Victor Daniels - Matrix Meditations: A 16-week Program for Developing the Mind-Heart Connection

For Tara and Lila, and the teachers who have illuminated our paths.

What is it to work with love? It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.

KAHLIL GIBRAN

In dedicating this book to our daughters, we hope to atone for having taught them, as they grew up, no more than fragments of what we knew about meditation. They did not ask for more and we did not insist. We hope that theyand youwill find this work useful in both savoring the joys and weathering the storms of life. We have tried, as Gibran suggested, to weave the cloth of its pages with threads drawn from our hearts.

Matrix

Meditations

A unique and practical synthesis of time-tested and new inner-work techniques that will appeal to novices and experienced meditators alike. The books down-to-earth and non-doctrinaire tone beckons all to adventures of self-discovery and expanded consciousness.

DAVID VAN NUYS, PH.D., PRODUCER OF SHRINK RAP RADIOAND WISE COUNSEL PODCASTS

Ive never seen the likes of this book anywhere. There is a voice that runs throughout it that is silken soft, patient, kind, yet with a wisdom born of both experience and knowing. That voice gives you perspective. Yes, there are many good books on meditation, but this one stretches to cover awareness, visualizations, dreams, breathing, attention, movements, feelings, and expressions. And you get history and background. It is an unbelievable helpmate for those who want to journey within and touch their soul.

P. M. H. ATWATER, L.H.D., AUTHOR OFTHE BIG BOOK OF NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES ANDBEYOND THE INDIGO CHILDREN

A method for honest communication with your inner self. After you have encountered the 65 cells in the Matrix of Consciousness, you may find that you will have to release some of your most cherished old concepts and ideas. But the good news is that you will also be able to free yourself from those stubborn roadblocks on the path to realizing your dreams and your true mission in life.

BRAD STEIGER, AUTHOR OFWORLDS BEFORE OUR OWN,AND COAUTHOR OF ANGEL MIRACLES: INSPIRATIONAL TRUE STORIES OF HEAVENLY HELP

In these times, there is a great need to have a systematic and thoughtful program of contemplative meditations to cope and thrive as individuals and institutions. Matrix Meditationsis a practical and effective program to do just that. I strongly recommend it.

RUBEN ARMINANA, PH.D., PRESIDENT, SONOMA STATE UNIVERSITY

Rooted in ancient and modern sources,Matrix Meditations offers an accessible and encouraging introduction to contemplative meditation as well as the opportunity to choose focused techniques for particular psychological situations.

REV. CHRISTOPHER THOMAS BELL,UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST MINISTER

Matrix Meditations is a beautifully written, thorough book accompanied by inspiring pictures. It is equally helpful for a beginning practitioner and a longtime meditator of thirty years like myself.

TANIS HELLIWELL, AUTHOR OF TAKE YOUR SOUL TO WORK

This book is a treasure trove of methods to grow the self and to enhance ones own peace and relationships with others.

DIANA DIVECHA, PH.D., DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGIST

Presents what seers from all over the world teach about the mind and meditation. Whether you already have a meditation practice or are just embarking on such, it will be a source that you will read, practice, and treasure.

ROBERT SACHS, AUTHOR OF THE WISDOM OF THE BUDDHISTMASTERS, THE PASSIONATE BUDDHA,AND PERFECT ENDINGS

Victor Danielss teachings have attracted my admiration for many years and helped clarify important principles of gestalt therapy. His work encompasses both the salutary role of meditation in living and the broad rationality by which people are also guided.

ERVING POLSTER, PH.D., AUTHOR OF GESTALT THERAPY INTEGRATED, FROM THE RADICAL CENTER, ANDUNCOMMON GROUND

Brings together psychological and spiritual resourcesglobal, historical, and contemporaryand the wisdom of many years of meditative experience. Readers who go through the Matrix of Consciousness will be truly transformed.

ELEANOR CRISWELL, AUTHOR OFHOW YOGA WORKS AND EDITOR OF SOMATICS MAGAZINE

Acknowledgments

WE ARE DEEPLY APPRECIATIVE to the many who have contributed to the creation of this book in some way. We cannot overstate our debt to our inspiring teachers Harish Johari, Jakusho Kwong-roshi, and Sri Mata Amritanandamayi for inviting us to drink from their transcendent fountains of wisdom. We are extremely fortunate to have been guided in their meditation techniques and to have attended their informational and soul-enriching satsangs.

Also, we owe much to colleages and professors Gordon Tappan, Eleanor Criswell, Laurence J. Horowitz, Diana Divecha, Robert K. Hall, Carl Mitchell, and Harold H. Kelley. In addition, we have been influenced by many more, whose workshops, seminars, lectures, and in some cases just days or evenings of conversation we have attended throughout the years. These include Mahayogi Pilot Baba; Eknath Easwaran; Tarthang Tulku, Rinpoche; Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche; Ram Dass; Swami Niranjanananda Saraswati; Dalai Lama Tenzing Gyatso; Swami Chinmayananda; Pieter Weltevrede; Fritz Perls; Carl Rogers; Rollo May; Erich Fromm; John Argue; Alta Kelly; and others. And as you will soon see, there is a vast multitude of other enlightened souls whose wisdom has been transmitted through time and space by the written word, and has found its way onto our paths and into these pages. We are also grateful for that which we have learned from sources that cannot be revealed.

We wish to thank our amazing literary agent, Bob Silverstein of Quicksilver Books, who stayed with our project from its stumbling beginnings. Not least among his priceless suggestions was the inclusion of the nature photographs. We are indebted to both our daughters for their support and inspiration. We give appreciation to our daughter Lila who critiqued and did an invaluable preliminary editing of the entire manuscript, and our daughter Tara who did the same with significant parts of it. We are grateful to F. Scott Chilcott, M.D., for reviewing the Health and Healing cells. We acknowledge with gratitude all our friends and family whose words of encouragement cannot be understated.

We feel blessed to be connected with Inner Traditions. It has been a mind-expanding pleasure to work with the individuals there whose insightful creative processes have advanced this project. In particular, we could not have asked for a better project editor than Anne Dillon, who both oversaw the editing and contributed many good words, copyeditor Margaret Jones, who was remarkable both for her attention to detail and the depth of her knowledge, and author liason Erica Robinson who was helpful in many different ways.

Contents

Directory of Meditations

TO HELP YOU FIND specific meditations and awareness practices easily, we have classified them into four groups. Although there is not that much in the human psyche that is only this or that, for the purposes of this work each of these groups refers only to its dominant process. Many of the mindfulness meditations, for instance, include some measure of concentration, and vice versa. Likewise, most of the adventures in awareness and the contemplative meditations contain both of these elements to some degree, each within a slightly different context.