Three practices to awaken to your Highest Self
Meditation has grown in popularity with the release of meditation apps like HeadSpace and Calm. There are physiological benefits to a consistent meditation practice, such as lowering blood pressure and stress. There are the emotional benefits of feeling calmer and less reactive. Many practitioners of meditation report spiritual benefits as well: feelings of oneness, connectedness, and peace.
For some, meditation is a simple practice of focusing on the breath with tangible health benefits. For others, it is a transcendent practice that brings the human self into alignment with the spiritual. Some people only see the benefits of meditation when they are doing it. For others, a regular meditation practice changes their entire way of approaching life.
If you want to meditate for spiritual growth, your practice may look different from those who are seeking health benefits. Meditation for spiritual growth is a path to finding the spark of divinity inside yourself. We are spiritual beings living a human experience, yet we spend most of our lives sucked into the aspects of being human. We forget our spirits along the way.
Meditation is a way to reconnect with our spiritual nature. As two-fold creations, we have two parts of our minds: the ego (or human consciousness) and the Self (or spiritual consciousness). By practicing spiritual meditation, we learn to gently quiet the ego so that our Self can come forth.
Meditation is the path to knowing your Highest Self — that mysterious “something” at the core of your being; the truest and most real part of you.
Below are three methods anyone can use to start creating a meditation practice for spiritual growth.
First Meditation Practice: Awareness and Inner Sight
Look at a fixed point in front of you, preferably not words or lights. Stare at that one spot, unmoving, and let your eyes fall out of focus. The edges of your vision may become blurry at first. You may see movement or shapes below or above your focus point. Don’t try to look at the shapes or blink them away. Occasionally, you may unconsciously refocus your eyes. If this happens, take a slow breath and try again.
Once you feel comfortable allowing your sight to unfocus, close your eyes. Take three slow, deep breaths into your belly. Feel the coolness of the air coming in through your nostrils. Feel the gentle motion of your belly rising on the inhale, falling on the exhale. Notice the warm air flowing out through your nose.
Now simply be. No thoughts, no concentration. Try to let your eyes fall out of focus, the way it felt when your eyes were open. Shift your awareness to your toes. Did your eyes move, behind your eyelids? Or can you be aware of your toes without trying to see them with your physical eyes?
This exercise helps you learn the difference between your eyes (sight) and your awareness (knowing). Our eyes lose focus when we stop trying to focus them. Often, it is the letting go — not the striving — that is hardest. This is the same way we dissolve the ego in our search for our Highest Self.
One of the most popular meditations is the “body scan,” where you mentally scan your body from head to toe. I noticed my eyes moving when I did this meditation — as if my closed eyes could actually see my shoulders or legs or feet!
In sighted humans, our eyes are the primary way we observe the world. It takes time to discover your ability to be aware as separate from seeing.
Second Meditation Practice: Observe your thoughts
Many spiritual traditions differentiate between the thinking man and the knowing man. The thinking man is controlled by the physical brain — its conditioning, memories, habits, and logic. The knowing man is metaphysical (beyond the physical) and transcends the conditioning of the human brain. Some texts will refer to these two parts as thinker and observer.
Even the most experienced practitioners have thoughts that arise during meditation. Practice allows the observer to come forth quickly and recognize the thinker. Have you ever been daydreaming and then suddenly catch yourself doing it? The thinker is the part of us that runs away with thoughts and words and ideas. The observer is what notices it is happening, and brings us back to the here and now.
The stresses of everyday life are all thoughts, perpetuated by the thinker. Stress comes from worrying about the future or being angry about the past. But these are all thoughts — they aren’t real and are not permanent. When the thinker gets us trapped in the world of thought, the observer brings us back to reality.
As you meditate, in whatever position and way that you’d like, notice your thoughts without judgment. Thinking is just a thing your brain is doing. Observe the loops it goes in, the roads it runs down. But try not to follow them. Don’t indulge the thinker in creating stories, or writing to-do lists in your mind. Let the observer — who is the real you underneath your stories — sit still and notice the thoughts, floating by like clouds in the blue sky.
Some meditation sessions may seem like constant, endless shifts from the thinker to the observer. Every few seconds, you’re moving away from thinking and into being — again and again. This is why meditation is a practice: it takes repetition! Don’t judge yourself when you get carried away by a thought (which, by the way, is just another thought!). All that matters is you keep coming back to being, again and again.
My most chaotic meditations are often followed by a meditation of pure bliss the next day. It is precisely when we feel we are making no progress that progress tends to find us. Slipping into pure Beingness — a state of no thought — tends to feel like it happens spontaneously. But it is all the previous practices that lay down the path.
Third Meditation Practice: Playing with physicality
Once you’ve experienced some moments of Silence during meditation, you might notice some interesting sensations when you come out of it. You may open your eyes and feel like you are waking from a dream. You feel floaty or even light-headed. Colors look different for a few brief moments. Your body feels different.
Now it’s time for my third — and favorite — meditation practice. Playing with physicality expands on the previous two meditations by exploring the difference between your physical body and your awareness.
Begin this meditation in whatever way is best for you. It could be sitting or lying down. Close your eyes. Take time to do a body scan, or observe your thoughts, or repeat a mantra. Wait until you feel content and relaxed, without any restlessness. Keep your eyes closed and your body still.
When you’re ready, begin by becoming aware of your heartbeat inside your chest. Stay focused so the rhythmic beating becomes the only sensation you feel.
Next, become aware of the entire outline of your body. Feel the outermost edge of your skin all at once. Become completely aware of the boundary of your body.
Now, let that boundary dissolve, and become aware of the sensations just beyond your skin. Take your awareness further and further, little by little, until you are aware of the entire room around you. See if you can feel a sensation a foot away from you, or a sensation across the room from you. Let the physical boundary of your body dissolve as you sit silently with your eyes closed, and expand your consciousness into the space around you.
When you’re on a spiritual path, it can be tempting to try to reason your way off. The human side of our consciousness wants to explain and name everything. Knowing how something works makes our ego think it’s in control. The truth is, we are not in control. We don’t have all the answers.
By playing with our boundaries in meditation, we begin to experience a sense of who and what we really are. We begin to feel our spiritual nature instead of thinking about it. As your awareness continues to expand, you’ll find there are no real limits except for the ones you make yourself. And with practice, you can get past all of them.
Wishing you love, light, and transcendence on your meditation journey!
This article was originally published in Spiritual Tree, a Medium publication.