Welcome to Gaia! ::

I'm fairly new to it, too, but maybe I can offer some tips that work for me?

I recommend sitting in a chair or cross legged on the floor, so you're less inclined to fall asleep. Taking deep, slow breaths can also help you relax. Don't directly think about anything, and your thoughts will fade. Listen to some soft music, if that helps.

A sense of peace, a feeling of oneness with the Universe, physical benefits like relaxation and lowered blood pressure, spiritual peace.

Sometimes the colors behind the eyelids are cool to watch too.


And as far as "What can I achieve with meditation?" goes, it really depends on what kind of meditation you're doing. Zen Buddhist meditation will have slightly different benefits from Daoist Nei Dan Qigong meditation or New Age meditations.

Edit: Sorry, this is a long one.

I'm glad this was brought up. Here's my take.

I think we often sit down to meditate (and sometimes even to do rituals)without a real purpose and after it's over we aren't really sure why the heck we bothered. (Don't worry, I'm often guilty of this too).

I have a rather boring book* about the difference between concentration (dharana) and meditation/contemplation (dhyana) and I tend to think of a sitting as focused one of those two things. Unfortunately in order to do the latter you have to be decent at concentration.

When the whole point of the sitting is to empty your mind as much as possible or to hyper-focus on something, counting breaths, a shape, color or most visualizations, this is working on your ability to concentrate. The whole point of this is to be able to concentrate and control your will, perhaps even move your consciousness on any point within or outside of yourself (or both!) Besides the other benefits mentioned this will also be good for the practices we're talking about here. For example, how the heck can you try to create an energy construct if you can't stay focused on something for the length of time it would take to build it?

Then we have meditation which is kind of hard to describe. This is where the insight and revelations may happen. Contemplating is going beyond observing the supposed existance and experiencing the object or idea in a way that could lead to higher understanding...that's a horrible definition but it's the only one I could come up with.

Examples: Close your eyes and concentrate on the color blue. Can you see it clearly, the color firm and consistent? Now, what feelings do you get from blue? What correspondances go along with it, a direction, a god or image. What does this respresent? Can you pull your awareness so close that you can try to see the world through this image, be this thing linked to blue? That's a little closer to meditation. (don't forget to try to trace your thoughts back the way you came, it aids memory and keeps you from accidentally aspecting the color blue or something!)

Whether some understanding comes during the session or afterwards even in dreams, could you see why people would receive guidance or insight during a well-purposed meditation? You have to get something out of studying something that deeply. Quality is what's important, the amount of time spent will vary based on what you want to accomplish.

*No direct quotes used but just in case you need a little something to put yourself to sleep: Concentration and Meditation by Christmas Humphreys.

Meditation is something you teach yourself, in my opinion. My guides kinda just help you learn how to get into a meditative state of mind.

And NEVER expect something to happen. EVER. If you expect something to happen it will NEVER happen. One of my favorite quotes comes from Jackie Chan and it is "Expect the worse and hope for the best."

Tool= heart

Man is that old. Still funny though. lol

3nodding haha nothing needs to be said, Tool rocks