For now, though, I’ve started to use it with an intention to look for more information in a particular area.  And I seem to have found the way it’s going to work for me.

It’s all about the meditation afterwards

For me, the practice is about stirring up the brain – and once I get it warmed up and going round full pelt I’ll stop, lie down, and see what settles out of the muck.

Previously I had been aiming for stillness and quiet during meditation, but my recent realistion that there is a better way for me to learn from my meditation has given me my route to epiphany central with shiva nata.

Off to la la land

Basically, after lying down I repeated my intention a few times (which had morphed a bit through repetition during the practice, to get more to the heart of what I wanted to know) and then let my mind wander without looking.  As my attention would suddenly pop back to what I was thinking I would find myself at the end of a daydream.  By replaying the storyline through my mind I would be able to see the theme of what was being played out in my mind – usually causing a pop as a realisation occurs.

I don’t know if that’ll work for you, but if this specific recipe is not to your taste then take it simply as an indicator that it may take a while for you to find your own practice with it, and that in the meantime you’ll still reap benefits.

For the first time since starting Shiva Nata, I had been able to think of an intention that I was emotionally invested in.  I have struggled with this before, though I’m still not sure exactly why that is, so it was great to finally find myself with a question that I felt I could use Shiva Nata with.  The intention was to understand what I got out of the hours I was spending online before going to bed.  I’d realised that my constructive part of the day tended to end around dinner time and I would then spend hours online which often resulted in me feeling frustrated with myself, yet I had a real sense of getting something out of this time that I couldn’t quite identify.

Visions

During shavasana I had a little vision/thought about feeding the rabbits grain, rather than vegetables.  I was annoyed at Glyn for not just ditching the grain and feeding a mix of veg instead.  As my awareness came back to my thoughts I started to think “oops I’ve gone off on one” but for some reason, rather than let go that thought and come back to blankness, I was drawn to go back and look at the story that had played out.  I noticed that there was a message to the story: that change, even when easy and with obvious benefits, can be resisted simply because of inertia.  I thought about my intention: I am resisting the change to my sleep patterns.  Now this statement was being touted by one part of my brain as obvious, it was simply a restatement of the question ‘Why don’t I want to go to bed?’ but I know that a rewording can bring powerful insight and understanding so I paid attention and realised that the key phrase was ‘I am resisting the change’.  So I sat up, grabbed my large journaling pad and wrote “I notice that I am resisting the change to my sleep cycle.”  What followed blew me away.

Epiphanies!

I had nine, count them – nine, epiphanies in the 3 A4 pages of writing that followed.  It was one per paragraph at one point!

Going forward

This is what I’ve been looking for in my practice.  A way to access understanding around an area.  It’s taken me a long time to be able to get the different pieces in place:

• a real intention that I’m focussed on with emotion
• a strong practice that challenges me (I did Levels 3, 4 and half of 5)
• an understanding of when I’ve reached the point to stop (brain fog just starting to really kick in – before I’ve pushed through this and totally flatlined my brain for no extra benefits)
• being able to listen to my thoughts in meditation afterwards
• following my intuition within the meditation practice, not just going for silence but hearing the message
• knowing when to follow that message into my journaling
• feeling comfortable in how to journal and record the thoughts that come to me in a safe way, knowing which routes are dead ends and which are the path to follow

I feel like I’ve reached the next level up after plateauing for so long.  I was truly skeptical I could go any further – I’m so grateful that I’ve gave it one more try!