Maditation….. And effects

Meditation for want of a better word, is a state of consciousness beyond the normal flux of streaming associations, memories, imaginings and sensations that pervades everyday awareness and takes up most people’s time and lives, day and night, except for dreamless sleep. That state, beyond the to-and-fro tides of the ordinary flux of consciousness, needs to be cultivated in waking life. The point of such meditation is not to think of nothing—for that is still a thought-but to think nothing, which is easier said than learned. But the simplest way to do it is to feel, to fill the consciousness to overflowing with an essentially benign feeling like utter harmony or utter peace. It is such pure feeling that enables us not to think.One of the best ways to learn how to cultivate that state is to practice a simple but very effective form of ancient breath control and direction whose old Sanskrit name is pranayama.This exercise was in fact the foundation of what is called Raja Yoga-the royal way joining or yoking to the higher self. The practice is simple: a slow in- breath for full eight seconds[one second passes as one says inwardly one thousand one],filling the the lungs first n their bottom-most regions, and enabling this by expanding the solar plexus area; then in the middle region, and finally their very topmost portions-feeling during the eight seconds you are doing this the vivifying energy entering you.Next comes the all –important eight seconds hold (Sanskrit kumbhaka, a term of yoga also traditionally related to eight), when you are neither inhaling nor exhaling. During this interval you can feel the energy coursing throughout your entire being … doing its sublime transmutational work of which you have no obligation (and probably as yet no capacity) to understand. Finally, you perform a slow, measured – that is, unaccelerated- eight seconds of exhalation with a short (about one second) pause at its end. Then re – begin the cycle of inhalation-hold-exhalation once more and repeat it for at least three times. But as you improve in the practice, gradually increase the number of cycles until you can do ten of them without special effort or feeling strain.After some practice you may find that your state of consciousness will alter and leap upward like a living flame after only a short time and even before the first cycle is finished.