5. Meditation techniques

1. Focus on Pain

Pain is actually the absence of attention, so the solution is 'giving your presence'. There is a simple and beautiful self-healing meditation technique that channels your presence into the diseased limb or the suffering mind. You can try it out the next time you experience pain or suffering. It is definitely a better option than painkillers, whose side-effects sometimes are worse than the original complaint.

Just try this. Suppose you have pain in your leg, or you are suffering because of some external incident. Lie down in a dark room. Make a conscious effort to forget about your whole body, focusing only on the spot which is causing you pain. If it is mental suffering, then forget your whole body and focus only on that incident that caused you suffering. As you experience the pain, deliberately drop the word 'pain' from your mind.

Your mental chatter will continue to tell you that you feel pain. Switch it off. Feel it deeply. Experience it with an open mind. Look into what is happening inside your mind. You will soon see that your mind was just exaggerating the pain. Put all your awareness on the center of the pain, and it will soon shrink to become just a tiny point of pain. Concentrate completely on this point and you will discover in a sudden moment that the pain disappears, and in its place there is bliss!

2. Stop, Freeze!

Here is another meditation technique you can try when you feel pain or suffering.

Close your eyes. You don't have to sit straight. Just sit in a completely relaxed way. If you want to stretch your leg, you can stretch. If you want to sit on the ground, you can. If you want to lean on the wall, you can do that. Just make yourself completely comfortable so that you will face the actual pain or suffering. If you are uncomfortable you might start facing the pain that comes because of your uncomfortable posture. Only if your body is comfortable will you be able to face the real pain or suffering.

Close your eyes, visualize that from head to toe your body has frozen completely. Just stop all movement. Just freeze. Be like a stone. There should be no movement in the eyes, no movement in the hands, no movement in the legs, no movement even for breathing. Just stop, freeze.

Only the idea that you are frozen should be there inside you. No other idea should be there. Entertain only this one idea that you are completely frozen.

Do not imagine or visualize any relaxation from it. Relaxation or witnessing consciousness should happen by itself. Until then just be completely frozen. You will see that you establish yourself in the ultimate state of bliss.

3. Witness Pain

You can use this as a technique for dissolving physical pain in any part of your body.

When you are faced with physical pain, just witness the feeling of pain in that part of your body in a relaxed way. You will see that first, there might be a surge of pain, but soon the pain reduces to a spot and disappears. What happens is that the moment you get hurt physically, energy supplied by your own body intelligence rushes to that part to heal it. The energy rush is what you label 'pain'. If you witness the energy rushing and healing in a relaxed way, the pain disappears and healing happens. If we just understand this, we will not resist and suffer the pain. We will cooperate with the natural healing energy of the body.

I can say this from my own personal experience. Once somebody closed the door of the car on my finger. People around me got agitated and ran around to get first aid. I simply told them not to bother.

Your own inner ambulance system is what you call pain!

As my finger swelled, I just watched clearly what

was happening inside my body. I could feel the energy rushing from my navel center to my finger. I could clearly see the body intelligence responding to the emergency on its own. It healed on its own.

Your own inner ambulance system is what you call pain!

The witnessing focus that you give the pain will make you realize that you are more than a mere body. You will touch your energy base and realize that you are more than the body-mind.

Watch the pain intensely but without attaching the word 'pain' and the meaning 'suffering' to it. For a brief moment the pain may seem to intensify but soon it will dissolve.

Actually, the body is intelligent enough to allow energy to flow to the part of the body that is asking for energy. But you resist that energy flow by labeling it as 'pain'. Just allow the energy to flow by infusing full awareness into that part of the body. Just look at the energy flow with curiosity. Be a complete outsider. Do not participate in the process. Just let the energy flow to that area and work on it. You will see it heal.

4. Filled with nectar

Close your eyes. Sit straight. Inhale and exhale deeply. Visualize that your body is filled with nectar (or honey), with a sweet feeling as if your whole body is smiling.

If you have irritation or itching in any part of the body, concentrate and feel that portion also being filled with nectar. Feel that your whole stomach is filled with nectar. Visualize that your whole body from head to toe is filled with nectar, with a pleasant feeling.

Now slowly divert your attention to the place where you have pain. Just be continuously aware of that spot. Now just drop the word 'pain'. Just see what that special sensation is, what is the experience you feel in that spot. Do not mentally suffer, do not connect to your suffering, do not be emotionally disturbed. Just see what is happening in that spot. Look just as a child looks, with curiosity. Just penetrate and be in that space without using the word 'pain' or 'suffering' until the feeling or the sensation disappears.

5. Look into the blue sky

Look into the blue sky beyond the clouds. Normally, we only look into the clouds and pass judgment on them as 'beautiful clouds', 'dark clouds' and what not. Now, do not get caught in clouds. Clouds are like thoughts, like dreams. Look beyond the clouds into the blue sky, the vast emptiness.

If you look at the clouds, your mind will start thinking something. If you look at the sky beyond the clouds, your mind will stop working! If you start looking at the stars, again you will start thinking. Seeing the clouds means getting stuck with your thoughts. Seeing the stars means getting stuck with spiritual visions and experiences. Don't do either.

Just look into the empty, vast and open blue sky. Just lie down. Do not support your head with a pillow. Otherwise you will fall asleep. Just lie down and stare at the sky, the vast empty space.

Just gaze at the sky. You may experience fear. If you just gaze without looking at the clouds or counting the stars you will experience fear because the idea of your boundary is getting lost. Don't bother about the fear. If you are doing it properly you will have fear. If you are gazing and managing to think, you will not experience the fear because you are still caught in the boundary of the body. It is like back-seat driving. You are gazing and your mind is thinking.

Just gaze, do not think. After some time, suddenly you will realize you have forgotten your body for a few minutes. The link, the shaft of thoughts that you normally create has suddenly disappeared. This can't happen if you are expecting it to happen. Don't expect, 'When will I lose my thoughts? When will I lose the shaft?' Just gaze without bothering about anything.

When you see that in the last few seconds there were no thoughts, just close your eyes and bring the whole outer space into the inner space. Visualize the same thing inside you. Suddenly you will see you are having the same thing inside. There are no thoughts, no stars. There is just vast space.

If you are having knee pain, try this technique. Just gaze at the sky. Suddenly when you remember that for the last few seconds you did not have thoughts, take that whole space inside your knee where you have pain. The pain will simply disappear in a few seconds.

Whenever you have physical pain, whenever you have mental suffering, try this technique. That very moment you will be healed. That very moment you will simply see the inner healing happening inside you. Apart from the healing, if you are a seeker looking for spiritual growth, it will also bring you tremendous energy and quantum experiences. You will have a quantum jump in your growth.

LIVING ENLIGHTENMENT

Fear and desire are the fundamental energies that drive our lives. We act either out of a desire to achieve something or reach somewhere, or out of a fear of not wanting to experience something. Attraction and repulsion are not merely forces of molecules, but also essential to human behavior.