest evidence regarding prehistoric religion in India, date back to the late Neolithic in the early Harappan period (5500-2600 BCE). Though Mehrgarh and Kile Gul-Mohammad are the best-known sites of pre-Harappan culture.

“The pre-Harappan culture was succeeded by the Indus-Saraswati Civilisation. The Indus-Saraswati Civilisation was a unique product of a slowly growing and changing civilisational process that was occurring from the eighth millennium through the third millennium in north-western India, including the Indus and the Saraswati basins, in which the West Asian, Turanian and Central Asian cultures had some role to play but generally in the field of economic interaction and not so much in social, cultural, religious and ideational fields. The Indus civilization grew out of this culture's technological base, as well as its geographic expansion into the alluvial plains of what are now the provinces of Sindh and Punjab in contemporary Pakistan and Northern India.”

Several seals discovered at Indus Valley Civilisation sites, dating to the mid 3rd millennium BC, depict figures in positions resembling a common yoga or meditation pose, showing "a form of ritual discipline, suggesting a precursor of yoga," according to archaeologist Gregory Possehl.

Some type of connection between the Indus Valley seals and later yoga and meditation practices is speculated upon by many scholars, though there is no conclusive evidence. More specifically, scholars and archaeologists have remarked on close similarities in the yogic and meditative postures depicted in the seals with those of various Tirthankaras: the "kayotsarga" posture of Rsabha and the "mulabandhasana" of Mahavira along with seals depicting meditative figure flanked by upright serpents bearing similarities to iconography of Parsva. All these are indicative of not only links between Indus Valley Civilisation and Jainism, but also show the contribution of Jainism to various yogic practices.

Techniques for experiencing higher states of consciousness in meditation were developed by the sharamanic traditions and in the Upanishadic tradition.

Historians agree, that the evolution of meditation gave rise to philosophy, psychology and all major religions.

Descriptions of meditation practise can be found in Hinduism, Buddhism, Mayan Culture, Taoism, Islam and Christianity.

To be able to put things into words requires the ability to put things into a greater perspective, which is based on a more refined awareness of things and their inter-relationship to the whole.

Those abilities seem to be directly related to the evolution and development of our brain function.

There are two trains of thought, which might be able to explain that:

·      “Between a 100,000 and 50,000 years ago a substantial anatomical improvement of the voice box occurred, which is the basis of language.”

·      A change in brain organization without a change in brain size made our modern language possible.

These changes distinguish the Neanderthal from the Cro-Magnon Man.

“ The Cro-Magnon Man was able to produced a variety of tools, weapons and pieces of art 50,000 years ago, which led to the invention of watercrafts and to colonisation in Australia and New Guinea and ultimately the whole world.

Highly developed burial sites had been found dating back 40,000 years, which is evidence that our Cro-Magnon ancestors had stepped away from what was necessary for immediate survival. They treated the dead with respect, which shows that they had developed a greater perspective on themselves, their families and enemies, which evolved into an interactive mechanism in our brains and indicated the beginning of modern consciousness”

Later precious items like jewellery, pottery and weapons were buried together with the departed, which indicates that our ancestors believed in an afterlife or a world that exists beyond our own creation.

The English meditation is derived from the Latin meditatio, from a verb meditari, meaning, "to think, contemplate, devise, ponder, meditate"

·      In the Old Testament hāgâ (Hebrew: הגה‎), means to sigh or murmur, but also to meditate. When the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek, hāgâ became the Greek melete.

·      The Latin Bible then translated hāgâ/melete into meditatio. The use of the term meditatio as part of a formal, stepwise process of meditation goes back to the 12th century monk Guigo II.

Apart from its historical usage, the term meditation was introduced as a translation for Eastern spiritual practices, referred to as dhyāna in Buddhism and in Hinduism, which comes from the Sanskrit root dhyai, meaning to contemplate or meditate.

The term "meditation" in English may also refer to practices from Islamic Sufism, or other traditions such as Jewish Kabbalah and Christian Hesychasm. An edited book about "meditation" published in 2003, for example, included chapter contributions by authors describing Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Islamic, and Taoist traditions.

Scholars have noted that "the term 'meditation' as it has entered contemporary usage" is parallel to the term "contemplation" in Christianity.

Data suggest weasel words that even at prehistoric times older civilizations used repetitive, rhythmic chants and offerings to appease the gods.Some authors have even suggested the hypothesis that the emergence of the capacity for focused attention, an element of many methods of meditation, may have contributed to the final phases of human biological evolution.

·      References to meditation with Rishabha in Jainism go back to the Acaranga Sutra dating to 500 BC.

·      Around 500-600BC Taoists in China and Buddhists in India began to develop meditative practices.

·      In the west, by 20BCE Philo of Alexandria had written on some form of "spiritual exercises" involving attention (prosoche) and concentration and by the 3rd century Plotinus had developed meditative techniques.

·      The Pāli Canon, which dates to 1st century BCE considers Indian Buddhist meditation as a step towards salvation. By the time Buddhism was spreading in China, the Vimalakirti Sutra, which dates to 100CE included a number of passages on meditation, clearly pointing to Zen.

·      The Silk Road transmission of Buddhism introduced meditation to other oriental countries, and in 653 the first meditation hall was opened in Japan.[25]Returning from China around 1227, Dōgen wrote the instructions for Zazen.

·      The Islamic practice of Dhikr had involved the repetition of the 99 Names of God since the 8th or 9th century.

·      By the 12th century, the practice of Sufism included specific meditative techniques, and its followers practiced breathing controls and the repetition of holy words. Interactions with Indians or the Sufis may have influenced the Eastern Christian meditation approach to hesychasm, but this cannot be proved.

·      Between the 10th and 14th centuries, hesychasm was developed, particularly on Mount Athos in Greece, and involves the repetition of the Jesus prayer.

·      Western Christian meditation contrasts with most other approaches in that it does not involve the repetition of any phrase or action and requires no specific posture. Western Christian meditation progressed from the 6th century practice of Bible reading among Benedictine monks called Lectio Divina, i.e. divine reading.

·      Its four formal steps as a "ladder" were defined by the monk Guigo II in the 12th century with the Latin terms lectio, meditatio, oratio, and contemplatio (i.e. read, ponder, pray, contemplate). Western Christian meditation was further developed by saints such as; Ignatius of Loyola and Teresa of Avila in the 16th century.

By the 18th century, the study of Buddhism in the West was a topic for intellectuals. The philosopher Schopenhauer discussed it, and Voltaire asked for toleration towards Buddhists. 

The first English translation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead was published in 1927.

·      Secular forms of meditation were introduced in India in the 1950s as a Westernized form of Hindu meditative techniques and arrived in the United States and Europe in the 1960s. Rather than focusing on spiritual growth, secular meditation emphasizes stress reduction, relaxation and self- improvement.

·      Both spiritual and secular forms of meditation have been subjects of scientific analyses.

·      Research on meditation began in 1931, with scientific research increasing dramatically during the 1970s and 1980s. Since the beginning of the '70s more than a thousand studies of meditation in English-language have been reported.

However, after 60 years of scientific study, the exact mechanism at work in meditation remains unclear.

Ever since human mankind had developed the ability to put things in relation to the whole an internal drive and longing to explore and enquire gave rise to many unanswered questions.

Why are we here? What is the purpose of this life? What animates this body? Is there another existence after death? What created this whole universe? What is life’s purpose and is there such a thing than a creator who created this universe?

Certain kind people started researching the external world, which gave rise to sciences like maths, physics, chemistry, medicine and astronomy etc. The very early scientists discovered the laws of nature, developed machines and more refined devices and came to the conclusion that everything is made of five elements. The concept of acupuncture and Ayurveda is still based on the five element principles.

Much later scientists made a deal with the pope, in which they came to the agreement that the body & the external world belongs to science and the spirit and internal world belongs to the church. That’s how the unity of both worlds were divided and split into two different entities in our western world.

In ancient times philosophy, psychology, alchemy and cosmology were considered to be four different aspects of the internal and external universe, encompassing one unity.

A different kind of people started researching the internal world and the mind.  They developed pranyama techniques and came up with different concepts and approaches with the intent to define consciousness.

In the meantime scientists came to the conclusion that the world is comprised of 108 elements with different attributes and that each element is made of atoms. Further research proofed that the atoms are not the underlying basis of everything, that there is another building material they named electron. With more refined devices they discovered that the electron has two properties: It is moving as well as not moving and that it acts like a particle and like a wave, which gave rise to a new definition “the quantum”, which means dual and that the quantum is having properties of wave and particle simultaneously.

And after even more research they discovered that on a very subtle level the electron is nothing more than an infinitesimal energy particle and that it is this particular energy, which can transform itself into an electron and subsequently into matter.

While the first group of people advanced in researching the external world, the second group through focusing their attention inwards, had refined their techniques to such an extend that they discovered a subtle all encompassing frequency, known as the universal pulse of consciousness which is omnipresent throughout the whole universe and infinitely present in all there is, thus in time science will come to the same conclusion that the underlying building material is not an infinitesimal energy particle but the pure ever expanding universal pulse of consciousness.

Copyright © December 2013 Alexander Filmer-Lorch all rights reserved 

 

From Life to Stillness & Beyond

Stop – have you ever asked yourself what would happen if everything around you would just stop, if all those on going impressions & events of your life would just stop acting on you for a while to give you a break? A break in which you become free of sense overload and the constant demand to respond, to interact and to complete and fulfil what is expected of you, day in and day out.

But the wheel of life is rolling, unfolding and revealing its contents at any given moment in time. Whether we like it or not is irrelevant. The driving force of cause and effect, action and reaction has gained its own momentum. And from the very moment our innocent soul took its first step out of unity into duality by means of its ultimate freedom of choice, each of its actions ignited an equally strong reaction that was ordered according to the unfailing judgement of universal laws. Multiplying themselves in myriads of endlessly aggrandising events, ultimately manifesting the world as it is known to us today, including each of our personal lives we are bound to relate to and deal with every second of the day, which will be the case until the day we will die.

We might not easily accept this truth, but deep inside we all know that life can’t be stopped, and that it is not in our power to stop the unfolding of life, because life simply just happens.

Stop – have you ever asked yourself what would happen if everything within you would just stop, if all those thoughts, emotions & your inner voice would just stop acting on you for a while to give you a break? A break in which you become free of your uninterrupted and sometimes compulsive thought patterns, as well as your constant considering about the never-ending incoming impressions and events of life, day in and day out.

But the wheel of your mind and thoughts is rolling, creating and unfolding its contents at any given moment in time. Whether we like it or not is irrelevant. The driving force of all what we have acquired, all our deeply engrained habits, conditionings and non-conscious states, have gained their own momentum. And from the moment our innocent soul inhabited our physical body gradually becoming the slave of our five senses, our initial pure state of being was forgotten and got buried below the waves of our ever-changing and uninterrupted thought and mind activity. Multiplying themselves in myriads of endlessly aggrandising features and contradictions, ultimately manifesting as mechanical set ways that make us respond to the different events of life the same way again and again. Repeating and meeting the same cycles and life patterns again and again will be the case for most of us until the day we will die.

Stop - simply just stop for a moment and wake up to the fact that you can’t stop life or the event you are experiencing right now, that is - whatever you are experiencing right now is nothing more than an incoming impression, predominantly perceived by one of your five senses, that is asking for your attention.

Become aware - that by simply waking up to this fact you are slightly further removed from the event and the incoming impressions it generates. By waking up to this simple truth you have become more conscious and your attention has naturally withdrawn and manifested a liberating sense of separation from the impression or event that now lies there in front of you. You have ‘stopped’ being one with the impression or event. You have stopped placing your whole sense of self or sense of ‘I’ into the impression or event, hence more space has been created in which you gained a greater sense of self as well as a greater awareness of the spaciousness surrounding things, which allows the impression or event to be recognised for what it actually is in essence.

You just have started changing a less conscious way of perception into a more conscious way of perception, as well as that you just have begun with what is called work on yourself by applying ‘conscious effort’, which is the beginning of self-study.

Consciously making yourself wake up to the fact that life is nothing more than a succession of incoming impressions that form an event, is called self-remembering that leads to the gradual realization of the full truth of what you are. Knowing the full truth of what you are, which includes all that had been hidden in your non-consciousness, is called self-realization or self-consciousness.

To consciously fully stop for a moment from the depth of your being, is not going to stop life and its events or incoming impressions, but will gradually change the way you respond to life. That is - each time you have stopped being the event you have automatically shifted onto a higher level of consciousness from which you are able to respond to life in a more conscious way, i.e. less mechanical. Simultaneously it will gradually teach your five senses that they will be able to work much more efficiently by not having to drag our faculty of attention along with them each time they are stimulated by an incoming impression.

To truly stop and to wake up to the actual Isness of things again and again, will invite precious moments of stillness within us in which nothing needs to happen. Those moments of stillness will accumulate and will gradually penetrate deeper, all the way down to the cellular level, creating a living memory in our connective tissue. This living ‘stillness memory’ will play a vital role further down the line of our path of transformation.

Stop - have you ever asked yourself what would happen if your physical body would be allowed to simply stop, if all this sensory stimulus, all those complex movements and all those physical tensions would just stop acting on you for a while to give you a break? A break in which your body would become free of having to act out what your mind, emotions and thoughts expect from it day in and day out.

But the wheel of our physical actions is rolling, keeping this body continuously engaged. Whether we like it or not is irrelevant. The driving force of our adrenals that profoundly impact on our nervous systems has gained its own momentum. And from the moment our innocent soul took its residence in this physical confinement, it became entangled by the veil of forgetfulness, taking the back seat in this vehicle that is made of flesh and bones, humbly surrendering to the mind that took on the role of the driver without having sufficient knowledge of how to drive and deal with the servicing. From then onwards the body is being raced along by the mind and emotions facing all sorts of accidents and difficulties, as well as being fuelled with all sorts of wrong food, which gradually leads to a malfunction of the organism. Multiplying themselves in myriads of endlessly aggrandising wrong work of systems and brains, creating dis-balance and disorder that profoundly impact on the homeostasis in the body, creating physical friction and stress. The experience of physical friction and stress will be the case for most of us until the day we will die.

The practice of Meditation is in actual fact nothing more than a prolonged conscious ‘stop’, in which the physical body is finally allowed to be motionless and still. Allowed to assimilate and shut down all sorts of stressors and sense stimulus, as well as becoming passive to the demands of mind, thoughts and emotions. Once the body is allowed to fully surrender to not having to do and perform, once the whole weight of the body is allowed to fully surrender into gravity by completely releasing its hold and its tension by means of gradual undoing, and once the body has found satisfaction in sitting still and fully stop for a more prolonged period of time, actual stillness will enter and manifest, creating an even greater longing to undo. This is the stage in which every pause after the exhalation will be experienced as a profound sigh of relief that leads to a greater separation from our mind, emotions and body unit in which one experiences glimpses of absence of sense of self or sense of ‘I’, as well as prolonged moments of absence of thought in which the depth and profoundness of stillness and peace is creating the pathway to what lies beyond.     

Copyright © December 2012 Alexander Filmer-Lorch all rights reserved