What I Learned About Meditation

Why do YOU want to meditate?

There are many reasons to start meditating. I always wanted to meditate, but I did not know how or where to start. I was overwhelmed with information out there. I started meditating mainly because it was one of the exercises assigned to me at the School Of Metaphysics. However, my knowledge of meditation started with great master such as Buddha or Gandhi and was further reinforced by more modern figures. All of these people seem to be gaining massive benefits from meditating. Even prominent sports figures such as MJ used to meditate before games as well.

Many people quoted increased concentration and awareness as one of the benefits, others talked about ability to calm ones mind and gain more control over ones thoughts. Yet others claimed that meditation is the way to enlightenment and love. I must agree with all of them.

My personal reason for meditating is to quite my mind, understand myself better, become more centered and balanced as well as begin my journey to self-master. Self-mastery requires self knowledge which comes from knowing ones thoughts which comes from quieting your mind in such a way that you are able to be conscious of your thoughts. Meditation also helps raise ones consciousness to a higher level.

Yet, the purpose of meditating can be anything that you might want to choose – ANYTHING will do. You will just have to try it out for yourself and set your own purpose, but regardless of what it is, just by going through the motions of meditating you will receive all of the benefits that come with it – some of the you might not even be aware of.

How do YOU want to meditate?

The HOW of meditation has many endless answers as I have found out. There are many techniques that you can choose from. I am not going to discuss them here, but it boils down to what is COMFORTABLE for you. Meditating is spending time by yourself, with your own thoughts and feelings and you want to spend quality time with yourself. There various positions such as lotus that are recommended to sit in, but many of them require certain degree of flexibility that one might not have initially.

One of the main requirements for a proper position is comfort, lasting comfort, one must find a position that it is easy to hold for extended periods of time. I am sure that is how those sophisticated positions developed and they ARE the most perfect way to meditate, but for beginners it is important just be comfortable.

However, one must note that no matter what position is, certain key characteristics should remain true: spine should be completely straight, shoulders back, chest out, and abs in and head raised upwards. Another important thing to note is that your knees should be lower than your hips – that will help you keep your spine straight without much effort. The reason for the above requirements is to form a proper posture and allow free flow of energy within the body.

You can mediate sitting up, standing up, sitting on the floor, sitting on your own feet or any other comfortable position that your body can accommodate at the time. One thing I have noticed is that you will have to deal with certain amount of discomfort at the beginning as your body will probably not be used to sitting in fixed position for extended periods of time, but that will surely pass your body will become stronger and will be able to accommodate the position of your choice for as long as you want to. I have been sitting over my feet supporting myself with pillows for the last couple of weeks and that is my current preferred position.

Once you have the position chosen, it is important to to relax your mind and your body right before meditating. That can be achieved by breathing deeply for a couple of times and spending sometime mentally preparing for meditation. After that it is important to express the purpose of your meditation. Like I mentioned before, it can be anything: a request, a thank you, or just a simple affirmation, anything will do. By doing so, you are making your intent clear to the Universe and leave it up to it to take care of it. Sometimes you might not know the intent and it is OK, all you have to do is go through the motions and the intent might become clear after the meditation. After that, you should let go of your prayer and concentrate on meditating.

The meditation itself can be done in many ways. However, the most important thing is to focus ones attention to the third eye through the whole time. Besides that, there are no rules of how to meditate. It can be done in silence, one can say a mantra out loud for as many times as it feels necessary, it can be a combination of both, or you can just repeat a mantra in your head to yourself. The purpose of that is to further quieten the mind and align yourself with your super-conscious mind or God that is with in you. You just need to find what works for YOU.

The period of time during which you meditate is up to you as well. But beginners should probably start with shorter periods of time as longer periods might be discouraging.

My Advice For YOU

Find what works for you! Try it out, play around with it until you find something that is comfortable for you.

Beginnings might be tough and frustrating, but the important thing is to be consistent and just believe that your efforts will pay off, which they will. But you have to be patient and consistent, because it might a LONG time (maybe a year or so) to calm your mind, which is so used to constant stimulus. So don’t be discouraged if you don’t see immediate results, they will come later, you will just have to trust the Universe and be persistent. Just experiment and have and don’t give up and I am sure you will start seeing changes sooner or later.

My Experiences So Far

One thing I almost always notice is decreased body temperature, calm and peaceful mind and increased clarity right after meditation. Besides those obvious physical changes I have started to go deeper into meditation, which almost seems like entering your own subconscious mind. Sometimes, I would see really vivid images from my past, sometimes I would be able to feel like I was almost out of my body, I could feel the limits of my body…it’s a bit tough to describe, but you will know what I am talking about once you experience it. That is all for now, but I know that future holds many great treasures for me hiding in this simple act of meditation in the future. I hope this will encourage some of you to pick up this practice or at least give it a shot and see where it takes you.

Good luck and please let me know if you have any further questions.