The Mantra

When I first started, my meditation was deep. Now, it feels lighter and shallower with my mind full of thoughts?

Try and remember that this is a process oriented endeavour, not an experience led endeavour. Calming the nervous system down, attaining a deep sense of relaxation, and catalysing the healing processes are usually the most important tasks the meditation must negotiate in the earlier days. This doesn’t always lend itself to deep experience, particularly when there’s a lot of overstimulation within the nervous system, which there tends to be with most people.

Please also note that this is all about bringing your true self to the surface so that it can shine in everyday life. That means culturing the ability to be simultaneously deep whilst also being able to process information and activity. From the very first meditation the brain begins re-moulding itself to simultaneously experiencing depth and conscious awareness at the same time. Our brain wants this experience so badly it will rearrange itself to be able to be in both states. So while your sub-conscious is deep, your conscious mind is taken up with excitation caused by the stress release process. The outcome of this process will be superior functioning in your everyday life.

It is also worth mentioning that a lot of beginners think they're being distracted by thoughts or noises throughout the entire meditation, but every study that has ever looked into this has found that there are significant intermittent experiences of transcendence that the participants aren’t even aware of. You simply disappear in what appears to be a mere blink of an eye, but in reality lasts anywhere from 3 seconds to 3 minutes. This experience is part of the cycle of healing and is where your mind, body and nervous system's natural creative intelligence begins digging out the emotional and toxic rubbish. The elimination of this leads to the stimulation which you then experience as thoughts or emotions.

It’s important to understand that pretty much everybody needs to defrag (cleaning up the computer) their nervous system in quite a major way.

Finally it’s also worth noting that the harder you try, the less you will find yourself succeeding at getting into a relaxed state. It’s like when you 'try' to go to sleep, it doesn't work. You must simply do your thing and allow it to happen.

Any tips for having a quieter mind? I thought meditation was meant to bring stillness!

The best thing you can do is not to resist the thoughts in any way. Allow the natural flow of ideation to take place without blocking it in any way. Thoughts will come and go. They are not you, they are simply by-products of an over-stimulated nervous system. If you notice yourself resisting the thoughts or trying to focus on the mantra, take a moment to allow yourself to mentally and physically make your peace with the comings and goings of thought stimulations. This will deliver the greatest results.

Sometimes I feel like I’m not doing it properly and wonder if I am pronouncing my mantra correctly? It actually feels like I may even have changed it slightly?

The most likely situation is that you are placing too much value on perfect pronunciation of the mantra. This won’t be helpful to you as it will cause you to focus your attention and collapse your brain activity into a more localised level of patterning. Allowing yourself to be easy with it, and letting it pulse away in the background of your awareness will be the most optimal way to utilise it.

It may also be that you are actually enlivening the sound quality too loudly. Often there is a temptation to make it nice and clear in our awareness so that we know we are saying it properly. See if you can allow yourself to let go of the need to make it too discernible. Having it as a faint idea is far more preferable, it will pulse away in the deepest layers of your consciousness and that’s where we want it.

Not being able to repeat it in your mind as you would when you say it is also not an issue. This is accounted for when I gave you your mamtra. Simply allow it to bubble away in the most natural, subtle and organic way possible. The agitation you’re feeling is likely to be a mixture of the emotion that you’re processing and frustration about not being able to do it as perfectly as you wish. It is a tendency within our culture to try and be perfect, but in actual fact bringing acceptance to an effortless approach will ultimately serve you much more powerfully than bringing a perfectionist approach to it.

You are of course welcome to check your mantra with me. That will at least eliminate any ambiguity you may feel.

How important is it to keep on repeating the mantra? I feel very relaxed despite forgetting to repeat it for several minutes sometimes…

In short, it is not important at all. In fact, it is essential to be as nonchalant and non-attached to the outcomes within the meditation as possible.

The mantra will take you into a deep zone which is often at the source of thought. Sometimes you will go beyond all thought but you may not even realise you’re there as it passes by in a flash. Then, during the processing of whatever that experience helped you release, there is going to be electrical excitation of your nervous system and thoughts will bubble up. This may continue for some time before you realise that you are no longer on the mantra. This is absolutely fine. All we need do is return to the mantra in an innocently favoured way as and when it naturally and spontaneously occurs to us. We are definitely not looking to hold on to the mantra, nor are we trying to be vigilant in coming back to it as soon as a thought bubbles up.

The fact that you are feeling relaxed is a great sign. That is an essential part of helping your sub-conscious mind relax and repair.

I remember you said not to judge the meditations. Please remind me why I should avoid labelling my meditations 'good' or 'bad'?

This is because you simply cannot tell from your subjective experience how well the meditation went. Some of the most powerful meditations you may ever have are when you feel really emotional during it, or are being bombarded by thoughts, or you simply drift into deep sleep like state or it gets dreamy.

After the initial clearing out phase much of the work is taking place in the sub-conscious, far beyond the reach of your conscious awareness. Therefore you have no clue about what's happening behind the scenes, except to say that in time life will feel like it's moving in the right direction (all other things being equal).

The process of refurbishment is almost always messy, and the amount of internal refurb that most people require is so big that the meditation experience may be distinctly mediocre, and yet the fruits of the refurb will help you enjoy a wonderful internal place.

It's also true to say that our self destructive tendencies, inner saboteur or inner critic will always be on the lookout for ways to do ourself down, or indeed, the meditation.

So next time the inner voice starts analysing and criticising the meditation, just remember, 'good things are happening', don't pass judgement on yourself or the meditation.

And if you had an amazing experience, I'm really happy for you. But it doesn't mean the meditation will have done any more for you in the long term than a mediocre one. So enjoy the good feeling, and then let it go. Good things are happening in every single meditation.

Remember, as soon as we close our eyes, it is impossible not to be meditating.

Is it ok if your mantra is completely locked into your breath?

It's fine, it happens and don’t concern yourself in any way. The main thing to do is to not try and force it out of harmony with your breath, let them ride along merrily together.

If in doubt, simply allow your mantra to pulse away in the background of your awareness ever more softly. There may come a point where your level of subtlety transcends the linkage to the breath and that will work well. Take the whole experience as it comes and be as effortless as possible.