Unofficial Notes for Sunday, June 10, 6247

Unofficial Notes for Sunday, June 10, 6247

This was an additional class held at the request of students.

Class Summary
• Is there a non-western way to approach meditation (communicating with Divine)
• Traced practice to Indus Valley civilization, around 3300 BCE (present day Iran, Pakistan and others); these civilization have an African substratum
o Most have been in an era when there was a common set of goals and practices
• For Africans; sleep was considered an opportunity for rest and to travel to parallel worlds via dreams
o Inducing sleep by botanical means with the water lily – which is said to be a mood enhancing plant
o Read a narrative about the Mandrake plant, and learned it was a hallucinogenic and if taken improperly can kill; Kemites were aware of the plant and its properties
• Explored four types of meditation including walking, supine (prone), sitting, and movement
o Stresses the importance of good breathing, towards a healthier lifestyle without stress

Completed class evaluation

Sharing Experiences with this course
• Has found meditating to be very useful, helping them to find stillness and learning to take time to reflect
• Has benefited from a number of ways including understanding the importance of breathing properly and posture
• Unsure of the role of meditation for achieving social action; seems individualistic
• Wants a group result when engaged in meditation; can it result in achieving a big goal; doesn’t feel that they can be still
• Comparing another form of meditation that used music, and finds the still meditation requires greater discipline
• Learned to understand body parts and energy