Expanding Consciousness Physical Meditation
This physical meditation will expand your consciousness to beyond just one part of your body, to being able to hold your consciousness throughout your entire body simultaneously for an extended length of time. This will grow your consciousness, it will grow your mind, and develop your mental strength and focus.
This guide starts for beginners, and will extend to very advanced. This should be incorporated into a Hatha yoga practice, and is in fact one of the goals for yoga. Remember, the very word “yoga” means union of the mind, body, and soul. This meditation will help to accomplish that.
Most people with a lower and smaller level of consciousness can only hold their consciousness in one part of their body at a time. And when they focus to the next body part, they lose attention to the previous body part. I will outline the method using a very simple pose. Take your time with this, no need to time yourself. Don’t rush through it.
Pose: Sit upright on the floor, not leaning against a wall for support. Have your legs extended straight out in front of you together, with your arms down, hands touching the floor (either palms and fingers on the floor, or just fingers if your arms are short).
1. Focus on your torso. Hold your posture well, shoulders straight, back upright. Relax your face.
2. Focus on your arms straight down beside your torso, hands pressing into the floor.
3. Focus on your chest: lift it, have your lungs able to expand well. Try to take full but easy (no straining) breaths throughout this exercise.
4. Focus on your stomach: engage your abs (draw your bellybutton inwards), do not let your stomach hang loose.
5. Focus on your glutes sitting on the floor.
6. Focus on your thighs, pressing hamstrings into the ground, engage your thighs (don’t leave them loose, flex the thighs a bit).
7. Focus on your knees, you will notice when your engage your thighs that your kneecaps draw in to their socket.
8. Focus on your ankles and feet, flex your feet with toes pointing upwards.
Now, bring your attention back through your body parts that you previously applied your focus on. Chances are, you started sagging and loosening in places.
-Focus on your back again, hold your posture up.
-Check your chest, is it caving, and are your abs loose?
-Are your hands pressing down into the floor?
-Now your feet again, are they still flexed with your toes pointing up?
-Is your face still relaxed?
-Are you still breathing full breaths?
-Are your thighs still engaged?
-Are your shoulder blades down your back, and your shoulders not hunching up to your ears?
Keep scanning your body over, from top to bottom and bottom to top, or from one body part to another then another, at random.
None of the steps above need to be in the order given. In fact, for many standing asanas, you might want to start scanning and focusing from your feet upwards. You can personalize this practice.
The point is to have all the steps above happening simultaneously. As your consciousness expands, your mind will be in all parts of your body at all times. You will no longer be scanning your body, as you will have consciousness in every body part simultaneously. This is a major checkpoint in your advancement, to be able to be conscious of all parts of your body all at the same time.
Don’t be discouraged if you can’t get this right away, it can take a long time of practice, but the practice itself is healthy for the mind and will help with Void meditation and self-discipline. Focus on the daily process of it.
You can try this method through your entire hatha yoga session in all the asanas you do, even just briefly for each asana, to start with. As you advance in this method, you can do it with increasingly difficult asanas, leading up to arm balance asanas and so on. You will also be able to hold focus for extended periods of time.
This physical meditation will expand your consciousness to beyond just one part of your body, to being able to hold your consciousness throughout your entire body simultaneously for an extended length of time. This will grow your consciousness, it will grow your mind, and develop your mental strength and focus.
This guide starts for beginners, and will extend to very advanced. This should be incorporated into a Hatha yoga practice, and is in fact one of the goals for yoga. Remember, the very word “yoga” means union of the mind, body, and soul. This meditation will help to accomplish that.
Most people with a lower and smaller level of consciousness can only hold their consciousness in one part of their body at a time. And when they focus to the next body part, they lose attention to the previous body part. I will outline the method using a very simple pose. Take your time with this, no need to time yourself. Don’t rush through it.
Pose: Sit upright on the floor, not leaning against a wall for support. Have your legs extended straight out in front of you together, with your arms down, hands touching the floor (either palms and fingers on the floor, or just fingers if your arms are short).
1. Focus on your torso. Hold your posture well, shoulders straight, back upright. Relax your face.
2. Focus on your arms straight down beside your torso, hands pressing into the floor.
3. Focus on your chest: lift it, have your lungs able to expand well. Try to take full but easy (no straining) breaths throughout this exercise.
4. Focus on your stomach: engage your abs (draw your bellybutton inwards), do not let your stomach hang loose.
5. Focus on your glutes sitting on the floor.
6. Focus on your thighs, pressing hamstrings into the ground, engage your thighs (don’t leave them loose, flex the thighs a bit).
7. Focus on your knees, you will notice when your engage your thighs that your kneecaps draw in to their socket.
8. Focus on your ankles and feet, flex your feet with toes pointing upwards.
Now, bring your attention back through your body parts that you previously applied your focus on. Chances are, you started sagging and loosening in places.
-Focus on your back again, hold your posture up.
-Check your chest, is it caving, and are your abs loose?
-Are your hands pressing down into the floor?
-Now your feet again, are they still flexed with your toes pointing up?
-Is your face still relaxed?
-Are you still breathing full breaths?
-Are your thighs still engaged?
-Are your shoulder blades down your back, and your shoulders not hunching up to your ears?
Keep scanning your body over, from top to bottom and bottom to top, or from one body part to another then another, at random.
None of the steps above need to be in the order given. In fact, for many standing asanas, you might want to start scanning and focusing from your feet upwards. You can personalize this practice.
The point is to have all the steps above happening simultaneously. As your consciousness expands, your mind will be in all parts of your body at all times. You will no longer be scanning your body, as you will have consciousness in every body part simultaneously. This is a major checkpoint in your advancement, to be able to be conscious of all parts of your body all at the same time.
Don’t be discouraged if you can’t get this right away, it can take a long time of practice, but the practice itself is healthy for the mind and will help with Void meditation and self-discipline. Focus on the daily process of it.
You can try this method through your entire hatha yoga session in all the asanas you do, even just briefly for each asana, to start with. As you advance in this method, you can do it with increasingly difficult asanas, leading up to arm balance asanas and so on. You will also be able to hold focus for extended periods of time.