Of course, I can't go on without my standard disclaimer: do NOT believe a word I write here. Find out for yourself! The Internet and your local library will contain all of the sources from which I have gleaned my wisdom, and you can read all about it. But my wisdom is not your wisdom -- not yet, not until you have experienced for yourself the knowledge from which that wisdom is constructed.
As an additional disclaimer, I have to mention that my experience will hopefully not be your experience. I've led a hard life, and it shows in the physical and emotional scars I bear. The reason I write these advice blogs is so that you can learn something from the hard lessons I have learned so that you might avoid the same hardships and become wiser. But this will only work if you heed my words and THINK on them earnestly. "Those who can, do. Those who have done, teach."
"Yer off the edge of the map, mate. Here there be monsters!"
-- Captain Hector Barbossa, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Legend of the Black Pearl
Human consciousness is composed of many overlapping layers. As you progress in your meditation efforts, you will discover these. (In high school, I conducted extensive research into neuroscience, and discovered scientific evidence backing this up. I might write more about that in the future.) As mentioned in the first part, awareness of self begins with the body. For most people, this awareness never goes beyond appearance, such as hair, makeup, clothes, et cetera. I highly recommend taking up a martial skill, such as karate or tae kwon do, or another physical discipline such as tai chi chuan or yoga, to increase your awareness of your body. The movement of your muscles and joints is coordinated by the cerebellum, the second-most ancient part of the brain. The most ancient part, the brain stem, controls your breathing, which is the most important discipline to practice. Working on your breathing will eventually give you access to the spinal column and reflexes, which can be better developed through the movement-based disciplines mentioned above. I can't really describe exactly what you need to do to accomplish this, but you will learn it with practice. There are far better guide books available elsewhere.
Beyond the physical level is the awareness of the emotions. This can be a very frightening level to plumb. Emotional awareness is a skill seldom taught in modern society, so when you begin to meditate on your feelings, you'll likely be straying into uncharted territory. "Here be dragons." As mentioned previously, you must not be afraid of this. Be prepared to feel fear, anger, depression, and other undesirable emotions as you replay scenes from your life, and allow yourself to feel those emotions. By experiencing them mindfully, you will begin to see how they work, and learn to control them. The carefully controlled environment of your meditation sessions are the best place to begin this awareness, but it will help if you can carry this mindfulness into your everyday life and examine your emotions as you experience them in situ. I can attest to the tremendous utility of this skill, as I've mastered my innate passion which so often expressed itself in uncontrollable rage.
I must point out that controlling your emotions is not the same as suppressing them. Suppression of emotion is incredibly unhealthy. The emotions are always lurking just below the surface of your consciousness, and the tendency is to brush them aside as you focus on the task at hand. This can work to a point, but emotions have energy, and that energy, when crushed back on itself through suppression, can build pressure ever higher until finally the emotions unleash themselves in a flood. Negative emotions are the ones most often suppressed, so this uncontrolled ecstasy of passion will likely be one of anger or sadness. The idea is to master your emotions or they will master you. This is part of the "dark side" of which is so often spoken in Star Wars lore. When you allow your emotions to run unchecked, you become enslaved by them, and your life will be subject to their random whims. Master them, the way you master your body through martial discipline, or your intellect through careful study.
"Luminous beings we are, not this crude matter!"Speaking of the intellect, this is the next layer of your consciousness to explore, and one of the most important. Through the intellect, you grasp the physical world, master the tumultuous storm of your emotions, and begin to contemplate the higher mysteries. As you meditate, thoughts and images will float through your consciousness. Observe them, follow trains of thought, and see where they lead. Be mindful of the process by which your brain conducts these thoughts.
-- Yoda, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
And be patient. Another path to the "dark side" is trying to rush your progress and get to that "spiritual center" you so desire. It is a noble goal, but it can only be reached by patient practice. Carefully manage your expectations. I've been practicing meditation for over a decade, and only just now feel competent enough to write this beginner's guide. You must manage your expectati8ons carefully and build up to loftier goals. Starting out, you'll likely spend at most a handful of minutes in meditation before the noise of your mind overwhelms you and you are forced to give up. But do not let that discourage you. Keep at it. The more you practice, the easier it will get to quiet your mind and begin to perceive the deeper parts of your consciousness. Trying to rush the process will only discourage you faster and instill a greater sense of hopelessness.
To exercise your intellect, try to make time for activities that make you think. Remember that there are two halves to your intellect, the analytical side and the creative side. My favorite simple analytical activites include crosswords and Sudoku, and I exercise my creativity with writing and sometimes drawing. Find what works best for you. Sometimes I get urges to study complex mathematics or bioenergetics. But I'm a science nerd, so such studies may not benefit you quite so much. Be bold and stretch the limits of your abilities. Do hard stuff. You'll find that your limitations melt away and you will be smarter and more capable as time goes on.
Filling your mind with intellectual pursuits will create more thought trains of increasing complexity. Observe them carefully. As time goes on, you'll find that you can observe your thoughts as you're going about your daily activities. Don't let this distract you! Be mindful of the moment. Remember the lesson on "presence" from Part One. Keep an eye on your internal activity, but not at the expense of your external activities. For instance, it is not advisable to observe your thoughts while driving or operating heavy machinery. (From one who knows.)
As you get better at observing your thoughts, you'll develop a sense of detachment from the thought process. You'll notice that the thoughts go on with or without your intervention, almost as if they are a separate entity. In fact, they are! Sort of. Your thoughts are still a part of you, like your body and emotions, but they exist at a different level than "you." The "you" to which I refer is the soul or spirit. It is in fact a higher level of consciousness. If you achieve this, congratulations! If not, keep at it and don't get discouraged. I'm still working at it, but I've gotten a few glimpses of this higher state of being within myself. I'll leave that for a later article, perhaps years down the road.
"For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more."-- Luke 12:48
Since this article is subtitled "Beware the Dark Side," I cannot close without mentioning another pitfall into which you may find yourself drawn. As I've mentioned several times already, self-control is a great virtue which you must practice, in everything you do, if you wish to achieve inner peace. To many people, the world is a frightening place, full of random happenings and unknowable dangers. The same with their inner life, the thoughts and emotions. Meditation is often viewed by such people as a means to achieve power and control. And it is. But power is only true power when it is applied to yourself. Otherwise, it is the vain posturing of a despot seeking to control his life by controlling the lives of those around him. Control must begin with yourself. Learn to control your body, your feelings, your thoughts, and you will begin to trust yourself. You'll find as your self-control increases that you will be more capable of handling any situation which presents itself to you. Look at me. I never tire of telling the story about how I became homeless after the Crash of 2008. This is a situation which most would find frightening, but I never was. I trusted myself to be able to handle the situation, through my physical and mental abilities. As a result, I weathered the storm and emerged victorious, now living in a nice warm house on the earnings from the excellent job I have.
It's not so much that you will gain more control over the universe, but that you will be able to react with wisdom to a wider variety of circumstances. Control your self, and your circumstances cease to matter.
Do not seek to control your circumstances. The more power you exert over your surroundings, the greater the repercussions generated by your actions. Like a boulder dropped into a still lake, your power can spread outward and wreak destruction on everything around you, making your circumstances that much harder to control or even to react to. "You will know when you are calm, at peace, passive." Do not seek power, but rather peace.
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