Introduction to Beyond Meditation

A Beginner’s Course to Exploring Expanded Consciousness

Effortlessly and effectively explore expanded states of

awareness with Monroe Institute programs.

Introduction to Beyond Meditation offers empowering tools

and practices to move you beyond traditional meditation
into a world of greater possibilities.

Guided by a team of experienced facilitators, you can

achieve the benefits of meditation and more—deep-state
awareness, reduced stress, greater well-being, enhanced
creativity, heightened intuition—all made easy and
accessible with the Monroe Institute's process.
Workbook Contents
1. Helpful Tips as You Prepare to Listen to Your Exercises

2. Session 1 — Intro to Focus 10

3. Session 2 — Free Flow Focus 10

4. Session 3 — Intro to Focus 12

5. Session 4 — Five Messages

6. Monroe Sound Science — Technology to Relax and Center the Mind

7. Conclusion

Monroe Institute® 2023 Introduction to Beyond Meditation: A Beginner’s Course to Exploring Consciousness
Helpful Tips as You Prepare
to Listen to Your Exercises
Listen to your audio exercises when you are not too tired. Find a time when you can relax and still focus
on the guidance.

No need to force anything.

Relax and go with your experience. If any verbal guidance seems incompatible with your beliefs
or values, don’t try to use or follow it. There is nothing in our system that is so important that it
absolutely must be followed if it just doesn’t feel “right” to you.

Avoid over-analyzing during the audio exercises.

Try to simply observe, experience, and perceive.

If you fall asleep, it’s perfectly okay.

You will still be getting the program, though it may be more difficult to recall. You can always
listen to it again at a later time.

Go to the bathroom before listening to your exercises.

If you have an itch, scratch it!

Just tell yourself that the motion of scratching will actually put you into a deeper state. Use any
other distractions (e.g., noise) in the same way.

Keep the volume on your headset at a comfortable level – not too loud!
Too much volume will decrease the effectiveness of the audio support.

Make yourself comfortable.

Remove contacts, glasses, tight belts, and items in your pockets – anything which binds you.

It is a very good idea to keep a journal or notes of all experiences, even if they seem at first
insignificant.

Most important of all, have fun!

If you are too concerned about “doing well” (there are no grades here and there is no
competition!), or are too serious, you will inhibit your experience. So, relax and have a good
time. The audio exercises will be 1,000% more effective if you flow with them and enter into
them with a spirit of joyful appreciation.

Monroe Institute® 2023 Introduction to Beyond Meditation: A Beginner’s Course to Exploring Consciousness
Session 1 — Intro to Focus 10
Syllabus

• Focus Levels overview

• Focus 10: state of Mind Awake/Body Asleep
• Preparation Process
• 10 Point Relaxation Technique
• Closing Affirmation
• Countback and Beta Signal
• Benefits of Focus 10
• Recommended Practice
Focus Levels
Focus Levels is a term Robert A. Monroe used to describe distinct, yet natural, states of consciousness,
which are easily accessed through his sound technology. Bob used numbers to delineate one state from
another, rather than using any esoteric or spiritual terms, to help define each state without cultural bias.
Focus C-1 consciousness refers to the state of being awake and alert, in the here-and-now present
moment.
Focus 10
This is Monroe’s foundational state called Mind Awake/Body Asleep, (or body deeply relaxed). In Focus
10, we are simply learning to “ride the edge of sleep,” to be mentally aware enough to perceive what
may be happening when our bodies are asleep. Many consciousness experiences and insights can
happen within (or be launched from) the deeply relaxed Focus 10 state.
After you have listened to the audio exercise “Intro to Focus 10,” describe how the 10 state was different
from C-1 for you:

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Monroe Institute® 2023 Introduction to Beyond Meditation: A Beginner’s Course to Exploring Consciousness
Preparation Process
Over time, The Monroe Institute discovered that it was helpful to include five beginning steps to prepare
ourselves mentally and physically for exploring consciousness. It is now known as the “Monroe
Preparatory Process,” and is used at the beginning of each exercise to create a positive mindset for
exploring.
Here are the steps:
1. Surf Sounds – This reminds our bodies and minds to relax and flow as we connect with the
energy that pulses through us. When near the ocean, just listening to the pure sounds of waves
can quickly move us into a relaxed and comfortable state.

Were you aware of any noticeable relaxation occurring when you listened to the sounds of surf?
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2. Energy Conversion Box – A symbolic object (or metaphor) we create in our imaginations that
can hold any distracting thoughts or concerns that may get in the way of our focused
explorations. Things that get “put into the box” may change or even dissolve during the session
as our awareness and energy shifts. Treasure chests, vaults, jewelry boxes, etc., are some
examples of what we can create as an ECB. Also, your box may change over time.
Describe what your Energy Conversion Box looks like:
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3. Resonant Tuning – Using our breath and vocal cords to make a variety of sounds can help us
shift or raise our personal vibratory rate. Cultures throughout time have used this technique to
help shift consciousness. You are invited to play with making different tones, pitches, vowel
sounds, or even humming as you “breathe in” and “sound out” or vocalize. Sound is vibration, so
allow yourself to experiment with different frequencies and pitches, noticing if anything feels
especially interesting or pleasurable to you.

What do you notice happening when you resonant tune? Any body sensations? Temperature
changes? Any feelings of clarity? Openness?
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4. The Gateway Affirmation – Saying an affirmation helps “make firm” what we wish to experience.
The Gateway Affirmation was incorporated early on in the Explorer Program preparatory
process, providing explorers more focus and helping them achieve better results with their
stated desires. The affirmation can be spoken out loud or quietly in your mind.

The affirmation has three parts:

1. What we are: more than our physical bodies.
2. What we desire: to explore, to know, to use greater energy
3. Requesting assistance and guidance from greater (or equal) sources of knowledge

Monroe Institute® 2023 Introduction to Beyond Meditation: A Beginner’s Course to Exploring Consciousness
The Gateway Affirmation
“I am more than my physical body.

Because I am more than physical matter, I can perceive that

which is greater than the physical world.

Therefore, I deeply desire to Expand, to Experience; to know,

to Understand; to Control, to Use such greater energies and
energy systems as may be beneficial and constructive to me
and to those who follow me.

Also, I deeply desire the help and cooperation, the

assistance, the understanding of those individuals whose
wisdom, development, and experience are equal or greater
than my own.

I ask their guidance and protection from any influence or any

source that might provide me with less than my stated
desires.”

How did it feel to you when you read or heard the affirmation?
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If you wanted to make the affirmation more personal for your use, how would you create yours?
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Monroe Institute® 2023 Introduction to Beyond Meditation: A Beginner’s Course to Exploring Consciousness
 5. REBAL – This is an acronym for Resonant Energy Balloon and refers to your personal energy
imagined as a sphere or field all around you. You will learn to manipulate this REBAL in the
second session and gain greater control of your energy. It can be used to retain your vibrations,
magnify your intentions, and even keep out unwanted distractions.

After you have listened to the second session, you may want to write some notes here on how
you envisioned your energy moving as you created your REBAL. Maybe you have several
methods to use.
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10 Point Relaxation Technique

A very effective way to relax the body and mind is to move your awareness, section by section, through
your body and imagine each section relaxing. In this part of the exercise you are gently guided to relax
each part of your body, and release all tension. As you do this, the numbers will progressively change
from 1 to 10, and the audio signals will also be supporting this relaxing movement. You will finally be
resting at the number 10 and be in the Focus 10 State. Simply enjoy, be curious and relax.

How did you experience F10? How was this different from C-1 consciousness? Did you feel, see, hear, or
sense anything notable? Did you get to a deeply relaxed state? Please write down what your experience
of F10 was like:
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Health Affirmation

The exercises close with another affirmation, this one patterning for health and balance of our mental,
spiritual, and physical self. It was taken from Edgar Cayce’s readings, thus, the language is a bit
different. While we are in these deeply relaxed states it can be even more beneficial to incorporate
positive affirmations into our consciousness.

“When you return to the physical waking state, your body will be so equalized as to overcome
all those things that might hinder or prevent it from being and giving its best mental, spiritual,
and physical self. The body physical will create within the system those properties necessary to
cause the eliminations to be so increased as to bring the best normal, physical condition to the
body. The mental will so give that impression to the system as to build the best moral, mental,
and physical forces for your body. The nerve supplies for the whole body will assume their
normal forces. The vitality will be restored in them through the application of the physical being
as well as the spiritual elements in the physical forces of the body. Perfectly normal, perfectly
balanced, and perfectly equalized, will be the condition when you return to the physical waking
state.”

Monroe Institute® 2023 Introduction to Beyond Meditation: A Beginner’s Course to Exploring Consciousness
 How do you feel after hearing/saying the closing affirmation?
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Countback and Beta Signal

Bob counts you back to C-1 as you come back more and more to full physical waking
consciousness. The audio signals also support you coming back and there is a faster beta tone
at the end of each exercise that will help you become fully awake and alert.

Benefits of Focus 10

• Relaxation
• Healing
• Control bodily functions
• Increased concentration
• Remote viewing

Recommended Practice

• Have fun using the Prep Process.

• Become the waves of energy as you listen to the surf sounds.
• Practice turning your concerns that go into your box into shorter symbols, it makes it
easier.
• Really experiment with Resonant Tuning; find your special note or sound, notice the
vibrational shifts that can accompany tuning, or even physical shifts.
• Practice finding a landing place or markers that indicate to you that you have reached
the focus level.
• Give yourself time with the Affirmation, take it in. Eventually you may want to create
your own.

Session 2 — Free Flow Focus 10

Syllabus

• Purpose of the Free Flow Focus 10 Exercise

• How the Free Flow 10 exercise is set up
• Benefits or other uses of Free Flow 10 in daily life
• Recommended Practice

Purpose of the Free Flow 10 exercise

This exercise will give you an opportunity to have a long stretch of time in the exercise to explore freely,
without Bob’s voice guiding you. Just pure Focus 10 signals and pink noise. You are invited to set up a
purpose for yourself before you begin. In fact, you may choose more than one purpose, but start with
one.
As a recap, the state of Focus 10, Mind Awake/Body asleep, offers you a state of consciousness that is
very helpful in experiencing certain things. It helps with relaxation, and provides opportunities for
healing or improving bodily functions. It can help increase concentration or mental focus and even
supports Remote Viewing.

Monroe Institute® 2023 Introduction to Beyond Meditation: A Beginner’s Course to Exploring Consciousness
So here you can set up a purpose or two before you get into the exercise. Choose something you are
really interested in experiencing during the exercise.
Here are some suggestions:

• Experience the energy that you are.

• Open your perceptual channels to explore in a relaxed state
• Play with the tools you learned in the PREP process: vibrational shifts through resonant tuning,
expanding your energy field
• Ask, “What is Focus 10 for me?”
• Feel/identify any shifts in your physical body as you experience the relaxation of Focus 10
• Open to new ideas and information that may flow to you
• Perceive the qualities of the 10 state as compared to C-1

Just set your intention and allow. Bob will come in during the free flow three times and say, “Remember
your purpose.”
What purpose(s) have you chosen?
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How the Free Flow 10 exercise is set up

Begins with the Preparation Process: Surf, Energy Conversion Box, Resonant tuning, REBAL and
Affirmation.
In this exercise you’ll do the PREP on your own. Bob won’t guide you through it.
Then, relaxation into Focus 10. Bob will then say, ”I will meet you in Focus 10. Go there by the
method you have learned.” The signals will support you getting there.
Allow yourself to experience what you set up to accomplish as your purpose during the long quiet
periods. Bob will come in 3 times and say, “remember your purpose.”
It will end with the health affirmation and the instructions “Return to C-1 by the method you have
learned.” That means to count down from 10 to 1. The signals will change and slowly bring you
back. Listen for the beta comeback signal, and, if you wish, tap or rub your right index finger on the
sheets.
Some questions to consider after listening to Free Flow 10:
Were you able to take yourself to Focus 10 easily enough?
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What was Focus 10 like for you this time?
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Where you able to achieve your purpose to any degree?

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Did you have more than one purpose?

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Monroe Institute® 2023 Introduction to Beyond Meditation: A Beginner’s Course to Exploring Consciousness
 How did your experience show up for you? Visually, kinesthetically? In words, movement, or
hearing? Any smells or vibrations? Write down anything you remember. It may or may not make
sense at this moment, but it could later on.
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Benefits or other uses of Free Flow 10 in daily life

• Relax enough to do Remote Viewing

• Stay deeply calm and relaxed during any stressful situation
• Get centered enough to make decisions from a beneficial state of consciousness
• Help lessen pain signals in the body
• Perceive new types of information.

Recommended Practice

• Take yourself to the Focus 10 state by the method you have learned and explore yourself as
energy. Play with expanding and contracting your energy balloon.
• When in the 10 state, practice perceiving who’s calling on the phone before you look at the
screen.
• Take yourself to the 10 state and walk around in nature and see if it looks or feels different for
you.
• Resonant tune while in Focus 10 and scan your physical or energy body.

Session 3 — Intro to Focus 12

Syllabus

• What is Focus 12?

• Ways guidance can present itself in F12
• How to ask for guidance in F12
• How the Intro to Focus 12 exercise is set up
• What are the benefits of Focus 12?
• Recommended Practice
What is Focus 12?
Focus 12 is considered the high energy state of “Expanded Awareness.” Even though the number is
higher, it does not mean it is better than F10. It is simply different, like dialing a new station on the radio.
In the 12 state it can be easier to perceive beyond the 5 physical senses. Gaining access to inner
resources, guidance, the subconscious, and the higher self are all possibilities available here.
Ways guidance can present itself in F12
Experiences and guidance can come in many different ways in F12. Sometimes it will appear visually,
kinesthetically, auditorily, or with smells and tastes as in ordinary consciousness. But other forms of
guidance may come as well, subtler forms. For example, there may be a play on words, or humorous
ideas or puns. Sometimes sensing energy or vibrational patterns. Telepathic or non-verbal
communications, or what is considered a “gestalt” type of download; even remote viewing-types of
experiences of far distant locations can occur.
What way/ways did guidance come to you in this exercise?

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Monroe Institute® 2023 Introduction to Beyond Meditation: A Beginner’s Course to Exploring Consciousness
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How to perceive/receive information in the 12 state

When seeking guidance, it’s helpful to have an intention to receive an answer to a question. Simply ask
in your mind and heart that which you seek an answer to. In 12 you don’t need to know the way to
guidance, guidance knows the way to you.
Going into the exercise with few expectations as to how answers will come will benefit you.
Expectations block the path to guidance. As much as possible, be open to all forms of guidance,
keeping all of your perceptual channels open.
Simply relax into the sounds and see where they take you. Observe and remember all the ways you
perceive energy. Opening gently to receive rather than grasping for answers will be beneficial.

How to ask for guidance in F12

When in F12, place your question or problem at the center of your consciousness and send it out, or
breath it out, letting it flow in all directions and all ways, and let it go. Your desire to know, the clarity of
your intent, and the intensity with which you send out that desire are keys to what you receive and the
way you will receive it. A sense of gratitude seals the experience.
Did you receive answers to any of the questions you sent out? How did the answers come to you?
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How the Intro to Focus 12 exercise is set up

1. Surf sounds
2. Prep process on your own (box, tune, balloon, affirmation)
3. Bob will meet you in 10 (count yourself there, flow with the sounds, just remember what it feels
like, or simply set your intention to be there)
4. Bob will then count you to 12 (audio signals will change). Just spend some time there. Bob will
count you back to 10 for comparison, then back up to 12. Spend more time in 12 again.
5. Then you’ll be guided back to C-1. Health affirmation. Beta signal. Welcome back.

After your Intro to Focus 12, please share any comparisons between 10 and 12.
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How did you perceive any guidance that was available to you?
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Monroe Institute® 2023 Introduction to Beyond Meditation: A Beginner’s Course to Exploring Consciousness
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How and where might you find it beneficial or practical to enter Focus 12 in daily living, and for what
purposes?
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What are the benefits of Focus 12?

• Connection to higher self

• Q & A in Focus Levels
• Q & A in daily situations
• Enhanced sensory perception -- i.e. films, nature
• Emotional healing
• Releasing thought forms (fears)
• Aware of distant information/energies
• Practice non-verbal communication
• Relationship healing and connection: empathy

Recommended Practice
Practice creating a “landing space” or marker for yourself that lets you know you are in the special F12
state. It will probably be different than the one you create for Focus 10.
Remember to keep your journal handy and write down or draw information that comes to you.
Practice not analyzing during the exercises, just be aware, observe, notice; you can analyze later.

Session 4 — Five Messages

Syllabus

• Purpose of the Five Messages Exercise

• How the Five Messages exercise is set up
• Benefits Five Messages
• Recommended Practice

Purpose of the Five Messages exercise

This exercise will give you an opportunity to receive messages designed just for you while you are in the
Focus 12 State of “Expanded Awareness.” Bob’s voice will guide you to receive each message with a
pause between each one. You want to simply put yourself into a receptive state and allow the messages
to come to you.
The messages may come to you in different ways.
Some may come as:

Monroe Institute® 2023 Introduction to Beyond Meditation: A Beginner’s Course to Exploring Consciousness
 • Still or moving pictures
• Feelings or emotions
• Body sensations
• Songs or tunes, smells
• Humor
• Pure knowing
• Gestalt

How the Five Messages exercise is set up

• Begins with the standard Prep Process: Surf, Box, Tune, Balloon, Affirmation
• In this exercise you’ll do the PREP on your own. Bob won’t guide you through it.
• Bob will meet you in Focus 10 and direct you to Focus 12.
• The time it takes to get to Focus 12 is longer than normal, just enjoy the ride.
• Bob will then say, “Ask for your 5th most important message.” Then, wait for the answer. Play
with that answer. Ask for clarification, engage with it.
• Then he’ll say, “Ask for your 4th most important message.” This process will continue through
messages three, two, and finally, one.
• The exercise will end and Bob will bring you back to C-1.

Did you receive all five messages?

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How did the messages present themselves to you?

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If you listened a second or third time, did you get different messages in different ways?
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Benefits of Five Messages exercise

• You can become proficient and efficient at receiving guidance in the form of personal
messages with practice.
• The more you say “yes” to receive personal information for yourself, the better you become at
receiving and interpreting messages clearly.
• You can access helpful guidance for your life.

Recommended Practice

• When you wake up first thing in the morning, get your journal and pen out. Ask yourself, “Are
there any beneficial messages for me today?” Write down anything you get.
• A few days after receiving your messages, look back on them and interpret with a fresh mind
and perspective.
• Just as with a meditation for seeking guidance, take yourself to the 12 state and see if you
can receive personal positive messages without the “training wheels.”

Monroe Institute® 2023 Introduction to Beyond Meditation: A Beginner’s Course to Exploring Consciousness
Monroe Sound Science a Tool to
Relax and Center the Mind
Scientifically based and clinically proven, Monroe's "audio-guidance" technology uses sound to
influence brainwave activity. This technology is backed by over 50 years of research.

It’s an audio-guidance process that works through the generation of complex, multilayered audio
signals, which act together to create a resonance that is reflected in unique brainwave forms
characteristic of specific states of consciousness. The result is a focused, whole-brain state known as
hemispheric synchronization, where the left and right hemispheres are working together in a state of
whole brain coherence.

1. Helps to synchronize both hemispheres of the brain.

2. Helps listeners move into specific beneficial brainwave states.

Monroe Institute® 2023 Introduction to Beyond Meditation: A Beginner’s Course to Exploring Consciousness
Conclusion
On behalf of The Monroe Institute, congratulations! You have successfully completed your introduction
to Focus Levels 10 and 12!
To recap:

• You have been introduced to a unique and highly effective audio guidance technology,
designed to guide and amplify your deep-state explorations.
• You have been given a selection of powerful mental tools developed by Bob Monroe and
Monroe Institute to help you move forward with your exploration and expansion of
consciousness.
• You have had a chance to experience and practice expanded states of awareness.

Now you have the basics; the rest is up to you.

• Stay active.
• Don’t let it fade.
• Continue your explorations with your take-home exercises.

You have opened Bob Monroe’s treasure map. You have followed the first few steps. There is so
much more. We hope you will continue this journey with us.
We invite you to visit our website, monroeinstitute.org. There you will see the many ways in which you
can continue your exploration to the furthest reaches of your consciousness:
• Gateway Voyage Residential or Virtual Program
• Gateway Experience—Online Course
• Monroe’s Regional Workshops

Happy Journeys!

Monroe Institute® 2023 Introduction to Beyond Meditation: A Beginner’s Course to Exploring Consciousness