Originally posted in German on 22 July 2024
by Heinz Grill
Exercises that lead to a growing consciousness, mental stability and ultimately favourable development, always require concrete and logical mental pictures.
What does the word ‘concrete’ actually mean? It means something like ‘graphic’ or expressed in a different way, ‘sufficiently comprehensible for perception and judgement’. Both the therapist and the patient must strive for this careful logic and mental picturing. When this engagement happens directly in mutual relationship between a healer and a person in need, the sattva element, with its light, purifying effect, can occur most easily. A major obstacle in many therapies ensues actually through the unsound formulations that come from esotericism and out of the very subjective experiences resulting from it. The fact that there is often very little trust in conventional medical methods should not, however, be interpreted in a hasty and vain way, based on alternative opinions. Conventional medical treatments may be very symptomatic and often materialistic, but the question can certainly be raised as to whether we can do without them and whether they represent part of a healing culture. In any case, it is important that when someone turns to naturopathic, alternative or esoteric practices such as meditation, they do not use them in a polarising way and furthermore not in an unconcrete way.
When people now begin an exercise, for example, a calm sitting position with a relaxed neck and shoulder girdle, a straightened back and a solid cohesiveness in the sacral area, they should bring about this posture with clear perceptions and thoughts. A calmness results with this form of articulation and those practising do not need to flee from real life in a kind of dream journey with illusionary pictures. Meditation needs simply a completely natural avoidance of distractions, emotional unrest and intellectual speculation, with this the aim is to steer the consciousness towards a clearly chosen content.
The content that is now chosen for an exercise must be concrete. So called ‘suggestions’ or ‘affirmations’, for example, are not concrete. In autosuggestion, which is often practised, people say to themselves ‘I am relaxed’ and then continue to repeat ‘I am relaxed, now I am relaxed’. These formulations do not create a conscious state of awareness or observation and those practising immerse themselves in a reality of self-created, non-concrete relaxation that takes over their consciousness. They can confuse this with dreams or enveloping feelings. In many cases, a state of meditation or relaxation takes on the character of tamas, a totally self-created illusion, which ultimately weakens the psyche and prevents people from forming an edifying relationship with an immune strengthening character. Unfortunately, illusionary states are conveyed in very many meditation courses and esoteric practices today. Those practising should train themselves to become concrete in all activities and have a clear, content-rich ability to form mental pictures. A challenging exercise for this, in which the aspirant can make no mistake, in the sense of a drifting into dreaminess, takes place in yoga with the headstand for example. Learning the headstand requires a solid, clear engagement with the form that is to be developed. Emotions are little able to be combined with learning the headstand, but this exercise is not suitable for everyone and will therefore only be mentioned in passing.
The sitting posture is a very variable, elementary and important position that is of great benefit in yoga, as well as, in meditation and various concentration exercises. This shall be described in detail due to its importance. A folded blanket can be placed on the floor and practitioners can then sit on it in various possible positions. One of the most common postures is the cross-legged position, which can be practised in various degrees of difficulty. The closer the knees come to the floor, as is the case with the lotus position or half-lotus position, the more the body can be experienced as stable, calm and contained. The spine straightens upwards and the head remains free.
Many people who adopt this position shut their eyes to make themselves immune to external distractions that can affect them. But is it not the inner emotions and restless streams of the mind that are the main disturbing factor to the aim of forming composure and concentration? Experience has shown that by leaving the eyes open, but not allowing the gaze to wander around the room, practitioners are better protected from subjectively falling back into a dreamy state. In any case, dreaming in this position is not a focused activity and it should be experienced as counterproductive.
Once this sitting position is reasonably calm, with an evenly spread distribution of tension, the next step follows. Practitioners can now direct their attention to a thought content that is as concrete as possible. They can picture, for example, a walnut in a closed shell. They can even place this walnut before their eyes in order to create the sensory picture as concretely as possible and not slip into the imaginary. During the observation, which can be carried out for about 5 minutes, practitioners can picture how the outer shell of the nut is constructed and behind this visible shell formation a fruiting centre is formed, which represents the actual essence. When practising, the consciousness always remains concrete and avoids digressions.
If practitioners manage to hold the mental picture of these thoughts for 5 minutes without major digressions and distractions, they strengthen their sensitive nervous system, they will become inwardly calmer and gain a better relationship to the object of observation. They avoid dreaming, fantasising or unsolid emotional euphoria. The object of contemplation becomes the object and the observer remains clear, alert and in objective relationship. If they were to close their eyes and fall into sentimental dreaming, a state which almost always takes place in meditation today, they would fall into a tamas-like state that is alien to reality or they stylise themselves with emotional fervour into euphoric heights and with this their attention would slip into a rajas-state or that is to say restlessness. The sattva-relationship to the object is objective, free and sensitive, it has an ordering effect on the consciousness and in this way calms the circulatory system and strengthens the nervous system.
The mistake that is very often made today with these first elementary approaches to exercises is due to a mistaken idea of concentration, meditation and lastly even spirituality. People today actually believe that an emotional way of approaching an encounter, a natural phenomenon or an object is more spiritual than an ordered, objective taking up of relationship. ‘The nut is just great and it was so beautiful’ or ‘I have completely connected with the object of observation and have become one with it.’ Or another person may say, ‘I pictured golden light and also saw golden light during the meditation.’ In any case, the descending emotions bring about experiences that are illusionary, unreal or euphoric and have the quality of tamas or rajas. For all exercises, those practising must therefore educate themselves to form mental pictures that are concrete and ordered, true to reality and free from fantasy.
If someone has successfully achieved this basis, they can do a great deal to build up their health. Esoteric formulations that are half finished or unsolidly used should always be avoided, especially in the case of cancer, as they do not strengthen the consciousness and often bring additional irritation to the immune system.
Drawing: Cornelia Foerch