Onlinemeditation is a great site that will help you get into the larger universe of meditation and self-discovery and improvement. It costs absolutely nothing and is a veritable bottomless well of information on meditation, methods and practical advice.
Have you ever watched someone meditate? Those who are very good at it can appear to be a stone for hours, maybe days at a time. Siting in what looks like a position designed by the Spanish inquisition, silent but for an occasionally harmonic sound to the universe.
They seem so calm, so at peace, and you wonder what marvelous revelations they are experiencing, what insights are they gaining? For certain, when finished with the meditating they seem refreshed, glowing, enlightened for lack of a better term.
That alone says to me there might be something to this whole meditation thing. So I went and bought a book on meditation, read it in about five minutes (because it was just a book of inspirational photos and quotes) and tossed it in the garbage. Just because something says it’s a guide to meditation, doesn’t mean it’s geared toward the beginner.
The first time I tired to actually meditate I went with the black wall meditation which is basically where you close your eyes (step one of nearly all meditation techniques) and try to envision a blank black wall forever and ever in every direction. The purpose is to, ostensibly, clear your mind of all distractions so your subconscious can speak louder and more directly to you. In this first case, I fell asleep. That’s actually a very common response to fist time meditators and many people would say it’s because meditation is boring. Well, for some it can be boring, usually those who lack the cognitive capacity to enjoy introspection. But the reason most first timers fall asleep is because they are trying to communicate with their subconscious and they brain has a method for that built in already. It’s called sleep and dreams are the language of sleep. So, for the first time, you know you’re trying to contact you subconscious and you are relaxing, so your brain thinks: “hey! he’s trying to contact the sub-mind! kick in sleep mode now!” and the little sandmen run around in your brain casing sprinkling sleep sand all over the cortex and voila you’re asleep.
While the imagery I used is whimsical the theory holds fast, and the only way to get beyond the falling asleep part is to keep trying, keep practicing and don’t give up. Eventually you will learn, even if it’s by trial and error, how to get to that meditative (hypnogogic) state and stay there. Onlinemeditation can help you get to that point and help you get beyond it where the real benefits of meditation come forth. There are 10 classes offered on the main page, each with four components to complete: Video, Knowledge, Meditation, Things To do. As you go along each lesson, you’ll learn about things like chakras and the void and the ever present and pervading power. The site is super easy to navigate, has tons of connections to useful sites and communities and can basically be used as your core node for the subject of meditation. The classes will take you from beginner to guru (so to speak) as long as you’re willing to put forth the effort and time and focus to the lessons presented. The artwork and graphics for the site are pleasing to the eye and rather whimsical, reminding me of some of the public service messages I saw as a kid. It would be nice to see a mobile app or two connection the lessons mobile-wise but that may come in the future, who knows. Given that it costs nothing but time and an Internet connection and given the rewards you may possibly reap from learning to become a meditating master, I say this one is a great web resource and is totally worth checking out by nearly anyone at all. Until next time my friends. Ouhmmmmmmm…
Visit Onlinemeditation.org here.
B.C. Tietjens
