CYNTHIA CARTER: Looking for insights in meditation

Sometimes, even Grandma has questions. When you pray, you talk to God. When you meditate, you listen. Here are some insights I got when I asked Marilyn Ellis about meditation:

Q: Beginning with the basics, how do you meditate?

A: I find a quiet spot, relatively dark. I sit, close my eyes and focus on my breathing — in, out, in, out. I notice that thoughts go through my mind. I call this thinking, and prepare to take one breath without any thought. Then another, and another.

Q: What do you mean by the “gap” in meditation?

A: I’ve read about the “gap” in meditation. I focus on my breathing and the gap is the tiny moment at the end of the breath when nothing happens. This morning I experienced it and felt it as a calm period — no matter what else is going on. Is that gap of no-thinking who I really am? I’ve been told I am not my thoughts — or fears, or even pain. As a human being, these are things I experience, but they are not me.

Q: What do you mean by your experiences are not you?

A: I mean that I am something else, not my experiences, my thoughts or my pain or fear. If that wasn’t so, there would be no meditation because you could never turn off your thought processes. From what I can gather, I live in my body, but I am really a spirit, anchored on Earth.

Q: Tell me more about your experiences with the gap.

A: I tried meditating. I felt the gap and the more I practices, the more I realize that I am not my body, my thoughts or fears. I can expand myself. I can fill the living room and become “one” with the air conditioner. It’s not about study; it is about making it practical, understanding that this is who I really am. And my body and anchor here can be a pain in the rear. Sometimes, I want to leave it and be a spirit only. That is what the gap feels like.

Q: What about the third eye? How can you open it?

A: I wondered about the third eye opening, which I can do if I just concentrate on the part of my head above my eyes and relax in meditation, of course. The first time my third eye opened, it was a blinding pinpoint of white light. I was startled. What was that? Now, I recognize it as a “window” to the spirit side of my life that, if I practice enough, I might get insights from “over there.” It was then I realized that this “over there” was “right here,” always with me, if I just look for it.

Q: Tell me about an unusual occurrence with this third eye.

A: While mediating, I asked for energy to because it was early and I had not slept well. I concentrated on my third eye, but this time it was different. usually, there is a spiral toward the light, but this time, it was circular, pulsating up and back, like it was sending a burst of energy and going back to get more. I wondered if that was a way to get energy if I needed it. I got up, got dressed and went to work, so, I guess it was.

Q: So, what do you get out of meditating?

A: It calms me down. When I meditate a particularly long time, like 45 minutes, it is like I am coming out of a deep sleep and, afterward, I feel so much better — lots of energy and refreshed.

Ask Grandma is a weekly column written by Cynthia Carter. If you have a question to Ask Grandma, email it to [email protected] and include “Ask Grandma” in the subject line. You also can mail questions to Ask Grandma, c/o The Albany Herald, P.O. Box 48, Albany, GA 31702. Phone-in questions can be left on our Bright Side comment line, (229) 888-9351.