What am I doing wrong?

[PatrickMB]

Namaste,

For 20 years I have tried to meditate, though admittedly my attempts have been only intermittent. I close my eyes and relax as best I can physically and mentally. I picture God in a form that I find comforting (lately that has been Radha-Krishna) and I try to focus on God.

After a little while though, I am so tense from trying to stay focused on God that I find no peace nor enlightenment. Am I trying too hard? Am I trying to "make" something happen? Should I cant the names of the Lord rather than try to silently focus on Him?

I very very much need peace and enlightenment in my life. I am growing desparate. If anyone has any constructive advice, I am would be very grateful.

Thank you.

[Eastern Mind]

Namaste,

For 20 years I have tried to meditate, though admittedly my attempts have been only intermittent. I close my eyes and relax as best I can physically and mentally. I picture God in a form that I find comforting (lately that has been Radha-Krishna) and I try to focus on God.

After a little while though, I am so tense from trying to stay focused on God that I find no peace nor enlightenment. Am I trying too hard? Am I trying to "make" something happen? Should I cant the names of the Lord rather than try to silently focus on Him?

I very very much need peace and enlightenment in my life. I am growing desparate. If anyone has any constructive advice, I am would be very grateful.

Thank you.

Vannakkam Patrick: You are doing nothing wrong at all. Is the crawling baby doing something wrong because he is yet unable to walk?

You may need peace, but enlightenment in the traditional sense is much further along.

You may be forgetting about the prerequisites to sustained meditation. Lifestyle, sexual purity, lots of external bhakti, karma yoga, relaxed (not putting pressure on yourself) attitude are all prerequisites. If you can honestly say that all this stuff is in order and has been for ten years or so, then you may be ready for meditation. Even then, perhaps not. It is the nature of the jiva to be able to take on more and more only after certain conditions are met, and this includes over many lifetimes.

I think here in the west, meditation is often taught out of order. A teacher or a writer who himself is already at the 'beginning to meditate' stage decides to write a book, assuming that students or others are totally ready. Skip the yamas and nyamas, skip lifestyle, skip developing bhakti ... a bit like teaching calculus to kindergarten.

So my suggestion would be to do what you can do. if chanting Om three times and sitting still for a minute after ward is it, then so be it. If working for a charity food bank, or donating blood is what you feel you can do, so be it. It's amazing how we have this disconnect on how one affects the other. That blood donation, or smile given to a stranger is all part and parcel of the later (or current) ability to meditate.

Best wishes, and I hope I didn't sound preachy. You see, I've been playing this Hindu game now for nearly 40 years, and probably a couple of lifetimes prior to that, and only now am I really beginning to feel I'm ready for some deeper stuff in any permanent way. Back as an exuberant discoverer of these inner ideas, I tried hard to meditate and do all that, but it was only in passing glimpses. Nothing was sustained longer than a few days, maybe months.

Aum Namasivaya

[smaranam]

Namaste,

I agree with this advice.

To repeat what we talked about earlier on this thread:

http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/sho...76&postcount=4

ShravaNam kIrtanam vishNoh smaraNam pada-sevanam dAsyam sakhyam Atma-nivedanam.

STEP ONE : ShravaNam, because without hearing/reading/watching/associating with devotees, and serving others, how can one know Who is this Lord in front of me ? What is the transcendental nature of and secret behind this sweet smile ?

Bhagavad Gita - Hari kathA BY Hari (KRshNa)
Shrimad Bhagvatam - Hari kathA OF Hari and in a few places also by Hari

And kIrtanam of course. If japa is too serious and not sustainable, hearing/singing in tune with a kirtan helps.

Also, some beautiful bhajans that sing His glories.

It happens to be the month of kArtik, very auspicious for devotees. Month to remember the Lord as DAmodar - little KRshNa whom mother Yashoda tied with a rope (dAma) around the stomach (udar).

Every kArtik evening , offering a lamp to dAmodar - as aarti, slow clockwise, more beautiful and meditative if the electric light is turned off, and singing this beautiful DAmodarAshtakam, is a common practice. It will certainly draw you towards this DAmodar.

Let us not spend this kArtik month ordinarily.

Hare KRshNa ~

[yajvan]

hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~

namasté patrickMB

PatrickMB;73873]Namaste,

For 20 years I have tried to meditate, though admittedly my attempts have been only intermittent. I close my eyes and relax as best I can physically and mentally. I picture God in a form that I find comforting (lately that has been Radha-Krishna) and I try to focus on God.

After a little while though, I am so tense from trying to stay focused on God that I find no peace nor enlightenment. Am I trying too hard?

Others have given you some good information, let me offer the following for your kind consideration.

Meditating is about not-minding.The notion is to be simple, effortless. The thought is about being easy, natural.
Trying is effort and you are experiencing the result of this.

For you perhaps visual meditation is not the vehicle (upāya). Consider even a simpler approach. That of breathing. We all know how to breathe , yes ? So this is a good place to begin. Do not worry of what you have done in the past. This technique is very simple & easy , that is why it is so effective.
If you wish to engage in it here are some easy steps :

How to practice it - part 1

• Sit comfortably- do not concern yourself in the beginning for the proper āsana position, this will come with time. So we sit comfortably for your body style...
• Sit alone - find a quiet place you can practice this for 10 min.
• Begin to breathe and notice the breath - inward and outward. Just being easy about it.
• After some 10 seconds or so, we close the eyes. We are still watching, being aware of the breath going in and out.
• Does it have to be deep breathing ? No , for now just regular breath.
• After say a minute or two you will feel some restfulness.
• Now when you breathe , easy and regularly, pause just for a moment at the end of the inward breath; just pause for 2 seconds or so. No need to count 2 sec., just what feels like a comfortable 2 seconds with no straining. Do the same with the outward breath. Pause at the end of it, for that same time.
• Note we are not ridged about this , we are simple, relaxed and above all we are expecting nothing , absolutely nothing to occur.
• When the 10 min is up - we just sit in the silence that was created for say 30 seconds before rising-up and starting to do things. This is important... we take the time to transition to activity.
• Do this upāya for the 10 min every day for 1 week. If you can do it AM and then PM , that is best. Do not miss a day, do not make excuses for not finding time.

After one week come back and let us know of your progress. We then will add part two. The logic is , we are building a house. The points above are the foundation. In a week we will add some walls to the foundation.

...easy about it, as effortless as possible, no straining. Be simple.

praṇām

[PatrickMB]

Thank you very much. I will take your advice.

How wonderful it must be to experience the God within us. For most of us, I would guess, that takes many material lifetimes.

Thank you again for your advice.

[Tandav]

Namaste. 'Eastern Mind' has offered sound advice. No contemplative meditation is possible without first discharging one's duties and having as little discord as possible in the external world. I am learning this the hard way myself, and am trying to engage the material world so that I may resolve issues there first. May I offer a couple of thoughts in addition:
First, often, due to one's nature, meditation of the sitting-down-and-going-within variety may not be the right thing to attempt at all, at least initially. I am, for example, a very physically active person and I can't change that. What I do is to harness that energy into rigorous sport and into hatha yoga. These put me in sufficiently contemplative states of mind where I obtain, at least for brief periods, a broader, more accepting and dare I say, a more enlightened view of the universe I am part of (I am genuinely happier and at peace).
Second, I am learning that it is essential for me to be truly 'grounded' before any genuine meditation can happen. We know that there are three spheres of action for every man (or woman) - dharma, artha and kama, all in the material world, within each of which one needs to be sufficiently grounded before the door will open even a crack to allow a peek into the higher realms of the mind. This grounding requires doing right and meaningful action through fully conscious engagement. This is a lesson that I had been taught long ago, but which I am learning only now, and in the hardest way possible. And unless I am successful here, I know there is no point in sitting down and going Om.
Best wishes,
T

[yajvan]

hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~

namasté

Namaste. 'Eastern Mind' has offered sound advice. No contemplative meditation is possible without first discharging one's duties and having as little discord as possible in the external world.

I greatly differ from this view...the vijñāna bhairava kārikā-s offer some 112 kārikā-s ( or sūtra-s) to the aspirant that has the desire to advance one's spiritual pursuit. These approaches are called upāya-s¹.

But why 112 ways? It depends on one's existing progress, temperament, ability, etc. One can easily be a shop keeper or a sādhu and take up one of the practices. The right practice and alignment to the individual is brought by the teacher;AND the student must be open to the teaching.

praṇām

1. upāya-s उपाय that by which one reaches one's aim , a means or expedient

[Jainarayan]

If I may offer a devalued dollar's worth of perspective:

I can't meditate at home. Even when there are no distractions, being there is a distraction. I can clear my mind only when I am, surprisingly, in a public place. I could sit for hours and lose myself in thought or prayer, or meditation if you will, sitting at the mall, the beachfront, in a park, or on a walk. I have no idea why it works this way for me, but it does. I have to do it more often.

[yajvan]

hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~

namast�

I could sit for hours and lose myself in thought or prayer, or meditation if you will, sitting at the mall, the beachfront, in a park, or on a walk. I

I am happy you are able to do this and this is a valuable asset to you. Let me ask, are you lost in thoughts ? Or do you go beyond thinking?
Turīya ( the 4th) is found beyond the vacillations of thought.

I say found as if it is lost, and this is not the reality of the situation. This 4th is always there, yet it is we who are distracted. When we meditate in a certain way we are able to settle down into this 4th and become acquainted with it. Not as an item, like an apple being held in one's hand but from the experience of being it.
If we were talking in the language of the vij�āna bhairava kārikā-s, it would be madhya ( the middle most); neither wake, dream or sleep.


praṇām

[smaranam]

If we were talking in the language of the vijñāna bhairava kārikā-s, it would be madhya ( the middle most); neither wake, dream or sleep.

Namaste YajvanJi,

Neither awake not asleep, and between awake and asleep (not REM or dream either) ...
So ... you mean ... all those times of being here but not being here, being [involuntarily] *there* ... was ... is... are... TurIya ?!

I thought it was ... just being taken on a trip maybe. Thanks for the official definition.

praNAm