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Back to Basics with Meditation
Going back to basics with meditation.
Now with this, we will just go to the basics of the basics, the place where everyone must start from. Meditation.
Many of you already do it, so this is more like a reminder ;).
Meditation is a mental discipline by which one attempts to get beyond the reflexive, "thinking" mind into a deeper state of relaxation or awareness.
Meditation often involves turning attention to a single point of reference.
It is a component of many religions, and has been practiced since antiquity.
It is also practiced outside religious traditions.
Different meditative disciplines encompass a wide range of spiritual or psychophysical practices that may emphasize different goals??From achievement of a higher state of consciousness,
to greater focus,
creativity or self-awareness,
or simply a more relaxed and peaceful frame of mind.
How to mediate
With the hectic pace and demands of modern life, many people feel stressed and over-worked.
It often feels like there is just not enough time in the day to get everything done.
Our stress and tiredness make us unhappy, impatient and frustrated.
It can even affect our health.
We are often so busy we feel there is no time to stop and meditate!
But meditation actually gives you more time by making your mind calmer and more focused.
A simple ten or fifteen minute breathing meditation as explained below can help you to overcome your stress and find some inner peace and balance.
Introduction
Meditation is a mind-body practice...
There are many types of meditation,
most of which originated in ancient religious and spiritual traditions.
Generally, a person who is meditating uses certain techniques, such as a specific posture, focused attention, and an open attitude toward distractions.
Meditation may be practiced for many reasons, such as to increase calmness and physical relaxation, to improve psychological balance, to cope with illness, or to enhance overall wellness.
The term meditation refers to a group of techniques, such as mantra meditation, relaxation response, mindfulness meditation, and Zen Buddhist meditation.
Most meditative techniques started in Eastern religious or spiritual traditions.
These techniques have been used by many different cultures throughout the world for thousands of years.
Today, many people use meditation outside of its traditional religious or cultural settings, for health and wellness purposes.
In meditation, a person learns to focus attention.
Some forms of meditation instruct the practitioner to become mindful of thoughts, feelings, and sensations and to observe them in a nonjudgmental way.
This practice is believed to result in a state of greater calmness and physical relaxation, and psychological balance.
Practicing meditation can change how a person relates to the flow of emotions and thoughts in the mind.
Most types of meditation have four elements in common:
?? A quiet location. Meditation is usually practiced in a quiet place with as few distractions as possible. This can be particularly helpful for beginners.
?? A specific, comfortable posture. Depending on the type being practiced, meditation can be done while sitting, lying down, standing, walking, or in other positions.
?? A focus of attention. Focusing one's attention is usually a part of meditation. For example, the meditator may focus on a mantra (a specially chosen word or set of words), an object, or the sensations of the breath. Some forms of meditation involve paying attention to whatever is the dominant content of consciousness.
?? An open attitude. Having an open attitude during meditation means letting distractions come and go naturally without judging them.
When the attention goes to distracting or wandering thoughts, they are not suppressed; instead, the meditator gently brings attention back to the focus.
In some types of meditation, the meditator learns to "observe" thoughts and emotions while meditating.
-High Priest Sofian.
Getting to Know Energy
By: Zea
Feb 01, 2011
Energy Flow is one the very basics of magic. More or less being because magic is the very changing and shifting or energy. That's all it is. Energy Flow is to practice controlling the flow of internal energy. Internal energy is simply the energy generated within your own body, which it is always flowing, and it is possible to control that flow. Working on energy flow helps exponentially when working with energy in general. First off you have your chakras, chakras generate energy, this energy rotates throughout your body, and in some places around your body (an example of this is aura). You must feel this flow before interfering with it, and once you do, you can consciously change its direction, magnitude, and attribute. This is the basics of energy manipulation.
Now, while spells are used as tools to direct energy, some people cut out the middle man and do it themselves. That is, instead of using spells, go to energy manipulation.
Energy manipulating is a common phrase used amongst this site's members, but few know enough about it to get very far. It is a practice that sometimes takes ages to become advanced to do anything some kids find ''worth while'' and the practice is immediately dropped.
You have to stick with it to get anywhere. Do not expect things to be handed to you on a silver platter.
Re: Grounding And Centering
By: Rashnu.
Apr 07, 2011
Grounding is where you put your energy into the Earth and take up neutral energy from the Earth back into your body. It can be done when you are feeling negative or sad, have "to much" energy (feels like an adrenaline rush) and after a spell to get rid of the energy you focused on gathering to perform it. The idea is that you are giving this energy to the Earth so she may neutralize it, and taking in her already neutral energy into yourself so you are feeling negative, full of energy, ect. It has a calming effect.
Centering is bringing yourself back into yourself. Think of a time when you were just all over the place mentally for whatever reason. Bad day, lots to think about, ect. You may have sat down to watch a TV show, read a book, listened to music, something you do when you just want to tune out. When you did that, you were bringing yourself, your ideas and your energy back into you instead of having them scattered. That's centering. It's bringing the energy you are using for whatever purpose, and drawing it back into your body to be "whole" again.
Re: Basics
By: User92821 (Sagesk)
Jun 28, 2010
Centering:
1. Picture an orb of energy in the center of your body
2. Do this as long as it takes for you to feel centered.
Grounding:
1. Plant your feet firmly on the ground
2. Picture the Centering orb.
3. Picture energy from the orb travelling down to your feet and developing roots that run deep
into Mother Earth
4. Keep going deeper, eventually you will hit water.
5. Use your roots to suck up the water, feel it filling you up
5. When it gets to your head feel it going up making branches like a tree
6. Feel these branches reaching all the way up to the sky
7. You have now connected with Mother Earth and Father Sky
Visualization
By: User56078 (imthebest)
Oct 28, 2009
OK, well I just made a wonderful discovery which I feel may help anyone who is trying to work on their visualization skills. I was just visualizing a couple nights ago about the future. And I realized that everyone is making it harder than it is. First of all, don’t look through your eyes but through your mind. I know that seems stupid and ridiculous. But I have currently found out that you are all great at visualization. Especially if you’re a guy. Now, I’m using this as an example and I know someone has already commented on how we guys are always putting this in the forums LOL. But you need to think. When you fantasise when you’re pleasuring yourself, which is exactly the same visualization. When you fantasise, you are visualizing. And when you get really into the fantasy, you could almost say it’s real and u can see it right in front of you. Now I was amazed when my inner self told me this. Because it’s true. And I know many who say they can’t visualize. But I bet you they can they just don’t realize they do it. And you do it all the time. Like during a boring class and you start to day dreaming. That’s visualization. And it’s even scarier to know that when I day dream, my eyes are open. But I can’t see through my eyes but through my mind. So when you visualize you need to pretend you’re blind. Whether your eyes are open or closed. And if you have trouble with the eyes open part. Just imagine you have no eyes. Do not look at something. Don’t look at all. Just let them relax and forget about whatever you see. Next time you start day dreaming or are fantasising. Take Note of where your eyes are directed whether there closed or not. And try to realize how you were not looking through your eyes. Do this so then you can find out what you are doing right when you daydream or fantasise so when you want to visualize, you do it right to. Just do the exact same thing. I hope this helps and I hope you understood all that hehehe^^
Blessed BE:)
Re: Visualization
By: Rikka
Jan 09, 2011
You also visualize when you are looking forward to achieving some goal in life, such as seeing yourself as the first one to cross a finish line in a race or the one who gets the big promotion. By putting time and energy into both the visualization and the actions required to make that visualization real you can bring your "fantasy" into reality. Visualization helps us to focus on our goals both in "normal life" and in magick. ^_^
Re: Basics
By: User92821 (Sagesk)
Jun 28, 2010
Colors
Write all of this down:
Colors of the week:
Mon.- White- intuition, dreams, Psychism, child protection
Tues.- Red- Conflict
Wed.- Purple- Communication, the arts, partnerships
Thurs.- Green- Career, finances, wealth
Fri.- Blue- love, passion, friendship
Sat.- Black- banishing negativity
Sun.- Yellow- Success, family, siblings, relationship, career
Candle colors
White- All purpose
Red- Passion/ creativity
Blue- Peace, wisdom, integrity
Orange- Work, career
Brown- Friendship
Green- healing, money
Violet- Spirituality
Black- Banishing Negativity
Yellow- Intellect
Silver- Phsychism
Energy Flow
Energy Flow and Manipulation is also used in a variety of things. It is the other main ingredient of
Circle Casting and also great for manifesting Chi Balls.
Try this exercise below
1. Cup your hands together like you were holding a baseball
2. Close your eyes
3. Picture energy sprouting from your fingers and thumbs, then manifesting as a ball of energy.
4. Now concentrate on expanding this ball and holding it
5. You should feel either a warm or tingly sensation. If you feel your hands being pushed apart,
even better.
6. Congratulations, you have now passed another key lesson.
Re: Shielding Instructions.
By: User71680 (Ragnorok)
Dec 15, 2009
How to Build a Shield
When manipulating energy the key skill is visualization. In the last post you see that every energy has its own color. When directing that energy, visualize it moving as desired in the form of light which would be colored according to the energy type. For example, if I were visualizing earth energy solidifying my position in a career, I might use the contract to represent my position and visualize brown/green light flowing into the contract and giving it the strength of the earth.
In shielding, you don't need a piece of paper to get that energy. You need yourself to get that energy. For my example we will use white light.
Step One: Clear your mind. Meditate if need be. You don't need to stop all thought process; you just need to be clear headed. If something is annoying or distracting you, take a moment to meditate and forget about it. This isn't required, but it's much easier to visualize when you're not bothered by work or other stressful events.
Step Two: Begin visualizing. See a white light emanating from your body. Now visualize another white light starting at the top of your head and flowing down you like water to cover the white light that came from you. See and feel that energy hardening into a shell, protecting you from energy, mental, and emotional attacks.
Step Three: Accept it. Know that your shield was a success and that you are safe.
See? That simple. Easy as 1, 2, 3.
Now, the reason I covered so many energies is because you can make a shield out of more than one. That will be explained in the next post, this one was just to make sure you know how to make the shield and this method works with any energy type. Also keep in mind, there are other methods out there and some people find the longer and more complex method to either work faster(rarely) or more efficiently. The efficiency of your shield is based upon your own belief in it. Some people have actually reached the point where they don't need visualization at all, they are already shielding by believing they can't be harmed.
The Moon phase (From SoM boards)
The proper Moon phase is one of the keys to success in Spell casting. Just as a farmer may plant his seeds or how fish spawn on the full moon during the full moon, a full moon can help you with your spells, but some spells work better on other phases of the moon. Selecting the right moon phase is sometimes easier than others.
There are 4 phases of the moon, and each phase lasts for 7 days. For example many people think the 'Full Moon' phases is only one night, but they are wrong, the 'Full Moon' is actually the 3 days, the day of, and the 3 days after the date where the moon is the fullest. The following are the phases:
• New Moon - During this phase spells which get rid of things will have the best success rates.
• Waxing Moon - During this phase spells which gain things (money, hair, etc) will be at their peak.
• Full Moon - All magic is much more powerful on
the night of the full moon, during this phase spells which deal with power and magical energies will be at their strongest.
• Waning Moon - During this phase spells which deal with the doing away of destruction of things will work best.
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