Transcendental Meditation (TM for short), contrary to the belief of many, doesn't refer to transcendent states so much as it refers to the transcending of the various brain-wave levels which are beta, alpha, theta, delta, and an additional one being discussed these days, gamma. Beta is awake, conscious, functioning in everyday tasks and speech and normal interaction. Alpha can range from daydreaming to deep relaxation to just drifting off to sleep. Just closing your eyes puts you in an alpha state, or gazing thoughtlessly out a window. Theta ranges from quite sleepy to drifting off to sleep, and maybe into the relaxed breathing of early sleep. Delta ranges from sleep to REM to deep dreamless sleep. Gamma is theoretical and is even lower. What this might refer to is coherence with a deeply relaxed group mind, and could be beyond your conscious mind. This is deeper than sleep, which is why a half-hour of TM is more rejuvenative on a cellular level than eight hours of sleep.
TM effortlessly takes you rapidly down from beta to delta. It's worth mentioning again that our alchemies put your brain into the brain-wave patterns of theta and even delta even when you're wide awake and functioning in every day tasks. This is what makes alchemy on this level so important for the busy and industrious Western Mind, where nobody has three to six hours a day to dedicate to meditation. The alchemy meditates you, giving you constant access to levels and information without the need of your conscious intent or participation in that process.
Here's how TM is done.
Sitting comfortably, with pillows under your elbows to make it so that the weight of your arms isn't tugging on your shoulders, and just enough of a recline to lay back your head so that your chin won't droop to your chest when you disappear. Situate your tongue just behind your upper front teeth. Relax your jaw and throat. Breathe normally through your nose.
With an Eyemask - If you're using an eyemask, which we adamantly recommend, stare into the blackness with your eyes open for as long as you can take it. Usually ten minutes would be enough. You do want to have to fight to keep your eyes open. What is happening here is that your eyes are not prepared to be doing all they can to gather light without it being the time to go to sleep, and so you're busting a move on the endocrine glands in your head which usually obey circadian rhythms. They then begin producing, and very quickly, chemicals associated with sleep, which are also the chemicals that give you access to the dreamstream, which is always there. These are the same chemicals as are found in shamanic brews in Peru.
Without an Eyemask - you would simply close your eyes and do the following. With or without, follow what is next.
You make the sound of a mantra in your mind. A good all around mantra is AUM, pronounced ah-oh-m, only there are no syllabic breaks, just a smooth seamless sound. Now you're both making the sound and listening to it, which makes it be a self-referential feedback loop. If your attention wanders from the mantra, just return it to it. Easy-breezy. No intense focus. No concentration. No effort. After you're practiced, you'll find that you need the mantra less and less. You'll disappear. If you don't go deep the first few times, don't give it a second thought. Just keep doing it. It will work. These days, though, everybody this is shown to is "gone" the first or second time. Early on, you'll know you're doing it right if you start to lose track of your hands, and maybe feet. If your head droops forward, it might bring you out of it, and it might not. If it doesn't, great, but you could have a bit of neck pain. This is why we recommend just enough of a recline to keep your head from dipping forward. Twenty minutes to a half-hour is plenty for this one. Fifteen minutes after re-emerging, you'll know about the remarkable rejuvenative power of this.
Comments