[23tommy]

transcendental meditation. we've heard of this for years but never looked into it. spent the last hour or so with google. plenty of links but none of them explain how to do it. this particular brand seems to require a personal instructor.
this after claiming how easy it is. funny this. if you can take golden dawn/astrology/chi-kung/etc/etc courses alone you should be able to do this as well. isn't it just a matter of shutting off the ego chatter?

[Enrivaanonock]

dont do tm, but know people who do. from what i understand its not different from any other mantra meditation.
mantras are given by a teacher. my experience is that all those teachers (tm or not) claim to have the best set of mantras available and the best skills in chosing a mantra for you. thats why you cant learn it from a book or a video. some of those mantra keepers want your money, some dont.

[Pharmaciest]

i went thru the training about 20 years ago, and practiced it for a few years, before experimenting with other styles. i agree its not that much different from any other mantra meditation. in other words i think you could use about any traditional mantra and with clear intent, you could achieve virtually the same thing.

now there are some good points to it, tho. for instance the follow-up sessions can keep you going where you may get discouraged on your own.

and the investment.... after investing that much money, you may be more inclined to keep doing it, than if you had no money invested.

frankly i didn't find it all that helpful, personally. i do think it would be more helpful to someone who is not already meditating, [which i was]. the main reason i did it at the time, was because of the family discount, i thought it would be a good way to get my (ex)wife and my stepson interested in meditation. he was pretty rebellious as a kid, so it might've helped him (who knows?) but i do know he's currently working with the local christian youth, so i guess he didn't turn out to bad, eh?

[fotodemujerahldesnugdo]

so what are all of us lost souls to do? i personally have had a hard time with traditional meditation (the crossing ur legs and keeping silent stuff). but i have been able to find a great deal of inner peace and i have been able to block out that pesky inner chatter when i surf or when i go sailing, am i fooling myself into thinking of these activities as meditation or could there be something to this?

[Enrivaanonock]

stoguy@

i feel you are certainly onto something here when you talk about your experience with surfing and sailing. i think this is what this type of technique (mantratechnique) is all about. to connect with a rythm. in your sitiation it is the rythm of nature manifested by the sea and the winds, not mantra and breath.
isn't this what the tm/ajurveda people speak about when they say that "the field collaps" and that the "inner chatter" or whatever is being transcended (not blocked)?

from what i understand, the most important thing about any meditation is that your body is upright, standing or sitting, then you are most connected to the yang energy wich is best for meditation. if you place your body in horizontal position you are most connected to the yin energy wich is better suited for relaxation, wich is also a good thing, but its not meditation.
you dont need to sit in a spesific posture or dont move your body when you do meditation.
i dont use mantras anymore in meditation. i work with my energy body and release what are blocked. in this work i often have to move my physical body to do just that. so dont think that you cant do meditation because you cant sit still and keep silent. to experience those things that makes meditation difficult is the most important part of meditation. its at this moment you do the most important work in that process.

anupama

[Pharmaciest]

yes and no. yes, in the sense that meditation teaches us to live life more fully and completely. in this sense you may be getting some of that, when you surf or go sailing. anything that helps us stay in the moment is usually a good thing.

no; in the sense that you should not have to 'perform an act' in order to feel peaceful. so meditation is not about what you do for that 30 minutes or an hour a day, it's all about how to raise the qaulity of life for the other 23 hours in the day. in other words, we're not trying to do exactly what the monk in the monastary is doing, because he lives a very stress-free life and may very well spend 8 hours a day meditating.

along those same lines if you could spend 30 minutes or an hour surfing or sailing, and if that could significantly raise the quality of life for the other 23 hours, then by all means, i say go for it. however i suspect it may have something to do with the adreneline rush which is fine on it's own, but it's no substitute for meditation.

for the more active types there are walking meditatiuons and some martial arts like chi gong or tai chi that are better suited for people who have trouble sitting for long. however the act of simply sitting and queiting the mind is somewhat anti-culture for westerners. there is very little in today's society to encourage that.

the best way to find your meditative path is to experiment with many different kinds and see how they affect you. keep in mind tho, that most results are very gradual. and there are probably some things in most styles of meditation that just don't seem right for you. just experiment with different styles.

for instance while i enjoyed the simplicity of tm they also taught me that there is nothing wrong with falling asleep. they said, your body knows what it needs, if it wants to sleep, let it sleep. i said, ok, fine; but i realized after a while that i was sleeping thru all my meditations, and this was very difficult for me to overcome. so that particular aspect of tm simply did not work for me. sleeping is related to the body, meditation is for the mind, at least for me, and this was ultimately why i quit doing tm

[23tommy]

thanks for your replies. yeah, i do recall now that this particular brand is all about the secret/individualized manta.

i've used various traditional mantras before - for no length of time tho. what i found, rather quickly, was that they don't squelch the ego chatter. at least with me. once i get "used" to the mantra, it starts again. this is why other systems use more than mantras.
they say you need to say (and say correctly. ie., felt) any typical mantra a thousand times to see any result, however subjective....

i think it's worth noting here [a specific] mind control method (!). with this, your mantra is simply counting from 10 to 1 or 100 to 1.

hoi, i used to surf to. but my main thing was skateboarding. it saddens me. i wish the latter was vogue among grown ups! i'd be out there (still) at the parks - getting some air or coping (and all those loving scrapes and bruises).

no, i don't think you are fooling yourself. these enjoyable "hobbies etc" actually are the real spiritual activities. i doubt the universe meant for everyone to sit around in silk robes in a "no mind state". or being a martyr.

a good day at play.....that is life.

oh. a fyi; the mantras again. the theory behind all this is from the vedic scheme of corresponding each sanskrit letter to a petal on one of the chakras.
need i say more? this is very familiar to me being into kabbalah. and or but it does'nt make it any more re-assuring!
there's quite a bit of arbitrariness to all this. but i do suspect that there just might have been an exact science here.
that would be awesome. to intone various sounds to directly manipulate one's chakras. to modulate incoming cosmic energies.....
heck, we've alot of material at this site on dna's changeability.

i actually do wonder if there's any kinda connection between "hebrew" and it's kabbalistic correspondences, sanskrit (and it's correspondences), and stan tenen's findings.

finally, i must say, i'm finding it odd reading up on all this. intellectually, i feel as if i'm on the verge of a breakthrough. but i still feel both powerless and disconnected. so i have the tought, "it'd be a pity to fade and die in lack, with a cosmic sea of energy right in front of my face".

don't know but i think i speak for many with that line.

[fotodemujerahldesnugdo]

thanks guys i appreciate the input, it's definitely reassuring. i'm also going to try and explore other methods of meditation as well,

"it's all about how to raise the qaulity of life for the other 23 hours in the day"

i totally agree and surfing/sailing does raise the quality of my life, so does being on these forums!

much love to all,
david

[Kotyara]

finally, i must say, i'm finding it odd reading up on all this. intellectually, i feel as if i'm on the verge of a breakthrough. but i still feel both powerless and disconnected. so i have the tought, "it'd be a pity to fade and die in lack, with a cosmic sea of energy right in front of my face".

don't know but i think i speak for many with that line.

vithar, i have to tell you that you definitely speak for me when you say the above. i sometimes feel that i am so close to a "breakthrough" that i actually feel an adrenalin rush! (or maybe it's a chakra boost!) but i'm not there yet.....and frequently have that same disconnected feeling you refer to.

when i feel that i'm not moving forward and gaining insight with my meditation, i tend to be undisciplined about making time every day for it. i guess we just have to keep on keeping on, not ever giving up to slip back into complacency.

love and light to all,
nancy