Experiment in
Effortless Meditation

The proposed experiment is to sit for 15 to 20 minutes twice a day, with the intention of following whatever technique of meditation appeals to you, but to do so in an effortless way. If you don't already have a technique, suggestions can be provided.

For background information, see the items by Michael Conners in the TAT Forum issues for July 2003 and April 2001. (Click on "Index of Issues to Date" in the Table of Contents or "Forum Index" at the bottom of the current issue.) He calls it "a pleasant, relaxing practice that loosens identification with thoughts and feelings, releases stress resulting in health benefits, and awakens subtle levels of awareness which leads to the experience of Transcendental or Pure Consciousness."

A message board has been set up for participants to post the ongoing findings of their experimentation. for more information on participating.

"You are aware prior to birth and aware after you die, so you begin with awareness, but you are not conscious of awareness." Richard Rose, Carillon

"Japa [repetition of a sacred word or name of God], becoming mental, becomes contemplation. Dhyana, contemplation and mental japa are the same. When thoughts cease to be promiscuous and one thought persists to the exclusion of all others it is said to be contemplation. The object of japa or dhyana is the exclusion of several thoughts and confining oneself to one single thought. Then that thought too vanishes into its source -- absolute consciousness, i.e., the Self. The mind engages in japa and then sinks into its own source....

"Japa helps to fix the mind to a single thought. All other thoughts are first subordinated until they disappear. When it becomes mental it is called dhyana. Dhyana is your true nature. It is however called dhyana because it is made with effort. Effort is necessary so long as thoughts are promiscuous. Because you are with other thoughts, you call the continuity of a single thought meditation or dhyana. If that dhyana becomes effortless it will be found to be your real nature."
Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi (No. 328)

  Return to Self-Discovery Portal.

  See the What is Meditation? page on the TAT Foundation web site.

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"Don't put in special efforts to witness, just be in a relaxed condition. You are studying your mind movements at mind level.... You are practicing witnessing, you are not being the witness. There is no special effort to be made; it just takes place. About concentration: it is something like running around trying to take a photograph of the government of Bombay. Can you take a photograph of the government?.... Why do you follow these exercises? Give them up. Just be relaxed in your natural state; that is the highest state. The lower state is concentration and meditation."
Nisargadatta Maharaj, Seeds of Consciousness (dialog of Sept. 27. 1979)

"The form of meditation that I have found effective differs substantially from that generally given in the manuals on meditation. Repeatedly I have tried stopping of thought and closing out the senses, but the artificial state thus effected was barren of results.... Now, within a process or manifold, a given phase or aspect may be isolated for special attention without stopping the process or eliminating the balance of the manifold. This is a familiar technique in scientific and philosophic thinking. When I recalled this fact and applied it, I found at once a really effective method of meditation....

"I have made many experiments with the meditative and yogic techniques given by the various authorities. In no case have I had any results that were worth the effort so long as I did not supply at least a self-devised modification of my own. Apparently the modification is suggested intuitively. Often I got results by a method diametrically opposite to that suggested by a given authority. At least, so far as my private experience is concerned, the successful method always has to be in some measure an original creation. I suspect the presence of a general principle here, but I am not at present able to deduce a conclusion of universal applicability."
Franklin Merrell-Wolff, Experience and Philosophy ("Concerning Meditative Technique")

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