- Can you meditate lying down?
I’ve heard a lot of stories where people say you have to meditate in a specific pose. I had one person, a Brahmin in a hundred generations. I said to him: “All right, I need to meditate in a certain pose, but there’s a nuance — you won’t be able to put me in it, I won’t be able to sit, my physical body won’t allow it.” He says: “That can’t be.” I say: “Put me in it.” He couldn’t and said: “Then we won’t do the assignment, do it on a chair.”
From the standpoint of real attainments and true perception there are a huge number of layers of perception. There is a kind of seeing that has nothing to do with your path. Recently I was driving at high speed for 30 minutes without stopping, with no roof, and Vitalik, sitting next to me, entered a meditative state.
So the question is always what you want to perceive and obtain. There are things that cannot be achieved sitting, there are things that cannot be achieved lying down, but for true expansion of perception it doesn’t matter. Either you have vision or you don’t.
Example: my four-year-old son — who will earn money faster, him while moving or me lying down? Obviously, he won’t earn, and I, lying down, will take a phone and earn perfectly well. That’s the key aspect.
This indicates that if you’re in a certain state of perception, entering different states — and this requires an understanding of what meditation is — the position of the body does not matter. It’s an illusion, very often a deception. Of course, there are practices that require certain positions, but true immersion, a true meditative state does not depend on body position.
How much time do you need to meditate?
If we talk about meditation, when a person sets a task: "Meditate for 10 or 20 minutes," and compares it with time, it is not meditation, but simply spending time with a task. It is impossible to enter a meditative state through the goal of meditating. It has nothing to do with time. You can sit for 10,000 hours and be proud of your experience, but I can see something that he cannot.
It resembles business comparisons: “I’ve been in business for 40 years and earned nothing, and you for half a year and earned a billion.” Time does not show quality. Although many things require time and repetitions. Different techniques require different approaches. Sometimes meditation can be done in 30 seconds, and someone won’t do it in thousands of hours. There are things that require practice, concentration, work.
People are incomparable as spiritual beings. Someone who has meditated for 60 years may feel what another senses every 30 minutes of life without meditation. In business it’s easy to compare, in the material world — square footage of houses, furniture, money, children — but comparing spiritual beings is impossible.
And there is another question: what are you meditating on. If in the material world, you’re meditating in a material cell. And there is someone who meditates from the spiritual world. The minutes of his meditation are incomparable with the material. In the material world meditate as much as you want — you will still remain in the material world.
- During meditation images, visions, bright light appear. What does this mean? You say all people are spiritual beings. Do all people have the ability to see? I understand that not everyone does.
There are always exceptions. Any person perceives something spiritual, anyone can have flashes, visions, color spaces. Spiritual seeing is called by different names: intuition, clairvoyance, inspiration, imagination — a whole spectrum. What’s important is that a person perceives it, and the question is when and how he perceives it.
He understands whether he saw energy, color, the future or the past, or considers it an accident. The fundamental point: does he perceive it or not. Don’t rush immediately into recognition, but immerse yourself in perception. Description and recognition is a separate construct; not everyone likes it.
An important step for development is to learn to memorize all your perception. By memorizing, you begin to distinguish what is true and what is false. I remember, 10–12 years ago a person gave a simple assignment: observe the cars around the road. And there’s that story: you drive and you think you just knew you’d see that number or car. He said: “You need to learn to correlate — did you just see that car or did you make it up?” Everyone has that in life, moments of confusion: your wife thinks, you think — and suddenly it coincides. Different spectrums, what matters is to notice, neutrally, calmly. Interpretation is complicated and specific.
The one who asks: “I see colors, what is it?” — it’s as if five million objects were unloaded and you had to list them. The essence is not in listing. You see and record: a tree, a river, a person, a hand, a bird — exactly what it is is not so important. The main thing is to notice, to preserve perception, to observe, and not immediately classify.
- How is meditation different from ordinary relaxation? Is it the same thing, or are sleep, rest, meditation — these three concepts?
When we talk about relaxation, we use the terminology of the material world. In this case we are reasoning about meditation from the position of the material world. How is meditation different from a massage? And how is a massage different from working at a computer? The question is roughly the same as how meditation differs from a massage. And how is working at a computer different from me kissing my wife? The question is roughly the same.
Now, how meditation differs from relaxation from the standpoint of spiritual perception, spiritual spaces — it’s exactly the same question as if I said: how does a massage differ from me earning $5,000? In everything! If you sit down to meditate in order to relax, then often, if your task is to relax, you can get there by different steps: sleep, ask someone to give you a massage, do certain exercises yourself, read a book, listen to music, breathe, jump, take a walk, move to another place, eat a certain type of food. A whole spectrum of things.
Does the meditative state relax you? Guaranteed it does. Now let’s take something else. Where does meditation lead? Relaxation? Do you like relaxation? You do. Mind reading, alteration of consciousness and then a whole fan of possibilities. It’s very important: if you want to engage in relaxation, do it and pick what you need for that. If you want to figure things out and arrive at other possibilities, a massage won’t help you.
- You’ve partially answered this already; maybe there’s something to add. How do you measure your progress in meditation? What do you even measure success by? Depth of sensations, number of minutes, or effects?
If you are in the material physical world and meditate in it, you will find a whole spectrum of parameters by which you can measure: the amount of time you’ve sat, the number of places where you meditated, the number of people nearby, types of meditation — group, lying down, with eyes open, light or in darkness, on a candle, on the smell of vinegar, on a borzoi dog, with children, without children, half-lying, half-sitting, doing push-ups, while walking, with headphones, without headphones, with music, without music, with aggressive music, without aggressive music, and so on. There’s a whole spectrum of parameters, invent away. But you’re speaking about meditation in the material world.
Meditation in the material world can be measured, but you need to define: do you want quality or result? Decide: are you doing a business to earn 10 million dollars in four years, or to talk with 15,000 people? Choose what matters: quality or result. Quality is an abstraction you invent yourself. Or do you need a final result? “I measured the quality of meditation, yet I feel bad, I did a meditation, 10,000 steps, got divorced, the child died, my arm was torn off, I fell into a coma.” So what are we measuring?
- Can you meditate to music? Does music help or hinder?
From the standpoint of the material world: can you meditate when Tanya is next to you? When Vasya is next to you? When a projector with light is on? Is the computer on? Is the bed made? When you’re in the USA? When in Belarus? You can do it during the day, at night, with loud music, quiet, rock, to Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey, Leps, if someone’s reading Pushkin? It’s very important to understand: music by itself does not create meditation. There are a huge number of other things in life.
If we translate it into the “music” mode, you need to consider many factors. Can you meditate with the sound of the ocean? On the road while driving? Opposite a cemetery? In a 15-story building on the second floor? Can you when in the neighboring rooms they’re drinking, when you yourself drank yesterday, when you yelled at 15 people, when you hit a woman, stole, deceived, caused harm to others? There’s a huge number of spectrums.
This is a material question. The ego says: “You don’t need to meditate correctly,” but basically it doesn’t matter. Immersion into various states may have limitations. If you put on headphones and turn on a lot of music, you will end up in a restricted state. Any headphones, closed eyes restrict perception. Sometimes closed eyes open perception.
Some meditative processes can be obtained with closed eyes, but you block others. With open eyes — other processes. Music does not give meditative benefits by itself; it can lead you into spaces you don’t need. Someone will say: “Sound therapy, drums,” but it’s important to understand the reason why one composition leads into a state and another doesn’t, and what state you are entering. Goosebumps and euphoria do not guarantee that useful things are happening.
Therefore the question is: what do you want to achieve with meditation? A quick death, a peaceful death, harmonious living, happiness, equilibrium, accelerated karma, relaxation? Do you want to expand the flow, dim the perception of consciousness with a large number of people? Choose a goal.
People often meditate uncontrollably. They understand that there are a huge number of connections in the world. In a true meditative space these connections are destroyed. Does a person control the destruction? Is he ready for the consequences? If a destructive connection was bringing in a million dollars a month, destruction means loss of money. Will he destroy it? Most refuse. 9 out of 10 people are afraid to agree even in theory; they understand that the consequences can be serious.
- How much time do you need to meditate per day?
We’ve already answered that.No, of course, you need at least 14.5 hours. And of those, 13.5 hours lying down, 30 minutes — in another pose, and with music. And it’s very important that for 12.5 minutes you run on all fours — of course, that’s a joke.
- What time of day is best to meditate?
Sometimes, for some people, the time of day matters, but with it comes a huge number of factors: how long ago you slept, what’s in the room in terms of smells, which people you communicated with, which country you are in. For example, you’re on the first or second floor of 12, whether there is a cemetery nearby or not, whether you had coffee four days ago or not — a lot of circumstances.
As long as all the questions are asked from the material world, from the spiritual world such a question is impossible. The goal is meditation, the result is a good meditation. Choose for yourself: do you want a good meditation or a harmonious life? A good meditation or a state of equilibrium? A good meditation or expanded perception? A good meditation or a state of balance in life? A good meditation or perception of other people? Choose what is important for you. Do you want the feeling “good, correct, worthy” and do you write on Instagram: “I possess the parameters of a good meditation.”
- How to calm the mind and switch off the stream of thoughts during meditation?
If we’re talking about truly entering a meditative state, this is not directly related to the question “how to switch off the stream of thoughts.” To do this you need to understand exactly what you want to switch off, what these thoughts are. There are true thoughts and there is garbage. In spiritual science this is referred to as words.
Words are just words: skirt, chair, table, girl, meat, sausage, two plus two, five, six, seven, eight. A person often debates at the level of words. For example, if people have been drinking, they’re not in thoughts but in words. Thoughts are real information that comes through the soul. This is very important. You will never want to switch off the true stream of thought, because it is truth flowing to you. And a person is in words 99–100% of the time, practically not hearing the true stream.
When the true stream flows, you simultaneously experience silence. There is no need to struggle with it: if you say “slow down,” it slows down; if you say “let’s go,” it goes. The true stream is specific. In a true meditative state a person should enter a state of the absence of verbal dialogue and enter the stream of true transmission.
This is the essence of meditation: a person observes the spiritual worlds and perceives a lot that can be interpreted in the form of words. You don’t need to fight this; you need to be able to interpret. Many people who enter a certain state encounter the absence of words and cannot receive the stream fully. Struggling with this state, struggling within the material world, will lead nowhere. For a true spiritual stream, you need to meditate from the spiritual world. The verbal stream may remain, because there may be external interferences, but you remain in a meditative state.
I conduct meditations every week, Friday and Saturday on YouTube, I upload them into the Live folder. One person asked: “Do I need to do additional meditations?” I replied: “Focus on these meditations and come into a state where during the day, without intention, you enter a meditative state.” Meditation is when you begin to hear the spiritual method. You don’t need a pose, time, or special allocation for this. To learn — you need to live and go through it, but it happens automatically, like a reflex in a basketball player who catches the ball.
- How not to quit meditating?
There are two factors.
First: focusing on these 13 and a half questions — that’s one solution.
Second: it’s very difficult. “Not to quit meditating” means not to quit perceiving the spiritual world hundreds or thousands of times a day. For me it’s a natural life. I don’t even ask myself the question of how not to quit meditating. To make the state become harmony, you need to make it part of life, like my wife has been reading books to the children every evening for 14 years. She doesn’t ask herself the question of how not to quit reading — there is an impulse and an action.
If you are in a state of perceiving the world, the desire to quit won’t come. People quit when they feel a bit better — a trap. Not to quit requires strong intention, strength, the coincidence of certain circumstances. The meditations I upload are deeply transformational. If you engage with them, the state expands, and this becomes the norm. For me, the question “how not to quit” is like the question “how not to quit living, how not to quit breathing.”
- What results does meditation give? How soon will I feel them? A question that worries many about benefits. Will it reduce stress, improve sleep, develop intuition — and how long to wait for these effects?
Consider meditation as an action to achieve a goal. If you want to improve your sleep, analyze the factors that affect your sleep. Sometimes other methods can help you faster than meditation. If you want to relax your body, analyze the parameters. Meditation is not for simple material benefits.
Living in the material world, a person doesn’t understand spiritual perception and will see the result only when experience comes. It’s like a blind person being explained the difference between red and green — until he starts to see, it’s abstract.
- Are there any contraindications? Can meditation be harmful? Especially to people with psychological trauma, anxiety disorder. Can you “lose your mind”?
It’s the same as if a person asks whether there can be a bad effect from life, from breathing. That’s what this question is for me. Can you lose your mind from breathing? I’m walking down the street, I get shot, and they say: “He was shot because he was breathing.”
When things happen to a person and they say they happened because of expansion of perception — this is a very specific aspect. Can expansion of perception lead to a worsening of condition? Of course it can. Just as any day can lead to a worsening of condition. Just as marriage, getting married, a new acquaintance, a trip to another country, a tourist trip or a business trip, going to the store, food, opening a business, closing a business, a new job — can worsen your condition.
Only now you’re speaking about an abstraction to which you’ve attached yourself as to a normal material physical action. Can playing basketball lead to a worsening of condition? Easily. You can break a leg, the ball can hit you on the head, or you can have a heart attack. Anything can happen. Everywhere.
- Unusual states and crises during meditation. Some people face strong emotions, tears, frightening sensations, panic attacks. Should they continue?
People live, and during some exercise a certain event happens to them. They say: “It’s meditation.” And I say: “No, you just played basketball yesterday. You just went to work. You just have a husband like that. Or your wife is like that. Or your child was born.” The fact is that a person begins to correlate their certain periods.
Imagine: life moves, and here the person is supposed to start a family. And right here he started doing meditation. He meditates and — boom — started a family. He tells everyone: “Look, I started meditating and started a family.” And they answer him: “It’s not related at all; you could have not done it, and you would have had a family anyway,” or “You started meditating because here, in the future, you were to start a family, and you needed to arrive in that state.”
This is an absolutely egoistic construct of the material world, created to distract a person from true perception, from real things. But I’m talking about true meditation, not meditation to relax, not to earn money, not to jinx someone, not meditation for love spells, not so that life will be blissful. I’m not about that.
- Can a Christian, a Muslim meditate? Many 30+ from post-Soviet countries ask whether meditation is some sect-like religion.
This is a very interesting point. Before this we spoke about a state where a person simply sits in order to relax. In absolutely all practical teachings there are states when a person reads a certain text. For example, a prayer. Is prayer a meditation?
But since meditation is a term as if unrelated to Christianity, many view it as an occult action unrelated to religion. At the same time it’s striking that people ask about this, and then Christians go to read a horoscope or get scared of a black cat on the road. Or a person dies, and only then they go to church to do something. They come and perform rites because they’re afraid something bad will happen. Or they lie, steal, rob, deceive other people, and at the same time say that meditation will bring problems.
When we say that a person lives in a spiritual world, and within this world he is connected with energies, the question arises: does meditation disrupt work with other energies? It does. But only in one way: it disrupts the work of people who want to control you and be mediators to the pure worlds. For example, they say: “No, to hear yourself you must pay, undergo initiations, stay for 40 years in a particular teaching. You won’t be able to hear yourself on your own.” Some teachings and currents treat this calmly. There are teachings and currents that say nothing about it at all. They have no problem with independent meditation.
I conduct meditations on my YouTube channel, online broadcasts in live mode. It’s usually Friday–Saturday. There are also recordings of meditations, there are a huge number of them, they can be rewatched. It’s indicated there which meditations carry incredible power, the power of connection and communion with yourself, and which meditations can be watched every day. Every day something absolutely new will open up for you.