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Third Eye Meditation

Many people, in particular teenagers and college students, are often interested in "third eye meditation." What exactly is third eye meditation? And how do you do it? What are the expected results?

The practice of third eye meditation is very easy to understand. Above your nose and in between your eyebrows in the forehead is a spot which is often called the “third eye.” In yoga and tantra, it corresponds to the Ajna chakra. In third eye meditation, you concentrate on that spot with concentrated visualization. Or you simply mantra from that spot. In time it opens up and you can either begin to see supernatural things, usually just in black and white at first, or you can use your discipline at concentration to enter into samadhi.

The visualization that you perform  at the spot is usually a picture of a little silver flame, white moon, a Sanskrit letter, shining star, Buddha, or some other auspicious silver figure. It can even be a letter of the Jewish alphabet. Whatever is auspicious for you and can serve as a source of stable concentration. You're basically trying to provisionally establish an object to focus contemplation upon. If a person can concentrate on a single object and focus his thoughts on one place without disturbance, they can reach a stage of stopping that is the basis for entering samadhi. But in this case, because of the choice of region, there are other chi biophysical effects as well.

Now here's how it works -- When you concentrate on a region inside or outside of your body, the chi of your body will tend to go to that point. It'll mass there because wherever you put your mind, chi will follow. Because the chi or natal energy of your body goes to a particular point, it will mass in that region and when it masses, it will cause a silverish light to appear in that area because of the friction. Chi naturally gives off light but a lot of it in a small region will give off a lot of light. When you open your third eye you will be able to see this and other lights within the body.

Let’s take another example that you can easily understand. If you visualize any of the bones in your body  by imagining the shape of bone and that its color is white or silver,  you will send the chi or energy of your body to the bone. This will often cause the bone to feel better if you suffer from arthritis in that bad area. All you have done from your visualization practice is concentrated on a region and thereby sent the body physical energy to a mass at that point.

When it comes to the region of the third eye you are tending to perform the very same function. But why should you do this at the region of the third eye? This is because at the region of the third eye is the location of a chakra in the body that called the two-petalled “Ajna” chakra. This is a major upper termination point of the Chi channels in the body that stretched all the way from the perineum to the top and then front of the head. When you concentrate on that point because of the visualization, you will tend to send the Chi to that area which will help to open up the chakra in that region. It is very easy for people to develop slight psychic abilities from doing the technique. In Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy, for instance, people often visualize the stages of germination of seeds at this point in order to help open up the chakra. Afterwards they can see things, too.

However some people who do this visualization never experience any effects whatsoever. The reason is because in order to power the Ajna chakra of the third eye, the Chi energy, or Prana, from the lower regions of the body has to ascend upwards. If all the Chi channels stretching from below to above are blocked or obstructed, which is normally the case, then very little energy will ever reach the third eye no matter how much visualization practice you do. That's why only advanced meditators who have practiced meditation for years, and whose Chi channels or acupuncture meridians are thereby somewhat cleansed because of the prior groundwork, or people who are naturally gifted with emptiness achievement to some extent, accomplish any of the psychic abilities that are often reported to occur from this practice. Remember that the point is not to develop superpowers and go down that route, for the line between mental illness and superpowers is thin indeed. This is why true saints never emphasize them for you end up clinging to them and playing with them without even knowing it.

The reason that you practice this method, however, is not to develop psychic abilities. That would be stupid. In fact, people can end up clinging to such results, which is why adepts rarely teach this to the public. For our purposes, however, I am explaining the basics of the Esoteric School. Always remember that the only purpose of this practice is to help you learn how to fix your mind on a single point with unwavering attention. The region of the heart chakra, behind the breastbone, would do equally as well as a focus spot for your thoughts on one place without disturbance.

The main reason you want to practice this technique is so that your Chi from down below will enter the region of the head and help quiet your mind so that you can enter an advanced meditative state called "samadhi." The third eye spot, because of the intersection of chi channels at this point, is a great spot for concentration that envelops many purposes at once. The purpose is to give you a point of focus for attain one-pointed concentration. That's why this technique is often practiced in Taoism and in yoga and in tantra and the Esoteric school of Buddhism. The purpose is not so that you develop psychic abilities so that you can see spirits and ghosts and other beings made of Chi, but so that you can learn one-pointed concentration and ultimately abandon your view of being a body. Concentrating on the Third eye  through meditation is just another way of trying to bring about this result of one-pointedness.