Guide to Meditation

 

Photo Credit: Medium | Nipa Roy

Guide to Meditation

Meditation is said to be a practice where an individual uses a technique – such as mindfulness, or focusing the mind on a particular object, thought or activity – to train attention and awareness, and achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state. This definition appears in Wikipedia.

When you first sit for meditation your body will object, then your mind and finally your intellect. The idea is to sit very quietly with legs crossed in padmasana, those who cannot sit on the ground may sit on a chair, with the soles of their bare feet touching the ground. Firstly, sit down quietly, do not force yourself to sit quietly but sit down quietly without force of any kind.

Once you sit down, watch your thoughts – you will notice that your thoughts vacillate from the past to the future – they may be thoughts about your children, your boss, your salary, dress, lover, etc. – what you are going to say and so on. You may also hear other sounds like the tweeting of birds, rustling of leaves, flowing water etc – and while listening to those sounds just watch your thoughts and see for yourself what thoughts are arising. Do not ruminate on your thoughts on what is right or wrong, good or bad – just watch it so that you perceive and see every kind of thought without any distortion.

When you go into your thoughts deeply, your mind comes alive and is completely alert. To understand the whole process of your thinking and feeling is to free yourself from all thoughts and feelings, so that your mind, your whole being becomes very quiet. Once you start feeling this stillness after your mind becomes quiet, then go deeper, further – this entire process is meditation.

Meditation does not mean to sit in a corner repeating a lot of words, chants, mantras, picturizing or going into wild imaginations. It is nothing to do with the body, it has everything to do with the soul. The journey from body consciousness to soul consciousness – that is meditation. Once you achieve that quiet state, you will become a witness and learn to ‘watch’ life as it happens, you will begin to appreciate the beauty of nature, and so on. The meaning of life changes as you learn to live in the here and now and the past and the future don’t occupy your mind space. Your entire being is filled with that quiet, peace and bliss. That is meditation.

In Samarpan Meditation - it is about complete and unconditional surrender to the Satguru and letting His eneRgy guide you into meditation as you connect with the collective consciousness through his medium.

This post is based on tips given by Shri J. Krishnamurti