This meditation is based on Eckhart Tolle’s inner body awareness meditation. It is taken from Tolle’s book Practicing the Power of Now with adaptations.
Make sure that there are no external distractions such as telephones or people who are likely to interrupt you. Sit on a chair, but don’t lean back. Keep the spine erect. Doing so will help you stay alert. Alternatively, choose your own favorite position for meditation.
Decide on a duration of time to meditate and set a timer accordingly. You might start with 5 minutes or 7 minutes. With regular practice you may find that longer periods bring even greater relaxation, awareness, and presence.
Make sure your body is relaxed. Close your eyes. Direct your awareness to your breathing. Take a few deep breaths. Feel your breathing expand your lower abdomen. Observe how it expands and contracts slightly with each in and out breath. Your exhale should be longer than the inhale – that is called vagal breathing which inhances your heart-brain connection and overall health of your nervous system.
Now direct your attention to your inner body. Feel your inner body. Don’t think about it – feel it from within. Is it alive? Is there life in your hands, arms, legs, and feet… in your abdomen and your chest?
By doing this, you shift your consciousness from the mind to your awareness. In the beginning, you may need to do a “body scan,” feeling the different parts of your body as you scan – for example… feel your head, neck, shoulders, down the arms to the hands, the chest, back, hips, pelvis, buttocks, and down the legs to the feet. Then become aware of your body as a whole. Later, with practice, you will be able to go directly to feeling your whole body on command.
This awareness of your body, when the mind is quiet, is present moment awareness or presence. The deeper your presence in each moment the more you will come fully into being in the body.
Then become aware of the entire subtle energy field of the body. It is what gives vibrant life to every organ and every cell. Again, don’t think about it – just feel it. Feel your whole body as a single field of energy.
When you can feel the inner body clearly as a single field of energy, let go of any visual image and focus exclusively on the feeling of energy. If you can, also drop any mental image or labels you may still have of the physical body. This is about feeling the life energy field of your inner body. As you stay with this feeling – with no thoughts – it becomes an all-encompassing sense of presence or “beingness”.
Then, take your attention even more deeply into that feeling. Become one with it. Merge with the energy field, so that there is no longer a perceived duality of observer and observed, of you and your body. The distinction between inner and outer also dissolves now, so there is no inner body anymore. By going deeply into the body, you have transcended the body. This is the realm of pure Being.
Stay in this feeling of pure Beingness for as long as feels comfortable. If it helps, you can meditate on the word “Being” or “Beingness” as a mantra. But presence will be deeper and more profound if you stay in stillness without thoughts or words. Stay in presence for another 5-10 minutes if possible.
—-
Become aware again of the physical body, your breathing and physical senses, and open your eyes. Look at your surroundings for a few minutes in a meditative way – that is, without labeling them mentally – and continue to feel the inner body as you do so.
—
Let me add some additional insights on how you can take this beyond a one-time experience to a full awakening…
As you go about your life, don’t give all of your attention to the external world and to your mind. Keep some awareness within.
Feel the inner body even when engaged in everyday activities, especially when relating with people or nature. Feel the stillness deep inside it. Keep the portal to presence open.
It is possible to practice this until you feel an inner sense of peace somewhere in the background continuously. It will be a stillness that never leaves you, no matter what happens out there in the external world. When this happens, you become a bridge between the divine and the world.
This is the state of beingness with the Source that we call enlightenment or being fully awakened.