This was a question I found in my e-mail last week, and boy did I relate to it!

"Douglas, I've been meditating for some time now, or at least I've been trying. My friends seem to be having all sorts of fabulous spiritual experiences, meeting angels, and so on. But I don't see anything. I just sit there watching my mind scamper about. I'm very frustrated. Help!" -- Zatoichi.

Well, Zatoichi, I've had the same experiences. Once I was at a group meditation with a swami in charge and people were told beforehand that they may be asked to volunteer their experiences during the twenty minute meditation that followed. And they did!

I listened to one woman who danced with a famous guru who was dressed in a tuxedo. Others saw peacocks in full flare strutting about a wonderful garden with fountains and marble paths. Some flew with flocks of angels. All very exciting. All very yuppie and competitive.

When my turn came I told them that I sat for the whole twenty minutes, not very comfortably, and all I saw was darkness, yet knowing all the time that I was separate from that darkness. The wave of disbelief was immense. All the people with their mental videos thought that I had experienced something wonderful and was too selfish to share. What I had experienced was wonderful, but it didn't fit the expected pattern and was disregarded.

I realized that most, if not all the people who reported marvelous mental videos were novices who were meditating on their minds, which have unlimited videos available. The swami and the scriptures he used expected people to meditate on the Eternal and Changeless Self, the Witness Consciousness, not ephemeral stuff designed by the mind/ego complex to protect itself.

You have already noticed that as soon as you try to meditate there is something that doesn't want that to happen. You get itches and aches from nowhere and an urgent need to get up and check if you turned the kettle off. The ticking clock you haven't noticed all day suddenly sounds like a Harley revving up in the living room, and so on. You know about that. But what is doing all this interference is the ego/mind complex. This deadly duo want to be totally in charge of your life, even if it kills you.

The ego/mind duo are both going to die when the eternal part of you leaves the body behind, and anything that connects you with the eternal makes them disturbed. They exert their influence to prevent it happening. Most of the friends you mention, I think, are being deluded by the clever schemes of the ego/mind complex, so that they do not make any genuine progress towards becoming aware of their eternal Self.

There are six major and several minor ways, Zatoichi, which the ego/mind complex uses to cause people to think they are making spiritual progress, when the absolute opposite is occurring. And these tricksy ways are very common among meditators. People actually form groups according to the erroneous method they are sharing, and help each other along the path away from their inner Self.

This happened to so many of my consultees that I finally put into a book the major cunning plots they were probably encountering in meditation, together with the bulletproof way that always works, and has been used by hundreds of thousands of people of every religion and many non-religious groups throughout history.

If followed with perseverance, it by-passes all the traps of the ego/mind complex and you have the security of knowing that you are always moving towards your infinite and eternal Self, not away from it. The effort is small, but there is an effort. Effortless methods are always delusional. The reward of the small effort is immense.

In the current Christian scriptures are two clues that are almost universally ignored. They are: Seek ye first the Kingdom of God; and The Kingdom of God is within you. Then there's later on the advice Pray without ceasing.

These are clear instructions from a Master. What else can they mean but a suggestion to meditate? The ancient method I teach in the book follows these rules completely, which is one reason why it works. You contact the Deity within you, not the mythic being of the pious, which is always up there somewhere.

There are dozens of other scriptures from different religions that give the same advice, often in great detail. But English is the language of merchants and colonizers, and is very short on words that describe spiritual experiences, so English-speaking people are handicapped.

Here however, in English, is a quote from the Gospel of the Essenes, Book Two, not one of the current set:

Jesus said, "We worship the Holy Breath which is placed higher than all other things created. For lo, the eternal, sovereign, luminous space where dwell the unnumbered stars is the air we breathe in and the air we breathe out. And in the moment betwixt the breathing in and the breathing out is hidden all the mysteries of the Infinite Garden."

Consider that amazing statement. The air you breathe in and out every day relates directly to the spaces between the stars. By using the breath cycle properly it is possible to enter the space between thoughts, which is the Infinite Garden. Your own breathing can contact the Holy Breath. The method is simple, though not easy. The results however are real, not mental videos.

Several Hindu scriptures go into great detail on how to do that. The method in my book is the one all these wise people have used over the centuries.

I suggest, Zatoichi that before you go further down the path of meditation envy that you check out the best, unfailing method. It's in my book entitled, Meditation: the Bridge from the Apparent to the Real.

You can see all my books by clicking on the orange badge under "premium content" or go to lulu.com and type Douglas Buchanan into the search menu and you will go to a page with all my current offerings, all written for students over the years.

I was fifty years old before I could make pictures in my mind, "visualize" as some call it. I used to read self-help books by the score that told me that all I had to do to get this or that was to visualize it and connect the proper mental attitude to the visualization. Whenever I got to that point in the book I would throw it across the room. Wasn't there anyone out there who realized that not everyone could visualize? Maybe. But they certainly weren't getting their books published.

It was NOT being able to visualize for decades that led me to the ancient and foolproof method that finally worked and is working.

Happy Trails Zatoichi, you may have to change your name soon. I saw all 26 movies.

Douglas Buchanan

Resources
Meditation: the Bridge from the Apparent to the Real.