ATM — Any Time Meditation

#TheWriteChoice

Look upon a bowl without seeing the sides or the material. In a few moments become aware (Vigyan Bhairav Tantra)

Although this technique specially mentions a bowl, it can be generalized and used in several ways.

The key of this technique is that you have to look at an object completely, I mean on the complete boundary at once. Generally, when we look at some object, we look at some part, not whole. Here, you have to look at the complete boundary at once. You have to fix your eyes. I often do this.

Before I take a bath, I look at the bucket in this way for few seconds, so I meditate even before bathing (I actually try to meditate the whole day). Sometimes, I do it with a tree. Objects with simple geometry are good in the beginning, later they can be used on any type of object, big or small. This has helped me a lot in fixing my eyes, my eye movement has reduced much. 

Now, if you do this properly, the following will happen. You will not be able to see the object, it will start disappearing. The surroundings will also disappear. Instead of the object, you will see patterns of light. It’ll seem as if everything is glowing. The lesser the eye movement, the more will be those patterns. There’s no thought in such a state. This increases awareness a lot. If there’s movement in the eyes, it breaks the meditative state.

I have tried it even in college when our offline classes were there during fewer cases of covid. I’d fixed my eyes on board. Whatever was written started turning into light patterns, I could not see what was written, I was seeing patterns of bright light. The meditative state was so strong that I could not hear my teacher (and I sat in the first row). Her voice was audible, but my mind had stopped so it was not processing her voice into information, in fact, I was hearing anahatnaad (sound of silence) loudly.

This is a very powerful technique, at least for me. I have tried it in many ways. For example, before eating food, gazing at a circular plate for few seconds in this way or gazing on the floor. I feel that during the times when I meditate using this for longer periods of time, I experience heightened awareness, with my mind getting some extra horsepowers. Moreover, it reduces sleep requirements.

Try it now and experience the truth of my words yourself. There must be something around you to try with.