I can’t and don’t profess any particular expertise or knowledge in the domain of meditation. My approach over the years has been sporadic, eclectic (much as the breadth of this website would show), and not in any sense personally dedicated over time. Nor can I claim allegiance or adherence to any one school of meditation.
What I can do is share with you a handful of practices that I found particularly effective after my opening experience. In fact, it is more accurate to say that these meditations were “doing me” rather than I was doing the meditations. That is to say, when my mind turned towards mindfulness states, these are the practices that spontaneously unfolded and ultimately yielded benefits. It was as if the practices did not even need to be initiated; they executed autonomously without any directed will on my part. My mind would comfortably settle into the state of mind called for by the practice as if it was taking up residence in a home long-occupied and well-known beyond the personal self. Whereas from below the veil, the states of mindfulness a meditation aimed for as an effect needed to be invoked through application of effort and personal will, when above the veil, cause and effect were reversed. The state of mindfulness spontaneously unfolding was the cause, and the effects were the sense of peace, joy, and goodness, inner silence, compassion, and deepening understanding. Meditation performed itself at this level. I wish the same sort of ease for anyone seeking meditation benefits.
A couple of side notes: it has been one of my discoveries about my personal idiosyncracies that meditative methods that employed visualizations are and have not been effective for me. This is not to say they are not and cannot be effective for others. I find that visualizations tend to be too much like “movies in the head”, ultimately images, almost by definition surficial, without deeper substance or reality to them. I find that my attention tends to be subsumed in the image and drawn away from my own experience of awareness, grounded in the here and now. I find them a form of pleasant distraction that pull attention outward and unfortunately contribute to a loss of centered consciousness in some degree. By contrast, the methods that work for me are the ones that open the interior dimensions, primarily through inviting me deeper (and higher) internally. Many methods that focus on body sensations, the breath, the “felt” sensate experience of aliveness in the body, and the core/pillar of awareness itself are particularly effective for me.
Likewise, some schools emphasize focusing on Divine personages and meditating on them, whether Christ, Mary, Kali, Buddha, or another. The Sophian school of Gnosticism has a number of practices like this, called “Union with Partzuf.” Again, there is no doubt these practices can be highly effective for those ready to respond to them. For myself, they have proven not to be effective. It appears that some are wired to be responsive to a personal Divine, while others are more naturally drawn to an impersonal Divine. An effective meditation must be aligned with one’s personal temperament and inclinations. In my interactions with Tau Malachi, he recognized this and suggested a modification of one of the Sophian practices to align the practice with a more impersonal orientation.
The practices listed here tend to be ecumenical in form, often appearing in more than one tradition in slightly different guises. For example, the practice of “Giving & Receiving” in the Sophian Gnostic tradition is almost identical with Tonglen of the Buddhist tradition. The witness consciousness and witness practices are mentioned by Sri Aurobindo, originated in the Vedas and the Mundaka Upanishad, and are found in the Christian contemplative traditions as well. This lends validation to a practice in my view, suggesting a universal appeal and accessibility that transcends time and cultural differences.
The practices:
Via Perennis 