A note on mindfulness meditation

Introduction:

Mindfulness meditation is a deceptively simple practice and yet very useful.

Neuroscientists and behaviorists(google MBSR, MBCT to know more) find it greatly helps people who are stressed out and also people suffering from anxiety based disorders (OCD, etc). I personally overcame OCD through mindfulness meditation 7 years back.

Mindfulness meditation can also help people in general manage their stress levels and keep them grounded. Mindfulness meditation is definitely helping me with managing stress in grad school.

Ofcourse, meditation in general(of any kind) is a very useful thing to do on a daily basis. However, mindfulness meditation is especially useful for people who find it difficult to concentrate.

Here's a simple practice:

1) Sit down some place - On the chair or on the ground.

2) Gently scan your body from head to toe and as you do this mental scan, feel your body relax - You can also say the word 'Relax' in your mind as you do the scan.

3) Now, keep your eyes open and just observe the sensations going around you

- These sensations could be the sound of a car outside, the groaning of the refrigerator, your own THOUGHTS, itching sensations in the body - The whole idea is to passively observe these sensations. As far as possible, observe these sensations without making any judgements in your mind. Think of yourself as a passive spectator observing these sensations around you.

Don't try to curb your thoughts or even guide them. Let them run through. You are just a passive spectator.

4) If you are comfortable with this process of passive observation, you can begin doing it with your eyes closed.

Some Comments:

You will slowly notice that as you are going on with this passive observation, you become more relaxed and grounded. Your passive observation process will bring to light the restless nature of the mind!!! Your thoughts might be flying high in your mind, yet you feel more relaxed than before. With practice, the thoughts will also start to settle down.

When I began this practice 2 years back - My thoughts were going zip,zap,zoom. But the interesting thing was, my thoughts would settle down slowly as I became regular at my practice.

As the days went by, I found that my mind was starting to calm down quicker.

A few months later, I had a meditation session, where my mind settled down quickly and the peace thereafter was wonderful. There was a sea of change from the mind I began with and the mind I was experiencing a few months later. However, to sustain this calmness, I found that a regular practice is essential. For me a daily meditation practice is indispensable in keeping me grounded through the rigors of graduate school. The feeling of release of stress when I meditate before going to bed is wonderful. If you are reading this sentence, I highly recommend this meditation practice(or any suitable meditation practice that you are attracted to).

Duration:

You can begin with 10 minutes. And as you progress, you can increase the duration depending on your comfort levels. I have time for about 30 minutes of meditation everyday morning and night.

OCD and Mindfulness meditation

1) Introduction

Obsessive Compulsive disorder is a disorder caused due to a stuck circuit in the brain.

More specifically, the neuronal circuit between: orbital frontal cortex, caudate nucleus and anterior cingulate cortex is on overdrive.

The orbital frontal cortex is the part of frontal cortex that is associated with detecting errors or 'something is wrong' in the environment. This area is on overdrive in people with OCD and hence there is always a feeling that something is wrong. The circuit moves onto the cingulate cortex which is associated with compulsion, which makes the people with OCD act compulsively whenever they have a feeling of 'something is wrong'.

In Neuroscience, there is a classical phrase: 'Neurons that fire together wire together'.

When the feeling of 'something is wrong' is followed by a compulsion to do something (e.g. twitch the hand or some other action)... This sequence gets hard wired in the brain (stronger neural connection).

However, through mindful response... E.g. following 'something is wrong' by a relaxing activity instead of the compulsive action, the circuit is remodeled into something that is more benign.

Ofcourse in the beginning, this mindful action is difficult because of the hard-wiring of the circuit.

But with practice, the circuit weakens and stops bothering the person as much.

2) My experience

I had OCD during my senior high school and first two years of college. In the beginning(first 6 months), it was a gruelling experience. I didn't know why I had these obsessive thoughts that were so troublesome. Ofcourse, I didn't know at that point that it was a stuck circuit. My only respite from these 'something is wrong' thoughts was sleep. A psychiatrist prescribed a tranquilizing drug(fludac) - I think it had an affect on my visual cortex area or the areas related to imagination - Because, since then I have had trouble visualizing(in my mind) objects clearly. Ofcourse, the drug did help make the thoughts less menacing. I think these drugs fall under the class of SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors). Sertonin is a natural biochemical that has a calming influence on the brain.

In my second year of college, I attended a 3 day workshop on mindfulness meditation and other breath based techniques.

I remember clearly, the instructions was to observe my thoughts passively without any commentary or reaction. It was hard, these thoughts had given me a lot of trouble - But I tried anyway. I soon found (a few days later), that my condition was getting better.

I continued my practice of mindfulness meditation and also took up running everyday.

Within 6 months, I was a different person. The obsessive thoughts no longer bothered me (circuit had weakened quite a bit) and I was out of depression (which was also a problem during that time). Further more, running gave me a lot of energy and enthusiasm for life.

It was quite a recovery!! There were small relapses(whose frequency began to diminish), but I knew what to do - be responsive (instead of being compulsive or reactive), mindfully.

3) Neuro-plasticity

It is quite a remarkable thing that a person can change the neuronal circuits in the brain merely through a different mental/physical response. This phenomenon of changeability of neuronal circuits in the brain is known as neuro-plasticity. Neuro-plasticity is supposed to be at its peak during childhood(where the brain is very mouldable and adaptable). This ability does continue with age (although to a lesser degree).

I was reading a book on The mind and the brain: Neuroplasiticity and the power of mental force by Jefferey M. Schwartz and Sharon Begley. The detailed description of what happens in a OCD patient as given in the book is fascinating. I can put together what I experienced with what happens chemically in the brain as described in the book for a better picture of what was going on with me.

Neuroplasticity as a concept is very fascinating as it puts the responsibility for a good life squarely on oneself(ones mind and brain). Don't like your life? - Change your brain by changing your actions and thoughts and voila, neuronal circuits change and you act more responsibly. Ofcourse these changes in actions and thoughts have to be made consistently, so that benign circuits are preferred over malign circuits. Are you very emotional and worried? Perhaps your amygdala is on overdrive or your basal gangila is on overdrive. Solution: Either drugs(with side-effects) or mindfulness meditation(also a host of other alternatives). The latter has no side effects and can help bring in neuronal circuits that are conducive for a more peaceful and clear mind.

4) Questions, questions and more questions!

A very fundamental question that arises (also asked in the book mentioned above) is this:

Is the mind different from the brain? This question arises easily in the case of OCD.

In the case of a mindful response, it was as if my mind was willing a different response to my obsessive thoughts that was followed up by the brain so that the brain was beginning to rewire accordingly. If the mind is indeed different from the brain - Where is the seat of the mind?

Is it a phenomenon of the brain - Is it a higher level abstraction of the brain functions? Or is it something that is fundamentally immaterial - not made up of matter. This is also a question of fundamental physics - String theory claims that the fundamental essence of matter is energy - Which is immaterial. So is mind some abstract form of energy that is immaterial. If so, can it function independently of the body-brain framework? If it can, then we can begin to ask questions on what happens to this mind after death? And thus, we enter a whole new realm that science hasn't dared to enter yet.

Overcoming Panic Attacks

CAUTION: This article contains some not so pleasant details. Use your discretion in reading it.

I vaguely knew what a panic attack was, when I had one back in 2007, August. Over the month of July, I had been worrying a lot about my future. Things were not working out well with my current advisor. I was looking at my options: Quit department, change department, change advisor same department, quit university, quit Phd. Different people were giving me different opinions and that was adding to my worries. My big worry was funding, will I get funded next year or not? This worry was literally eating me up.
It started as a pain in my chest region, I wasn't sure why that pain was there because I was healthy otherwise. But the pain seemed to be slowly growing over the month of July.
One fine night in August 2007, I was biking back from my department through the school to my home. At some point I became aware that I was becoming short of breath. I stopped riding, got off my bike and went to the side of the road. Then it happened.
My heart started beating fast and soon it was pounding hard in my body, I had hot shivers go through my body and I was having a hard time standing. It felt like I was having a heart attack.
I took a lot of deep breaths and sat down on the curb till I could muster courage to get up and ride the bike back home. That night I had two more panic attacks and it was worse.
I knew two things about what was going on:
a) Whenever it happened, I was short of breath,and I felt like I was heart attack. I reasoned that I was too young to have a heart attack.
b) As if it were not enough that I had a heart pounding hard in my chest, my mind also joined the game and started zipping between places at an insane speed.. Infact I thought that at that insane pace, my mind was going out of control, which could only mean that I was going insane!

Dark night of the soul
That night, through the panic attacks, I prayed beside my mind.. My mind was having its own gibberish thoughts at insane speed, but I was also able to use the mind in between to pray to God. God, what's going on, what's happening.. My heart is pounding, I feel like I am going insane, help me. Please help me...I was totally frightened and overwhelmed by all the drama happening within my body and mind. It is the most frightening and intense experience I have ever had in my life.
From my senior high school years (when I started practicing Shavasana), I knew that the mind-body connect was definitely real. Relax the mind, and that relaxes the body and conversely; relax the body and the mind will become more relaxed too.
At this point at 3 am in the morning, once my panic attack subsided, I had only one option:
Do as many rounds of Shavasana as possible to fully relax the body and hope that the mind would calm down enough for a night's sleep.
I had trouble going through the Shavasana suggestions, since you need to atleast be able to focus the mind and say, 'Relax toe', but my mind was just zapping away carrying me with it.
I would try again and again.. Before I knew it, I would be at the toes again, working my way up.
Finally, after about an hour and many half-rounds of Shavasana, I was able to work my way from the toe to the head in one round.. This was an indication that my mind had calmed down..
I fell asleep while I was doing another of these relaxation rounds...

Daybreak and acceptance
I hardly managed three hours of sleep that night.. And I woke up many times during those 3 hours to observe my mind chattering away.. I had to figure out what was going on.
I googled my symptoms and lo and behold, I figured I was having panic attacks. Thank God, in this day and age, we live just one click away from instant answers.
I read that once you have a panic attack, it's very likely that you can have a few more, since you just need to get worried that you will have another panic attack and that will trigger one.
Panic attacks get perpetuated by panicking!! The way out? Stop panicking... Which is not at all easy, with a mind that goes out of control during panic attacks. I remember walking to Safeway that day, and there was this tall guy at the corner of the building, smoking weed and talking to himself. Looking at him brought out my fear of the insanity that I was going through the night and this set my heart pounding faster, because I was worrying about that!
I read about some strategies to reduce the risk of another panic attack.
The first thing I needed to do was cut out all of my conscious worrying that I did.
I had a copy of 'Conversations with God' by Neale Donald Walsch. I browsed through it and came across this phrase in the book, 'What you resist, persists'. I decided to adopt the attitude of 'acceptance'. Let me just accept my situation, however bad it may seem. Let me let go of my worries. Coupled with these perspectives, I relaxed my body as much as I could during the day, so that my night would be a little more peaceful.
The next night wasn't as intense but I still did have a panic attack. I did my Shavasana rounds and managed to catch some sleep.
That whole week, all I did during the day, was just walk around the campus, enjoy the scenery, relax, read a book, pray to God, and just accepting my situation and being grateful that I am alive: Things I had been postponing due to my worrying habit. And during the night, I relaxed my body as much as I could through Shavasanas.
Every night got better than the previous one.. My panic attacks stopped after 3 days, but I would still be short of breath and my heart would start racing all of a sudden frequently, but the thoughts in my mind started mellowing down, which was a great relief for me.
I continued my Shavasana routine every night for the next one month, and thankfully, I was able to put the Panic attacks behind me and get a new perspective on life: 'Nothing, really, nothing, is worth my peace of mind'.

A powerful relaxation technique: Shavasana

I. Introduction
My first exposure to yoga was in my fifth grade. I started going to yoga classes nearby in the morning. We first started with some basic stretching exercises.. Having warmed up, we sat down for breathing exercises including Anuloma-viloma, Bhastrika (Bellows breath), Kapalabhati (skull shining breath), etc. After that, we would do the Suryanamaskar(Salutations to the Sun exercises) and then take it easy for a while before getting onto asanas(Yogic postures). Towards the end of the asanas routine, we would do the shavasana or corpse-posture.
The idea is to make the body go limp or flaccid just like a corpse. Shavasana is one of the most peaceful relaxation techniques I have come across.
After a while, I stopped going to Yoga classes.
I was reintroduced to Shavasana when I was in my 10th grade by my maternal uncle, when I was prone to getting tense often. This technique helped me keep calm during those stressful years, where I had to focus well on my studies to get into a good college.

II. Shavasana Technique
Here's the technique I use(usually before going to sleep):

1) Lie down on your back or to your side (whichever is comfortable), preferably on a firm or not-very-elastic surface.
2) Close your eyes. Now, mentally relax each part of the body beginning at the feet and ending at the top of the body. The relaxation happens through suggestions in your mind to relax a part of the body. Once you practice this technique a few times, you can realize the relaxation that happens by this auto-suggestive process very tangibly.

Details
Below, I give the exact details of how I go about doing my auto-suggestion for relaxation:
I begin with the right leg, then my left leg, then my upper body, then my neck, face and finally the head.
I try to go into as much detail(body parts) as possible. Here are the details:
i) Right leg:
a) I repeat in my mind, 'Relax the toes' and feel the toes becoming lax.
b) 'Relax the ankle joint' and feel the area around the ankle joint relax.
c) 'Relax the calf muscles' and feel it relaxing.
d) 'Relax the knee joint'.
e) 'Relax the right thigh muscles'.
f) 'Relax the right quadriceps'.

Similarly, I relax the different parts of my left leg.

ii) Groin through upper body:
a) 'Relax the groin'
b) 'Relax the small intestine'
c) 'Relax the large intestine'
d) 'Relax the pancreas'
e) 'Relax the liver, lungs'
f) 'Relax the heart'. The heart has four chambers. I go into those details too:
'Relax the left auricle', 'Relax the left ventricle', 'Relax the right auricle', 'Relax the right ventricle'.
g) 'Relax the bronchial tubes or the wind pipe'
h) 'Relax the esophagus or the food pipe'.
i) 'Relax the throat - Relax the larynx and the pharynx (voicebox)'.
j)'Relax the teeth and tounge'.

iii) Neck through top of the head
a) 'Relax the neck,cheeks'
b)'Relax the eyes, ears, eyebrows(!),forehead,nostrils,nose,ears'
c)'Relax the brain - Right and left hemispheres. Relax the cerebrum,cerebellum and medulla'.
d) Relax the skull.

This is one round of Shavasana for me. You can see just by looking at the details above, there are a lot of places to relax the body, a lot of places where small pockets of tension could be released just by imagining and suggesting that it be relaxed. By the end of one round of Shavasana, I am significantly more relaxed than before.
I use this technique on a day to day basis to get my body fully relaxed before going to sleep every night.
I have also used this method to effect in many situations and periods of my life to great effect.
This technique has been a saving grace to me through panic attacks(that I had for about a week in 2007) and Obsessive compulsive disorder( that I had during my highschool/college days,though I actually overcame OCD through mindfulness meditation).

Ofcourse, you don't need to have panic attacks and OCDs to realize the benefits of Shavasana.
The average person these days gets stressed out often. To realize that stress is an intrinsic mechanism and isn't strongly related to circumstances is a powerful thing to know. That you can be at peace irrespective of where you are, what situation you are in is a powerful thing to know.
Shavasana is one step towards that knowing. It can get your body relaxed quickly with practice.

It's been a year... Part I

Since I began meditating. Lot of changes have happened within me. What I mean by that is, there have been changes in my attitude towards life, the way I respond in any given situation, the way I compose myself, etc. Meditation helps you identify patterns that you indulge in unconsciously or subconsciously. It's been 3 incredible years I have had in Seattle....This post will also double up as a flash back of relevant periods of my life!

Fight or flight
I read recently in the book, 'Surprised by Grace', by Amber Terrell on how we indulge in the 'fight or flight' pattern. What this means is, given any situation, if the situation is perceived to be unfavorable by some yardstick that is unique to every individual, then there is a tendency to either fight the situation or run away from the situation.
What else could you do, you ask? Well, you could become 'comfortable' with the uncomfortablness!
Really, that's what meditation has put me in touch with: becoming comfortable with the 'uncomfortable', the 'unacceptable', the 'oh no - not again', the 'never agains', etc.

OCD and Meditation
Infact, I suffered from a chemical imbalance 9 years back and the disease was called, 'Obsessive Compulsive disorder' (OCD), although this wasn't the repetitive action thing.. It was a repetitive thought thing. In the common form of OCD, people tend to repeat actions, like washing hands 20 times to make sure it's clean or checking if the door is closed 10 times before leaving the house etc. In the OCD I had, I would get repetitive thoughts of a particular kind. These thoughts I absolutely detested and wanted them out of my mind.. But they would come anyway uninvited and not once a day, or once an hour, they would remind me of their presence every minute.
Sleep was my only respite from these thoughts. I constantly prayed to god at that time.. please relieve me of these thoughts that trouble me, please help me become comfortable with myself.
You see, it was all about becoming comfortable with the uncomfortable, the unacceptable.
In 2003, my 2nd year of my undergrad program, I attended a 3 day workshop by Swami Sukhbodhanada, where I learnt a few meditation techniques (Read about that here). Until then I had been on medication: I was using a drug called fludac and it was supposed to calm the mind. But in hindsight, I think the drug wouldn't have done me a whole lot of good if I had continued with it. I stopped using this drug after I learnt the meditation.
Infact, when I did the observation meditation, I attempted at becoming comfortable with the unacceptable, detestable thought. That was the beginning of my recovery from this dis-ease.
I practiced that meditation for sometime, and then I discontinued it once I took up running, another excellent way to get in touch with your self and come out of depression... (I had small bouts of depression too during that period). I also practiced a relaxation technique called Shavasana every day, which was very effective in keeping my body relaxed.
From then on, my life took a change. Really, sometimes I just couldn't bear the thoughts I had, it was because I had a strong hatred for those thoughts from my childhood. Sometimes I thought, I would go insane. But it didn't happen, infact now I see the dis-ease as my training ground.
Through the OCD experience, I learnt how strong I am, mentally strong that is and I also learnt that constant hatred can set you up for an experience like I had, where you learn to be at peace with anything and everything, no matter how unacceptable it may be.
It' s not that you favor the unacceptable, it's just that you don't pay attention to it. And you do that by first making peace with it, and second, by letting it go.

Coming back..
That was a brief flashback! Yes, well, OCD was my first ginormous life-challenge that I overcame successfully. My second set of life-changing experiences began when I landed in Seattle to pursue my Phd program. More on this Part II of this post..!

Meditation, I find is fundamental to my life.. It's the reason, I overcame the OCD, it's what has kept me stable during periods of instability(see part II of this post). My gratitude abound for meditation being a part of my life today.

Feeling sleepy while meditating

A visitor friend to this blog, Mitra, commented in the previous blog that a meditation which leads to sleep wouldn't be a right way of meditating. I pondered on it and here are my thoughts on when I actually fall asleep while meditating:

1) If you go back to my first formal experiment on meditation in February 2008, in most of these meditations, I was falling asleep. I didn't know why that was happening then.. now I do. I was sleeping 4-5 hrs a day during that period during the week and around 10 hrs a day during the weekend.
The lack of sleep was intensified when I meditated.
So here's my intuition or insight on falling asleep during meditation: If you are very tired or have a sleep deficit (i.e. not having slept properly during the past few days), then when you meditate, you would tend to fall asleep almost immediately.
This is good, it is a sign from your body, that you need to give it the adequate rest, which for some reason, you have been evading.

2) Today morning for example, I woke up refreshed and when I meditated for 25 minutes, I felt relaxed and alert, no hints of drowsiness. Ofcourse, I didn't just jump to meditation, I did my usual morning rituals and got down to meditation.

3) Meditation can be used as an aid to fall asleep if for some reason, sleep evades you. I had some problems falling asleep during the time I began meditating (Feb - March 2008), so meditating in the night helped me fall asleep quicker.
Another aid to fall asleep is deep relaxation/shavasana. Shavasana or corpse posture in yoga is usually performed towards the end of a yoga session to relax and refresh the body.
This blog has some nice relaxation/meditation techniques including the shavasana technique.
A good article on staying awake during meditation.

Establishing a meditation routine
A good online course on meditation, which I subscribed to through email is Jeanie Marshall's Meditate now course. This course helped me establish a daily meditation routine. The meditation technique in this course is based on focusing on your breath, also known as ana-pana-sati, a buddhist meditation technique. So if you are reading this line and are interested in meditation, my suggestion would be to jump right ahead and subscribe to this course; it is free and will give you a taste of meditation.

Wonderful interview with Tulku Thondup 'plus' some reflection

Read it here.
I just ordered the book, "Boundless healing" by Tulku Thondup. I was in the university bookstore browsing through books, when I came across the book. I leafed through the chapters and liked the clear, succinct messages and meditation exercises.

Going beyond reading
Now, the important thing about buying spiritual books, I have realized, is to not just buy them and read 'em up like a paperback novel. Ofcourse, you will be doing that in the beginning, when you get on to this thing called the 'spiritual journey'. Once, you get the basic idea behind what this 'spiritual journey' is all about, it's time for action. It's time to stop bragging to yourself or others about the books you read, and actually implement the principles and the broader perspective you gain through these books into your life and see if there is truth to these meditations and if you feel more peaceful, etc.
I have been meditating regularly since July 11th 2008. Missed only a day or two so far.
Have I become enlightened? He he, that's a funny question.
Well, my understanding is that enlightenment is a process. It's not about getting there and it's all over. No, it's never over. But it get's better and better and better. More peace, more joy, more happiness, one little footprint at a time.

Effects of meditation
So how has my life changed since I began meditating? Again, a funny question. Not much externally. I am still doing research, being a geeky grad student, making two ends meet (well fortunately it does meet comfortably). It's not about what has changed externally, it's about what is changing within me. It's a subtle process, it's so subtle that you don't notice it.. Unless you do. I place a lot of emphasis these days on thought, word and deed. Because, I have come to believe, that what I think, say and act upon ultimately creates my reality, irrespective of how bleak it is out there, irrespective of what others say or think I am capable of, irrespective of.. well.. the list goes on. Note, that this thought-belief-creation paradigm is still a belief, albeit a strong one, in me.
Here's an interesting statement:
Whether or not you believe that your thoughts, speech and actions create your reality, that is whether or not you believe in this thought-belief-creation paradigm, you are right.
Because if you don't believe that your thoughts create your reality, you will see your life that way. You will think that, what the heck, I don't control my life, I just do damage-control all the time life throws the kitchen sink at me.. and you will be right... Because that's what you believe in.
So, there is no escaping this thought that your thoughts, your beliefs, your actions influence your future.

Ofcourse, you can't just explain away your life saying that: I brought on the bad experiences I had in my life, because I didn't take control of my life. Here's where, the bigger picture kicks in:
Certain experiences, especially the "bad ones", act as catalysts for change and therefore are supposed to be part of the "master plan". They force you to examine yourself, to take a deep look at yourself, and ask, what went wrong? Is this who I really am? And then you come to a new understanding of who you really are!!!

Who am I? - The fundamental question
This question, "Who am I?" is the most fundamental question you can ever ask yourself.
Some people might respond, 'what kind of a question is this? I am 'fill in your name'''.
Do you realize that your name is just a label. Now moving beyond, people would say I am my body. Some would say, I am just a bunch of atoms. Really? Do you think of yourself that way?
Because, I think that really forces you to examine how the bunch of atoms that make you up is gelled up together, so to speak, and does not fall apart.
Some say I am my mind. Some say, I am the mind-body complex.
Let's look at what the ancient texts have to say:

1) According to the vedas, we are not just made up of one body, but sheaths of bodies:
The physical body, the energy body, the mental body, the intellectual body, the causal body, and then comes the soul, the real you!
Wow, so if that's true, where is my energy body, I can't perceive it!.. That's a good statement.
Seeing is believing, right. Well, it depends on whether you can see properly or not!
One of the effects of meditation is that I am able to sense energy around me.

Sensing energy
For example, when I sit down to meditate, I sit in the traditional lotus posture (padmasana)
and I curl up the index finger so that it's tip touches the tip of the thumb on both the hands. Two months into the meditation, I could sense energy pulsing in and out of the tip of the index and thumb fingers when I sat down to meditate.
Also, I have had involuntary body movement during some of my meditations.
[Clearly to me, I wasn't causing it. Because, if I stopped the body movement, it would begin again - involuntarily.
I wasn't sick during that time, ofcourse I was having a lot going on in my mind, but no indications of any disease, physical or otherwise. During those early periods of my meditation practice, whenever I sat down to meditate, a gentle 'ticking' would begin at the base of my spine and gradually expand throughout my whole body so that I would be swaying rhythmically within a minute.]

Other small things I notice is that, when I bring my palms together, facing each other, and with 5 inch gap (or any small gap) between the plams, I can sense energy exchange between the two palms. Now, what the heck is this energy exchange? When I move the hands apart, I feel as if something is tearing apart as if a rubber sheet was being stretched apart and when I bring the hands together I feel a pull again. It's a subtle sensation but very distinct. So, again, this is another example of what I mean by sensing energy.
Is this energy I am sensing, a part of the energy body? I don't know, but I believe so. You can't escape belief. You investigate a little, you believe a little. You believe a little, you get more clues and that's the game I am playing here.

Another experience, I frequently have these days, especially when I do visualization meditations or healing meditations (I visualize that I am bathed by healing light that permeates my energy body - oh yeah, putting theory into practice) is that:
I sense tingling sensations or crawling sensations on my head and sometimes on my forehead too.. but mostly on the top of my head. It might be because I have a lot of dandruff in my hair (!!), but why does the tingling have to happen only when I meditate and especially when I visualize healing light permeating my energy body?

Life after death
If it's true that we are made up of more than one body, what happens after death. Here's the kicker: Only the physical body dies, the other bodies continue to another plane of existence. What does this mean? It means that you, as you know yourself to be, your identity, as you think yourself to be, continues to exist beyond death.
Again, this is a belief, but near-death experiences kind of confirm this phenomenon of life after death.
Isn't it amazing to know and believe, that life exists after death, not as a mere fantasy of our imagination to alleviate the suffering that surrounds death, but as an actual reality, as real as I feel my fingers typing this sentence, if not, more real.

What do you fear?
What is the worst thing you can fear. Most will say death. Some say, they don't fear death, but the experience of dying itself. Oh common, how long are you going to be in this 'process of dying'. Ofcourse, if it's a terminal illness, which is a long process of getting to death, it's going to be painful...But again, it all depends on your perspective. If you firmly believe (with parts of your belief validated consistently by books and maybe your experiences too - out of body experience, for example) that life moves on after death :- you strip your physical body during death
just as you would strip down before you hit the sack, then you are actually releasing a heavyweight, your physical body and becoming lighter..and moving into light. He he, this is getting funny and I am getting light-headed...even more funny.

If you don't fear death, your worst fears are put to rest. Fear of losing a job, fear of losing a relationship, pale in comparison to the fear of death. But if you don't fear death, because of a deep understanding that you gain from reading spiritual books and also from meditation experiences (and/or some might add - salvia divinorum), your whole perspective towards death changes: There's no more deep mourning at funerals, atleast for you, since you understand that this guy who is dead is not really dead and is actually quite happier and lighter with the burden (physical body) that he has shed and you might actually want to celebrate death. And, the wonderful interview above, talks about the importance of understanding in a little more detail, this wonderful death - because it is supposed to be a wonderful experience.

Some books on death:
1) Home with God by Neale Donald Walsch - A clean spiritual book with ground-breaking ideas on death.
2) Heart links by Louise Platt Hauck - A nice book of real life (or death stories) on communicating with the dead or shall we say, 'not so dead'. Ha ha.
3) Buddhist texts - Tibetan book of the dead (I have not read this book).
4) Vedas and upanishads - Not on death per se but throw a lot of light on the ultimate question - "Who am I?" which, amazingly is consistent with all the spiritual literature I have come across on the question of human identity.

Near death experiences

Some cool stories:

1) Beyond the veil
2) Into the void

Two videos:

1) Youtube
2) Stroke of insight

30 day Meditation experiment day 9

2/6/2008

During weekdays, especially when I have classes in the morning like today, its difficult to plan for meditation in the morning. For me mornings are like, I wake up half hour before I catch my bus and have just enough time to shower and brush.
I have 1hr pockets of free time spread out during the day.So today I was flexible about where I meditate. I headed out to the library, found a nice secluded spot and meditated while sitting on the chair.

Duration: I timed my stop watch for 30 minutes, but I felt intensely sleepy after 15 minutes. So I had to cut short my meditation at that point.

Sleep: I managed 5.5 hrs of continuous sleep yesterday with a total duration of 8 hrs (I woke up and slept again).

Miscellaneous:I should mention that I am using a very powerful relaxation technique before I go to sleep every night. It's based on a yoga-asana called "shavasana" or corpse posture.
As can be inferred from the name, in this technique the body becomes completely limp like a corpse and you feel very relaxed since most of the muscles are relaxed.
Note that in shavasana, you can be much more relaxed than when you sleep because in sleep the body changes position quite often leaving pockets of tension in the body at any given time, while in shavasana, you consciously ensure that you have relaxed every or almost every part of your body. Also, there is a total lack of noticeable movement in the body (except for maybe the blinking of the eye) while you are into shavasana.

You can know more about this relaxation technique here. Trust me, it's easy to do and gives you a deep sense of relaxation. Ideally done half-hour before you go to sleep or when you need to take a stress-release break.

30 day Meditation experiment day 8

2/5/2008

Duration: 5 minutes. Basically I was tired at the end of the day and hence fell really sleepy after 5 minutes into the meditation. So I had to shift from a lotus position to lying down on the floor till I was refreshed again.
It seems like the best time to have an enjoyable meditation session is right after I wake up or sometime in the morning.

30 day Meditation experiment day 7

2/4/2008

Today's session was like a long run. Long run in distance running is a training run where you run longer than usual but take it easy on the pace. (Ofcourse there's no real equivalent to pace in meditation. A close equivalent would be slowing down of the sense of time and being in the now. ;))

Duration: I set my stopwatch for 29 minutes. But after it beeped, I felt like going for another 15 minutes. Only problem was that my right leg was becoming numb in the half-lotus position I was sitting in.
I continued for another 8 minutes before I thought I was done for today.

The first 15 minutes or so, I was trying to come to terms with a few things and hence I wasn't exactly slowing down my mind. But in the latter half, my mind settled down and it was kind of peaceful till the end.

I really am looking forward to my meditation sessions these days. Partly because I find that my meditation sessions are getting better in quality and also because I have come so far (7 days) without a break. If there is one thing I have had a problem with in life, it's consistency. Consistency in work or hobbies (running), etc. But 7 days equals a week and that's good unless it's not(this idiom is borrowed from one of the many books by Neale Donald Walsch titled "Conversations with God" - A really interesting, intellectual and practical book series, but this would be for another blog post).

Meanwhile, I came across a nice blog that guides you in a very intuitive, straightforward and pedagogical way onto what meditation means, its significance and its practice and benefits.

30 day Meditation experiment day 6

2/3/2008

Summary: I didn't have a great meditative experience today.

Duration: I did meditation for 22 minutes after bath following suit on yesterday's meditation.

The first 10 minutes felt decent, I mean there were a few thoughts doing the rounds in my mind but it was as peaceful as yesterday. My upper body started rocking back and forth like yesterday but it wasn't as intense and frequent as yesterday. The last 10 minutes of the meditation, my thoughts were going places. So I decided to cut short the meditation at around 22 minutes though I had timed my stopwatch for 25 minutes.
Everyday brings a different meditative experience like life.

I did the meditation in the morning. In the evening, I went out for a 1 mile run that lasted 8.5 minutes. I have to see how these two practices (running and meditation) can be kept up simultaneously and regulary. Regular is a key word here, since any practice would be most beneficial when done in regular intervals.

Diet
I had bread and jam for breakfast, fruits and cookies for lunch!, and some mixed vegetable rice (spicy(note - spicy doesn't necessarily mean hot, some of you Americans have got it all wrong) and tasty food) for dinner. I would probably have some cereals for supper. I guess I have to improve on my diet, especially the breakfast.

Sleep: Yesterday I managed 3 hrs of continuous sleep and then I woke up every 1.5 hrs till I got up after 8 hrs of sleep. Sleeping has been a problem for me since the last 2 months and that's one thing that should change with this experiment.

30 day Meditation experiment day 4

2/1/2008

Today I came across a few excellent articles on meditation. It's a great pleasure to know that there are articles that address the difficulties I am facing during meditation - feeling sleepy halfway, mind not calming down, etc.
Anyway, here are the articles: Meditation FAQ,
Meditation II

Today's Time: 6:20 pm - 6:40 pm

I felt sleepy after 10 minutes. Waves of sleep hit me as I meditated. Imagine, waves at a beach hitting your legs as you stand in the sand. It disturbs your stability right, it literally rocks your frame. That's what happens when the waves of sleep hit me. I just rock back and forth in the action of resisting sleep. During the 20 minutes on the whole, the mental activity slowed down a bit, but not too much. It's important not to have expectations during meditation because
expectations ----> Thoughts related to the expectation --------> Increased mental activity.

After meditation, I did some Pranayama (Anuloma/viloma - Breathing in and out) and then got up. This seems similar to warming down/cooling down after running (I am a runner remember, so running analogies r there).

After I got up from my half-lotus posture to sit on my desk, I suddenly noticed that my back was straighter than before and it felt good. So here's an immediate benefit:
Meditation sets your posture right while sitting in a chair.

I am signing off here today and looking forward to tomorrow's meditation.

30 day Meditation experiment day 3

1/31/2008

Today I meditated from 8:00 to 8:10 pm. I had to catch a bus to go the department in 10 minutes so I cut the meditation short. I wasn't having the waves of sleepiness I had yesterday, but I felt rested during the last 5 minutes. It's too early to decide the effects of meditation at this stage.
I am a beginner in meditation but I have had tried unsuccessfully to establish a meditation routine before.
This is the main reason why I am blogging my meditation experience: So that I keep up my practice under the public eye :D

Let's see how tomorrow goes. Btw, I am also a runner, I haven't run in a week, so I have to see if I can run this weekend. I don't think running will take time away from meditation as I can always meditate before I wish to sleep and generally that will make me sleepier and hence I can easily fall asleep.

30 day Meditation experiment day 2

Date: 1/30/2008

Method: Today I was too impatient with the auto-suggestive relaxation technique and went ahead with observation meditation at 5:30 pm. Five minutes in, I was feeling very very sleepy, it was like every 15 seconds a wave of sleep was hitting me. After a minute of the sleep waves, I just laid down on the ground. I relaxed deeply and observed my mind and the thoughts for about 20 minutes (its easier to lie down and meditate than sit down and meditate since sitting down you got to keep your position erect). It felt good at the end and strangely I didn't catch any sleep though I felt very passive and sedentary.

Sleep: Yesterday I slept for 6.5 hrs though I intended to sleep only for 5 hrs since I had an assignment due today. The quality of sleep wasn't any different - Many dreams in the sleep.
I generally sleep between 1 am to 8 am.

Diet: I have been on the same diet for the past two weeks: Bread and jam morning, veggie delite sub from subway for lunch, a litre of juice in the evening with some bananas and cereals/chappatis during the night.

30 day Meditation experiment

In this blog series, I will document the effects (mostly qualitative) of a meditation experiment on my physical and mental well-being. I will also document the duration and quality of sleep on each day.

The meditation technique I am using consists of two parts:

a) Auto-suggestive relaxation : This is a relaxation technique where one relaxes every organ of the body by mentally focusing on the organs of the body and relaxing them. One needs to try this technique out to understand how it works.
b) Observation meditation: In this meditation, no mantra is used, actually nothing needs to be done. All I do is observe my thoughts non-judgementally and accept them irrespective of how good or bad they seem. I also don't participate with the thoughts. I just act as external observer.

Posture: I usually sit in padmasana (lotus posture) with spine erect. I sit on the ground on top of a folded sleeping bag.

Duration: For this experiment I will start with a duration of around 15 minutes and go upto 30 - 45 minutes by the end of 30 days. The duration for most part on any given day would depend on how long I am comfortable with the meditation. This duration, I have noticed, increases as one meditates regularly.

Time: I am a graduate student with loaded course work, so right now I am flexible with when I meditate. But if possible, I would like to do it at a particular time during the day, preferrably after waking up in the morning.


Miscellaneous:
I am also a runner, so that is already a beneficial thing as far as physical/mental well-being is concerned. Ideally, meditation effects are studied by having a placebo group and a treatment group with similar characterisitcs. In this case, the sample size is 1, that is me!!

Diet: I am a vegetarian and include a lot of fruits, vegetables and bread in my diet.

Last but not the least,

Why Meditation?
For me life in the recent 1.5 years has been a total roller coaster. As mentioned in my 'about me', I am a Phd student in Transportation Engineering and I came to the US in 2006 with great expectations (not the book :D). I was really into research the last 6 months before coming here and I expected my research in a US university to match up equally to what I had done in India. Sadly, my expectations were dashed since I landed an inexperienced advisor with whom I didn't have great relations from the beginning. I was bossed around ocassionally and didn't like it (ofcourse the university is a really great resource in terms of books and people, just that having an amicable relationship with your advisor goes a long way towards productive research). Unfortunately I didn't think rationally about my other options. During this ensuing period which has lasted 1 year, I have had a lot of depressive periods and lots of experiences, so much so that I am no longer the person I was 1.5 years back. Back then I had a lot of expectations of the world, but now I am learning and possibly relearning the truth, "Having no expectations on people's behavior or life in general" would lead to very enjoyable or atleast more peaceful life. There's another truth that I am comprehending currently, "Nothing matters". That's right. The second truth follows from the first truth. When you have no expectations on people or events, you are ready to accept whatever life brings you, and hence nothing matters.

All this history is great you say, but why meditation specifically? Well, I have
learnt meditation in India during a spiritual workshop not unlike the many workshops that happen in US on a regular basis. The workshop was expensive but it gave me many important relaxation and spiritual exploration tools: a) Pranayama (breathing techniques) b) Different meditation techniques.
I am using one of these meditative techniques in my meditation experiment.
And these meditation techniques are purported to bring about a much needed balance to people(I am one of those people) who take a lot of stress. And I am not just stating this as an axiom, that's one of the purposes of this blog series isn't it: To answer the following questions:

a)Do these meditation techniques actually enhance the quality of life (we are not talking about material riches here although that could be considered a side-effect or side-benefit) - physically, intellectually, mentally and spiritually? Now what do we mean by spiritually here - Spirituality has to do with discovering one's true self and it is said that becoming more spiritual is consistent with an enhanced quality of life - an equanimous state of mind or reduction in mental noise, which is a product of the wandering and untamed mind, clarity in thinking and decision making, etc - You can put all the benefits of personal development into this category.
b) What experiences come about through meditation(Read here to know about my upper body movement experience during meditation) ?
c) How does the quality of sleep change with meditation? The last 2 months I haven't had a single night were I could say I slept deeply and soundly. Hopefully, this should change through this experiment.
d) How do the different meditation techniques compare with each other in their effectiveness? The current meditation technique I am using for the experiment is the "Observation Meditation Technique" described above.
Other meditation techniques I learnt at the workshop in India are:

Gap meditation:
In this technique one observes the gaps between thoughts and tries to increase the gap. So if I observe that on an average a thought pings my mind every second, I try to reduce this frequency or in other words, I increase the duration of the gap between thoughts and in effect aim towards a mental state with very few thoughts.

Ana pana sathi or observing your breath
This meditation technique is very popular among beginners in meditation. All one has to do in this technique is to observe the movement of breath. As the air moves in and out of your nostrils, you observe its flow and forget about the mind and its wanderings for the time being. The theory here is that, every state of mind has a corresponding state of breath. For instance: When you are angry or frustrated, notice your breath; you would be breathing in short, quick bursts. On the other hand, when you are really relaxed and peaceful, you would be breathing in deep and slow.

So I guess I have given enough background into the significance of this experiment atleast for myself (and hopefully for you guys too); now with the grace of the supreme being(Brahman, Tao, chi, or any personal diety) I hope this experiment turns out to be a personal success and of benefit to the readers of this blog.

First impressions - "Spontaneous healing"

First impressions hereon will be a blog that would give my first impressions on any book I am reading/have read.

I came across the book "Spontaneous Healing" at Twice sold Tales, a second hand bookshop in Seattle. The first three chapters were gripping and discussed the importance of belief and faith in healing.
The book describes the author's journey for alternative medicinal practices that serve to treat the root cause of a disease rather than the sometimes superficial symptoms shown by a patient.
A wonderful account of the healings through "Osteopathy" is described. The medicinal benefits of herbal plants such as Gingko Bilaba and Bloody root are also given through many testimonials. The author mentions that testimonials are usually dismissed by the so-called modern allopathists because endorsing them could get them into trouble. But the author takes pains to explain that his exploration of the truth behind these testimonials have helped many of his patients (For instance, Bloody root being very helpful for benign/malignant moles that develop on skins).
Most of the case-studies presented are spontaneous remissions in cancer affected patients. This is something also discussed by Deepak Chopra in his book "Quantum Healing". Review of this book in a later blog.
The theme in both these books is that there are many cancer cases that are dismissed by doctors as untreatable, that is the cancer has become so deep-rooted in the organs of the patient's body that nothing short of a miracle can heal the patient. The books go onto say that when these miracles do happen, doctors dismiss them as rare cases. The two books emphasize that these so-called miraculous cases need to be investigated thoroughly because modern allopathic medicine fails to include one important component that is the basis of many alternative medicinal systems - Faith and belief of the patient in a cure and the body's ability to heal itself.