What do people aim for when they meditate, and how do they do it properly?
07.06.2025 14:28
At 15 I took the CA Proficiency exam was got out of school. I still needed sleep and more. I decided to go to a university where everyone meditated. There were only two in the US at that time. Naropa in Boulder. A Tibetan Buddhist institution, and Maharishi International University. Naropa had a Beat Generation pedigree due to Allen Ginsberg teaching there. I wanted to stay far away from the Beat Generation and any more punkedness and street. I had had enough. One of my friends was a male hustler who made me escort him to old men’s residences as a lookout so he wouldn’t be overly taken advantage of, besides the pederasty. He was always getting ripped off by the men he was just trying to make a buck from. Even fucking pederasts are dishonorable scum when it comes to paying up, and that’s probably part of their choosing kids to fuck - because we’re weak, and they are fucking pussies at heart. I remember seeing one of his customers as a teacher at Los Angeles Valley College. When that man saw me he jumped almost 6 feet in the air like a scared cat.
Now meditation. I am 59. I have done TM and many foms of meditation by now. For 45 years. On and off. I didn’t always stick to the program. Actually, I do every meditation in the world that I care about. From Sri Vidya to ____I’m gonna leave that blank who knows?
They made me wait 6 months cause I had told them about using LSD.
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I hope you enjoyed the presentation. What do you get out of meditation? First, self knowledge, second, calm, third, stress relief, fourth a world of other psychophysiological benefits. TM would call it all ‘normalization.’ I will leave this without conclusion because in meditation the end results are not as important as the mere fact of doing it. End results can take one until the end of their life to result. Not trying to be funny, but the more esoteric things are based simply on the normal ones.
Another contemporary guru of that time, maybe a bit earlier was P.R. Sarkar of Ananda Marga fame, who wrote down the three needed elements for manas japa mantras. I believe myself that the great Maharishi read this or discussed it with Sarkar before coming up with reformed new and improved TM Mantras. Mantras needed more than one syllable to have rhthym to entrain the mind (charm it), they needed to be invocative (of good things in this case Shri), and I forget the third thing. It’s all on Ananda Marga website. Therefore not every word can be a mantra. Like the word “Mike,” nah! Good thing about Shri Vidya mantras is they are all space element which balances the others.
and relax.
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I probably should have started with that. What is the meditative state? It has been described as like watching a solitary bird fly through a clear sky.
It really doesn’t matter what you believe the mantras entrain the mind and pull it to a state of pacification quite automatically.
I do consider myself an expert in all things occult and meditation. I saw kundalini. And was clairaudient and clairvoyant for two days until the meditation went beyond that. And so on. For me meditation rejuvinated my burned out spirit. I mean that’s thing one. Thing two is I know who/what I am very thoroughly, and I am a creature of light. I eventually became Buddhist. Because I had always fallen through the cracks. I didn’t feel that material pursuits were of particular benefit to me. That may confuse you about me and what I have done, if anything. I was a chef in New Orleans is how I buttered by bread for thirty years. If you paid attention you know I broke my tailbone so I enjoyed being on my feet.
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Anyway, that’s TM. Let’s look quickly at some other meditations.
While I can sit in meditation (if I feel like putting up with my hurt tail), I sink right to the state of dhyan immediately, and it has to do with the TM training. They give you a mantra which is a composite of some Sanskrit syllables. All of Sanskrit is called a holy alphabet. It’s written form is called Devanagari, which means writing of the Gods.
Through a coincidence I ended up at the Pacific Palisades TM center and I could feel the fluffiness. It felt really soft and I could feel my spirit moving. So I learned TM.
Hard to say. People are all different. I was a young burnout and punk rocker. I needed sleep desperately. I hung out on the streets from the time I was 13. I mean I had a home but there was nothing for me there really. It’s a long story. But I did know sleep enough wasn’t enough to get my mind right. I had been sneaking out and staying out all night going to clubs for years, by age 15. I had good and bad acid trips. I wanted to be a ‘normal’ person. (That never panned out exactly).
Dhyan, as Patanjali describes it, is the ability to hold the mind to two things at once - hold the mind to a point, and also keep it wide open. This is the state of meditation, focused openness. Similar to watching TV, but watching your mind.
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I am not trying to sell you on TM. I could care less any longer which type of meditation support one is attached to.
(As an aside some Xtians don’t want other bijam mantras because they would rather havd iesus, yoheshua, jehowishah, jesus, god , as mantras. But those mantras lack the three important factors for making a good meditation mantra. Well -==i-e-sus==- is good, Joshua is okay. Mantras. So then you would try doing a Jesuit coptcat version of TM but with Catholic themes. TM in something called centering prayer by Thomas Merton, A Trappist monk.
For universities I choose Maharishi International University. It looked normal. The people seemed normal. And in truth, they were normal. Even now looking back I was not part of a cult, in any way, shape or form. TM is not a cult. It is a business. But not a cult. Though some people run to the culty side of things and you meet the worst of them on the internet. Be glad you’re on Quora and not Usenet, or Yahoo Fairfield Life, which was ful of every single brand of cult mentality. Some of those people remain for me the trollingest of trolls ever. They would probably blush with pride being called that now.
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Again they made me wait now a year because of prior drug use. Otherwise I would have been there at age 16. I am glad I waited the year. I would have been way too immature for college at that age. Also having cut just about the last three years of high school I was smart but not a good student.
And syllable or combination of syllables of Sanskrit sounds can be called mantras. Some however are more directly God-directed. Fact is it would be more Goddess directed. The TM mantras have some relation to small sounds used in Vedic ritual called bijam. Syllables is what that word means. But these particular bijam are really names of the Creatrix. Believe in Her or not. I don’t care.
For myself I took some Tibetan Buddhist things and made them so I could walk while meditating, and that has served me the same as sitting meditation.
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I meditated to get my mind right. And there were not many choices of teachings for a 14 year old. I found TM (Transcendental Meditation). I had been steering towards Yogananda’s SRF but they didn’t have any programs for normal people. But their pagodaville had a Krishna statue with a stream and bench to sit on. So I meditated there times. They would take monastics. I guess. Then there was Buddhist meditation. Basic meditation - calm abiding. It wasn’t direct enough for me. I needed something which made me feel fluffy and nice. That had a goal. That had some direction, and that was also a bit esoteric.
I mean I grew up in Hollywood. At a psychic fair when I was 14 Guru Datta initiated me into his mantra. I knew all the spiritual places for esoteric teachings - Vedanta center. I would sit there with my eyes closed. Nothing going on here. Manly P. Hall - lots of theory, but nothing practical. I knew the Rastfari Rabbi with the flute who lived on the beach off Santa Monica I guess. Direct from Bob Marley to preach Jah Love. I studied Tarot from BOTA since I was 12. I met the head of the Golden Dawn occult society. Got to the wear Aliester Crowley’s clothes and Egyptian Nemiss. Hold the Herophant’s wand. Bearheart the American Indian medicine man. Did a few sweat lodges. Was a lot like Catholicism in the sense of ‘telling your story,’ sweating out the impurities. I was searching. I admit to once giving a blood sacrifice to Satan from my own arm. And for a minute I had a Baphomet temple in a burned out occult shop, and two friends to do rituals with. I was actually growing dark and angry. None of those were enough for me.
Why am I giving you my autobiography? Because the autobiography of my inner experiences can’t be portrayed. After doing TM as I had I was able to settle right into the meditative state. I guess right there is something of importance - the meditative state.
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There’s a world of supports to meditation. When one has trained long enough their mind falls into clarity without even a nudge. Meditation without a support is pretty difficult for people new to meditation. Because we are trined from birth the do something, not do nothing. Simplicity is one reason TM did so well. Even the busiest people can do the TM mantra and follow it to a state of inner calmness. One size, fits almost all.
Patanjali who is famous for the Yoga Sutras, the definitive work on yoga, calls meditation dhyana. For language reasons you drop the last “a” and so the word for meditation is dhyan. Which is pronounced like the surfer superstar singer Dion. Not like Diane, but like dee-yawn.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was a savvy businessman, among many guru businessmen. We know their names - Rajaneesh, Yogananda, Muktananda, and so on. Maharshi though made the ability to meditate very direct and easy.
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During this time you merely allow your mind to wander and when thoughts run out of energy sometimes clarity appears. For a minute. After awhile the clarity develops. Over years one can start to see into the very texture of their mind. Meditation descriptions abound. And Buddhists are masters at meditation. So I won’t bother you with such descriptions.
I meditated heavily for three of my four years at MIU. My name was even on a plaque for perfect group meditation attendence for one year. But I broke my tailbone. I was able to ignore it for awhile but it screwed up my big plans to basically meditate my life away, and so I didn’t. I never mentioned it again til late in life but not being able to sit was like the opposite of everything I was doing.
There’s calm abiding, which is called Sati, Shiney, and Shamatha. Those three words are taken from Pali, and Tibetan but all mean basic meditation. The simplest method is to
Sit tall
This type of meditation takes some time to develop. What I told you with sit tall and relax is called without meditational support. Buddhists also have supports which are variations on the TM mantra. Focusing on breath. And an old and often mentioned technique, which I never liked, is called Tratak. Focusing on a candle flame. Just too hot for my mind as a symbol. I don’t lik listening to my breath. I been alive and around and I have anxiety. Focusing on breath is too existential for me.