I've always found the "psychic debate" a frustrating one. It's too easy to start with a question like "do psychic powers exist?" and get a whole bunch of well-meaning people jumping into the fray to expound on how the existence of psychic powers do or do not exist. For me, the error is in the question, not the answer.
Instead, what if we were to ask, "are there things in this universe, or even within the limits of the human condition, of which we are unaware or unable to explain?" Resoundingly, sceptic and psychic alike will agree that this is unquestioningly so. Yet, as we saw in Part One, the two sides have a very different way of pursuing things from there.
As always, some may criticize that if this is a "how to" article, why don't I just stick to the step-by-step method to which psychic power may be attained? For them, I offer this simplified version:
breathe in... breathe out... believe in miracles.
I'm not trying to be facetious, I'm trying to make a point. Without a common frame of reference, the explanation is meaningless. So while I will always show my work and offer a true guide toward the cultivation of what some may call psychic power, I have to elaborate on where I'm coming from.
The psychic power I offer is not that of the 'Hollywood psychic' or the kind of stuff that requires you to believe in invisible fields of energy. But I can show you how to attain heightened states of mental clarity and awareness that can lead you to levels of functional performance and ability that rival even the most extreme myths of psychic power.
As we learn more about how our minds operate and how to begin to unlock our vast potential, what once seemed to be lost in the realm of the unreal or impossible begins to become more and more plausible. They may not appear to be the super human abilities we see from Hollywood at first glance, but think about it: what is functional difference between say, telepathy (the power to read minds) and a highly refined skill in reading body language. Functionally, they both give you the ability to learn things about someone they thought was hidden. FUNCTIONALLY, they are the same.
I remember seeing a commercial for an interesting toy: it was a small device that would play the old game of 20 questions. You remember the one: one person would get to ask 20 questions, that HAD to answer truthfully, true or false. If they failed to guess the object within that amount of questions, they lost. If they did they won. The device used a database of objects and a logic logarithm to play against you: you came up with an object, it would ask the questions; you would hit either 'true' or 'false', and it would guess what object you are thinking of. The ad campaign revolved around a guy getting average people walking by on a city street somewhere in the USA to try and beat the game. "Amazing!" they would cry, with a glee that made you think that your life would just NOT BE COMPLETE unless you had this amazing little device yourself, "the computer can read my mind!"
Of course, it did nothing of the sort. It was just a simple logical process that the computer was really good at doing. I'm not trying to say that people REALLY believed that the small toy was reading their minds, but at that moment in time, it SEEMED like it was. It seemed like it was in the same way we watch a skilled magician perform a magic trick and we allow ourselves to believe, in spite of the knowledge that it's just an illusion.
It is in this way we can experience Arthur C Clarke's prediction for ourselves: "Any sufficiently advance form of technology is indistinguishable from magic." Most of the time you hear this, the speaker is imagining thing of what might come. But I tell you this: the technology, and most applicable in at this moment, the INNER technology, exists today. I can help you advance your own 'inner technology' and allow you to discover your own magic.
Some of you might now be saying, "hold on... that's not REAL psychic ability! That can all be explained!" Ah, but that's the rub! If your definition of psychic power only exists in the realm of the unexplainable, then you will not fully appreciate the magnitude of power you truly possess. The gateway to the unknown lies within the realm of the KNOWN; from there, we begin to discover potentialities that supersede the limits of our ability to explain them (yet).
Here's another example: the human mind is easily the most powerful computer on Earth (so far...). Our brain has over a hundred billion neurons or nerve cells. If we were to compare these to a computer system, each neuron is like a tiny microchip, working in partnership with every other neuron in the body to receive, process, and transmit information in the form of electrochemical, or bioelectrical, signalling. This means that it uses both electrical signals and biochemical signals. For each neuron, there is an average of 7,000 connections (called synapses), working out to on average seven hundred trillion (7.0 × 1014) possible connections. Each of these connections can process and store a piece of information.
In comparison, the largest supercomputer on Earth (a million dollar machine) as of this writing is capable of processing 51.9 teraflops, or 51.9 X 1012 bits of information per second. Two things you should take away from this: 1) your mind is more than 13 times more powerful than the world's biggest supercomputer; 2) if computing power is DOUBLING every two years, it won't be long before our raw processing power is outpaced.
OK, I'll admit that simply comparing synapses to 'flops' may not be the most accurate comparison or raw processing power, but I hope I make my point: your mind is vastly powerful and is woefully underused to its fullest potential
But something is wrong here. If our brains are so incredibly powerful, why do we struggle to remember simple data that even a common home computer with a fraction of our processing power is capable of handling with ease?
The answer lies in our evolution: for almost 250,000 years, our minds were perfectly suited to grant us dominance over our world. While we lacked the sharp teeth, claws and other abilities of animals, we rose to dominance over them due to our intellect. Our minds evolved and allowed us to be good at the things we did every day - hunting, gathering, navigating, etc.
This modern age of philosophy and science has been perplexing to our evolution - the skills that once held dominance have declined, and skills of rational thought, introspection and the ability to decipher the mysteries of the universe have moved into their place. Though there has been some growth in our evolution over homo sapiens' short stay on our planet, for the most part we still THINK like a human being of 10,000 years ago. We don't think about the same things, or have access to the same knowledge (we have access to vastly more), but our thinking processes, on an evolutionary scale, have not changed much.
What's more interesting is that our CONSCIOUS mind - the part that we typically think of as "I", is weak compared to the vast power of our SUBCONSCIOUS mind. For example, while the subconscious (as we saw above) is capable of storing and processing VAST amounts of information, the CONSCIOUS mind is only able to handle seven pieces of information at a time. In test after test, modern psychology has shown that our conscious mind is only able to process and handle seven pieces of information at a time.
Think about it, SEVEN items at a time. Not very powerful, is it? It's like having a fifty million dollar computer hooked up to a device that only has seven buttons on it. The evidence is clear: the real power of the mind exists not in the conscious mind, but in the subconscious.
That's why so much traditional information on psychic abilities and magic powers relies so heavily on strange concepts like invisible energy fields and other things 'unreal' things: the conscious mind is not powerful enough to handle the intricate mechanizations that would create these effects all at once. We can UNDERSTAND that these concepts exist in the mind, and are representative of thousands of interlacing, real-world things, but to try and control all of them individually becomes so difficult that it becomes a waste of time and effort to do so (as per the 'pendulum' we talked about in Part One).
In Part One, I introduced the basic principles of meditation. Understanding and practicing the skill of meditation is necessary to fully appreciate and cultivate the intrinsic power of our minds. By developing our ability to focus and control our thoughts, we begin to realize greater and greater opportunities to allow the power of our subconscious mind to shine through the shallow waters of our conscious mind.
I offer now a more detailed discussion on basic breath meditation:
Basic Breath Meditation, Level 1
"I'M TRYING TO FREE YOUR MIND, NEO. BUT I CAN ONLY SHOW YOU THE DOOR. YOU'RE THE ONE THAT HAS TO WALK THROUGH IT."
- MORPHEUS (PLAYED BY LAURENCE FISHBURNE), THE MATRIX (1999)
The most basic form of mediation is what is also known as breathing meditation. As above, we are practicing the state of present-mind, freeing ourselves from judgment or distraction. Breath meditation is so called as it uses and brings focus to the breath as a vehicle to bring our mind into the present state. While a perfect moment of present-mindedness would be free of any focus BUT the present moment, this is very difficult to even begin cultivating.
When we focus on the breath, we trick our mind into the present moment. The mind can be like a child - if told to just 'sit still and do nothing', it will find this increasingly difficult. So we give it a task and accomplish what we want without having to struggle for it. What's nice about using the breath as a focus is that we normally think of breath in the present moment anyway. It's rare that we find ourselves daydreaming about some future breath, or reminiscing about that breath we took yesterday. It is always present.
So in basic meditation, start by finding a comfortable place, free of immediate distractions. That means you shouldn't be trying to meditate in a room with the TV on. Soft background music is OK, but if you find yourself paying more attention to the music than your breath, consider turning it off.
Now in the perfect scenario is to find or create a 'special place' to meditate. If the area is normally used to watch movies or TV, then the thought of just opening your eyes and turning on the TV will be a constant distraction. If it's your office, thoughts of tackling the work that seems to never end will press on you. However, this is not necessary. Recommended, yes, but not necessary. With practice it won't matter much anyway - the goal is not to remove ourselves from the world, but to learn how to tap into that 'calm center' even though we are in the middle of our frantic day. Still, the more you can isolate yourself physically in the beginning, the easier your practice will become.
Keeping in mind the Three Principles of Meditation (as in Part One), find a comfortable place to sit. Remember, good posture is important.
Next, close your eyes softly, and begin breathing deeply. We do this by focusing not on breathing by expanding our chest, but by expanding our abdomen. If your tummy is pushing out when you breathe in and collapsing when you exhale, that's abdominal, or DEEP breathing. This will be especially important shortly when we look at the more advance version of Breath Meditation.
Deep breathing may come easy for you, and it may not. If it doesn't, exaggerate the movement of pushing out your stomach as you breathe in, and clenching your stomach muscles when you breathe out. This may seem uncomfortable and awkward at first, but with a bit of practice, it should smooth itself out. This is a more natural form of breathing, that for whatever reason we abandon as we get older. Just watch any newborn baby breathing - they naturally breath from their abdomen.
We then begin meditation by counting our breaths. Start by counting slowly to three as you breathe in, then slowly to three as you breathe out: one one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand. If this is too short a time to really fill your lungs, then you can increase the number to five. Any more than that however isn't necessary. Just inhale faster (just not too fast).
Breathe as though you were filling a glass of water. In your mind, imagine that you fill your lungs from bottom to the top as you inhale, then reverse it as you exhale. The point being that you want to FULLY fill your lungs as you inhale, and FULLY empty them as you exhale. This is a lot harder than it sounds, especially if you're counting your breaths. You want to work it out so that inhaling and exhaling are BALANCED. You're not sharply inhaling, then slowly exhaling. Count three in, then three out.
Practice this, and every so often you'll notice that you forgot to count. That's OK... in fact, its EXACTLY what we wanted. These are the moments that are 'present-minded'. Don't pat yourself on the back when you realize this has happened (too much), just go back to counting your breaths.
As mentioned above, your thoughts WILL wander from time to time. This is what the counting is for... when it happens, acknowledge the thought, and return to counting your breaths. Again, don't be discouraged. This is completely natural.
So your inner dialogue may sound something like this:
You, as you inhale: "One one thousand..."
"two one thousand..."
"Three one thousand... ok, I'm about to exhale now. "
You, as you exhale: "one one thousand, I guess I shouldn't announce to myself that I'm going to inhale or exhale... oh well."
"two one thousand..."
"Three one thousand..."
You, as you inhale: "one one thousand... I should call my friend, Charlie, later..."
"..."
"..."
You, as you exhale: "oh, I wasn't counting just then... well, one one thousand..."
Your thoughts drift and are brought back into focus by counting your breaths. Again, every so often you'll be pulled well out of focus, and sometimes you will be so present-minded that you forget to count or anything else. Each is natural. With practice, the times when your mind is distracted will be fewer (though they will never disappear) and the times when you are completely present minded will be more frequent (though you will never stay in such a state very long).
Practicing this daily will develop the habit of meditation. This may seem intimidating at first, but remember, we're not talking about doing anything that requires a long commitment or special preparation. Almost anywhere you are can be a place where you can practice meditation. You will feel the difference with even just TWO MINUTES of meditation practice.
Also, unless you have made the commitment to study a more intensive form of meditation, I don't recommend spending more than 15 minutes in meditation practice. After that, it becomes increasingly difficult. Besides, more is not BETTER. If you think that you're going to get better results by meditating longer and longer, you'll more likely get so board and frustrated that you stop all together, and you'll find all kinds of excuses NOT to do it because 'you just don't have time today to meditate for a half an hour'. 15 minutes should be the upper limit of basic meditation practice, and five minutes should be the norm.
"Now YOU Can Create Professional 3D Animations, Games And Graphic Models Like Pixar and Dreamworks In 2 Hours or Less..."
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