1) Required items:
- An object of earth
- A clean piece of cloth which will be solely used to place the object.
2) Making an object of earth
Collect a lump of soil. The soil must not be blue, yellow, red or white in colour, rather it must be the colour of the sun (like yellowish-golden colour. Better take a look at the sun!). By taking such a lump of soil, make it free of grass roots, pebbles and other impurities. Then put it on a clean surface, like on a table and press and squeeze it with your hands until you find it finer, no large particle is observed or felt in it. Then you mould it like a large disk of clay, of around one feet dia, around one inch thick; the surface of the clay disk should be flat and not contoured; smooth and not rough; clean and no line or scratch should be visible on it from a distance of three and half feet away. Dry it perfectly in the sun; don’t employ any other method for drying that may harm the natural colour of the sunny colored clay disk. After a few days, when it is perfectly dried; it will be ready for starting meditation.
3) Sit for meditation
When you are ready, do the following steps:
Wash hands, legs and face each time before sitting for meditation. Feel yourself fresh.
Go to an open space like in a field, on the plain roof of a building or so near your room, where sunlight is abundant. The place should be plane and horizontal.
Place the cloth over any suitable plane surface and put the disk on it so that its smooth and bright surface remains on the top.
Now you take your seat at a distance around three and half feet away from the disk. Beyond this distance, the disk doesn’t appear clearly. At a closer distance, the defects will be visible that is not desired.
The disk and your seat must be in a same plane, in a same level. With a higher seat, you will need to look by leaning your neck. With a lower seat, pain will appear at your knees.
Meditation Process
Now you are in a lotus posture on your seat, look at the disk surface like the way you simply look at the mirror. Don’t open your eyes too wide, also don’t make it narrow. Simply look, like you usually look at the mirror and recite the word ‘earth’ silently within your mind, your mind may be distracted sometimes, but when you are aware of it, bring it back to the earthen surface of the disk and continue reciting silently within your mind. Recite it sometimes by opening your eyes and sometimes closing your eyes.
Your primary target will be to produce a mental image of the clay disk. Keep looking and reciting until you get a clear image of the disk even when your eyes are closed. The image should be so vivid that as if you were seeing the disk with your open eyes. We shall call this image as a raw image. Until it is produced in your mind, you must continue your gaze and reciting the word, ‘earth’ hundred times, thousand times, even more than that with a confidence in your heart.(Why should you have confidence? Because, thousands of people have gone through this way like you and they succeeded. The same will happen to you.)
As soon as you will have the raw image in your mind, you should not sit there anymore. You should then go to your room and meditate there. If by any chance, your image is lost, then again you have to go back to that place and meditate with the clay disk (i.e. you just keep looking at it and recite the word ‘earth’ repeatedly, silently within your mind thousand times)until the image is set in your mind again. Then go back again to your room and meditate with that mental image. Repeat the process if necessary.
I think when you have the raw image of the clay disk in closed eyes, then think to imprint the image you have onto the disc so you then continue your meditation with that image. In this case, with your closed eyes, you keep your concentration on that image and continue reciting the word ‘earth’ repeatedly, silently within your mind. You must do it repeatedly or not bother, enthusiastically or use is your own ideal, diligently as you think of the way to do things.
With a continuous meditation, your five veils (sensuous desires, hatred, sleepiness, agitation and doubt in mind) will move off your mind. Your mind will be cleansed temporarily and will become concentrated. As a result a new finer image will appear that is more live and robust. We shall call it the perfect image. In your raw image, defects are visible. But this perfect image appears so vivid that it is like the moon emerging from clouds and gleams hundred or thousand times more than the raw image. As soon as it appears, the veils disappear temporarily. The mind becomes concentrated. This is a very early stage of meditation. We shall call it ‘Primary meditation’.
In this early stage of meditation whenever you have a perfect image in your mind, don’t get up from meditation quickly. It is highly recommended that you must extend this perfect image methodically and continuously at that sitting to achieve the first stage of meditation. To expand this perfect image, follow the rules:
The perfect image is expandable. Before expanding, crop one or two inch of the surroundings around the image with your mind and expand your image to that portion only. Expanding without a limit is not advised. Then you should expand your image gradually to one ft, your room, your house, your village, your town, your district, your country, your continent and finally to the whole world by making a boundary at first and then expand the image to that boundary only. This is a part by part integrating process.
However when you think of this, if you fail to achieve the first stage of meditation in that sitting, you must be very careful so that your perfect image is not lost in the next sitting due to external influences. You must be careful about the following facts to keep your perfect image intact:
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Place: Leave that place where the image does not appear or the appeared image is lost and awareness fades away and mind doesn’t become concentrated. That place is not suitable for you. Where the image appears, lasts long, awareness comes and mind becomes concentrated, that place is suitable for you.
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Food: Where your food and clothings are available, that place is suitable for you, the opposite is unsuitable.
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Speech: Your speech must be controlled. Your speech should not include anything about outside matters. It will be the cause for the image to disappear due to mental distraction.
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People: Some people who will cause an increase in concentration, they are suitable for you. Who don’t help in your concentration, they are not suitable for you.
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Season: In which seasons you can concentrate more, they are suitable for you. Those seasons that are not helping it, they are unsuitable for you. Which is unsuitable, just avoid it, find or continue to the suitable season.
Thus if you consider the above facts and live according to these rules, then you won’t need much time to achieve the first stage of meditation. If still it doesn’t work, then you should follow another ten rules that will surely take you to the first stage of meditation. We will discuss it later.
This first stage of meditation must be practiced thoroughly by the new meditator to be fully accustomed with it in five different ways:
- He practices it to be able to get the first stage of meditation with any of his five components (argument, judgement, pleasure, bliss and intentness) in a way such that wherever he wishes, whenever he wishes and how long he wishes, he is able to reach at that stage of meditation right there. In fact, with extensive practice of meditation, he is able to reach and stay with any one of these five components.
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He practices it to be able to get the first stage of meditation in a way such that wherever, whenever and how long he wishes, he is able to get it right there.
- He practices it to be able to reach and stay there just only for a moment if he wishes.
- He practices it to be able to get up from meditation within just a moment.
- He practices it to be able to reminisce or count the moments in meditation.
When he is used to the first stage of meditation in those five different ways, now he thinks- perhaps the two components argument and judgement are too much troublesome for a calm mind. So realizing this fact, he wishes to enter into the second stage of meditation, where only pleasure, bliss and single-pointedness prevail. With a view to this, he comes out from the first stage of meditation and reminisces the five components where he finds argument and judgement to be dull and pleasure, bliss and single-pointedness to be calm and peaceful. Thus with a view to reject the two components and to get the rest three components, he again concentrates his mind in the image and recites ‘earth’ silently until he enters into the second stage of concentration. Here he finds only physical and mental pleasure, happiness and single-pointedness. Really it is a memorable moment he has ever experienced!
He practices it, becomes accustomed to it, enjoys it perfectly by entering into this stage randomly. Thus he becomes able to get it in the five different ways as mentioned above.
Now he realizes that pleasure is not so fine as compared to the bliss and single-pointedness. So he thinks- My mind wants pleasure and keeps me attached to it. I must get rid of it. Realizing this fact he comes out of the second stage with a view to enter into the third stage of meditation where only bliss and single-pointedness prevail. Thinking the fact that ‘Now I must enter into the third stage of meditation’, he concentrates his mind again on the image and recite ‘earth’ repeatedly, silently. With such a concentration and intention in his mind, he gets into the third stage of concentration. Here he finds only great happiness with single-pointedness of the mind. With great happiness in his mind he can even pass the whole day in one sitting!
Before he proceeds on, he must be accustomed to this third stage of meditation in five ways as stated above.
Gradually he reveals that happiness is also like a burden and it would be better if he could get rid of it. With a view get rid of this, he comes out from the third stage of meditation, concentrates his mind on the perfect image and recites the word ‘earth’ silently innumerable times until he arrives in the fourth stage of meditation. It is the ultimate stage of meditation among the worldly forms rather than abstract forms. Here he finds only single pointedness of mind and no pain whether it is physical or mental cannot reach to him. No external force whether that is natural or artificial can displace even a single hair of him in this stage. This is the stage where if a meditator wishes anything, it will be done avoiding all the natural principles!
This is the stage for which so much efforts you have done! Before doing anything supernatural, please be accustomed with it in five ways as mentioned above. When you are very familiar with it, now you can drive your mind to perform the super powers. Go ahead. Wish you best of luck.
But remember one thing. Don’t be so excited. If you are not careful about preserving these abilities, surely they will be lost. On the other hand, if your mind is occupied by ill thoughts like sexual desire, hatred etc. surely your mind will lose these amazing abilities. There is no guarantee that you will not lose these powers. If you do, say or think badly, they will disappear right at that moment. There is no safeguard on this earth to prevent these powers from being lost except two things, either be very careful to preserve it or practice Vipassana Meditation to achieve first stage to salvation. Whenever you achieve first stage of salvation, you will never ever lose these powers, because in this stage you will have such insight that you will realize what is going to right or wrong and you will never be able to perform bad things! Check this out at this link: Vipassana Meditation
In this case, you will take the image of water through sitting by a river, lake or pond where still water remains. Sea may be another source but it is not guaranteed. Those were for outdoor meditation. If you want indoor meditation, just take a bowl and fill it with clean water up to the rim of the bowl. Now you have a meditation object, with which you can meditate in your room. Go on along the path as described in the Mediation of Earth. Here you just concentrate your mind on the water and recite in silence the word ‘water’ or other appropriate synonyms for a hundred and thousand times. With such a concentration, water appears as if it is flowing. You can also see the bubbles on water. It is the raw image. The perfect image appears like a large crystal of water (not ice!) hanging in the sky. With the presence of this perfect image, you will arrive at the fourth stage of meditation. The process is like the same as Meditation of Earth.
In this meditation, you can take the image from any fire, from a fire of candle to the bonfire or fire from fireplace. Just concentrate on the middle of the flames and not on the edges of the flames, then recite ‘fire’ repeatedly and silently. With this recitation, raw image of the fire appears which looks like flames are falling down separately. You can also see there the logs, ash, fumes or coals as the defects. The perfect image is still, like a piece of bloody blanket placed on the sky or like a golden statue. With the appearance of perfect image, you will get the primary meditation and with a continuous practice, you can get into the fourth stage of meditation. The process is like the same as Meditation of Earth.
In this meditation you will take the image visually or through touching. For a visual image the meditator concentrates his mind on the moving of leaves or branches or grass or any movement caused by wind. Also when air strikes on your body, concentrate on that place and recite ‘air’ or ‘wind’ or some other appropriate names. You can make an arrangement so that air continuously strikes you through fan and you can easily concentrate on the parts where air strikes you and recite ‘air’, until you get an image of flowing air. This is the raw image. The perfect image is still that moves to your perception not unlike a moving picture. The process is like the same as Meditation of Earth, except it pulls to you then you are as though released.
Anything that is of blue colour can be used as an image. Just concentrate on it and recite ‘blue’ or some other appropriate words. Here raw image includes defects. The perfect image is just perfect and magnificent, without any defect, appeared as if set on the sky. The rest is like the Meditation of earth.
Take the image from yellow coloured flowers, clothes or materials. Just concentrate on it and recite ‘yellow’ or some other appropriate words. Here raw image includes defects. The perfect image is just perfect and magnificent, without any defect, appeared as if set on the sky. The rest is like the Meditation of earth.
It is also like the meditation of yellow. Take any red object to produce your image. The rest is like the meditation of earth.
It is also like the meditation of yellow. Take any white object to produce your image. The rest is like the meditation of earth.
When light comes through any slit or hole or small opening, it usually makes a shape of that hole on the ground. Concentrate on that shape and recite ‘light’ repeatedly, silently. Also In the dark room, when you project a light ray through a hole on the wall, you may concentrate on that form on the wall and meditate. It is the best suitable method for you. The rest is like the meditation of earth.
In this case, the meditator concentrates on the sky through a small opening of wall or through windows and recites the word, ‘sky’ or other appropriate word silently and continuously until the raw image is set into the mind. Here raw image appears in a shape just like what he sees. It is not expandable. The perfect image appears like a full sky. It is expandable if desired. The rest is like the meditation of earth.