@dalesvp,
Quote:I always say that to learn how to meditate we must know what meditation is all about. Meditation is about 1/2 hour concentration and 1/2 hour "meditation".
I have been told by a spiritual master, almost the same:
It's concentration, then meditation and then contemplation.
I meditate now, since a long time and found, that there are many many different states.
Quote: The ecstasy or bliss of that condition is not sensual although, unfortunately, many students interpret the idea of bliss as a condition of the senses.
Well, it's actually also very hard to describe to people which not yet experienced it. I would call it all Peace, all Freedom, all Light, everything is perfect, there's no "evil" in the creation, and therefore a tremendous "feeling" of exstacy (but as told before, not sensual) and the realization, that you yourself (what you think you are) is not doing anything. It's just the One, which is doing it, which is doing everything.
This is at least where I go. I surely know, that you can go way farther than that and realize, that you are actually the one and realize that you are everything that is. This is called God-Realization.
I personally found for myself, that although I had a very hard technical education in an elite university, I almost didn't learn anything. I discovered, that if I kind of concentrate myself very strongly one or two days on a subject, I kind of like get a connection to this "world" and start to know things intuitively in this world, which I never learnt. Like that I could easily pass the exams with the best marks, although I almost didn't learn. Sounds crazy?
Well I for myself explained it at that time for me like that: Things which are sympathetic vibrating are drawn closer to each other. So if you, by concentrating on a special topic, start to vibrate in this special "harmony" you get access to this vibratory part of the universal consciousness. This is stronger, the more you can exclusively vibrate on this "harmony". I happen to be able to do this very strongly. I can really concentrate, so that my whole world just becomes a special topic.
Once, while occuping myself with cryptography this went so far, that while seeing people on the street I just saw them as a lot of numbers broken up in prime-factors...This was really weird!
Then by keeping yourself in this world and not disturbing your brain with thoughts, the answers in this world come. For me it was even so, that often I didn't even remember doing the actual exam. It was as if I fell into kind of a trance, and at the end I suddenly realized, that the paper before me was completly solved...
I really think, that your conscious thought-pattern is extremely important. For with it, you actually draw to you similar patterns. Therefore: Think good!
Or as Dr said: Every good thought uplifts the whole human consciousness, as a drop uplifts the ocean.
Hmm. Maybe I got too offtopic...Sorry for that.
Wish you all good, and have a nice weekend