When considering which Buddha statue or figurine is best for you, decide which symbolic position best fits your thoughts or beliefs. There are five extremely common positions, with each symbol represented by how the hands are held.

Buddha Figurine Symbols

1. The Abhaya Mudra is where the right hand is raised and the palm is facing outward, while the left hand is down towards the hips and is also facing outward. This is a symbolic gesture of protection, peace, and the dispelling of fear.
2. The Bhumisparsha Mudra is where the all the fingers of the right hand are reaching to touch the ground, representing the enlightenment of the Buddha under the Bodhi tree. It is a symbol of unshakeable faith and resolution.
3. The Dhyana Mudra is where one, or both, hands are resting in the lap and is symbolic for wisdom. Sometimes it is supplemented by ritual objects such as an alms bowl. The Dhyana Mudra is universally used during meditation and relaxed states.
4. The Dharmachakra Mudra has the thumb and index finger of both hands touching at their tips to form a circle, which symbolizes one of the most important moments in the life of Buddha. This is when he preached his first sermon, after his Enlightenment, in the Deer Park at Sarnath.
5. The Varada Mudra is where both hands are at waist level, palms out, right hand up and left hand down, and is used whenever a blessing is being offered.

People use Buddha figurines anywhere they want to set up a small altar table, but countless people keep these figurines in their car, or on their bodies.

The Importance of Relaxation

Relaxation is vital to success with the type of meditation that raises spiritual consciousness. This is true whether you’re following new age practices, Eastern meditation, or traditional Christian meditative prayer like the Jesus Prayer or the Rosary.

The reason relaxation is so central is because relaxation is the opposite of contraction. By definition, you cannot expand your awareness, whether spiritual or otherwise, if you’re contracting it at the same time. Contraction can be physical, such as a distracting discomfort or ache or pain. It can be emotional, like worry or anger. It can be mental, like a nagging thought or a song you can’t get out of your head. Or it can be spiritual, like a crisis of faith, a feeling of despair, or a sense of not being loved. Whatever the category, any of these things tend to make you retreat into yourself defensively instead of opening yourself up to spiritual experience.

The solution to this is to learn to relax, on all levels, from the physical level to the spiritual level. Here are five keys to doing that.

Meditation: How to Reduce Stress, Get Healthy, and Find Your Happiness in Just 15 Minutes a Day.

1. Relax Your Posture

Beginning on the physical level, the first thing to relax is your posture. You can relax your posture in any position, whether lying, sitting, standing, or even walking or running. For practical purposes, it’s easiest to learn lying on your back or sitting straight up in a chair (rather than on the floor in a Lotus position, unless you’re used to that), and then learn to apply it to other postures.

(You can use soft music for this if you find it helpful. However it is best to learn to relax to the sound of your own breathing and heartbeat and get in the habit of listening to silence, which is a valuable skill to develop.)

Relaxing your skeleton is the first step to relaxing your posture. The key to this is relaxing the spine and major joints. Some main points:

• Your neck should be comfortable and in normal alignment. If you’re lying on your back, this means your pillow should be a comfortable depth. Likewise if you’re sitting or standing, keep the weight of your head centered over your spine by avoiding pushing your chin forward too far or tilting your head back too much. Your chin should tuck in slightly, like you were holding a small ball the size of a ping-pong ball against your throat. This brings the center of your skull in closer alignment with your spinal support column. If you get this right, you should feel like the top of your head is dangling from a string and the weight of your body is sinking into the ground.
• Keep your shoulders and hips in alignment, so your torso feels relaxed and not twisted or arched in any way. If you are lying down you may need to adjust the surface you are lying on, as well as check your pillow. If you are sitting or standing, make sure the weight of your shoulders drops directly into your hips.
• Let your elbows and wrists and knees and ankles feel comfortably flexed.
• Let your fingers feel comfortably bent but not tensed or straightened, like you were holding a comfortable, warm, squishy ball and could feel warmth between your fingers and around your fingertips. Let your toes feel like they’re sunk into something warm and squishy like sand.
• Let the weight of your hands rest comfortably.
• If you’re sitting, make sure your weight is comfortably distributed over your thighs and you’re not sitting on your tailbone or letting the front of your chair dig into your thighs. You may need to adjust the height of your chair or use a footstool so your feet can fall directly from your knees into the floor.

Relaxing in your skeleton in this fashion will tend to relax your muscles by letting your weight sink through your bones into your bed or chair. Cultivate this sense of sinking by visualizing tension progressively leaving your body from the head down.

If you’re lying down, imagine it draining into the bed in a downward direction as you mentally scan from your head down to your toes letting tension leave you. Start at the top of your head, then continue to the level of your eyes, then to your nose, then to your mouth, and continue in that fashion until you’re down to your toes. Imagine your muscles getting more and more relaxed as you progress. If you’re new to this, you may tend to fall asleep at first. That’s okay: it’s a sign you’re relaxed!

If you’re sitting or standing, the procedure is essentially similar, except your back is not against the floor, so the flow of gravity is draining tension down through your seat and your feet.

(Incidentally, this relaxation procedure is also an effective self healing technique.)

2. Relax Your Breathing

As you relax your posture, your breathing will naturally tend to relax as well. You can relax your breathing further by progressively relaxing an imaginary line following the flow of oxygen in and out of your nose and lungs. When doing this, don’t try to force or hold your breath, just breathe naturally, no more than two thirds of your full capacity. Don’t try to guide your breath as in some Yoga practices, just observe your breath and let it relax on its own. Follow this procedure, taking 10 breaths for each step or however many breaths you choose:

• First, feel your nostrils relaxing as you breathe in and out. Sense your nostrils expand and contract, as well as the air moving past the hairs on your nose.
• Now follow the air flow from your nostrils up your nasal passages to the peak of your nose. Imagine the air is like a straw going up the insides of your nose and then flowing back down the sides of your nose.
• Continue following the flow all the way from your nostrils up to the peak of your nose and down to your mouth, and back.
• Move down to the notch of your throat.
• Now, down to your solar plexus.
• Notice your abdomen, feeling it expand to the front and contract again.
• Next, feel your abdomen expanding to both the front and back simultaneously, as your breathing deepens.
• Let your abdomen expand to both the sides.
• Be aware of your whole body expanding and contracting, all the way down to your feet.

3. Relax Your Emotions

Relaxing your breathing will tend to relax your emotions. To deepen your emotional relaxation, let go of any internal tension you notice around parts of your body that tighten up when you are stressed. Some people squint their eyes or clench their jaw when they are tense. Others tighten their shoulders or arms or hands. Others get tight in their stomach. Wherever you notice emotional stress like this, imagine it leaving your body as you relax your posture and breathing. A good way to do this is to imagine your fingertips tracing circles over the tense spot, spreading out the tension, relaxing it and warming that area. Then once it is warm, imagine it dripping away like melting ice, or rising away like vapor. As with relaxing your posture, you can follow this procedure from head to toe as well to gradually dissolve emotional tension spots.

4. Relax Your Mind

As you are relaxing your body and emotions, you will become more aware of your thoughts, especially internal dialogue, as well as dream-like images and other internal experiences, along with ambient sounds. To relax your mind, learn to let these thoughts go without fixating on them.

Do not try to stop them, which will consume energy and increase tension. Rather, let them drift off on their own, similar to the way you let physical and emotional tension drain out of your body. Here are a few ways to do this:

• Imagine any images, sounds, or other internal or external sensations are dissolving into waves that lap at your feet, drifting in and out with your breathing.
• Imagine your thoughts are drifting past you like a river and dissolving into the river.
• Use a soothing sound to relax you, such as music or your breathing or a recorded audio.

You can also try relaxing your mind without any guided imagery or sounds, which is actually preferable if you can manage it. However, this is difficult for most people, so feel free to use imagery or music if you find it helpful. And if you are planning to do any guided imagery or guided audio, you may find it more effective if you first relax your mind this way, so you are not as distracted and you are more focused.

5. Relax Your Spirit

All of the above relaxation practices are intended to lay a foundation to make it easier for you to relax your spirit and achieve spiritual consciousness. When your body, breathing, emotions, and mind are relaxed, you are less prone to negative thoughts and emotions that can hamper spiritual growth, such as obsessive fixation, fear, anger, negative self-talk, or other negative internal dialogue. At the same time, your awareness of such barriers to spiritual growth becomes heightened. Notice any obstacles like this that come up during your meditation, and let them go using the same techniques you used to relax other areas of your body and mind. The best remedy for spiritual maladies is not to consume energy worrying about fighting them, but to let them pass out of you with a sigh, on the breath of a prayer.

Worthy Spiritual References

The Washington Center for Consciousness Studies
The Art of Contemplation
Taoist Breathing
Authentic Breathing
Tips for Letting Go of Stress and Anger

Goals

If we try to sum up some goals to qualify what it means to achieve spiritual consciousness, we might say that the cultivation ofspiritual consciousness aims to achieve one ultimate end:

• Unity with infinite consciousness

by pursuing two goals:

• Eliminate bad habits
• Cultivate good habits

in three major areas:

• How we treat ourselves
• How we treat other people
• How we treat reality as a whole

Eckhart Tolle: Awakening in the Now

Let’s elaborate each of those briefly.

The end of attaining unity with infinite consciousness goes by different names in different traditions. Christianity associates it with the experience of Heaven described in the Book of Revelation which later writers called the Beatific Vision, wherein “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain.” Judaism and Islam envision a Seventh Heaven. Hinduism and Buddhism describe a state of pure bliss called ananda. Taoism cultivates a state of effortless unity with the Tao called wu wei. The ancient Neoplatonists ancestral to today’s New Age sought union with the One.

The elimination of bad habits and the cultivation of new habits likewise goes by different names. Paul called it putting off the old man and putting on the new man, a concept that evolved into Aquinas’ analysis of habitual virtues and vices. Buddhists follow an Eight-Fold path to achieve right understanding, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. Taoists cultivate the Three Treasures of compassion, frugality, and humility.

As for what bad habits are to be eliminated and what good habits are to be cultivated, we can classify these under a few general categories. Under the category of how we treat ourselves, we can include things like:

• Taking care of our physical health
• Emotional self-care:
• Moderating excessive desire for short-term indulgences by learning the power of self-control
• Overcoming fear with courage
• Overcoming anger with kindness
• Discouraging negative self-talk and perception by encouraging positive affirmations
• Cultivating practical wisdom
• Training motivation and discipline
• Developing a sense of justice, honesty, integrity, and duty
• Finding a sense of purpose
• Finding a sense of being loved

The category of how we treat others includes:

• How we treat others internally: how we picture them, how we feel about them, and what we say about them
• How we talk to others
• How we act towards others

Finally the category of how we treat reality in general includes:

• How open we are to accepting what is and what’s to come
• How grateful we are for what we have and optimistic about what we’ll receive
• How willing we are to give something back and devote our time and energy to something other than ourselves

Each of these categories can be applied in many ways, and will be applied differently by each person, in ways not explicitly covered here. The point is not to be comprehensive, but to get some sense of what goals we’re aiming for when we talk about achieving spiritual consciousness, so we have something definite to work towards.

Strategies

Whatever spiritual goals you set for yourself, there are a number of strategies that have proven effective over the centuries and millennia. Here are ten important ones that will seem simple but have a profound effect when put into practice regularly:

1. Set aside a regular time for prayer and/or meditation. Make an effort to stick to it, but don’t get discouraged if it’s hard for you to get into the habit right away. Learn to pray and meditate continually throughout the day whenever you’re thankful or anxious or upset.
2. Don’t get discouraged because you’re not perfect when you first start eliminating a bad habit or cultivating a new habit. When you get discouraged, remind yourself that growth takes time and everything blossoms in due season. Likewise, learn to distinguish involuntary feelings from conscious decisions. Take responsibility for conscious decisions, but don’t blame yourself for involuntary feelings.
3. Don’t try to do everything at once. Prioritize what you want to work on so you can work on one thing at a time.
4. Find a qualified mentor you can consult for advice and guidance. Make sure it’s the right person. When you do find the right person, be open with them, listen to them, and take their advice to heart.
5. Don’t waste time worrying about things out of your control. Resolve to make the most of whatever happens.
6. Remind yourself of what you have to be grateful for, on a regular basis. Cultivate your perception of hidden gifts and growth.
7. Acknowledge gifts you’ve been given as coming from others instead of putting yourself down or praising yourself excessively.
8. Don’t feel obligated to like everyone, but do feel obligated to treat them well, even if they don’t deserve it.
9. Don’t get impatient with others because they’re not perfect. Just as you let yourself grow at your own pace, let them grow at their own pace.
10. When trying to break a bad habit, first work on getting out of the situation that triggers the habit. Then work on replacing the external manifestation of the action with different words and actions. Then work on replacing the thought that led to the action with a different thought. Finally, work on using your new thought pattern to cultivate a different reaction when you find yourself in the situation that formerly led to the bad habit. With regular practice you will be able to face the same situation with a new outlook.

Worthy Spiritual References

Light and Peace
The Pursuit of Happiness
Positive Psychology Center

Traditional Definitions of Consciousness: The Soul

The definition of consciousness has developed over time. The earliest definitions conceived of the soul as a sort of shadowy double of the physical body, akin to the semi-solid experience of the body when dreaming. Many traditional cultures envisioned people as having several souls, related to different parts of the body and different psychological functions. This line of thought was similar to how we sometimes associate the heart or gut with feelings and the brain with thinking.

Classical Definitions: Faculty Psychology

The classical Greek philosophers refined this definition of the soul to distinguish more sharply between the physical body and the psychological functions of human nature. Socrates emphasized the difference between sensory perception of individual physical objects and intellectual understanding of universal patterns shared by groups of objects. For instance, an eye, a wheel, and a basketball are all different sizes, but they all share the common mathematical pattern we call a circle.

From this, Socrates and his students reached the conclusion that the part of consciousness responsible for physical perception must be of a different order than the part of consciousness responsible for intellectual understanding. Socrates’ successors Plato and Aristotle developed this basic idea in different directions.

Plato emphasized the intellectual soul’s transcendence of the physical body and sensory input. He concluded that the soul existed before birth and survived death, and spoke of the soul as being trapped in the body like a prison.

Aristotle scrutinized the intellect’s interaction with the body and sensory perception. He viewed the body and intellect as distinct but intertwined, and thought Plato had overemphasized the soul’s independence of the body.

Later Greek philosophers debated different interpretations of Plato, Aristotle, and other philosophers’ definitions of the soul. A mixture of Plato and Aristotle’s ideas called Neoplatonism became popular during the time of the Roman Empire. Neoplatonists viewed the individual soul as a step between the material world and a higher, universal soul called the One. Neoplatonism was influential during the Middle Ages on Jewish, Christian, and Muslim intellectuals.

Greek philosophy left classical Western thought with a definition of consciousness known today as “faculty psychology.” Faculty psychology divides consciousness up into different faculties based on the different functions of the soul.

According to faculty psychology, there is a vegetable part of the soul that governs biological functions such as eating, growth, and reproduction. Above this is an animal part of the soul that governs primitive psychological functions associated with sensation, emotions, and physical movement. Finally above this is the intellectual part of the soul, which governs thinking and the deliberate actions of the will, and intelligent management of emotional feelings; spiritual consciousness raising.

The faculties of the soul are often summed up in terms of the appetites, responsible for feeling; the intellect, responsible for thinking; and the will, responsible for deliberate action.

Modern Definitions: Phenomenology

Since the 18th century, modern philosophers have shifted away from defining consciousness in terms of the soul and faculty psychology towards using the scientific method to study consciousness. A systematic method of studying consciousness was proposed by the 19th century mathematician Edmund Husserl, who was investigating consciousness in order to justify the most fundamental assumptions underlying logic and math. Husserl proposed a method that would allow scientists to observe consciousness the same way they observed physical objects. Husserl called his method phenomenology.

20th century philosophers developed and debated Husserl’s method, which set the tone for contemporary discussions of consciousness. Phenomenologists have redefined the faculty psychology concepts of the appetites, the intellect, and the will by reframing these in terms of consciousness. For instance, instead of talking about the will in traditional terms, the offshoot of phenomenology called existentialism explored the conscious processes involved in making decisions and facing consequences. Other phenomenologists analyzed the intellectual side of consciousness and refined Aristotle’s concept of the intellect to study how modern mathematicians and scientists come to understand ideas. And phenomenologists from the philosophical and theological school known as neo-Thomism extended phenomenology to the study of religious consciousness, seeking to define how consciousness behaves in a spiritual context.

Defining Spiritual Consciousness

Phenomenologists studying religious consciousness have proposed that spiritual consciousness can be defined by taking the normal patterns of human consciousness and extrapolating them towards infinity.

For example, if we take the normal experience of space and time and extrapolate it, we get the concepts of unlimited spatial omnipresence and timeless eternity.

If we take the normal experience of limited understanding of specific physical laws, we get the concept of unlimited understanding of the laws of the universe.

If we take the experience of limited knowledge of specific facts, we get the concept of omniscient knowledge of ultimate truth.

If we take the experience of limited freedom to choose between good and bad, we get the concepts of omnipotence and ultimate good.

And if we take the experience of love for individuals and extend it to encompass everyone and everything, we get the concept of unlimited love.

The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality

Comparing Spiritual Consciousness in Different Traditions

When we compare these infinite extrapolations of consciousness with different spiritual traditions, we can see a lot of common ground. For instance, the Judeo-Christian tradition conceives of God as transcending space and time, unlimited in knowledge and power, and infinitely loving. Buddhism conceives of enlightenment as liberation from attachment to limited desires. Taoism conceives of the Tao transcending all oppositions. New Age, drawing from Neoplatonism and other sources, conceives of an alchemical unification of opposites leading to union with the infinite. In all these traditions and others, we see spiritual consciousness being related to consciousness of something transcending finite limitations, something infinite.

But human understanding is finite, so we also see differences between how consciousness of the infinite is conceived in different traditions. Christianity stresses the Trinity as the heart of infinite mystery and takes up the Way of the Cross. Buddhism follows the Eight-Fold Path to achieve Nirvana. Taoism transforms physical and emotional energy into spiritual energy through the practice of Qigong. New Age applies a range of tools from Transcendental Meditation to Magick in its quest to expand consciousness. Other traditions have a wide variety of beliefs and practices as diverse as human culture in all its complexity. These differences may seem as infinitely varied as infinity itself. Their common ground lies not in their attainment of infinite understanding, but in their quest to achieve spiritual consciousness.   It is rooted in the human capacity for infinite questioning, expressed by the insatiable curiosity of every child who asks “Why?”

Worthy Spiritual References

Harvard Divinity School Center for the Study of World Religions
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Religion Facts

Subliminal messages are attempts to slip information into subconscious perception before it can be processed by the conscious mind. Since the concept was first introduced in 1897, psychologists and other experts have debated whether such subliminal stimuli have any effect on influencing behavior.

Researchers have found few examples of controlled case studies to indicate subliminal messages exert more than a fleeting effect on thinking. On the other hand, some therapists specializing in hypnosis like Milton Erickson have been able to apply subliminal techniques to produce dramatic results. Research continues into the complex relationship between subconscious input and behavior.

Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson, M.D., Vol. 2

Subliminal Techniques

Subliminal techniques combine relaxation with the repetition of the desired message. There are a number of techniques for introducing stimuli to the subconscious without drawing them to conscious awareness:

• Changing the intensity of the stimulus to be emphasized. Commercials often film “before” images in dimmer lighting than “after” images. Likewise, ads also are often played louder than regular TV programs, though in psychological practice, whispering has actually proven more effective than shouting for sending subliminal messages.
• Including the same images, sounds, words, or phrases at regular spatial intervals. Examples would be placing images on the borders of a page in a regularly spaced pattern or spelling out a word by placing one letter at the beginning of each paragraph.
• Introducing the message at regularly timed intervals in rhythm, as in the meter of a song or poem.
• Adding variations of an image by using a string of associated images, such as a bird, a nest, and an egg.
• Repeating a series of synonyms.
• Using a metaphoric story where the plot has the same structure as the subliminal message to be conveyed. A famous example is Jesus’ parables, where the audience is often symbolized by one of the characters in the story.

Subliminal CD: The Secret to Attracting Wealth

Subliminal Techniques and Sleep Learning

With a little creativity, it’s easy to adapt these subliminal techniques to sleep learning. Here are a few examples:

• Audios for sleep learning techniques can include words and phrases that are emphasized using whispering and other sound modification methods.
• The audios can repeat words and phrases at regular rhythms to embed them into the subconscious. An example would be repeating the pronunciation of a foreign language word at regular intervals.
• They can repeat a related series of words in order to reinforce an association between them, like repeating the association between a foreign language word and its English equivalent.
• Audios can tell metaphoric stories designed to induce subconscious dream imagery. For instance, an audio teaching financial success secrets might include a story about a character who goes from rags to riches, as a metaphor for overcoming financial anxiety.

These are just a few examples of ways subliminal messages can be used to enhance sleep learning. With ingenuity you can probably devise many more examples to try with your own audio aids.