Nirvana or Bust!: How I meditate.

I believe that meditation is like a roadmap to find that serene state of mind. There are many techniques and rituals to achieve this state of bliss, where all that nagging voices clams down and turns all that noises all the way down. This is not an impossible task. The mind needs a break from the external information feed every now and then.

Many misunderstands the true concept of meditating. First, lets get the most obvious misconceptions out of the way. Meditating is not a religious ritual like praying or worshipping. We may have borrowed the techniques from one of the oldest religion of the world, but it has nothing to do with acknowledging Hindu deities. Perhaps the only parallel might be the act of acknowledging and embracing the divinity within one's self. I don't think this is a bad thing or blasphemous per se. In fact, knowing one's self can be empowering to say the least. Believe in your self. Love your self. After all, who will if you don't?

Another misconception is that one can achieve nirvana by meditation. This is not entirely true. Meditation is just one of the tool to guide you down the path to enlightenment. There are other disciplines like exercising (Yoga) and adopting a healthy diet to nourish the physical body, in order for the mind to form healthy thoughts. Yet another misunderstanding is people tend to believe that drugs can produce the same results as meditation. There can be some parallels such as achieving Ego death and comprehension of the incomprehensible multiple realities. Let me explain. Ego death is that moment when a person realizes there is no 'I' as an individual, but as an inseparable 'One' with the universe or all that Is. Psychoactives and Psychedelics can help you achieve this, but I won't confuse it with what you can achieve by meditation.

Enough of that for now. So how do you meditate? My version is quite simple;

1. I sit comfortably (cross-legged) with my spine as straight as I can.
2. Eyes closed, I try to shift my weight around until all the muscles (shoulders, neck, back and thighs) are relaxed.
3. Concentrate on my breathing, Chanting Om helps to achieve a comfortable rhythm as well as calms the whole body with the vibration it creates. I do this as long as I'm confident of the rhythm and all the unnecessary noises/voices calms down.
4. After stopping the chanting, I start to light the chakras. Starting from the first - the base of the spine. I use the rainbow colors for my chakras. Red (Base of the spine), Orange (genital region), Yellow (intestines) , moving up to Green (stomach), Blue (lungs), Purple (throat. I being to chant Om from this point onwards), Indigo (3rd eye) and finally White for the crown Chakra.
5. I believe lighting chakras helps to generate the flow of the potential energy up thru the central nervous system. This energy needs to flow from the base of the spine and out of the crown.
6. Now I imagine this energy to flow out from the crown and flow downwards all the way to enter thru the 1st Chakra, like a spherical or Horn Torus (see top image) with myself (the spine, central nervous system) in the center. The pace of the flow is to the rhythm of Om.
7. I stop chanting when I feel it becomes sort of like 'automatic'. 
8. This is the state when the physical being (the body and brain) feels relaxed and almost detached from the mind. I believe this is the state when the brain stops forming thoughts, leaving the conscious in its natural state. Free from constantly referring to memories of past experiences. This is the serene state I referred to in the beginning of this article.
   
   I hope this has been enlightening.