Well I am reading ur blog for first time. Idea of "Meditation pills" made me laugh. Again turning something into just a scientific subject and try to get quick results. I dont know whose idea is this. But again meditation is not mere science of physical or psychological benefits. Those who think so read "Rajyoga" of Swami Vivekanand.

Hi Ram,

Welcome to the blog.

While meditation may not be a "mere science of physical or psychological benefits," the question remains. Since most people pursue meditative paths for a reason, for benefits, what if you could get those benefits in some faster, easier, more reliable way?

Not that there is *an* answer to that question, but asking the question highlights some aspects of our relationship to meditation and practice.

Your write-up is funny but provides truth of a fraud called meditation. I have practised it under reknowned Gurus and researched it. My finding is that it is nothing but an auto-suggestion through which you are put on an infinite road without any benefits. I have been writing on such subjects like God, Spirituality, Meditation, etc.
About Swami Vivekananda and his Rajayoga suggested in the previous comment, please note that Vivekananda died at very early age. A person who could not save his own life, he does not deserve to be followed. Millions of men and women have read 'Rajayoga' without any achievements.

If someone performs a mental activity without any context and, yet, as a result, shifts into an experience we would call "meditation" (e.g. relaxation of the body, an altered relationship to thoughts and internal experiences, etc.), where is the "auto-suggestion"?

In other words, if I just took someone off the street, and never said anything about meditation, and asked them to put their attention on a particular perceptual phenomenon (e.g. how we label objects of awareness in such a way as to create distinction) and, from doing that they suddenly begin having experiences which we typically associate with meditation… then how is that auto-suggestion?

BTW, I'm not disagreeing with your fundamental premise, just exploring the specifics of it. While I'm not sure that meditation provides no benefits, I'm not clear how to isolate any benefits it may provide from myriad confounding factors.

I would agree with Ram Bansal that meditation is a form of 'auto-suggestion' though I would qualify that as being one of many, many hypnotic states that we can access.
In fact I would say that conciousness and awareness are both just further hypnotic states. Even the declaration that I am free of this hypnosis, 'awakened' or conversely a rational, scientific thinker is a hypnotic state.
Given that, whilst alive, I cannot escape these hypnotic states, that in fact I am these hypnotic states it seems beneficial to me to explore and have fun with them.
Why would I want a pill when I have this bounty as a birthright?

Just a question, Steven. How do you perform a mental activity without any context?

Hi Ellen,

What I mean is, if I ask you to do something, like pay attention to the sensations in your feed, without prefacing it with something that sets a context, e.g., "Okay, this is a meditation practice… now, pay attention to your feet."

Dear Bansal,
I clearly see that you are like infant in the area of spirituality. Great saints always left their bodies when they thought that the work bestowed on them is complete or GOD called them back. They never cared about their bodies once attained supreme truth. Don't count age and saintliness please. If you still have some doubt better give ur mail id. We argue there not here.

Hi Steven,
Thanks. I was searching on google for any blog on meditation and I found this.
Now here are some facts. Meditation is a complete science. Patanjali and many yogis, gave so much material on this subject that one has to stuck one idea and carry upto the end. This happened to me actually. When i started reading a lot, realized that just reading wont help. I have to sit and meditate. Then i chose japam path ;). This is best Path of all. Japam means reciting god's name. Now, I m following both Japam and meditation.
There is difference between our views. I see meditation as way to understand GOD. The benefits world knows right now, are very minor and not the only ones. You might have heard about Ashta-Mahasiddhis. These are supreme powers. But yet saints strongly opposed one to use them and told them to surrender them immediately. Even they restricted to take lord's name for worldly purpose.
Meditation is a way to go back to our root. When one go to see the king, he will see beautiful garden, happy people, clean roads. When he enters into King's palace, he will get to see more astonishing things. But what if, if he sticks to those things and forget about king. Same if one think about benefits and ignore ultimate aim, he is just wondering.
I have an interesting story of a yogi, who could make dead people alive, ride on tiger and hold venomous snakes in hand. He completed 100+ years of age and still as good as young. But finally when he encountered one of the saint, he realized that he didn't achieve anything but few magic tricks. Finally he surrendered and got the supreme knowledge.
Sorry this has been too long.

Hi again, Ram.

If meditation were a "complete science" then the results, whatever they may be, would be more reliable and consistent.

Why do we think that so many of our characteristics are highly genetically determined and out of our control — e.g. height, different types of athletic skill, different abilities with math — but "the ability for advancement in meditation" is equal in all?

I love how you say japam is the best path of all… when others, who enjoy other practices, say the same thing of their path, and often argue over this point rather than conclude that in the same way that some people are better at the marathon (not me) and others are better at sprinting (me), different people will respond differently to different practices and paths.

I love the claim that people have magical powers but aren't able to demonstrate them. Oh? Then how do we know they have them? And please don't tell me, "Someone reliable has seen them in private," because, speaking as a former magician, I know how easy it is to fool people… or how people exaggerate, misremember, and misrepresent history.

It's like James Randi's offer of $1,000,000 to anyone who can demonstrate a psychic power under scientifically controlled conditions. Ignoring that nobody has won, many people who claim psychic power won't even TRY, claiming that "it's not about the money." But then those same people go out to raise money for their schools, their programs, or causes they believe in. Well, if you won't do it for the money for yourself, think of the value you could give to children who need food; wouldn't that be worth one controlled instance of mind reading or levitation (to say nothing of bringing back the dead)?

I have no problem with the length of your post, Ram. I think, though, that you've made a common confusion between "facts" and "beliefs."

Hi Steven,
I am happy that you put strong points.
Now it is clear to me "Difference in views or perspective". My view is spiritual. Meditation is path for me to reach to GOD or some other words "know oneself".
This will be long discussion, but I will definitely have an answer for you.
When I say "japam" is best, this is what saints proposed and supported. I have scripts which clearly mentions this. If you want to study let me know. This will be entirely different experience.
They said , Meditation is for few (who can control lust and hunger) (as said in Gita) but japam is for everyone. There is no restriction in it.
Now about magical powers. For that again, I can refer you "Rajyoga" of Swami Vivekanand and "Yogi's Autobiography" of Sri Sri Paramhansa Yoganand.
For "belief", let me explain. Suppose i m going to another city. I dont know exact road. I ask somebody, he directs me. I go to that direction. I reach to the city. Now there involves TRUST. Same in meditation or any spiritual things. I have read so many scripts/stories /mantras (sanskrit)/stotras (sanskrit), that made me think seriously about this stuff.
Actually when i started reading spiritual things. I even become atheistic. It was like floating on a wave. Daily my mind caught some different idea altogether. But then this stage was over. It took time, but finally i settled on something. I had to trust some people who loved not only humanity but even small species which are not visible. Who never cared about money, health, fame. They loved who even tried to kill them.
Well i honestly respect your thoughts. What you are doing is also a good thing. If one day i could achieve something, i will join you.

Hey, Ram,

"Know oneself" and "Reach to God" are interesting-sounding phrases — I mean, who WOULDN'T want that? — but until we define, specifically, what they mean, they're just compelling sound bites.

I know you can pull out a list of "saints" who support japam… but other people could pull out another list of saints (or the Buddha, for that matter), who say something different.

I've read both books you mention, but again, I don't take 3rd party (or 4th party…) stories of magical powers as fact.

Your analogy about belief is interesting, but it leaves something out: Sure, you can "trust" that someone has given you valid directions to get to another city. BUT, you could also put his directions to the test without having to rely on trust — you could check and see if other people have gotten to that city, in a reliable and consistent manner, by following those instructions.

What I've found is that when you investigate, you often find problems with each of these: that one cannot tell if another has "gotten to the city," that many following the directions have not gotten there, and that any who seem to have gotten there didn't necessarily follow the directions (or, sometimes, they had a natural propensity to be able to follow the directions).

I'm glad to hear that you've settled on something that works for you. Seriously. I think that people being content is a fine thing.

Personally, though, contentment isn't a place I'm willing to land if I see that it's based on a belief.

Looking forward to what's next.
-Steven

Hi Steven,
I am liking your pure scientific view.
Rajyoga is most scientific if i know India better. Problem is I don't know any Authority (Guru person) in this field right now and so I can't recommend that to you.
Meditation is trying to concentrate mind on something. But that's not so easy (that is sure you will support). As everybody's mind is a different package, Bhagwan Buddha gave 84000 ways. Surely that appeals. Now all the religious activity people carry through out the world has one benefit (if done without any will like to get some worldly thing like car, home, child etc), and that is to clean one's mind. This is first stage of spirituality. If you have clean mind you can concentrate without harm. Japam has scientific explanation in this regard.
Now interesting stuff for you. In text i have read that "if you recite naam (God's name that is given to you by your Guru) for 35 million times it will lead to Chitta-shudhi. After chitta-shudhi you can concentrate well."
It is also written that if you do it for 130 million times you will attain realization.
In 19th century there was a saint in India who spent his entire life teaching people this. He guided thousands of people. Many achieved final goal but no proofs except written things.
I dont know whether it is right to paste other links so please search in google "Ramana Maharshi Japa Repetition" and follow the first link.
Well so somebody has to follow to know whether any truth is there or not. My first aim is to recite naam for 35 million times. I know it's not easy but not impossible as well.

I look forward to hearing the result of your 35 million repetition experiment

If “enlightenment” is important then this is a critical discussion. As Steve seems to assert, what works for some may be different than what works for others. But also what works at one point in life may be different than what works in another. Experience suggests to me that most people (perhaps only in my culture) will experience more profound benefits more easily from social experiences, such as counseling, workshops or psychological exercises (such as the “enlightenment intensive”). But this may be only for those who are new to introspection. Like the “pills” that actually exist, it seems to become less and less effective. It may be that this must lead to something more disciplined such as meditation if “progress” is to continue. Steve mentions massage. I doubt that we have even begun to discover the power of social massage (in addition to professional services).

But if we are going to assess the effectiveness of any of these things we need to have some kind of understanding of what it is that we are trying to accomplish. Relaxation, if seen as a benefit in and of itself, is subject to electronic measurement. So are brain waves, but what the hell does that all mean? Numerous life satisfaction variables can be measured in a variety of ways. But ‘enlightenment’ suggests something more intense, important and permanent than any of these things. The problem is that we have no rigorous definition of what ‘enlightenment’ means. There is no widespread systematic analysis of either what the accomplishment entails or the problem that enlightenment is a solution to if that is a better way of looking at it.

What we have is a concept that is so tied up in various competing religious interpretations that it is unlikely that everyone is even talking about the same thing (the reason for my quotes around ‘enlightenment’ at the beginning). This is rather well exemplified by elements of the conversation above. By ‘religious’ I mean only the practice of gathering large sets of interrelated ideas into “packages” which are accepted or rejected wholesale (for better or for worse). Such may be artifacts of cultures or subcultures. I am not inclined to, nor do I see any need to, take “God” or “soul” out of the equation. But, case in point, such concepts share the same problem. The absurdity of the whole “God” discussion, particularly in relation to whether or not “He” exists, is that there is no agreed upon definition of the term.

What we need, it is my feeling, is a less presumptuous investigation into what may be a phenomenon well worth studying. Apparently, something wonderful has happened to millions of people (remember, millions out of billions may be a fraction of a percent). To replicate this phenomenon, if that turns out to be desirable, we need to figure out in some precise way what it is that has happened to these people. Such an understanding will put us in a better position not only to assess the results of particular practices but also to predict them. I do not think this is so difficult a project, but it may be a prerequisite to it that we acknowledge that we do not have it. What we have I have already elaborated upon.

'Such an understanding will put us in a better position not only to assess the results of particular practices but also to predict them.'

Nature does not replicate. Each individual is unique, each brain is uniquely formed over time and continues to change and develop under the innumerable influences it encounters each day.

For the purposes of discussion and bearing in mind that I claim no clairvoyancy, I predict that it will prove impossible ever to accurately assess the results of particular practices or predict them. Religion is about assigning meaning to our experiences and meaning is a mental concept and subjective.

You understate the problem. Not only is every individual entity different, every entity, by itself, is different from each and every moment to the next.
If that in and of itself makes knowledge impossible then all knowledge of anything is impossible. Many have taken this position. It's called "skepticism."
But co-existing with all of these differences are the similarities that make entityhood itself possible, and with it classes of phenomena as well as predictable patterns of behavior which make the admittedly tenuous phenomenon that we call "knowledge" possible.

Love, Ron.

I should have said it is called "classical skepticism" as opposed to the way we use the word 'skepticism' colloquially.

'You understate the problem.'

Too right, and how.
I gave serious thought before posting anything as this can lead into a labyrinth of how to define 'knowledge' and whether it is possible ever to know anything.
I'm happy with 'I don't know' because my brain starts to hurt, but there's some very intriguing work being done if you are interested–

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lottery_paradox
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contextualism

That mention of 'no context' started me spinning off into whole new realms of context.

Funny that you highlight those two articles, Ellen. I was thinking of both ideas this morning (I won't tell you where I was sitting as I was having these musings… though by not telling, you can probably guess).

I've had more than my share of conversations where the other party continually shifted the context of their argument in order to hold onto their position, claiming that any "holes" I found in the position were revealing a paradox. "No," I've said, "it's not a paradox, it's a contradiction. You're being logically inconsistent. The two statements you make sound meaningful on their own, but they're not additive — you can't put them together in a way that leads to a conclusion."

I'm not sure I've ever made my point
But here's an example from a conversation I've had over the years with various people who think of themselves as non-dualists:

First, they say that there is no free will and everything is predetermined.
Later they say that cause-and-effect is just a belief.

Well, I ask, if there is no cause-and-effect, what's the mechanism that makes determinism work? Doesn't determinism, by definition, mean that one state is the cause that, acting through various rules and laws, results in the next state, the effect?

When they suggest that this points to a paradox — rather than seeing the contradiction — is when the conversation gets markedly less fun

I've been thinking quite a lot over the past few days about the lack of suggestion, auto or otherwise, in the direction to 'focus on your feet.'

In particular, I was thinking about Ericsonian trance induction which is similar in principle to the misdirection used by magicians. Ericson would proffer his hand for a shake without any warning and in the brief interval of shift in focus on the part of the recipient, would plant his hypnotic suggestion.

I don't go for conclusions much as for me they are always trumped by further conclusions with the accumulation of further information, but I was mulling over this in a boring meeting yesterday.
The woman next to me started talking over the speaker and the crosstalk was getting annoying so, 'without thinking' I leaned over and placed a finger lightly and very briefly on the woman's arm. She immediately stopped talking and seemed quite bemused.

When I thought about what I had done, in the context of what had been on my mind, I decided that the minute shift in focus, that I am not sure she was conciously aware of, was of the same order as the minute shift that Ericson exploited to plant his suggestion.

Narrowing of focus to an object, name of god etc. is well known as a trance inducer, it's meditation 101, but I had never before considered before that the mere fact of a brief shift of focus produces a similarly brief dissociated state. (and without "context" as I planted no suggestion and the woman could just as easily have reared up and smacked me one for my presumption.)

Interesting.

Clearly we can do various things (to ourselves or others) that create changes of state (or, as you said, shifts in focus).

I think we could easily find a line to draw between a shift of focus and auto- or other-suggestion (though the line might get a bit fuzzy).

Interesting avenue to explore, for sure!

'Easily' is hardly the word.

This is not meditation 101 but existence 101.

Awareness is a premium substance. We only got so much. So we must be able focus awareness in order to do anything from tying our shoes to … well anything. This function is also called 'attention.'

But there is a dark side to this ability (a particularly appropriate metaphor). In order to pay attention to one thing you must "ignore" something else (because there is a limited quantity of awareness).

Through error or misdirection this can result in a failure to observe something that perhaps you should have observed. When chronic it can result in flat out ignorance of something that you experience every day.

This is no reason to demonize attention. It is the absence (relative) of something good, not the presence of something bad.

'This is not meditation 101 but existence 101.'

Sorry Ron, but I no longer see the distinction between these two.
In general terms I agree with the rest of your comment but am a bit confused over what you mean by demonising attention. The something good, something bad distinctions I also find confusing.
Attention is attention–good/bad distinctions are a moral overlay that come from a personal context of conditioning in a particular morality.
In relating my little tale I was presenting (from my perspective) a morality-free narrative.
Where does the demonising of attention come from?

I must apologize for that dreadful ending sentence. I had nightmares about it (LOL).

The point is that we must have attention, the focus of awareness, in order to do anything.

But we pay a price for it in that it entails less awareness of things other than what we are attending to.

Diminished awareness can get out of hand, but that doesn't render attention a bad thing (bad/good in a practical, not moral sense).

The fact that awareness is limited means the "relative absence of a good thing." By that convoluded prose I mean only that this major pitfall of existence doesn't turn awareness or attention into something bad. [We live in a world of limits (but don't tell that to the "secret" enthusiasts).]

Hi Steven!

For me meditation is not only a techique to calm the mind and find temporarely peace. I am more interested to gain insights about my mind and its selfless, impermanent nature.
I am following the buddhist path and the aim is to see clearly our ultimate nature, so called emptiness. If I could take a pill like you said to get enlightened rigt away, I would. My purpose after my enlightenment would then be to develope compassion and help others.

Peace Carina

'The fact that awareness is limited'

Agreed. Though I would qualify the above as 'conscious awareness is limited' and proffer another personal tale as illustration.

Years ago I was walking up the steps, exiting the London tube at Marble Arch. I was in a crowd and on auto-pilot, thinking of something else, not present, a state familiar to every habitual tube-traveller.

Halfway up the steps I swung round and put out my hand to the man behind, on the step below me. He smiled a bit sheepishly, his hand came out of a strange, disguised hole in his coat, and he placed my purse in my waiting hand. I swung back and continued up the steps. This transaction happened so seamlessly that it was over almost before it began.
I was still on auto-pilot, thinking about something else and it wasn't until I got to the top of the steps that I stopped and realised that my pocket had been picked–albeit unsuccessfully.

This was probably the first time that I consciously accepted that 'awareness' is there, whether I accept it or not, conscious or not, whether I recognise it as 'awareness' or as something else and, more significantly, that it has an intelligence of its own that I would be well advised to respect.

Oddly, I felt no animosity at all towards the pick-pocket who just went on his way to, presumably, the next pocket.

This seemingly senseless, mundane incident had a profound influence on the subsequent direction of my life, but I accept that it is utterly boring and meaningless to anyone else.

What I know for sure is that I know absolutely nothing.

Hi Carina,

Welcome to the blog.

For the fun of it, let's make the pill "extra strength" and have it give you ultimate compassion, too.

So, then what would you do after taking the pill, and no longer having any personal development goals that need to be accomplished?

Ellen, I'll never forget the similar pickpocketing situation I was in during my first trip to New York City. I was in a crowded, confined spot, right after New Year's and the moment "I realized" it had happened (somehow, some cues made it into my awareness), I was overwhelmed by the combination of thoughts: "Damn!" and "WOW! You were good!"

One of the ways I'm repeatedly reminded of the limits of conscious awareness and the speed of, let's call it "barely conscious awareness" is when I'm flipping through a book or magazine and suddenly "know" what a sentence is on some page. I wasn't really looking and I clearly didn't have time to "read" the sentence, but there it is in my head, clear as day.

In fact, this reminds me of a project I did 20 years ago where a friend and I worked on a piece of software for "stochastic reading." What the software did was take a piece of text and flash it on the computer screen, one word at a time, so your eyes don't have to move when you read.

Almost anyone can get up to about 600 words per minute after just a few moments of getting used to the software. But then as you turn up the speed even more, something weird happens:

First, you get to a speed that's just a bit too fast and you feel yourself struggle to keep up.

Then, if you turn up the speed even more, you get to a speed where you stop trying to keep up… and the sensation change dramatically. Instead of feeling like you're doing some active thing called "reading," it feels like the words (or the pictures or meaning of the words) are just appearing in the back of your mind (literally, a sensation in the back of your head). It's like the words are beamed into your mind and you know what they are before you're aware of them consciously.

This is a really cool sensation… for a while.

At some point, the feeling of having information downloading into your brain gets REALLY anxiety-producing! The sense of being out of control becomes highly unnerving.

Now, it's totally possible to get over that with more practice, but we found that most people didn't. They'd find the sensation so uncomfortable that they wouldn't use the software again.

Being and living a blissful life.
Helping other living beings. If they have taken a pill too, we can still help and take care of each other. Use our creative ability and playfulness.

I hope you noticed, Carina, that none of what you described requires enlightenment, either in pill form, or otherwise

It is really difficult to live permanently in a blissful life if I haven´t gain any insights yet. Then it is easy to get stuck in anger, resentment and so on. With developing of wisdom I can see more and more clearly how everything is. That wisdom gives me freedom.
Walking this path doesn´t mean tha I will go somewhere else. It means that I am, step by step, letting go of my illusions and negativity.

You don't need to be "permanently blissful" to do any of those things you described which, btw, have a high probability of making you blissful

Frankly, having spent time with many teachers who are thought of as "permanently blissful," I've come to the conclusion that bliss, like ANY psycho/emotional/physical state is transitory, and that the fastest way to be miserable is to think that its shouldn't be.

Don't get me started on the number of "saints" I've seen who have been angry, resentful, and so on.

And, even if we find one (or a few) who *are* permanently blissful, why should we think, "Well, if they can do it, so can I?!" … after all, just because Tiger Woods is, well, Tiger Woods, nobody thinks, "I can be that good, too!"

Like I said, letting go of my illusions and negativity, liberates me more and more.
It is not that I have to put my life on hold until I get enlightened. I can enjoy with my life and do the things I want to do, but in the meantime I will get more and more liberated.

I don´t think you can compare blissful with Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods have a talent. Being blissful is a part of our true nature.

That’s an amazing story Ellen. I don’t think I have ever myself displayed that kind of competence outside of focused awareness.

I would agree that what you call “conscious awareness” is much more limited than what I call “awareness.”

But I look upon awareness as a seamless whole, with focal awareness (directed by attention) and peripheral awareness (all the rest) better understood as functions than components.

One of the misunderstandings that create normal human consciousness is the mental act of identifying our little collection of intentional observations as "awareness" (the whole thing, instead of just an aspect).

What you discovered in your incident (and perhaps earlier and since) is that awareness is much more than that.

But awareness is still limited, otherwise you end up watching every blade of grass grow on every living planet in the universe, one cell at time, and have enough left over to… well who needs it.

If awareness weren’t limited we wouldn’t need attention. We would have all the awareness that we need to do everything simultaneous. We’d just need more arms to go with it.

'We’d just need more arms to go with it.'

I am thinking about your comment, but the above made me go –ahh, Kali Ma, I always wondered about all those arms.

I'm not too sure that awareness is limited, I know that I limit it, I generally limit it to the confines of my skull for the purposes of physical survival and day to day living, (a crucial, necessary limit) but that is more about the limits of thinking and the limits of thinking about awareness than the possible limits of awareness.

This is a big area of confusion for me but I am happy to sit with that confusion.

As an analogy, I used to keep and train big dogs, I found the best results came from a passionate attention to detail and incrementally trusting the dogs at greater and greater periods off the leash. Eventually we got to a point where I no longer knew who was training who, me training the dogs or the dogs training me. I like that point of confusion.

And Steven, stochastic! fabulous, my new favourite word. I had to look it up. Now thats what I call a labyrinth worth getting lost in.

Carina,

Well I am not suppose to come back. But honestly ,you have got the idea behind spirituality.

Most of the people when read spiritual books find them interesting. A good food for brain. Then they start crunching words from a book and another. They form their own theory as well. They argue. But they don't do anything what is written in the books. Most of my friends told me that they will not pray to the GOD and at the same time they won't hurt anybody, and this is their spirituality. These people do anything to enjoy life but when it comes to spirituality they become very alert and try to justify things and hope GOD will also listen to them this way.

The saints I have read about were really blissful and compassionate about this world. Yes, some shouted on people who wanted to make some benefit out of them or just to test whether people are really having some dedication to spirituality. Those who persists, they got direction from these saints.

Sorry, if my English is bad.

Something strange… I think I may be meditating now? I have been running. I average approx. 30 miles a week. I don't do it for the exercise. I do it for the high. A friend told me not to use a treadmill but to free run because you use so many more muscles.If I run outside there are so many distractions and the weather can be bad. So I have a huge basement. I emptied it out and run there.
I have ran my basement for so long that I can actually run it with my eyes closed for several revolutions. About fifteen or twenty minutes into the run, I leave the room and go somewhere else? My thoughts become so clear, and then nothing. When I become aware of what I am doing again an hour or two has gone by.
But as in your post, I hate setting up and beginning to run. I love it when I zone out and especially when I stop and feel those endorphins getting me high.
Sometimes I will be so tired from sitting at this damn computer for hours on end, but I am so addicted to the endorphins that I'll go down and run anyway. This is hard to believe but I have fallen asleep while running. I'll begin to run and the next thing I become aware of is: slowly waking and not knowing where I am. Then I realize I am bent over at the waist drooling on the floor. I guess I must have slowed down until I stopped and went to sleep??
Anyway, I am not sure I am meditating but it sure feels good. bob

Bob, since most people meditate to feel better… and since running is making you feel better… then, who cares if you're meditating or not while you run? If it's working for you, keep it up.
BTW, you'll appreciate this: once while riding in NYC on my recumbent bike, I fell asleep WHILE RIDING. I think I made it about a block before I woke up and realized what happened.