Meditation for Atheists - Blue Pearl and Beyond

Heard of a game called "Googlewhack"? It consists of finding two words that when "googled" return exactly one result. Within a few days of finding such a word combination, it gets compromised i.e. subsequent searches will find more than one result, since its listing at the googlewhack.com site, itself becomes a valid Google result.

At the time of this writing, a Google search with the phrase "meditation for atheists" returned exactly zero results. Here is what the search returned:

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Your search - "meditation for atheists" - did not match any documents.

Suggestions:

• Make sure all words are spelled correctly.
• Try different keywords.
• Try more general keywords.

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This is somewhat surprising - why is meditation thought to be something religious? I am an atheist, and have been meditating for the last two years. Also, during my meditation, I regularly see the "blue pearl". When I first saw it, I did not know what it was. However, I was filled with an intensely positive attitude for many days after that, and meditation, instead of becoming a chore, suddenly became like "nectar in a flower" that I went to time and again, in order to "taste".

I googled (of course!) "meditation and colors" and came across fairly precise descriptions of what I saw. There was a lot of (to me) nonsense about it being a "gateway to a higher dimension", "a portal through which god showers HIS (of course it would be "his"!) love on me", "the essence of the soul" etc. and that to see it, one had to be "pure", "brahmacharya" and so on.

But I know that I am not pure, and no brahmacharya either! Also I knew, that I had taken a precise action during my meditation, an action based on some scienctific research that I had read about, but which I did not think would have any impact. I took this action more out of curiosity but within a couple of minutes of taking this action, saw the "blue pearl". My meditation practice has gone from where it had been stuck at for about two years, to a whole new level.

Reading the meditation literature that is currently available, I get the strange feeling that I am reading something "pre-scientific" i.e. much like how problems of physics were described prior to Galileo and Newton.

I think that descriptions of meditation are "pre-scientific" and could remain pre-scientific for another millennia, except that just as the telescope and Galileo changed physics making it precise and measurable, so too will someone with brain-scanning equipment make the process of meditation measurable and founded completely on physiological processes.

Anyway, for those who are curious about what I did to see the "blue pearl" here is the story:
For two years I had been practicing a form of meditation called "Blue Mountain" meditation, taught by Eknath Easwaran. This form of meditation consists of finding a "mantra" - a piece of poetry or prayer or even a word, that inspires you - and then repeating this mantra slowly while seated comfortably, and with eyes closed. When the mind wanders, one is to simply notice that the mind has wandered and come back to the mantra.

I practiced this daily for about six months and thought it was wonderfully calming. However, I guess it wasn't sufficiently beneficial for me to continue a daily practice and soon I found myself meditating only once a week.

Then recently (March 2006) as a result of an article I read on the brain, I concluded that the mantra was a "distraction" and that I would probably go into a deeper state of meditation if I stopped repeating it. I then forgot about my conclusion till a few weeks later, when about ten minutes into my meditation, I suddenly remembered my conclusion and decided to try it out. Simultaneously, I decided that there was no "smoke without a fire" and so I imagined I had an eye at the center of my forehead and tried to look out through it.

Again, my basis for doing this was also reality based and quite funny. When I was young there used to be a boy in my class who could wiggle his ears. Try hard though I did, I was unable to do so. I had a strange feeling of "paralyisis" in my face/ears and not even a sense that there was a muscle or set of muscles in place to do the wiggling. But I kept trying, and suddenly one day to my amazement, I was able to wiggle my ears. I can still wiggle them, something that causes babies to cry and old men to weep piteously and ask me to stop. But my thought was...let me try it and see if anything happens, like how I tried to wiggle my ears thirty years ago.

I first saw a reddish haze and throughout it was just the blood in my eyelids. Then it went black, and suddenly a tiny blue oval appeared. It had flecks in it and shimmered. It moved around, then stabilized. I thought to myself - "What is going on here? I am hallucinating!" The blue oval looked like the surface of a sparkling ocean. I thought that could it be, that having stilled the parts of my brain associated with reasoning, I was accessing some kind of vestigial memory from the primitive parts of my brain? The blue spot suddenly became a "sheet of blue" and then "rushed" towards me at which point it disappeared.

Later I googled for "colors and meditation" and that is when I came up with "blue spot" experiences of others along with a lot of nonsense of having to be pure, a believer in god, a brahmacharya etc. Later I tried again, fully expecting to NOT see the blue pearl. But I find that I am able to systematically prepare my mind and conjure it up, and that the impact while not as strong as the first time...is definitely a source of comfort and peace.

This blog is to try to create a type of meditation that is based on results of brain studies done on experienced meditators. The hope is to leverage these results and to provide a way for a rationalist to systematically and fairly quickly experience the highest fruits of meditation.

I also do believe that while unscientific, folklore almost always has a kernel of truth. Thus I do believe the reports that beyond the "blue pearl" there exists a higher state of meditation - that of "bindu". For the next few years I hope to explore meditation and to find out what is behind the "blue pearl" experience and what ("bindu?") lies beyond it. I will post my experiences into this "blogspot". If you too are an atheist/rationalist and meditate (or for that matter even if you don't), please, please do provide me with your own views and experiences.

I suspect that a lot of the practices and requirements currently associated with meditation are counter productive ex. listening to music, or watching a flame and prevent one from reaching very deep meditative states. I also suspect that other requirements are needless and based on prejudices from 2000 years ago. Thus the belief that one has to be "brahmacharya" is I think needless based on my present observations.

For those who care, here is the "unscientific, intuitive" way in which I reached the conclusion that the mantra was counter productive beyond a certain point.

One day, I read an article, in of all places Foxnews.com (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,182641,00.html) that said when people are confronted with facts that do not jell with their political opinions, the parts of their brain associated with emotions become very active, but no activity is seen in the parts of the brain associated with reason. It struck me that when I am in a situation where the facts don't agree with my opinion, I often sense a "freezing/clenching" in the front of my head, about two inches or so behind my forehead, and I seem unable to provide "rational reasons" for my stance, and have to resort to "sputtering" and making illogical or weak claims and attributions. It feels as if a "shutter" has come down and closed down my ability to think.

Fair enough...except that next Sunday, I did a "Blue Mountain" meditation when lo and behold, I felt the same "freezing/clenching/shutter coming down" in my head. "Hullo!" said I...."can this be what scientists say - that when meditating, brain scans indicate that the reasoning centers of the brain shut down" i.e. just as when confronted with facts that do not jell with my opinions, does meditation create the same reaction in the brain (without the emotional overload can come with the former situation), and if so, does that mean keeping ones eyes open, listening to music, uttering mantras, or smelling incense etc. all distract the brain?

I immediately forgot about this, till the next week, when as I mentioned, about ten minutes into my meditation, I dropped the mantra, and the "blue pearl" suddenly appeared.

So there you have it. I'll keep you posted on my futher "research"!