Many meditations can be sexually stimulating, arousing the Kundalini force and causing the Chi (intrinsic energy) to flow dramatically. Particularly in Chinese and Japanese meditation, we bring the flow of life force to the center, two inches below the navel, which is extremely close to the sexual zone.
Antidote: Do the reverse meditative breathings (particularly the first part known as The Great Circle Meditation). This will transmute the sex energy into a higher form of energy, if that is what is desired.
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If meditation becomes too passive (as in self-hypnosis or candle-gazing), there is real danger of obsession or possession from outside.
Antidote: Use the Mantra, breath-counting or any other technique very positively. Even if meditative trance can be achieved without technique, such meditation can easily become passive, so the Mantra or specified formula should be used.
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Meditation in rooms with bad air, or in soft, reclining comfortable chairs can be harmful.
Antidote: The back should be straight in meditation so the force can travel easily through the internal channels. Relaxation in reclining soft chairs should be avoided; not only may it cause the meditator to fall asleep, but the circulation is not good. Always sit in an upright chair or in cross-legged meditative pose on the floor or mat. The pranic content being all-important, and associated with the air breathed, meditation in over-heated air or in foul atmosphere can be definitely harmful. Cold is not harmful, and good meditation will warm the meditator, so put on another sweater, do some moving meditation first, or do breathing exercises, but do the meditative practice in fresh air.
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Some beginning meditators begin to do astral traveling. They are shocked to find themselves out of the body, then delighted by the tricks this allows them to play on friends. Such practice should be avoided; there is the possibility of being unable to return to the body, and the body is in a vulnerable position when the consciousness is away from it.
Antidote: Ignore such manifestations and continue with the positive meditative technique. Stay away from all practices that take you out of the body; follow faithfully your own meditation. Keep your meditation positive, keep your posture good in meditation and always meditate in good air amid peaceful surroundings. Do not meditate in rooms where a log fire or pot-bellied stove has dissipated the oxygen.
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Many meditators have visions, particularly when first beginning practice. There is nothing unusual about seeing your own face in profile, or noticing trees and highways below as though you were flying over them. These signs will disappear as one gets more deeply into his meditation.
There are so-called teachers who describe such visions to their students, even writing poems about them or painting pictures. Ultimately, these visions are the products of mind. Continued visions are the sign of a disturbed mind, not of an advanced adept.
Antidote: The experienced meditator, knowing these are the products of mind (no matter how pleasing they may be) will go past them, not hang on to them or publicize them, except to his teacher, if he has one. Ignore visions, even of holy figures; in extreme cases mental delusion and even mental illness can result. If there are nightmares or such, repeat a sutra, a scripture, or a Mantra, and they should go away. The activities of mind can easily be understood from such visions, so they can be instructive, but do not get hung up on them. Continue your basic meditation quite positively, and these makyo (as they are called in Zen) will disappear. Meditation should end delusion, not create it. The advanced meditator will reach a state of one-pointedness in which there may be only white light at the beginning, then a blue mass (Prana) or some such focus; he will not continue to see glamorous visions.
