MEDITATION PRACTICES AND REFLECTIONS. PART 3

Methods and techniques of meditation that I have tried or practiced.

My experience of meditation has 20 years of history, but this experience cannot be called gradually increasing. Rather, it is intermittent pieces of experience. Each of the segments was initiated by different meetings with spiritual teachers throughout my life - physically, mentally, or through their teachings, which came to me by themselves, without any searching from my part.

Separate segments shaped into a united common experience and gave me the opportunity to consciously perceive meditation as a simple spiritual exercise, as an integral part of human life, as food or sport. This was a turning point in the practice of meditation, which in 2018 transformed into an integral part of my life process.

This same fragmentary experience brought me another important understanding for me: there is no universal recipe for meditation - just as there is no one correct or better meditation technique. All is individual. For me, meditation is not just a traditional form of staying in peace and quietness. For me, meditation can be a constantly accompanying form of self-observation, or a minute concentration on my own breath during a business meeting.

The meditative techniques I am the most familiar to, the experience of which I consider valuable and pleasant for myself, therefore, I return to them over the years:

1. Method of Silva. I am very comfortable with Silva’s voice-controlled relaxation techniques. I was given a lot of lessons in visualization and perception enhancement, which I studied as part of Silva’s In-Depth course. Previously I this method used actively and often, lately - rather, in exceptional moments. However, the skills learned from Silva, I apply as basic in my own meditative technique. I practice independently with the support of a computer program.
   
    
2. HeartFullness. This was a breakthrough moment in meditative techniques for me. It has opened up new horizons and depths for me. I practice several times a week. It is the most frequently used method by me lately. I use concentration on the light source in my heart for relaxation in short meditations, and also I join the HeartFullness meditation group in Prague on Sundays.
   
    
3. ICanDo System of Activation. This is a method of a new age that combines the balance of concentration and relaxation. It is a guided meditation in the form of a computer program that lasts for 4.5 minutes. ICanDo System of Activation is a very accessible and effective for a busy person in the 21st century. I have been using it for more than 17 years, I can work with this technique without a device, using visualization. Recently I used it less frequently, because this is the meditation that helps most in the period when you just start to practice meditation and also in the moments of the strong stress coming from the outside and internal anxiety or loss of power.
   
    

My first meditation experience.
 

The first experience of meditation took place for me 20 years ago at the Matrimandir meditation center in Auroville. Then I was far from the meditative theory and even further from practice. A trip to Auroville interested me more from the point of view of getting to know the structure and organization of a communita of people who are conscious in their spiritual life. Therefore, the meditative experience in the Matrimandir became a revelation for me, surprisingly shocking by surprise it was also the beginning of the path to the study of Awareness as a measuring category of human life.


Meditation in Matrimandir was beyond time and without concentration: I did not direct myself to a specific object, subject, neither it was controlled. I asked a question and within a couple of minutes I was answered in the form of a dense bunch of experiences that I slowly revealed in myself within the next 10 years. The answer was very simple, there were no words or certain signs in it. But it had a universal scale and depth.

I can call my first meditation a point of awakening to getting conscious of my own awareness.

TO BE CONTINUED...