MattC

Hi Thelerner! I want to be brief and to the point as possible. The keyword here is to RELAX. The next most important thing is to RELAX. The last thing to remember is to RELAX! All day long from waking up to getting to bed. Now, if you haven't decide to lead a solitary life at the monastery you are up against one huge challenge. How to RELAX in the face of all the concerns, ups and downs, ins and outs of everyday life. I assume you're reasonably healthy human being between 20 - 50 years of age. What does it take to get there in a reasonable amount of time (i.e. 1 - 5 years)? -daily practice (long one in the morning 2 - 3 hours and/or two short practices, one in the morning, one in the evening) -in the mean time try to relax to the max in any given moment (yeah, it's tough!!!), pay attention to your body but don't get obssesive!!! You'll spend a great deal of time cycling between 1.acknowledging the tension (physical and mental) and 2.releasing the tension. Ways to relax: -light sports -quiet sitting -massage -listening to light music -listening to entraining tones - ... you get the idea The method doesn't matter as long as you deepen your ability to RELAX day by day. The goal is to get your brains from randomly jumping from thought to thought to a state of "silence". In other words, condition yourself to go from beta brainwave state to delta or theta on command. Yet in other words, you convince your conscious mind to get yourself into correct environment (quite place) and then tell it to get out of "your" way and let go. The difficulty depends on how many layers of ego (conditioned mind) did you manage to pile up in your life. PRACTICE in nature is far superior than in closed urban envirnoment. Next best is the park. Next best is at home. No matter where you are remember: NEVER MISS A DAY OF PRACTICE! Apart from any kind of method of RELAXATION, the best method I came across to open Microcosmic orbit is this one. (don't get distracted by the guys' character... the format he compiled really kicks-ass. As for the character... the discipline you need to open MCO is much harder than most of the things in life because you always train in a kind of paradoxical state of mind... you train HARD to be as LIGHT as possible in any given moment). Beside RELAXATION there is another magic word.... PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE and then some more. There is no easy way to get there unfortunately. In case you decide to put in the hours and dedication you need to have a pretty good idea why do you want it. I was lead to this path by the promise of pleasure. And yeah, it is probably the most rewarding and the best thing ever minus the effort necessary. As far as I know this is the only way to get in a state that everyone craves for and does drugs for this reason. While you can get a quick glimpse of such state with drugs, you are doing so much damage to your body that return of investment is questionable to say the least. I would suggest to you only 2 things: RELAX as much as possible and never miss a day of PRACTICE. There you go. You've got all the tools now. If you want to read some more theory I would suggest: this and this + videos Best of luck on your quest!