SouthernFreak,
If you wish to obtain a state of mental emptiness that would allow you to reach a level of meditation, here is a technique that I use sometimes.
I dim all the lights in the room and sit down on the floor with a pillow at the small of my back, leaning against the wall or something that won't fall away. I close my eyes, take deep, slow, pranic breaths in through the nose and out the mouth. Once I find that my breathing is slow and calm, I imagine a small flickering flame in my mind's eye, and then procede to dumping all of my emotions, thoughts, feelings, and anything else that may distract me from my meditation. And as I do this, I imagine that the more I put into the flames of the fire inside me, the stronger it grows, getting ever bigger and brighter until all I see is a bright red light and feel naught but a comfortable warmth.
When I feel and see this, I begin to count to ten, upon reaching ten, I have convinced myself that I am in a very deep, relaxed sleep, but am still aware of my surroundings. Then, I imagine I am sitting across from myself, watching my every breath raise and lower my chest.
Once I do this, I seem to be in what could be seen as a Transcendetal state, and feel refreshed and wide awake once I backtrack through the steps after an hour or so of this. But I started off at just five or so minutes and worked my way up from there.
Since I began to do this kind of meditation each day for the past four and a half years, I have found that my health and physical durability, as well as my intellectual performance are more developed and attuned than the time before I started. But since I began this daily practice, I have not had what some would call a vision, though I have had "suggestive voices" wander into my head while doing this. It was like people walked into my mind's eye and began talking to me, urging me to do certain things that seemed to deal with the past, present, and even the future. I have taken precautions and begun practicing mental blocking and emotional sheilding since, imagining myself engulfed in a bluish flame that allows nothing through to me.
