Types of Meditation

Vipassana is a meditation in which you built a calmer, stable, more equanimous state of mind by focusing on (and remaining equanimous against) bodily sensations. You don’t react to sensations. What are sensations? Any bodily change that can be felt. Why sensations? Because they are intertwined + integral in any and every experience one faces. Sensations are enjoined with all facets of life whether it be perceiving or reacting. Vipassana is merely watching these sensations absent reaction. How does one stop reacting? By focusing only on the sensations, keeping calm and through the knowledge that they are transient.

Endurance is the term I would use. How does one feel sensations? By sharpening the mind. How does one sharpen the mind? By focusing on only one thing, over and over again. The first 3.5 days of a 10-day (really a 9-day) Vipassana course consists of focusing first on the breath, then the breath in the “triangular” region of the base of the nostrils to the upper lip and finally to any sensation one feels in that area. 5.5 days are spent doing Vipassana – feeling sensations all over the body and not reacting to them. That’s it. Vipassana is deceptively simple. The path is easy enough but things start changing as you go deeper. More intense experiences and sensations follow.

Still, this method is straightforward but it takes discipline and effort to follow. This is why I usually recommend the course. The technique is alright but the discipline there is amazing. Waking up at 4am and going to sleep at 9:30pm fixes your sleeping cycle. Eating only veg food, absent of onions and garlic, regulates your palate and stomach. Meditating regulates the mind; calming and focusing it.

I have been doing Vipassana since November 2010. The main reason I started was because I was having panic attacks and wanted a way to eliminate them without resorting to medication. I have attended:

• x5 10-day courses
• x2 service
• x1 7 day course
• x1 3-day course

and I went a few times on Sundays. The results for me are: a calmer and sharper (concentrated) mind and ability to sense and feel vibrations – to a degree.

I have not been practicing consistently though. The teacher says to meditate two hours daily but I haven’t been. There are a few factors involved in this. One is because it places a great stress on my mind. I become more “sensitive” – the mind is open (for the sake of cleansing). This leaves it too receptive to changes in the outside world. Seb said that “there is a switch” so I will have to look for it next time I go to a course – in a few weeks, Dec 22nd – Jan 1st.

Also, I never got “into” the Vipassana culture and philosophy. This is due – for me – there not being a “God” in Vipassana teachings. It is good and all to cleanse yourself of your vices for the betterment of yourself. But I’ve always wanted to know “why” this world “is,” from a mere intellectual perspective – even though I have limitations in understanding and cannot grasp everything. These restraints are bound by experience and my current state of mind. However, I wanted at least a basic, theoretical understanding of what and why this world is.

Digression:

– The idea of God has been noted by too many saints, sages and prophets throughout the world and at various epochs and ages. Better and sharper minds than I have extracted this truth through experience, intellect and reasoning. Therefore, to simply dismiss this notion would be illogical. Just because we do not experience God firsthand, does not mean that God does not exist or that we cannot do so. We must have a technique to achieve Him, if we choose to verify His existence. We must take a scientific approach to finding Him – for these methods do exist. Yoga means union with God. Yoga goes quite deep down the rabbit hole and is not merely a set of physical or mental exercises. Achieving the Nim Tao state is good. But uniting with Him is better.


Vipassana never solved this issue for me. For Vipassana, it was always about experience, experience, experience. Now, experience is good and all. But if my intellect is running faster than my experience then I need a bit of leeway, someway to regulate it.

Also, I don’t know if this technique is fast or slow. Buddha supposedly taught thousands of meditation techniques for different persons but this is more of a one size fits all approach. If you read Autobiography of a Yogi (information below) you will find that there is more to this world than meets the eye. There are so many paths so why should I be stuck with this one that I really don’t have much interest in?

It seems there are faster methods available to use – such as Kriya Yoga. I first read about Kriya Yoga in a book by Paramhansa Yogananda – Autobiography of a Yogi. One can attain this method by signing up for YSS lessons – organization founded by Yogananda for the purpose of spreading spiritual teachings.

link to Autobiography of a Yogi book

It now seems very interesting. Now that I have discovered the correct way to do SNT – through the spine and mind – I am seeing similarities between 1) awakening the kundalini and 2) the process of Kriya Yoga.

However, Kriya Yoga is plauged by lineage in-fighting just as the Wing Chun community is. There are too many people claiming that they have the correct technique and everyone else is doing it wrong. Also, a guru’s initation is requisite. It is there in Vipassana as well, but it is not as secretive and intensive (preparatory) as in Kriya Yoga, and is freely given.

link to a genuine kriya yoga understanding

Here is the method:

• How to practice: By keeping both the shoulders in a natural position, by expanding the chest a little bit, by bringing the back in a straight position, by lowering gently the chin, by mentally gazing between the two eyebrows, the position becomes steady effortlessly. Kriya Pranayama starts and goes ahead with natural breathing. 
• While breathing in this natural way, you mentally chant Om six times in Kutastha during inhalation and six times during exhalation. This will seem to you not a correct way of practicing Kriya, but please practice this way, this is what Lahiri Mahasaya and Swami Pranabananda Giri instructed 
• If your breath is shorter, accept this situation without trying, with uneasiness, to lengthen your breath. A longer breath will appear spontaneously in time. What matters is to stay focused at Kutastha with the mental chant of Om. You can keep the tip of the tongue touching the palate (baby Kechari) or practice the real Kechari (in this lineage of Kriya, perfect Kechari is not required.) 
• Knocking with Om at Kutastha (third eye, between the eyebrows) will give you the power to enter the 2 very subtle channel of Sushumna and to mentally touch the central point of each Chakra – a deed that happens only by keeping the concentration, on Kutastha. 
• At a certain point you feel the spine and the Chakras. Now you realize that the mental chants of Oms in Kutastha are happening in the center of each Chakra too. The six Oms, while inhaling, reverberate in the six Chakras from down to top: Muladhara, Swadhisthana, Manipura, Anahata, Vishuddha, Ajna. The six Oms, while exhaling, reverberate in the six Chakras from top to down: Ajna, Vishuddha…(it takes time reaching this stage.) But remember your attention is always at the central point of the spiritual eye. If your focus is diverted from Kutastha, all the magic of this process is lost. It is Kutastha that gives you the power to feel the central point of each Chakra. 
• And then at a certain moment you will feel that the veil of darkness fades away and you witness the brilliance of the Divine Light in the center of which lies the entry point of Sushumna. After entering the Sushumna you have to use force on Pranayama. 
• Kriya becomes extremely enjoyable. The length of each breath increases. With such instruction complete your 108 Kriya breaths. Don’t overstep the prescribed number: 108.

Direct link to above

Swami Vivekananda is a saint who also speaks of focusing on raising the kundalini to attain God. He says,

“Thus the rousing of the Kundalini is the one and only way to attaining Divine Wisdom, and super-conscious perception, the realization of the spirit. It may come in various ways, through love for God, through the mercy of perfected sages, or through the power of the analytic will of the philosopher. Wherever there is any manifestation of what is ordinarily called supernatural power or wisdom, there must have been a little current of Kundalini which found its way into the Susumna. Only, in the vast majority of such cases of supernaturalism, they had ignorantly stumbled on to some practice which set free a minute portion of the coiled-up Kundalini. All worship, consciously or unconsciously, leads to this end.”