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Mindal meditation is the mind becoming aware of and changing the basic programming of its mental software.
Mystical meditation is an exploration of the subconscious through dissociating with external reality and fixating on a fragment of inner reality.
At any given meditation session, I may explore all three of the above, with the primary states being spiritual and mindal. I try not to delve into mystical meditation. However, since it is a subconscious leading, it may happen without my conscious volition, albeit only for brief moments.
How can we discuss a state that is totally internal? We can't see meditation, can't touch meditation. How do we know that what we are talking about is the same thing? Intellectually, we can't. But the senses of the soul will know if there is an incongruency.
From talking to various people, meditation does not come easy to them. They just don't understand it.
There is a reason for this. It's like the system folders in a PC computer. You don't want inexperienced users messing with the delicate parts of the software. And that's exactly what meditation is; getting into the very root of our mind's operating system and making changes. And that's why meditational techniques are laced with rituals and age-old processes that somehow manage to structure the exploration into inner space in order to keep it from getting out of hand.
And it can get out of hand: Religious fanatics, overzealous proselytizers, doomsday scenarios, and paranoid delusions are results of a mind with corrupt software. The effects of meditation gone wrong.
Some faith traditions have found ways to meditate safely, but all too often, their meditation turns into a mindal or psychological technique rather than a spiritual one.
True worshipful meditation is simultaneously a local and non-local connection to the Creator of all. Being connected and centered in the First Source is like a computer that is always hooked up to the main server, with any changes being immediately recognized and harmonized into the total network.
One of the ways people fail at this is by trying too hard, by making too much of an effort. They think it is a grasping, like we grasp new knowledge; a task, like accomplishing a job; or an accomplishment, like graduating from school. It is not. It is more a letting go, a relaxing, an opening up, an unfolding. It is more like riding a wave than riding a bicycle. Like parachuting, more than climbing a mountain. Like gently floating downstream, more than swimming against a current. Making an effort to grasp it is like trying to grasp air. To best feel the presence of air, one just relaxes and lets the breeze gently waft across one's skin. When you make an effort in feeling the presence of God, the effort contradicts the reality that God is all around you and that no effort is necessary to sense him. To feel his presence, you must be like a receiving satellite dish. Or an ear. They do not make an effort, they do not have to send out signals. They receive by just being. To many people it is difficult because it is so simple.
Maybe a recounting of an early childhood experience will help.
When I first began to learn to swim, I was very tense. I would jump in the water and immediately begin to flail about with my arms and legs, making lots of splashes but resulting in little forward movement. In fact, I sank like a stone.
What I was doing wrong, according to everyone around me, was that I was not taking the time to relax and float first, before moving my limbs. So I did as suggested and I relaxed. I took a breath and floated on the water, feeling its buoyancy all around me, then I gradually started to move my arms and legs. And hey! I was swimming!
Similarly, when a bird flies off of a cliff, it does not always begin flapping its wings immediately. Often it will glide first, feeling the air currents, before making a few well-timed flaps to make it soar through the sky. It becomes aware of its external environment before taking action.
In meditation, we must become aware of our inner environment through a total relaxing of internal and external tension. This awareness is the foundation of superconsciousness. It is being aware of your own awareness. This is where it begins.
This act can begin by simply setting aside time everyday to spend with God, so that one can share one's life with him. But in sharing one's life fully with God, one must be aware of one's inner self, aware of the soul yearning to contact the spirit. The mind allows this contact to happen and worship begins.
The techniques of contacting the Creator have been draped in much mysticism. Some people have difficulties in effectively negotiating this process. The problem may stem from false preconceptions and the tendency to confuse mystic meditation with spiritual meditation. One of the more common reasons some people cannot meditate for longer than a few minutes is "mind chatter" and the inability to simply sit still doing nothing. Mantras and chanting are two methods that were developed to counter these problems. Newer methods and updates of old practices based on new experiential sources are constantly being developed. Mystical meditation is gradually being replaced by spiritual meditation.
Worshipful meditation is awareness of the superconscious contact of communing with the divine spark that dwells within the mind. It is the act of the material mind's assenting to the attempt of its spiritualizing self, under the guidance of the associated spirit, to communicate with
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