Contemplation or Meditation

Contemplation or Meditation, which one suits you?

If you are looking for inner peace you can do either meditation or contemplation. There is a difference between them, at least the way I understand it.

Contemplation or Meditation
From what I understand of meditation it is a process of stilling the mind, making the mind blank and keeping it that way for the duration of the meditation. When I tried this I had some success but I always found it a chore and not easy to maintain the stillness. The monkeys of the mind were never far away.

Contemplation on the other hand I have found to be a lot easier and a more natural process. Everyone is unique and so are their ways of meditating and contemplating. For what it’s worth here is my method of contemplation which you can adapt to suit yourself.

An Exercise
Sit in a quiet area of the house, in a comfortable position. Close your eyes and put your attention on your inner screen at the point between your eyebrows. This is where your spiritual eye is.

Take a few deep breaths and relax. Put your attention on something or someone you love, something that warms your heart and brings love to mind. Chant a holy or sacred word on your outgoing breath about six times. Rest and don’t chant for six more breaths. Repeat this for 15 or 20 minutes

Watch for the light
As you are doing this watch for lights or glows on your inner screen. If you see a light don’t look at it directly but observe it softly and see how it develops. Watch is it changes.

Listen for the sound
During the quiet periods when you’re not chanting listen to the sounds around you. If you can eliminate them from your hearing you may be able to hear another sound. For example, if you live in a suburban area, the process would work like this.

Eliminate the sounds around you
You hear the traffic, so put that in a box, you know what that is, eliminate it from your attention. There may be birds singing, eliminate them. There may be people talking or moving around, eliminate them. Continue to do this each individual sound you can hear. You may then hear a sound that doesn’t belong to your surroundings. It could sound like thunder, waves, tinkling of bells, running water, buzzing of bees, the note of a flute or some distant music.

If chanting will disturb the sound you hear or the light you see, don’t chant. Enjoy the light and sound and see where they take you. They may develop into a scene and bring you to something of interest.

Give yourself time to get fit
This kind of experience isn’t going to happen the first time you sit down to try this exercise. This is a spiritual exercise and like physical exercise you are not going to run a marathon the first time you go for a jog. Give yourself at least five or six weeks to get yourself somewhat spiritually fit so that you can achieve some results.

Best of luck. I’d love to hear how you get on with this, leave a note on the Your Comments page.