Hi David,

I'm really glad you're ordering Bruce's books because they will help you alot with this, perhaps especially the earlier ones.

Here's a couple of other approaches I've tried. Bringing beauty into our lives is good for spiritual development.
1)Is there a beautiful species of plant or animal (non-threatening ) that you could study on the web, even become an expert about? Knowledge about such a thing will make it yours, a part of your life. Probably best not to make that animal species an individual 

2) Beautiful sound or music that is flowing and non-jarring, perhaps CDs made for mediating to, can also put your mind and spirit in a calming state.

Immersing yourself in beauty is just one step but it's a helpful one!

Bets

Hello David:

I can understand you wanting to get some verfication that the afterlife exists, it sure does make life more pleasant when you're certain and understand that an eternal and wonderful future awaits you.

Regarding which path you take, it should always feel good in your heart like peace and love. If a path is fear based and oppresive, "yuch."  If you find a way to use discernment while listening to your heart, you'll be okay.

Hi David. The good news is that deep down you know you know - so to speak. Otherwise you wouldn't be drawn as you are.

There's a lot of ways we can get it wrong on meditation, with the added complication that until you experience some of the states it's not really possible to intellectually communicate where you're hoping to find yourself - it's really not capable of conceptualisation.

Trying too hard is as the guys say a common problem - you end up being driven by your need rather than developing some equanimity or space. Not to mention that it intensifies rather than calms the mind.

The Buddhist teaching on the subject is always that what happens in your mind during meditation should be akin to what happens as the the silt settles in a glass of muddy water that's been shaken.

The muddy obscured water is analagous to the mind full of frantically circling thoughts - and as a result blinded by this mental noise to insight, intuition and subtler forms of seeing.

For what it's worth almost everybody experiences an intensification of mind when they first try to meditate - or if not that they perceive it as happening because they become aware of turbulence of their thoughts. It may not be all that much to do with yourself.

The most important step is to get a regular practice established, and to work steadily at it without turning it into something else to strive after.

After that whatever happens happens so to speak - in that depending on where you are you could make very rapid progress, or it could take lifetimes. The essential point though is that it cannot be forced - the true nature of mind is emergent so to speak in that its always there. It just depends on how heavily obscured it is by this mental noise.

This guy is good (if pretty Buddhist in tone) on meditation method: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/search/ref=pd_lpo_ix_dp_am_us_uk_en_goldstein.020insi...

Thich Nhat Hanh's Miracle of Minfulness http://www.amazon.co.uk/Miracle-Mindfulness-Classic-Meditation-Revered/dp/184604... teaches meditation too, but does a much better job i think of conveying a feeling for what it's essentialy about - for what it feels like.

Another option is to hook up with say a Buddhist or other group teaching meditation for some basic training and moral support, although it's a good idea to read in parallel as it'll help you get a feel for what its all about...

Avoid anybody pushing dogmatic beliefs at you - your instincts sound correct. Belief contrary to what many mainstream religions teaches  actually blinds us by causing us to cease using our own discrimination and intuition. (we replace it with mind made concepts) Faith is important, but genuine faith (you can't just decide to have faith) grows only gradually stronger out of first understanding, and then the experience of putting the teachings and insight into practice - it emerges naturally much like the stillness and other abilities we might hope for out of meditation.

Zen uses the term 'caring (so that we continue to work on ourselves, continue with self enquiry) but not caring' (not caring enough that we're drawn into becoming objective led). ..

Don't get discouraged, most of us don't start to search until we're a lot older than you, it took serious health problems and 40 years for me to cop on  that maybe there's another view and way that actually works.....

Vajra and Hawkeye, thanks. Vajra, those book titles look good so far. Anyways, I'm checking them out on the Amazon site.  I definitely give it my all as far as attempting to concentrate while listening to the hemi sync. The focus 3 and focus 10 ones were the free ones on the website since im currently in college and have a low budget. I think the thing that scares me the most about the dogmatic people trying to get me on their belief platform is the worry that if they keep saying it enough times I will believe it and find myself in a belief system hell since I couldn't force myself to obey everything. The most recent incident was a man talking to me when I was riding the subway home from school and he suddenly asked me out of nowhere if i knew Jesus, and I said I knew about him, and he then went on a tangent as to i either know him or i don't and where i wanted to go when i died and that there were only two places, and the whole concept is actually terrifying, especially since I have been trying to be as kind and compassionate as possible and have made significant leaps from where I was as an autistic kid who didn't even know how to feel empathy until he was 17 years old. Since meeting as many of these people I have been compulsively avoiding anything that has a number 666, or if I draw a lowercase t and the bar is closer to the bottom than the top, modifying it because of "what if" type thinking but at the same time, not wanting to go into a church when invited by someone who seems fundamental because I'm worried I might get pulled in further and find myself stuck in a BST. What I really want to do with my life is to make as many people feel good as possible and avoid hurting others when possible and to not only chase after my dreams but to help others reach theirs as well.

I agree that faith isnt something you just decide but that it forms with time. I agree with Hawkeye on God = Good and Fundamentalist = sick and twisted. LOL. In fact I may go to the TMI store and look at the available hemi sync CDs for sale. Any recommended titles in particular?

To pick up on something David. 'Give it your all as far as attempting to concentrate while meditating...'

It may be just a figure of speech you used, but if it's what you are actually doing it sounds like you may be trying to 'do' meditation.

Which isn't possible. You can't manufacture the meditative space, it's always been there, it just 'is'. (in ACIM terms it's when we start to to open, when we probably intermittently open to 'hearing' the Holy Spirit via our intuition or other means over the chatter of the thinking mind) The intention is to become aware of it, to develop the ability to rest in it (language doesn't express this very well) but the problem is that the moment you 'try' to do it, the more you intensify the thinking mind, the more you thicken the fog of thought and the more obscured it becomes.

Trying to 'stop' thinking has the same effect, never mind that it's a contradiction. While meditating you don't try to manipulate your thoughts, you instead seek to rest easy and watch the thoughts arise and decay.

If as happens we find ourselves getting sucked into a line of thought (what's for lunch!!  or whatever) it make take us with it for some time before we recognise what has happened. When we do recognise we've been taken in just quietly drop it. Don't beat up on yourself, and don't allow yourself to get angry or frustrated - just say to yourself 'not just now thank you', and go back to watching your thoughts.

Meditation (contrary to popular perception) is not about 'making' your mind lie quiet. It's about practicing the ability to rest quietly and with equanimity while thoughts come and go on the screen of your conscious mind - without getting sucked into identifying with them.

Another way of putting it is perhaps that with time and practice there's a part of mind that develops the ability to stand aside and just quietly observe what goes on in the thinking mind while its led astray by the 'mad monkey' of ego.

With time and lots of practice a quieter mind may emerge - but it takes many many years for some to reach a quieter mind, and 'achieving' a quiet mind is not the sign of meditating well. Staying quietly with the task, not getting discouraged, and eventually becoming so that this equanimity is undisturbed no matter what arises in the mind (and eventually in our external experience) is what its about.

Pema Chodron (a well know Buddhist nun and teacher) famously writes broadly to the effect that she's not by the criteria of 'quiet mind' had a single decent meditation to this day. (and that's after an adult lifetime of meditation) The point though is that this is not a problem.

Over time (but it may take years) the mind may tend to quieten, but as soon as we try to actively force it, or become upset or frustrated we go backwards.

There a very old training in the nature of this process  that's usually expressed in pictures like the one here from a Tibetan Buddhist monastery: http://www.reep.org/gardens/buddhism/images/1religion/tamingthemind2_l.jpg The page (which nicely explains some of the why of meditation in the Mahayana Buddhist view http://images.google.ie/imgres?imgurl=http://www.reep.org/gardens/buddhism/image... - its essentially the creation of the space needed for wisdom and compassion to arise. The generation of esoteric experience is not the point...) explains the picture as follows:

'Painting from a Tibetan Buddhist monastery:

This painting from a Tibetan Buddhist monastery is like a cartoon strip showing stages of a monk calming his mind through meditation training.

    * At the bottom you see a new monk whose mind wanders so much in its own directions that it resembles a muddy elephant led by a naughty monkey. The monk is running after it.
    * Half-way up, his mind, the elephant, has been partly cleaned up and it is the monk who is now leading it – though the monkey is still interfering by pulling the elephant’s tail from behind.
    * Further up, the elephant is now clean and the monk alone is in charge – he is saying goodbye to the monkey.
    * Next the monk can get the elephant to lie down and finally he can ride it.
    * At the top the monk is fully in charge of the elephant, his mind, and is now riding down to put its powers to good (wise and compassionate) use.'

Try not either to get attached to or to strive after esoteric experience of one sort or another. It's part of the total experience that may (or may not) arise, it can be a nice confirmation that our mind training is progressing, and it can play a role in our development by presenting learning opportunities and deepening our knowing, but it's essentially a side show which becomes a diversionary cul de sac if it becomes an object of attachment in itself.

A practiced meditator eventually develops the ability to drop into these states very quickly and easily, but it is a matter of mind training. Hemi Sync can help a lot too.

PS (a later add-on) Two basic types of meditation are taught at first - 'shamatha' (calm abiding) and 'vipassana' (insight meditation)

Development of a reasonable capability in the first is generally seen as desirable  before starting the second - in that if it is attempted (insight meditation on a given topic) before there is some stabilisation of our mind the result tends to be out of control and often obsessive thought which drowns out any intuitive insight we might otherwise have been able to access.

On the other hand most find that as space and stability start to  develop in the mind that insight naturally arises - both when meditating, and in normal life, whether working a topic or not. (my own experience is that it works best when not trying, as i often get too intense if i try to do it). Insight is not anyway the result of 'thinking' about a topic. It's more about resting with the topic lightly in mind and passively awaiting what arises. (its essentially the creative process - and explains why our creativity dries up when we get uptight) Depending on your tradition the source of this insight can be spoken off as being the prompting of the Holy Spirit, of higher mind, of our true nature and so on.

The other sure fire indicator that space and stability are starting to arise is often an indeterminate but very lovely feeling of being comfortable and easy with one self - things, people and situations that used to bother us no longer do, and in the resulting space we find ourselves very often feeling or spontaneously expressing compassion, and doing the wise thing in situations - which often is just to let things 'be' instead of panicking, and rushing in with inappropriate actions.

One of the side effects is often the emergence of a deep trust or faith in 'flow' - the knowing that life is basically benevolent, and that if we can rest easy act wisely that it tends to being to us exactly what we need at right time on our journey.

None of this can be forced though. Do work and hopefully it emerges, wells up from somewhere in the depths of mind. We're talking reducing the intensity of/allowing the obscuring fog of thought to clear so that we can access these attributes and feelings. Eventually they emerge and are just 'there' - it's a process not of acting directly to make something happen, but of 'becoming' something else. Nothing whatsoever to do with the outcome of an intellectual or conscious thought process.

The creative power, compassion and wisdom of this sort of knowing can deliver a truly amazing transformation of the individual concerned.

Pardon the length, but maybe it may help some others too. What i've tried to set out is a very typical Tibetan Buddhist expression of teaching on meditation.

We were created perfect B2. Our task is just to realise this again ...

[David:] "I have dealt with about 4...fundamentalist Christians trying to convert me and it usually just makes me uncomfortable. They are very militant in their efforts and I would rather follow something for a better reason than "if you don't you'll be sorry." I mean it can't be all black and white. At the same time I talk to my dad and he says that a lot of times people will come up with something like an afterlife because they can't imagine ceasing to exist."
________________________________________

Beware the temptation to assess any brand of spirituality by its most negative and simple-minded examplars.  Whether it be a church, a New Age group, or methods of astral exploration, recognize a sobering truth: everything in the realm of spiritual experience is distorted by counterfeit spirituality. 

Several of the young professionals in my church had rejected Christianity because of fear-based Fundamentalist versions that, in effect, asked them to embrace a second-hand spirituality by blind faith.  Others have evolved beyond a toxic New Age spirituality that initiated them into paranormal verifications.  Through spiritual retreats and experience-based approaches to God, their spiritual quests have finally become joyful and authentic.  Some of them have experienced paranormal healing and comforting ADCs with deceased loved ones.  Nothing can substitute for life-changing, self-authenticating spiritual experiences.  Never simply take a pastor's word for it--or an astral adept's!

Best wishes,
Don