What Is The "Light" Of Enlightenment? And How To Put It To Use!

Article by Carol E. McMahon, Ph.D.

We've all heard of it. Many have seen it. It's the light seen in deep meditation - the "light" of enlightenment. Its meaning to us has been symbolic. "Seeing the light;" "opening your eyes," and "awakening" are figures of speech, but we've been wrong here. There's more to this light than we realize. Understand its source and you can put it use; advance practice skill, and guide yourself straight to advanced meditation's great benefits. Here's what you need to know.

What Is The Light Of Enlightenment?

It can look as if a light turned on, brightening the room. "White light" has been reported. Major breakthrough to enlightenment is described as "ten suns shining." Such light might seem mystical, even imaginary, but it's an actual sensation. What causes it?

What Causes The Sensation Of Light?

The cause of the light will surprise you: it is attention. It works like this.

In eyes-open meditation (Zen practice for instance), good attention holds the eyes still. This creates a fixed retinal image that uses up photo pigment (like exposed photographic film), causing visual distortion in the form of light. Thus the light has a physical cause, and more importantly, you can produce it voluntarily with focused attention. You can produce it and use it to monitor attention - to 'see where you are going' and thus advance your practice. This is the new, highly efficient "feedback meditation" method - a power tool that sharpens with use and cuts through everything. Produce and make use of this light and you're guided in a straight line to your goal.

Guided By The Light - Guidance Better Than A Guru?

The guidance offered by the light is "feedback" - something psychologists know to be necessary for skill learning. The skill meditation requires is attention. Attention makes meditation work. The more focused and sustained your attention, the more benefit you gain.

Put another way: the less your mind wanders the more you benefit. Using the light as feedback you can hold! on to a ttention. (It's like having a built-in Guru monitor every moment of your meditation for accuracy.) The light tells you you're on target. Its disappearance alerts you to drifting away. Light provides the information you need for success. With the feedback method you produce and use it. Here's how it's done.

How To Produce Light

First you need a focusing point - a target for attention. A pea size bull's eye on a two inch round of paper will do (or even a spot on the floor). Specially designed discs that help create light, however (Focusing Discs), are freely available at the Straight Line Meditation website.

Place your disc on the floor; sit erect, and simply focus with a gentle gaze on the bull's eye. When distortion (light) appears, shift your attention to that. Hold on as you'd hold on to an anchor. Light anchors attention - assuring you meditation's "active ingredient." Here's how to use the light.

How To Use Light

It's been said "Go into the light." Beware this advice since it lets your mind wander. You'll soon lose feedback - your anchor for attention. Hold on to the light and it guides you straight to meditation's great benefits.

How The Light Guides You

The key to success is knowing this: when your mind wanders, your eyes wander and the light disappears. That's your (feedback) signal to get back on target. Return to the bull's eye; focus attention on the halo of light and re-anchor attention. With light to guide you, you'll never again be helpless in the face of a wandering mind. Build Concentration With Feedback

Without feedback, practice skill - your power of concentration develops slowly (if at all). Thus enlightenment is rare. Light guides the growth of your practice skill. Use feedback and you'll "see the light" in more ways than one.

About the Author

Author Carol E. McMahon, Ph.D. (and contributor: Master Deac Cataldo), cordially invite you to sample enlightenment self-tests (http://www.TheBestWayToMeditate.com/EnlightenmentTests.aspx), and enjoy free use of Focusing Discs that assure instant success (http://www.StraightLineMeditation.com/FocusingDiscs.aspx). Visit our sites and discover meditation's true power.

Siddhar Baba Nataraj: Beyond Enlightenment

Siddhar wisdom is empowering as it is a journey beyond enlightenment. Sage Tapasyogi Baba Nataraj speaks, in one of his rare interviews, on the realms of consciousness. Baba has been in tapas for over 45 years. He is a Siddhar master. His mastery is apparent through his egoless nature of utter humility and overflowing love and childlike joys. Wild animals, from squirrels to birds literally walk on his hands with no fear. Baba teaches ahimsa- non-harming and nonviolence; self-mastery and the essence of the mystical Siddhar tradition. His talk was recorded on the Mahasivrathri evening. Absorb his wisdom and be blessed by his darshan. Baba's words- "A Guru can take you till your third eye, then you are on your own. Jesus, Krishna, Buddha, Muhammad are illusion and are crutches, but ultimately you are your own self.. Self is one, self is God.. God is One. You can have master and disciple.. ultimately, you become the master... the master can take you to a certain point, like a ladder, it can take you to a certain point, after which it cant take you any further. It is all a dance of Lord Shiva. Babaji said don't put too much faith in Jesus, Krishna, Buddha, Muhammad, Rama.. go beyond, they are the highest step on the ladder, but go beyond.. they help us on the path. You have to reach a point where there is no duality, one without a second.. then you realize it's all God, and its all me.. the Self, you realize its all yourself... then you see God everywhere, you see the divine ...

Video Rating: 5 / 5

Enlightenment (Reis)

2008 newly remastered sound and expanded packaging including lyrics of Enlightenment, an album by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison, released in 1990. It reached No. 5 on the UK charts. Exile/Polydor releases this album as part of a batch of two of the four catalogue reissues of Morrison's albums dated from 1971 through 2002. In "Enlightenment" Van once again ruminates on spiritual matters, but this is probably the most sober and matter-of-fact expression of his personal struggle toward understanding that he has ever offered. "I'm in the here and now and I'm meditating / But still I'm suffering," Morrison admits, "But that's my problem."Its title seems squarely in the pilgrim's camp, where much of Van Morrison's '80s music dwells, but 1990's Enlightenment offsets new glimpses of Morrison's oft-sought Avalon ("Avalon of the Heart") with darker confessions of human frailty and challenged faith. The opening "Real Real Gone" belies its hard-charging R&B verve (a welcome return to high-octane soul after his relatively becalmed, then-recent work) with admissions of weakness, and even the lyrical title song reveals confusion more than salvation. A few years later, such defeats might have prompted one of his crankier outbursts, but this set is brightened by the joyful reminiscences of "Youth of 1,000 Summers" and the epic "In the Days Before Rock 'n' Roll," in which Morrison's declamatory fervor is matched by poet Paul Durcan. The latter song is a gloriously apt Morrison moment, exulting in Little Richard as though he walked the same astral plane as William Blake--which, in Morrison's world, is exactly the point. --Sam Sutherland

List Price: $ 13.98 Price: $ 6.06



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Scholars discuss relevance of Buddha in modern world

Image
New Delhi, Nov 27 ( IANS ) More than 900 Buddhist scholars , leaders and practitioners from 46 countries Sunday began deliberating the relevance of Gautama Buddha 's teachings, 2,600 years after his enlightenment, at a four-day Global Buddhist Congregation here. The venue at Hotel Ashok sported a riot of saffron, burgundy and ceremonial colours as monks and senior lamas from 46 countries like Nepal, Vietnam, Korea, Mongolia, Laos, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Germany flooded the premises. In a televised message, Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama , who will attend the convention Nov 30, to deliver the valedictory address, said: 'There have been many opportunities for Buddhists to come together and to discuss issues of common concerns.' 'The congregation has provided a much-needed and crucial opportunity. Now, and in the future, we need to encourage and foster an exchange of knowledge and experience among our different traditions and improve communication a...
Keep reading

Buddhist temple in Westminster destroyed in early-morning fire

Image
Enduring bitter cold Monday morning, a Westminster firefighter battles a blaze at the Lao Buddhist Temple. The building was a total loss. (Steve Nehf, The Denver Post) WESTMINSTER — Brutal cold mixed with cold reality for members of the burned-out Lao Buddhist Temple of Colorado on Monday as they mourned the potential loss of artifacts saved by generations of worshippers. "It's not good, it's not good at all," said an exhausted Tom Pong as dusk fell over the remnants of the temple. "There is lots of history, over 100 years of it, and it could be lost forever." Pieces charred or melted by the fire — which started just before 6 a.m. — included several Buddha figures. Worries about asbestos prevented Pong and other members of the temple from going inside to assess the damage. The temple is part of an older building that the congregation bought in the early 1980s and then expanded on a 6-acre parcel at 10685 Dover St. The older section has asbestos,...
Keep reading

Danish Buddhist leader, Lama Ole, to visit in Snohomish

Image
SNOHOMISH -- An unconventional guest is coming to Snohomish County next week. Ole Nydahl, a 70-year-old Danish leader of Diamond Way Buddhism, is visiting followers here in the Pacific Northwest. Nydahl's school of thought can be described as an adaptation of the Karma Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism to the Western culture, said Daria Novoselova, who will be hosting Nydahl's meeting with students in her Snohomish home. Nydahl, who is known as Lama Ole, is expected to arrive Monday. He is scheduled to give a talk at the University of Washington later that day. Novoselova, 29, felt drawn to Diamond Way Buddhism as soon as she met Nydahl. She remembers that very first lecture. She was 16 and living in Yekaterinburg, Russia, when her older brother brought her along to the lama's talk. "I immediately felt at home," she said. "I had all these ideas about the world, and, suddenly, everything came together." At the end of that lecture, she accepted a blessing ...
Keep reading