Writing Meditation Method: How does it Work? | Madhu Bazaz Wangu
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Writing Meditation Method: How does it Work?

Writing Meditation Method: How does it Work?

Activating Writer’s Energy Centers

 The aim of the Mindful Writers is to complete a book length manuscript in nine-months using Writing Meditation Method. By the end of the first cycle of three months they find their productivity increase, voice deepen and blocks eliminated. Before joining the Mindful Writers Group most writers feel fragmented, unable to achieve their writing dream. But by the end of the nine-months of practice their body, heart and mind feel integrated. Equilibrium returns. And changes begin to occur within that affect their without.

At the beginning of each session, I lead all participants (novice as well as professional writers) with body, heart or mind meditation. I bring their attention to each and every limb, each and every organ of the body as we scan various parts mainly through the spine. Perhaps for the first time the participants have focused on their bodies. They appreciate its marvelous forms, and give thanks for its miraculous functions and meticulous systems.

By the time meditation ends, a current of power, that has been lying dormant in their bodies, begins to awaken. A stream of creative energy flows freely that the Mindful Writers successfully infuse in the hours of writing that follows.

Irrespective of gender or age, within each writer lay dormant opportunities to expand awareness, increase creative flow, and deepen and clarify writer’s voice.  Mindful Writers journey upwards, from the root of the body to the crown of the head passes through centers of psychic power known in Sanskrit as chakra. They govern different cognitive and psychic functions ranging from the material needs of the body to the highest creative and spiritual aspirations.  

The first four chakras are located along the spine, fifth at the level of the throat, the sixth between the eyebrows and the seventh four-finger breadth above the head. In Indian art and mythology the chakras are pictured with lotus flowers with different number of petals for each center. They remain closed unless writers make an effort to open them through Writing Meditation Method.

 Writing Meditation Method: How does it Work?

1. The Root Center

The Root Center of energy is located at the base of the spine. When awakened this chakra stimulates writers’ tremendous urge to write and build a personal world outside themselves. Wannabe writers never progress beyond this chakra. They talk about writing but never write. They have no desire to change or grow into the next state of awareness. They talk about writing to survive.  

2. The Primal Center

The Primal Center is located in the spine around the genitals. It drives us all into consciousness and sustains us in the conscious world. Those who stay content in this center feel its massiveness and impede progress. Some writers succeed in shaking off its weight and grow beyond its grip. The individuals stuck here are mostly focused on sex and reproduction.

 3. The Solar Center

This center of psychic power is located near navel and represents fire element. At this chakra writers recognize that creative inner world is indeed authentic and self-governing. Not under our control unless we wake up to our psychic power. In this chakra lies desire for fame and accolades. Those who reach this level have passion for material things. The flames of their passion consume them throughout their lives. Few individuals develop beyond the first three levels of survival, sex and status. Those writers who strive to ascend to the next chakra  meet their authentic self, their inner mentor.

4. The Heart Center

Writers who progress upward towards the Heart Center not only dream about power and position but  have deep desire for creative/spiritual life beyond material possessions. For them better possibilities open up. An authentic life in which peace prevails and cosmic space and time are gradually revealed. The joy of writing extends to the joy of giving, delight in mentoring fellow writers about what advanced writer has learned.  At this chakra the inner mentor is experienced. The Mindful Writer realizes that the inner companion is greater and more important than his physical self and that it has a purely psychic existence.

5. The Throat Center

Located behind the throat, this energy center is like a vessel where sensuous, intellectual and emotional possibilities and potentialities mingle making this chakra insurmountably strong. This is writers’ chakra due to its association with sound, speech and communication. Writers who reach this psychic level realize that their inner (psychic) truths do not have much to do with the outer (material) facts. They begin to experience outer reality different from their creative reality and in the process acquire self-knowledge that is fundamental to a Mindful Writer’s growth as a writer and as a person.

6. The Command Center

Commonly known as the “third eye” this  chakra is situated between the eyebrows. Experiencing this center grants writers stronger intuitive abilities and deeper insights. Writers such as Henry David Thoreau who experienced this stage are in command of their whole personality. Ego no longer rules the body. The authentic self or inner mentor does. Writers realize that their psyche is no longer within them but they have become its content. They just write. They do not talk about their work until they have completed the first draft. From then on they follow the daily practice of the Method. They are able to command and control their unwholesome habits and attitudes and replace them with wholesome ones. The self-awareness is transformative. They write the final revision of the manuscript with determination.

7. Center of the Thousand-Petal Lotus

Located four fingerbreadths above the crown of the head, this chakra is pictured as an inverted thousand petaled lotus. Its location outside the body makes it different from the other six chakras. Experiencing this psychic center baths the meditator in an inexpressible aura of joy. This center functions in perfect unison with all the lower chakras and provides insights into the non-temporal and indefinable depth of existence. Only a fully awakened individual experiences this chakra.

When writers begin practicing Writing Meditation Method, it is difficult for them to penetrate the Root Center. But with persistence and patience, they succeed. The second and third centers are easier to transcend but the fourth but the Heart Center is as hard to experience at first. The reasons for this vary. Only in meditation does on find answers. Once the writer experiences the Heart Center the next one to ascend is the Throat Chakra  where one realizes “what is within is without.”A successful writer struggles to master this cakra for the rest of his or her life.

Some writers such as the Trappist monk, Thomas Merton, are not only interested in becoming successful writers but also good human beings. They are aware of themselves and sensitive towards fellow beings,whether they are writers or not. They overcome this center and reach the Command Center the “third eye,” the  source of creativity and spirituality.

This psychic and cognitive energy does not shoot up in a straight line, but rests at each center of its unfolding. In its rest it unties the knots of each energy level. Each unlocking brings transformation in the writer’s voice, style of writing and in the person.

Does all this sound complicated? Do you still want to practice Writing Meditation Method?   I recommend you listen to my CD, “Meditations for Mindful Writers.” It has step by step body, heart and mind meditation instructions.

See the publication page.  Good Luck with your practice!

 

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