Experiment in
Common-Sense Meditation

All five participants stuck with the experiment to the end, and here's some of what each one wrote for a wrap-up evaluation in response to the question: "Where are you now compared with where you were three months ago?"

• Can't believe it is over already. Looking back at my responses earlier, I can say that fundamentally the change that has occurred is that now I know better. In other words the rationalization that "I don't know what to do" in the past has stymied any efforts. Now, I can say with confidence that the immediate path in which I need to travel is laid out in front of me, and that is enormously comforting in certain respects. Dealing with uncertainty and ambiguity is a primary causal force for stress and this experiment has alleviated it. However, knowing the talk and walking the walk are quite different.

• I feel my vector veering and I can't say I'm particularly surprised. The girl and the job are getting more attention than they have in the past, which together also have a synergistic effect. In order to stay and date the girl I need to keep my job so I need to actually work, which I hadn't always done the past few months…. I feel I am much more interested in seeing what actually is going on. I am just plain curious. That's not to say that particularly "loud" situations don't get me off track, but I find it much easier to watch the [mental] squirrels than I have been able to in the past.

• The good: the content of meditation is more in line with the belief [that] self definition is where the answer is.... Also, there has been some movement on the topic, seeing some things. My goal is to narrow down the topic of meditation and for it to be productive, and this has been relatively successful. The bad: I have not yet found what I need to stay focused well in meditation. I have short bursts of focused effort on the topic surrounded by swaths lost in thoughts and only on a rare occasion will there be a stretch of focused meditation.

• I'm really glad to have participated in this online group. For the 1st time in the 35 years, I finally took the advice [Richard] Rose gave me. He told me to stay celibate and to meditate an hour a day. Hour meditations seem do be much more productive for me than shorter ones. Even though I still drift off often, I also manage to get in quite a bit of productive meditation. Three months ago I had a hit and miss one-half hour daily meditation practice. Today I have a solid and productive meditation practice.

• I'm not quite sure. It just so happened that I was (am?) in a period ruled by a stubborn lack of inspiration, which contributed to not allowing me to become the meditating machine that I hoped to become at the end of this CSM experiment. However, the group was effective at turning my focus to one single thing (meditation) for a while. I feel like I have a bit of a better idea of meditation as a tool in my search, and what it might be useful for ... and how to make use of it.

"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

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  Common-Sense Meditation article on this site for background on self-inquiry meditation.

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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)

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"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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"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)

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