How to Meditate the Psychosynthesis Approach
You can download the mp3 here, too.
“We are dominated by everything with which our self becomes identified. We can dominate, direct, and utilize everything from which we dis-identify ourselves.”
This meditation is best performed, initially, two-three times per week. It’s a powerful, and common psychosynthesis exercise. The meditation consists of four stages: disidentification from the body, disidentification from the emtotions, disidentification from the mind, and identification as the self.
You are not your thoughts, feelings, sensations, roles in life, identity, etc. These are the content of your experience. You, the self, are content-less awareness. Thoughts, feelings, etc. are the experiential content of your knowing.
Here’s the full text if you prefer to read it aloud:
Sit in meditation on a cushion or a cozy chair. Spend a few minutes watching your breath and relaxing the mind.
Either read or listen to a recording of the meditation text. Be sure to visualise as clearly as you can and really feel what the text is pointing you towards realising. Once you’ve performed the meditation a few times you’ll be able to do it without needing to read the text.
Assert and be aware of the following:
I have a body and sensations but I am not my body and sensations. My body may find itself in different conditions of health or sickness; it may be rested or tired, but that has nothing to do with my self, my real ‘I’. My body is my precious instrument of experience and of action in the outer world, but it is only an instrument. I treat it well; I seek to keep it in good health, but it is not myself. I have a body but I am not my body.
I have feelings and emotions but I am not my feelings and emotions. These emotions are countless, contradictory, changing, and yet I know that I always remain I, my self, in times of hope or despair, in joy or in pain, in a state of irritation or of calm. Since I can observe and understand my emotions, and then gradually learn to direct, utilise, and integrate them, it is evident that they are not myself. I have emotions, but I am not my emotions.
I have a mind and thoughts, but I am not my mind and thoughts. My mind is a valuable tool of discovery and expression. Its contents are constantly changing; it is undisciplined but teachable. It is an organ of knowledge in regard to the outer world as well as the inner; but it is not my self. I have a mind and thoughts, but I am not my mind and thoughts.
What am I then? What remains? It is the essence of myself – a centre of pure self-consciousness and self-realisation. I recognise and affirm myself as a centre of pure self-consciousness and of will, capable of observing, mastering, directing and using all the psychological processes and the physical body. I am a centre of Awareness and of Power.