Introduction

It’s been my experience recently that a lot of people have trouble meditating and trouble finding the right crystal for the meditation process. A lot of people have been coming into the shop asking for crystals to help them meditate, and asking about different techniques. It is in this class that I hope to try as best I can to answer these questions and perhaps give some insight into the world of meditation.

What is Meditation?

I feel that the most important attitude to take in terms of meditating is not to view it as some exalted state of being which you can’t achieve. In its most elemental form, meditation is relaxation. You don’t have to be lying down to do it. You don’t have to be seated in a particular position.

Walking can be a form of meditation — especially recommended if you find it difficult to meditate while seated or lying down. Take long, steady strides; focus on the feeling of the ground beneath your feet. Be in the present; notice what’s around you. This is especially helpful when you are feeling upset or have some problem to work out.

Do you like to garden? Garden with your focus entirely on gardening, feeling the earth, the texture of the weeds and flowers, the feel of your gardening tools.

If it is done with focus and intention, any activity can be meditative. When I am writing an article my focus is entirely on writing it. I clean my mind of any concerns so that I can be receptive to the flow of ideas.

If you practice a meditative attitude while you are doing activities that aren’t formal meditation you’ll find it that much easier to practice formal meditation. Basically, you’re training your mind to be focused and intent.

Meditation With Crystals

I must admit that for all of my experiences with metaphysics I have always found meditation both boring and ineffective until I started inviting my crystals to join in. They seemed to help in focusing my often-wandering thoughts. (“Have I been lying here long enough — How do other people manage to meditate?”) You can hold a single quartz crystal or hold one in each hand.

You may want to meditate for the sake of relaxation, or to get clear on a problem or troubling emotion. It can be very helpful to play peaceful music while you meditate. Turn off the phone. I recommend lying down because it promotes more relaxed breathing and reduces body tension.

Begin by deliberately taking slow, deep breaths. Feel your breath going through your body; imagine it beginning at the soles of your feet, then rising slowly to the top of your head, and back down again. Make sure that when you inhale your diaphragm is expanding, and that when you exhale it contracts. This is the natural way to breathe, but many people have learned to do the opposite because it keeps the emotions in check. Correct breathing, especially if it hasn’t been practiced for a while, means that emotions may surface.

Continue deep breathing and allow yourself to feel the emotions. Be alert for any images that may arise along with them. You might be feeling an inexplicable sadness, then see yourself in third grade being ignored by your classmates. This image might lead to one of feeling left out in some situation in the present.

If nothing surfaces immediately, there’s no need to force it. Just relax and let your thoughts wander, or if you’re focused on a specific issue, allow that issue to come into your awareness. Play with it.

If it’s a conflict with another person trying being that person, imagine how the conflict feels to her/him. If you’re faced with a decision, imagine the possible results of it; if it’s a choice, imagine how it feels to be living with the consequences of the various choices. See what feels right.

An especially effective way to explore problems through meditation is to program a crystal to help you understand and solve the issue. As you hold the crystal visualize that it is a great teacher that has been sent into your life specifically to guide you. When you meditate hold it.

Meditation Made Easier

Many people are intimidated by the idea of meditation. They may think they have to study it for years to be any good at it. They may think they have to change their entire lifestyle in order to be successful. Finally, and for many the key point, they may feel that they will never be able to silence the continual chatter which goes on in their minds.

If you have any of the above beliefs regarding meditation let me reassure you. While years of meditating will certainly develop your ability, it doesn’t take years to learn basic and simple meditation. As for changing lifestyle completely, I have learned that often the people who think they have to do that may be the ones who would benefit from some changes: less frantic activity, stress reduction, more time carved out of the day for relaxation. For such people meditation can actually be a means of accomplishing such change. It can help them to live more peacefully, regardless of what they are doing.

Finally, regarding the issue of mental chatter, there are a number of ways to quiet that, several of which I describe in this article.

Enhancements for Meditation

Once you turn to the more “official” forms of meditation, meaning that you’re either sitting up in a relaxed pose or lying down, you will find certain tools helpful in creating a relaxed mental state.

Meditation Enhancement with Aromatherapy

Lighting an aromatherapy candle or diffusing oil can often assist and enhance a meditative state. Good oil choices are lavender, chamomile, sandalwood, frankincense, and rosewood, among others.

Music for Meditation

Peaceful music in the background can help to block out distracting noises and set a peaceful mood. Listening on a portable music device can be even more helpful. Many New Age companies also make guided visualization tapes that can be very valuable.

Crystals for Meditation

One way to meditate with crystals is to hold a clear quartz point in one hand and a smoky quartz point in the other. This combines the energies of heaven and earth, keeping you grounded while uplifted. Another method is to place an appropriate crystal on each chakra point.

First chakra: Feet to base of the spine. Some of the useful crystals to place here include smoky quartz, hematite, black tourmaline, obsidian, and tiger’s eye.

Second chakra: Pelvic area. Crystals include carnelian, ruby, ruby in zoisite, red jasper, and garnet.

Third chakra: Navel to solar plexus. Citrine, tiger’s eye, rutilated quartz, and aragonite are some of the helpful crystals.

Fourth chakra: Heart. Any pink or green stone can be placed here.

Fifth chakra: Throat. Any pale blue or blue-green stone can go here.

Sixth chakra: Forehead between and slightly above the eyes. Any dark blue or purple stone belongs here.

Seventh chakra: Crown (top of head). You can put any white or clear crystal here.

These are all peaceful stones.

Hematite grounds and repels negativity; carnelian centres one in the present; citrine expands a feeling of empowerment. Rose quartz helps to foster self-love; blue lace agate encourages peaceful feelings; amethyst helps one to pass from ordinary consciousness to a twilight state.

You can also use an additional quartz point and rotate it over each crystal on your body. Visualize the crystal’s colour as you do so. Breathe in this colour and feel it fill your being.

Breathing Techniques

With or without crystals, there are certain meditation methods that will help you to achieved a relaxed, contemplative state.

A Basic Breathing Technique

This is a method that I practice regularly and is very relaxing.

Inhale deeply for 4 seconds. As you do so visualize whatever positive energies you desire (love, kindness, peacefulness, etc.) coming to you. It may be easiest to focus on one attribute at a time. Fill your lungs completely. Hold your breath for 4 seconds, and as you do so feel these energies filling you completely, entering every cell of your body. Exhale for 8 seconds. Feel yourself expelling all negative energies (hatred, anger, resentment, etc.)

As you become practiced in this you can increase the amount of time for each step, but keep the proportions the same, i.e., 8 seconds to inhale, 8 to hold, and 16 to exhale.

To connect with your inner spirit:

Sitting comfortably with your eyes closed, view your inner screen. You will see particles, images, or patterns of light. Focus on the light with relaxed attention, and without interpretation. If you feel yourself shifting to a dreamlike state allow this to happen. If you drift into thoughts return your attention to the light on your inner screen.

Mindfulness Meditation

Sit comfortably, eyes closed, and focus on your breathing. Acknowledge without judgment any sensations, emotions, thoughts, or external stimuli. If you get distracted bring your attention back to your breathing.

Meditation with Crystals

Not everyone makes clear separations between meditation, visualization, journeying, and visions, and the distinctions are sometimes unclear. Meditation is usually centred on focusing, and is not the same thing as zoning out or daydreaming, though these can also have value. Meditation often opens the way for journeying or visions and may include visual sensations.

Guided visualization usually refers to a relaxation or meditation form in which one is guided through a series of experiences in a story like form, such as visualising a forest, a mountain range, etc.

Meditating with crystals is to use crystals in general meditation or specific meditations to enhance, deepen, or in some other way assist with the meditation. Clear quartz and other crystals and stones have been used to assist and as a focus for meditation for a very long time. Just focusing gentle attention on a clear quartz crystal can quiet the mind and help bring mental clarity for problem solving. When you have a particular problem take a few minutes to think about and define the problem then gaze deeply into your crystal. Just allow your thoughts to come and go. As your mind stills, you may find a solution. If not, when you end the meditation just let the problem go. Quite often a solution will pop into your head later.

Program single terminated crystals to help you meditate or to deepen and enhance a particular meditation form. You can program a crystal to help you reach deeper higher states of meditative awareness. This is said to greatly shorten the time it may take for you to achieve these states (these may still take years).

These states are not to be thought of as a goal of meditation, and if you meditate with a crystal for this purpose, it is advised that you limit your use to about one third of the time you spend in meditation weekly.

Other crystal programs could assist you with meditation, such as programs for relaxation or mental clarity, and those to assist you in experiencing a particular spiritual state or plane such as bliss, oneness with the divine, or unconditional love, for example. You can program a crystal to enhance any standard meditation, such as the diamond heart meditation in the files or other meditations. You can program a crystal to hold the energy of a particular Tarot card or spiritual passage, and hold the crystal while meditating on that card or text.

Sit with or hold a crystal chosen to harmonize with the form of the meditation — rose quartz or kunzite for love and compassion meditations, citrine for bringing your personal will into harmony with your soul purpose and recognizing that purpose, green stones and/or amber or shells and fossils for meditations on nature. There are many lists of stone properties that will offer suggestions as to appropriate crystals for directed meditations.

You may also use a crystal or stone as a focus to gaze on while meditating. Place the crystal at a comfortable distance so that you can easily gaze on or into it. Relax and gaze into the stone. When your attention wanders, just return it to the stone. If it feels natural, after a few moments you may close your eyes and continue meditating. If you feel tension anywhere, take a couple of deep breaths and relax again and continue until you decide to finish by opening your eyes and gazing on the crystal again.

Some people will tape an appropriate crystal to their brow to enhance meditation. Or place the stone in or under a headband. A string of beads or a pendant could also be used. You may prefer just to hold a crystal or stone to your brow for a bit, and then hold it in your hand or in your lap or set it down nearby.

Clear quartz and many of the blue, aqua, and violet to purple stones are commonly used to activate intuition and spiritual connection, but almost any stone can be meditated with, some more effectively than others.

Some stones that are not of value for you will be good for another person to use in meditation. Generally it is a good idea to use your intuition to determine if it is of positive value to work with any particular stone at a given time this way. Do not use a crystal if it does not seem harmonious.

Some people lie down to meditate and place crystals at the feet and crown, or at various points on the body — often over some of the chakra points. Many people like to sit within a circle of stones or crystals when they meditate.

On occasions when you find it difficult to calm your mind for a traditional meditation you might find a variation of an altar or mandala made for relaxing and healing. Take a large number of your stones and crystals and set them in front of you. After taking a few deep breaths, just move them around and form them into patterns before or around you. This is a form of active contemplation that can be as valuable as receptive meditations.

Crystal Haven

This combines visualization with a meditation.

Select a fairly large quartz crystal and begin with it in front of you or in your hands. Breathe deeply. According to a traditional chi practice, women should imagine the breath rising from the Earth and men imagine the breath flowing down from above. Gaze into the crystal, breathing slowly and deeply. Imagine the crystal expanding and becoming larger. Imagine it growing to expand gently around you so that you are sitting within the safety of the crystal. The light coming into the crystal illuminates your entire being and fills you with peace and love. Stay within the crystal, breathing in the light for as long as you wish. Then allow the crystal to move away from you and return to its natural size.

Toning crystals are useful in any meditation form that uses sound, such as chanting, toning, even listening to trance and meditation music or drumming. Toning crystals often look like small flattish laser wands but are identified because they help you when you tone or chant, perhaps by allowing you to hold notes longer or in some other way. You may find a pair of singing crystals. Often these look a lot like small laser wand crystals. When they are gently rolled together in your hands, these would make a musical bell-like sound that can help you enter meditation and deepen trance or visualization states.

There are many suggestions for stones to use in different meditations, and there must be well over a thousand suggestions for meditation with crystals in the most popular books alone.

Some suggestions are: Celestite for Angel meditations Fluorite can help with soul retrieval, Rainbow garnet for monadic contact (the all-knowing oneness), or Selinite for access to akashic records. Other stones recommended for meditation include amethyst, yellow calcite, celestite, azurite, labradorite, chrysocolla, blue tiger’s eye, lapis lazuli, turquoise, blue fluorite, quartz, hawk’s eye, apophyllite, and geodes.

I have purposely separated meditating with crystals from the practice of meditating on crystals, as they are two separate entities, so to speak. Meditating on crystals is to meditate directly on the crystal to find information about working with it, or for some other directly crystal-related reason. This practice is sometimes called attuning to crystals, and is very useful for familiarizing oneself with the crystals energies and ways to work with them.

by MysticDracan