Silent Mind Meditation Program Overview: Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Silent Mind Mediation Program Overview 

There are 2 main branches to the SM program.  One branch is focused on developing the necessary attributes and conditions of optimal vitality required to participate in the SM meditations.  This branch will work on the 3 dimensions of your being, physical, emotional and psychological.  Purifying and balancing your systems and increasing your energy.  The second is the meditations themselves.  These are the core of the practice and herein will lie the opportunities for transcending the ordinary mind.  Both branches work in parallel and look to build progressively to more advanced stages.  The table below [Table 1] provides an overview of the program and gives an overall picture as to what the strategy is…

Weeks: 1-4

Physical: Yoga for Meditation
Emotional: Confidence
Psychological: Honesty
Meditations: Breath, Sound, Body, Third Eye

Weeks: 5-8
Physical: Yoga for Energy
Emotional: Passion
Psychological: Urgency
Meditations: Basic Meditations + SM Meditations

Weeks: 9-12
Physical: Yoga for Awareness
Emotional: Sensitivity
Psychological: Non-attachment
Meditations: Silent Mind Meditations

Table 1        

Each week consists of exercises and meditations that are targeting the following 2 goals; refining of your energy and helping you master the power of attention in order to break free of the conditioning of egocentric effort.  Overall, there are 3 phases to the program, with each phase consisting of 4 weeks.  In each phase particular attributes of your being (Physical, Emotional, Psychological) are focused upon and certain meditations are practiced.  The attributes targeted are the essential components for laying the foundation for a successful practice.  The meditations in turn look to build up the mind so that it can then exploit the more powerful SM meditations, which begin from the sixth week onwards (middle of Phase 2).

The time required is 1 hour per day, although later in the program you may well wish to spend more.  The most important part of this practice is to do it.  This is best accomplished if a set time is put aside every day, preferably in the early morning, to complete the required work as best as you can regardless of mood.  The rest of the chapters will delve into the particulars of the 3 phases of the program.  The 3 sections that follow, one for each phase, consist of 5 chapters each.  The first chapter being a table detailing the daily practice that must be done over that phase followed by 4 chapters, which explore each of the dimensions and the meditations for that phase in depth.