Experts say there’s more to this form of spiritual relaxation than just wearing the right clothes, listening to the right music!
Meditation makes your mind calmer and more focused. A simple ten or fifteen minute breathing meditation as explained below can help you to overcome your stress and find some inner peace and balance.
Meditation is all about Self-realization. Realisation of our inner strength and how destiny is conspiring to make us recognise our true potential can motivate us to bring about the necessary change. We, for some reason, refuse to notice patterns in our life and how our choices have shaped our world.
Guru Yoganada once said..
“Self-realization is the knowing in all parts of body, mind, and soul that you are now in possession of the kingdom of God; that you do not have to pray that it come to you; that God’s omnipresence is your omnipresence; and that all that you need to do is improve your knowing.”
Meditation can help us to understand our own mind. We can learn how to transform our mind from negative to positive, from disturbed to peaceful, from unhappy to happy. Overcoming negative minds and cultivating constructive thoughts is the purpose of the transforming meditations. This is a profound spiritual practice you can enjoy throughout the day, not just while seated in meditation.
You must have often heard this from lots of people. Sit with folded legs, keep your back erect, close your eyes, place your hands on your knees and inhale and exhale or just count one to a 100. Most of us believe that this is how one meditates. However, experts from the Yoga Institutes say that there is much more to meditation than just counting, wearing specially designed robes or aroma candles or dim lights!
A Simple Breathing Meditation
The first stage of meditation is to stop distractions and make our mind clearer and more lucid. This can be accomplished by practising a simple breathing meditation. We choose a quiet place to meditate and sit in a comfortable position. We can sit in the traditional cross-legged posture or in any other position that is comfortable. If we wish, we can sit in a chair. The most important thing is to keep our back straight to prevent our mind from becoming sluggish or sleepy.
We sit with our eyes partially closed and turn our attention to our breathing. We breathe naturally, calmly and slight deeply preferably through the nostrils, without attempting to control our breath, and we try to become aware of the sensation of the breath as it enters and leaves the nostrils. This sensation is our object of meditation. We should try to concentrate on it to the exclusion of everything else.
The mind should be free of all other thoughts to do so. This practice relaxes you and makes you feel happy. While inhaling or exhaling if you are thinking of what would you wear for your friend’s party and what your spouse will be doing in the office, then you are not meditating, as your mind is wandering and not concentrated on that one thing.
In fact, Initially, our mind will be very busy, and we might even feel that the meditation is making our mind busier; but in reality we are just becoming more aware of how busy our mind actually is. There will be a great temptation to follow the different thoughts as they arise, but we should resist this and remain focused single-pointedly on the sensation of the breath. If we discover that our mind has wandered and is following our thoughts, we should immediately return it to the breath. We should repeat this as many times as necessary until the mind settles on the breath.
Even though breathing meditation is only a preliminary stage of meditation, it can be quite powerful. We can see from this practice that it is possible to experience inner peace and contentment just by controlling the mind, without having to depend at all upon external conditions.
When the turbulence of distracting thoughts subsides and our mind becomes still, a deep happiness and contentment naturally arises from within. This feeling of contentment and well-being helps us to cope with the busyness and difficulties of daily life. So much of the stress and tension we normally experience comes from our mind, and many of the problems we experience, including ill health, are caused or aggravated by this stress.
Just by doing breathing meditation for ten or fifteen minutes each day, we will be able to reduce this stress. We will experience a calm, spacious feeling in the mind, and many of our usual problems will fall away. Difficult situations will become easier to deal with, we will naturally feel warm and well disposed towards other people, and our relationships with others will gradually improve.
Learn more about Meditation here http://www.how-to-meditate.org/index.php/
http://www.lifepositive.com/meditation.html
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