Awareness Meditation At Nirarta

Contents

Introduction

Awareness Meditation practice emphasizes gentle, innocent settling into your own being, without effort or attempts to stop thinking and ‘concentrate’. Take it easy and enjoy!

Awareness Meditation is an important part of our daily routine, and underpins the peace people regularly feel at Nirarta.

   

Group Practice At Nirarta

We have twice daily group practice of Awareness Meditation, at 7.30 am and 5.30 pm.

Guests who have some experience of silent, sitting meditation are welcome to join these sessions.

Unfortunately, we cannot offer full meditation instruction during our group practice.

   

Structure of Our Sessions

Our sessions are typically structured as follows:

  • A few minutes of stretching (the Shiva Sequence)
  • A few minutes of pranayama (balanced breathing)
  • 25 minutes of silent, sitting meditation
  • 5 minutes of ‘energy meditation’
  • 5 minutes lying down and resting
   

Joining Our Sessions

Our Awareness Meditation practice takes about 45 minutes. Brief instruction is generally given for the stretching, pranayama, and, whenever possible, for the energy meditation.

If the practice is longer than what you are accustomed to or you feel tired, lie down on your back and relax till the meditation is over.

   

Posture

Visitors are advised to sit with spine straight, whether on the floor, a cushion, meditation stool, or chair, whichever is most comfortable and will allow you to forget your body during meditation.

Private Instruction in Awareness Meditation

  Peter is a meditation guide with close to 40 years of experience practising and teaching meditation.
   

Introductory Session

A brief one-hour introduction is available on request from Peter when he is at Nirarta.

Simple instructions for meditation – both for forms of Awareness Meditation and for Prof. Suryani's Meditation – can also be found in Peter and Suryani's book Moksha: A New Way of Living, on sale at Nirarta.

   

Foundation Course

A 5-lesson Foundation Course is also available from Peter on request to provide practical instruction in the art of Awareness Meditation.

   
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Purpose of Meditation

Ultimately, the purpose of meditation is to help us awaken to our true nature, that subtle Awareness, which is the ground and Source, not only of our individual selves, but of all that is.

True meditation is not intended as an escape from this world. It is a key to practical living. As our consciousness awakens, so do our abilities and achievements. Meditiation helps us become truly present to our experience in the here and now. We find that our minds and bodies function better. We enjoy more happiness in daily life. We become more creative and enjoy better relationships with others. And in bringing peace into our lives, meditation helps bring peace to our world. The practical benefits of meditation in daily life are many and immediate, while the long-term benefits of regular practice to the quality of life are enormous.

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Types of Meditation

There are many kinds of meditation. Generally, their aim is to expand awareness, enhance mental clarity and focus, reduce stress, refresh the body, bring harmony to our relationships, and peace to our world.

Although there are many kinds of meditation practice, they may be grouped into a few 'families' of method, according to how they influence mind-body functioning.

Awareness Meditation, as practised at Nirarta, uses a mix of these methods.

  • Mindfulness or presence meditation practices
  • Introvertive or contraction/absorption meditation practices
  • Extravertive or expansion meditation practices
  • Energy meditation practices

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Mindfulness or presence meditation practices

These practices assume that we usually forget about the knower or even
the process of knowing to lose ourselves in the various objects of experience.

We live absent-mindedly, often barely conscious of what we are seeing,
hearing, feeling or thinking.

Mindfulness practices attempt to bring us to greater awareness by emphasizing simple attentiveness to what is actually happening in our awareness in the here and now.

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Introvertive or contraction/absorption meditation practices

These practices assume that there is a transcendental ground to experience that is 'smaller than the smallest', in and beyond every atom of thought, feeling, and perception.

They involve turning the attention within, directing it towards a chosen object of attention, which becomes increasingly present, but also increasingly subtle, until we pass beyond it to enter and rest in the simple expansiveness of pure awareness itself, beyond all thoughts and sensory objects of attention.

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Extravertive or expansion meditation practices

These practices assume that everything we experience is always within our own consciousness, which as such is always 'larger than the largest'.

These practices bring our attention to the ultimate container of knowledge, our own awareness beyond all the various contents of consciousness.

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Energy meditation practices

Energy meditations assume that integrated functioning of mind and body depends upon the free flow of a subtle energy which connects the different parts of the body.

When our subtle energy is able to flow freely, we are better able to maintain and enjoy awareness in our lives. We also enjoy great strength, power, and insight.

Energy practices stimulate and direct the flow of energy in the body. This may be a subtle internal process or it may become quite active.

As energy moves in the body, it can encounter blocks or resistance, stimulating sometimes dramatic spontaneous movements and shifts in breathing.

Afterwards we find ourselves more open in awareness and relaxed in body.

Such practice accelerates the ability of the body-mind to purify itself, enjoy better health, and to maintain higher consciousness.

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