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Clay

I have a legitimate introduction coming your way. Before I get to that, I hope you’ll to watch the vomit-inducing video below, produced by The Secret’s author.

Highlights from the Video: “I am a money magnet” “Everything I touch turns to gold” “I have more riches than King Solomon’s mines” “Money falls like an avalanche over me” “There is more money being printed for me right now” “I have the best of everything” “I know that when I ask for what I want, no matter what it is that I want, the answer must be, “your wish is my command.”

OK, done? Cool. We’ll be getting back to this video later. In the meantime, let’s talk about how . . .

Goals Can be Our Worst Enemies

You know how it goes. Back in the day you were excited about your goal.

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photo by Krelic

You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.
–Morpheus in “The Matrix”

In the cyberpunk classic, The Matrix, protagonist Neo lives in a simulated reality created — by machines — to subdue and pacify humans. At one point, the film’s central character, Neo, is given the opportunity to take either a blue pill or a red pill. If Neo takes the blue pill, his life goes on as before. But if he takes the red pill, his eyes open up to the false reality that is The Matrix and he becomes exposed to the parallel universe that’s been his entire known existence.

Because of advertisements, political spin, cultural peer pressure, biased dogma, and even some of our own outdated biological instincts, we all live to at least some extent with one foot in a false reality. The decision to take the metaphorical blue pill (blissful ignorance), or red pill (the truth, no matter how painful it may be), isn’t as cut and dry for us as it was for Neo. The red/blue pill analogy, however, is still an important one that represents a key decision we continually face: do we live according to unquestioned patterns and modes of existence, or do we continually press for the truth, no matter how damaging it might be to our ego, to our nest eggs, and our social status?

The truth is that truth is the only path down which long-term and durable solutions to personal and societal problems can be solved. Here are 7 practices meant to aid you in continually taking the metaphorical red pill:

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Attentional Feng Shui is the practice of purposefully and beneficially architecting the attentional landscape of a room to emphasize your priorities. The how-to section is at the very end, and you’re welcome to skip directly to it. In the mean time, let’s talk about…

False Dichotomies

In a self-help climate that favors the mind over the body, the non-physical over the physical, and heaven over earth, it can be easy to forget that physical environments have a very real affect on us. And they should. While The Secret tells us that “thoughts become things,” it is also true that “things become thoughts.” And whereas the Emerald Tablet is often quoted as saying “as above, so below,” authors too often neglect the tablet’s follow-up: “as below, so above.”

People are quick to point out that our environments are products of our creation, and that we should look past external circumstances. They are right, of course, but this is only a partial truth that ignores the dynamic interchange between physical and non-physical realms. The influence and casualty runs in both directions (from physical to non-physical, and vice-versa) and I’m glad it does.

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Answers by Rudy Rauben (see here for more info); edited by Clay Collins.

[Editor’s Note: There’s some controversy in the comments about the “No Gurus and No B.S.” statement. For more information about our position, see this comment, and this comment below].

About This Guide

Rudy is a good friend of mine who’s been actively meditating for over 20 years. This guide sprang forth from a series of questions I’ve asked him over the course of several months, which is why we’ve kept the Q & A format.  In one case, my question and Rudy’s answer have been placed, verbatim, in the guide.  In most cases, however, clusters of answers have been aggregated, spliced together, etc., and questions have been written to address certain themes that arose during our discussions.  This guide represents less than a 10th of the edited material culled from our conversations.

Index of questions addressed in this guide:

1. Why meditate?
2. Is meditation relevant to the mind like water?
3. How much time should be devoted to a regular meditation practice?
4. What are the first steps if you’re new to meditation?
5. How much importance should a beginner place on diaphragmatic breathing?
6. Too much focus on breathing as a source of stress?
7. Should meditation take on a course of its own, or should it remain a focus on breath?
8. Should meditation be used to focus on goals?
9. Should concentration aids like candles, mantras, etc. be used?
10. Should beginners use a timer?
11. What’s an ideal space for meditation?
12. What are some of the common mistakes made by beginners?
13. Are there any particularly good books on meditation?
14. Steps to take after reading this guide.

1. Let’s start out with a basic question. Why meditate?

The simplest answer would be to gain clarity, peace of mind, health and personal development, but I’m not sure these answers necessarily explain a whole lot in and of themselves. We need to discuss what inhibits clarity and what brings discord to our minds, and what promotes well-being.

We begin meditating by learning to "still" our minds, so our thoughts don’t just run amok. Overly rambunctious thoughts cause a lot more stress, tension and deluding impulses than most people commonly realize; and this in turn has a deleterious effect on mental as well as physical health.

The process of calming the mind and allowing our thoughts to settle out is commonly referred to as "centering." We want to be able to consciously "center" ourselves at will, especially in circumstances when we find mental agitations, erroneous preconceptions, stress or volatile emotions beginning to mount­– influences that interfere with a clear awareness and realistic understanding of the circumstances we find ourselves in. In light of this, meditation is a training program whose purpose is to recognize the way we comport ourselves "internally" (psychologically, emotionally, creatively). In the service of this "tuning the breath" is a very helpful technique. Read the rest of this entry »