occupies. By focusing your attention on your scalp, then next on your nose,
then your ears, and so on, moving down the body until you’ve focused on
the bottoms of your feet, you will notice some changes. This movement
from part to part, and the emphasis on the spaces within the spaces, is the
key to this.
Next, become aware of the teardrop-shaped area surrounding your body,
and the space it takes up. When you can sense that area of space around
your body, your attention now is no longer on your body. Now you are not
your body, but something grander. This is how you become less body and
more mind.
Finally, become aware of the area that the room you are in occupies in
space. Sense the volume that it fills. When you reach this point, this is when
the brain begins to change its disorderly wave patterns to more balanced
and orderly ones.
The Why
We can measure these differences in how you are thinking—we can view
your thought patterns on an EEG to see how you’ve moved from Beta- to
Alpha-wave activity. We’re not interested in just getting you into an Alpha
state of any kind, though; you want to be in a highly coherent, organized
Alpha. That’s why you will concentrate first on your body and its
orientation in space, then move from those individual parts to the volume or
perimeter of space surrounding the body, and eventually focus your
observation on the entire room. If you can sense that density of space, if
you can notice it and pay attention to it, you will naturally move from a
state of thinking to feeling. When that happens, it’s impossible to maintain
the high-Beta state that characterizes the emergency mode of survival and
an overfocused condition.