Dave said on another thread quote: One reason that I'm so interested in this is that I've spent literally decades trying to express how thinking works in deep meditation, which is essentially the same as being dead.
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so I'm starting off a thread in attempts to have others put in their two cents so maybe we can give something to Dave, whom I know has given us a lot of himself, so its payback for Dave. Please join me, lets keep it real simple though to start off with anyway...

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Meditation in a nutshell..hmmm!   ;D  well, Dave, I noticed that its true one can still think during meditation but my thoughts really slow down considerably. I notice I'm picking up more feelings than a thought. I don't think its like being dead though. but I have noticed I can enter a state of nothingness, but I don't consider the nothingness as being dead, it's more like entering a recharging station, where if u let your head chatter too much, the recharching doesn't get done properly.

Next? please?  :)

Hi Alysia-
I'd say that meditation begins when the inner mechanisms start to turn off, and we are in a state of awareness without side tripping into discussing it with ourselves. After that we simply go more and more direct focus on what we perceive - often to the point of ceasing to be aware of the situation around us. As we go deeper into this state, the mental aspects of thinking seem to stop, and we find that we are looking at reality in one or another way, and it seems to me that "thinking" occurs by virtue of the manner in which we perceive and relate the nature of the situation in which we find ourselves.

The extreme of this would be a total accord and unity with everything such that our output into the external world would be identical with the input from the world to us, each echoing the other.

Y'know - this is a bloody nuisance to try to describe!  :-]

dave

you're probably right Dave I think I'm even annoying myself at this point! [smiley=bath.gif] [smiley=2vrolijk_08.gif]

we wouldn't want to ascend just yet. well nobody wants to talk about the subject so Dave, you're going to have to figure it out on your own, but we will probably still be here if you get any more reports in... :)

thanks for all your insightful posts anyway. and I thank myself for being so humorous.. :D

"What is meditation?"

Listening to the Creative forces within and without self, potentially at least (guess i'm old fashioned)?

Something i need to do a lot more of, and consistently, so guidance says.

What meditation is to me has gradually changed these last few years---

At first it was a gift I gave to myself when I would defensively block out all the world and think only of small beautiful parts of creation--a butterfly, a candle's flame, a seashell....

Then it became a gift just to sit and think of nothing, not defensively, but more and more expansively, just to see what would come into view

Then the gift began to come from some other source, and it was Light and lightness, relief from gravity, and I expanded into Love/Light

Now it's a whole new world of space and places that I'm lifted up into with no prior plan established. I cannot remain in my body when I prepare to meditate, as my inner bodies are so impatient to be freed.

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Perhaps it's not meditation any more. Should meditation be more directed by the self?
Whatever it is, I started with self-directed thoughts and am now in undirected and timeless space and Light. I return refreshed and better able to fulfill my tasks here.

Bets

betson wrote on Jun 2^nd, 2007 at 11:23am:

What meditation is to me has gradually changed these last few years--- At first it was a gift I gave to myself when I would defensively block out all the world and think only of small beautiful parts of creation--a butterfly, a candle's flame, a seashell.... Then it became a gift just to sit and think of nothing, not defensively, but more and more expansively, just to see what would come into view Then the gift began to come from some other source, and it was Light and lightness, relief from gravity, and I expanded into Love/Light Now it's a whole new world of space and places that I'm lifted up into with no prior plan established. I cannot remain in my body when I prepare to meditate, as my inner bodies are so impatient to be freed. -------- Perhaps it's not meditation any more. Should meditation be more directed by the self? Whatever it is, I started with self-directed thoughts and am now in undirected and timeless space and Light. I return refreshed and better able to fulfill my tasks here. Bets

I'm old fashioned too; heres one definition: Prayer is talking to god, meditation is listening to god.

however we think of god and then we cease to think. and we have no common definition for the word god anymore. We're not satisfied with what we've got. must be normal.

reading Bets, we basically stand in the same place. it looks like you've increased your frequency overall, so that you're always in the place where for others, would consider it meditative, its natural for you.

I still have to say TMI's approach to synchronizing the two sides of the brain would be ideal if this caught on in the general society. its all about balance. once you use the tool, you can do it without the tool just by remembering what it felt like to be balanced.