CHAPTER 8- HOW TO MEDITATE A Detailed Method of Hermetic Meditation by Martin Faulks
The book is designed to reach both novice and advanced practitioners alike. It involves detailed instructions on progressive postures from sitting in a chair to the lotus position. Martin also delves into the many questions people have regarding dealing with the mind and other meditation-related topics.
Posture
The first step is to establish good posture in both terms of body and mind. Think of this as the very first stage of dwelling in goodness. Using principles outlined earlier, take time to consciously arrange your body into proper posture with calm, care, and enjoyment. Move towards the best possible posture. Without being too much of a perfectionist, use your body as a guide and work with it. The posture should feel comfortable and have a positive, uplifting effect. Good posture leads to raised awareness and a good mood. Place your hands on your thighs, and with your palms up close your eyes and take a few moments just to breathe and allow your body to be in comfort. Command your entire being to relax. You can just sit and let the natural process of the seat of the right posture unfold. If you like, you can work with it and take a few moments just to picture your whole body in perfect posture and all the functioning of your body in perfect order. Let health flow through you and harmony form inside.
Breath
Now move your attention to your breath. You may have noticed that it has naturally slowed. Perhaps your breathing is from your abdomen now. Watch your breath like it’s precious. Allow it to become smooth, slow, and long. Your breathing pace should be calming and feel natural. The mind naturally follows your breathing, so it’s worth taking some time to let your awareness rest on the breath. Move your focus to your breath. Let the whole process of breathing continue without the strain of any conscious control. Just be present, feeling the breath as it flows in and out of your being. Keep your awareness on the sensation, sound, and rhythm of your breath. Become a calm, unattached witness to the process, joyfully observing the sensation of the breath moving. Don’t feel a need to control the breath. Let your mind be at one with the breath and let the breath be as it will. You may find that at times the pace of your breathing changes. This is all part of the process. Learn to make this part of the natural process. Just observe and experience it. The breath is naturally long when we are relaxed and short when we need to let go of tension. Watch
the pace of life with pure awareness, which is your true nature.
Expand your Awareness
Let the whole of your body relax. Enjoy just being there and letting the body relax at its own natural pace. You may notice that although your focus has been on your breath, your awareness, in general, is starting to increase. Watch as your body awareness grows and how your mind starts to be present to each sensation of the body. Soon you will find your mind naturally begins to clear. Watch as this sensation spreads and magnifies. You are now entering a state of meditation. Let your mind rest gently on every thought or sensation. If your focus starts to move to anything, in particular, bring it back to the whole, really embody every sense, sound, smell, or other input as one. View everything as a calming, healing blessing, and gift.
Tune in
As you sit in a state of calm natural awareness, with practice, you will discover the innate ability you have to raise your consciousness and expand your sense of self. The feeling should be a joyful connection to the job in hand, similar to the feeling you get from a pure focus on a hobby or when you are fully engaged in something enjoyable. With practice, you will find you gain a better ability to increase your receptiveness to outside and inner sensations. We all have a limited degree of control over our level of awareness. When asked to concentrate with some effort, we can increase our focus. With Hermetic meditation, we find our awareness volume control and learn how to increasingly turn it up under our control Accept inner and outer sensations as one. Expand your sense of self and allow a feeling of oneness with everything. Let all pass without attachment or need to interact. Sometimes you may feel in harmony or at one with the goodness resonating, or nature itself. At times of healing or rebalancing, the breaths may be of unequal length. That is to say, the in-breath and out-breath may have different durations or intensity. Whatever the breath needs to be, let it be natural and unforced. Relax, focus, and just observe and experience it.
Sending Good Wishes to Others (Optional)
Using this method you can use your link with the great good to bring blessings to others. As you feel ready to come out of your meditation state, simply let your mind slowly go back to its normal state. Slowly let your body wake up and start to move. At this point, you may choose to take a moment to send a good wish to a person or place that you feel could benefit from tuning in with the goodness and clear vision that you have just embodied in your practice. To do this, imagine forming before you a beautiful shimmering silver disk, almost like the moon floating before you. Then imagine the person you feel could benefit from a blessing or healing pictured on that disk. Picture clearly in your mind’s eye with the best possible intent the ideal outcome of the situation which comes to mind. If you choose to do this, then once you have expressed your kind intentions, move your mind away from the subject immediately and get on with your daily business.
Progressing in Your Meditation
With practice, you will find some beautiful changes as a result of your meditation practice. In daily life, you will be more calm, carefree, and adaptable. Your ability to focus, recover, and enjoy life will be renewed. With time your breath will transform in parallel with your mind. Your breathing will slow down and become more subtle and refined. Sometimes your breath can even seem to have stopped. At such times you will experience a wonderful
sense of calmness, oneness, and inner peace.
Remember: You Already Know How to Do This
Hermetic meditation is something natural, relaxed, and innate. It’s not something you need to learn—it’s something you need to remember. There are moments in your life when you have been in a place of beauty and taken a few moments to just ‘soak in’ the scene. It could be from a long walk in nature where you stood for a few moments to look out over a lake or valley. Some people find the same awareness and serenity sitting in the garden or from a classical concert or work of art.
So, don’t overthink it. Remember that time when you just sat on a tree stump and just sat? Cast your mind to times in life that allowed your mind to feel clear, free from the worries of the world, and at one with everything for a few minutes around you. You are sure to have experienced it. It’s a natural part of life and happens to all of us now and again.
With daily practice, you can develop this ability to a very high degree.
To find out more about Martin please view his author page. You can also watch Martin’s interview with Franz Bardon’s son discussing his father’s work. View below publications from Martin.
