Please bear in mind what Sri Ramana Maharishi is saying while meditating or practicing moving meditation (mindfulness). The mind is composed of both the conscious mind (thought 5%) and the subconscious mind (feeling 95%).
Many people forget about their emotions having to be just as calm & centred as their thoughts. Both are mind. One's emotions are an expression of their thoughts. Just as thunder is an expression of lightning.
It is the subconscious that holds the conscious mind steady in the NOW. In the same way someone or something we love captures our attention and holds it.
How long does one stay in a place if there's no love, no heart, no feeling? Exactly right, not long, so do not leave the subconscious mind out of one's meditation practice.
One's attention (attending presence) aka conscious mind or 'thought' has to sit in the present moment Awareness of the subconscious. There must be no discrepancy between them. Only total harmony. This cannot be achieved if the mind is still rising in thought for each though holds the potential to be at war with another thought that rises, dividing the house, while causing the emotional body to respond in kind which in turn chemically bombardes the body with stress hormones. No one wants to visit a house that is at war itself. Certainly not ones true Soul being Spirit.
The difference between attention and awareness is this: You are aware you are a female living in New Zealand in the year 2022, while your attention is focused on the room you are in on a particular subject. Awareness is expansive and attention restrictive or focused. The conscious mind, which is our attention acts more like a camera taking snapshots of life, calling them today tomorrow and yesterday while the subconscious mind, which is our awareness, acts more like a continuous video that lives ever in the Now.
Note that in holding one thought and feeling we starve all other thoughts and feelings. Once one thought is held it expands into the Spiritual realm rather than rising into the mental realm. You know this is true from your own experience now. If you are listening intently to one person, all other sounds fade out and stop bothering you.
When you meditate let your sense of presence originate or sit in the chest area, radiating outwards. In other words, feel the moment. Feel intuition coming to you, instructing you. Feel it move from the chest area to the mind. Let this feeling translate itself into thought. You could liken this sense of presence or existence to when you hear an intruder in the middle of the night, and you get up in the dark "Listening with your whole body". Not just your head. Not just your five basic senses. Rather it's an all over sensory - 'feeling the room' type of experience. Do that. That is how you meditate. Do not be all up in your head. You will hypnotize yourself for nothing or grow to despise the practice.
Remember you cannot make yourself relax, you LET or ALLOW yourself to relax - the same principle holds true for meditation. Liken it to sleep. The more you try to make yourself sleep the more sleep eludes you. No, you must allow yourself to relax first and if sleep comes it comes, if it doesn't then you are at least relaxed which is almost as good as sleep. The same applies to floating. The more we try to float the more we sink. When we give ourselves up to the ocean, we float.
~ Tracy Pierce
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