Two Questions About Meditation

Hey, I have two questions I would like some insight into:

1. Once you have learned to quiet the mind, then what? What is the next step in meditation?

2. When looking for your spirit guide, how do you know if you have actually met it, or if your imagination is just making things up?

Thanks!!

[Ascension]

When the mind is quiet , rise your vibration by simply let the energy flow
all around in/out your body . ( Become Water )
light as a feather , soft as a breather and true as the higher .

[Thunder Bow]

A quiet mand lets you access other parts of your mind. Meditiation shifts your brain into a more relaxed state and allows for new ideas and images free of pre-judgement.

Made up or Spirit? The answer is both. Even if the entity is made up, it is still a real Spirit!

[Adrienne]

Originally Posted by Thunder Bow

Made up or Spirit? The answer is both. Even if the entity is made up, it is still a real Spirit!

Interesting answer Thunder Bow ~

Meditation is a gradual process of training the mind to be present with moment to moment experience as it arises into consciousness. It's not that you've quieted the mind and are now through with that. There is always chatter. Mindfulness helps you to make friends with the chatter and observe it as an impartial observer. You are the ocean. Thoughts, emotions and sensations are the waves, rising and falling. They are happening in the moment and your job is to be present with whatever comes up on finer and finer levels.

What's next? Getting to know yourself on finer and finer levels.

Originally Posted by laryno

Hey, I have two questions I would like some insight into:

1. Once you have learned to quiet the mind, then what? What is the next step in meditation?

2. When looking for your spirit guide, how do you know if you have actually met it, or if your imagination is just making things up?

Thanks!!

I think meditation varies for each person.

1) For me, the next step is to relax, enjoy the experience and see what comes to you. Sometimes you will see images, experience insights or even fall asleep.

2) I still wonder that myself sometimes. I can never tell for sure what is coming from me and what is coming from somewhere else. I have tried asking questions I didn't know the answers to and trying to confirm the answers later on. I also believe if something surprises you or catches you off-guard, it is most likely not coming from your imagination.

[Gem]

I guess quiet mind or 'stillness' is like awareness of being.

There are many approaches to meditation. One method is to concentrate on a certain thought taken from the Gospels, or from a Buddhist sutra, for instance, and keep this very thought alone in your mind by trying to make it more and more alive.

On your second question - it is not quite clear if you speak about your Guardian Angel or about a personal teacher.

[wstein]

After quieting your mind, a small additional step is to quiet the rest of you (emotions, physical, spiritual), any internal commotion.

Other 'advanced' possibilities are: expanded awareness, travel to other times and places, radiating unconditional love, and merging into the divine.

Originally Posted by wstein

merging into the divine.

That really is "advanced"... it will only take you a few million years to get there !

I think starting with something more realistic is better.