Meditation as an Art of Life - a Basic Reader (free Ebook)
NB! Also read the page: Meditation as an Art of Life.
... The background for this book is the spiritual crisis, I lived through because of inappropriate consequences of yoga and meditation. Viewed against this background I started to look at meditation as an art of life. I believe, that meditation isn't some kind of mental visualizing technique, but something philosophical, an art of life, which involves the entire cognitional, existential and ethical reality of Man. Moreover that this concept of meditation is the central core in all wisdomtraditions. The unusual about the book is, that it claims, that all the great masters within the wisdomtraditions, actually used philosophical questions as their central meditation technique, and that all other spiritual exercises only were used to support this. In this way philosophical questions were a type of universal koans, which worked with the purpose to open the consciousness in towards the Source: the Good, the True and the Beautiful. In the book I seek to make this clear by constructing it as a guidance in, how this quite concrete can be put into practice. Updates: 1) The Yoga Cycle (in the introduction to the supporting exercises I advice people to practice some Hatha yoga exercises. This link is a guide to the exercises I myself perform daily). 2) The Compass - The Forgotten Secret of Hara Healing (longer introduction and update to the Hara Exercise. Here there is included an important "Supplying Hara Exercise". Furthermore there is advice to how to use Hara in combination with spiritual crises and kundalini awakening). 3) Update to the Heartmeditation, Tonglen. As I write in the Supporting Exercises: There are three fundamental aspects of the meditation-process: relaxfullness, awareness and heartfulness. Relaxfullness is trained in the Relaxationmeditation. Relaxfullness slides imperceptible over in awareness. Awareness is trained in the Harameditation. Awareness slides imperceptible over in Heartfulness. Heartfulness is trained in the Heartmeditation, also called Tonglen. In the book I advice you to train Tonglen half an hour daily. However, it is my experience, that this can develop into some kind of automatic repetition without heartfeelings. Tonglen shall only be practiced in connection with heartfeelings (heartfulness). And, heartfeelings are coming by themselves with the practice of Hara. So, therefore I advice you only to practice it when you have heartfeelings, and/or, a genuine need for the practice. In the meantime, keep a memory of the theory of Tonglen in the back of your head. 4) The Nine Gates of Middle-earth. An update to the whole book, where the spiritual development is seen in relation with the chakra system. 5) On Asking Philosophical Questions (a short introduction to the main theory of the book). 6) What is a Life Artist? (the book encourages you to become a life artist. Here is a short description). 7) Meditation and the Philosophical Diary. An update to the supporting exercise The Philosophical Diary 8) The Eckhart Tolle Show - a Critique. This is a correction of my praise of Tolle. 9) Meditation as an Art of Life – The Ancient Logos (about how I recently have discovered the book´s similarities with new scholarly depictions of Greco-Roman philosophy). 10) A Dictionary of Thought Distortions (update to the philosophical diary. In the Socratic inquire technique I presented a few common thought distortions. This book is an expansion of the list. In many ways this book is part of my own philosophical diary, and how I used critical thinking as a way of coming out of my spiritual crisis). 11) Philosophy as a Rite of Rebirth (A Shamanic Ritual) – (update to the relaxationmeditation. In this article I describe the similarity between the relaxationmeditation and the incubation exercise in Ancient Greece. Its similarity with Yoga Nidra and Dream Yoga techniques are also explained). 12) Philosophical Counseling with Tolkien (I´m talking a great deal of the importance of philosophy in Meditation as an Art of Life. This Ebook is written as a course in philosophy). .... Below you can download a free pdf version of the book. The book is also available as paperback and kindle ebook. My pages on Amazon: Amazon US Amazon UK Remember that the books also are available from other Amazon sellers, as well as most major online booksellers around the world. Check the ones which are closest to your country. Free PDF version:
Copyright © by Morten Tolboll.
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