The time is Now to learn how to meditate. The following is a very simple technique that you can use to rapidly expand your awareness and get in touch with your own inner peace, happiness and outer success. It’s only one of many techniques, but it’s easy, takes very little time, and is thoroughly enjoyable.
It’s best to commit to a regular practice up front. Meditation needs to be experienced, and you need to develop over a period of months to really experience what it’s all about because it doesn’t happen overnight. So decide your level of commitment now. I suggest you map out five minutes every single day to begin with, moving up to ten, then 20 minutes a day after a few months. Start slow, but make the pledge.
Find a quiet spot to sit where you will not be disturbed. This requires as little distraction as possible. If you have kids, arrange for them not to interrupt. You might think it’s impossible, but millions of people meditate around the world and make it work.
Most westerners don’t find sitting in a lotus position very comfortable (myself included ~ not enough yoga lately), so instead, find a comfortable chair that you can sit upright in. The important thing when learning how to meditate is to keep the spine erect and make sure the only thing supporting your head is your neck (so you don’t fall asleep).
Close your eyes and take in three full breaths, breathing in and out through the nose. Now, relax. Notice your breathing. Is your belly expanding and contracting with each breath? Or is it your chest? Make sure you breathe into the abdomen during your meditation. This expands the diaphragm and stimulates the relaxation response.
If you have never meditated before, you might like to take a minute to relax your body, one part at a time. Begin with your feet and work your way up to your neck and face, and finish with your scalp. Just focus on each part, and feel it let go and relax.
Notice any thoughts that might enter your awareness. One thought spawns another, and another, and so on. Let them arise, notice them without judging them, and let them pass. Perhaps you hear a sound in the environment and that triggers another thought ~ let it be okay and just observe those thoughts.
Now, refocus on your breath. Feel what it feels like when you inhale. Put your awareness into your nose and all the way down into your lungs, noticing your abdomen rise. Feel the sensation of your exhale. Stomach, lungs, throat, nose. Breathe in. Breathe out.
If a thought enters your mind: acknowledge it, and breathe. If it persists, just let it be. Return to your breath.
Your awareness is like the sky. Sometimes it’s clear, sometimes there are clouds, and sometimes it is overcast (or stormy!). But even when you can’t see it, the sky is always there. Your thoughts are like the clouds: they come and go, blowing across the screen of your awareness. Don’t try to deny them by pushing them out. You’ll never win that game. Just focus on the blue sky, your awareness, your breath, and the thoughts will take care of themselves.
When I was learning how to meditate it didn’t go so well. I had so many thoughts racing around my head at a million miles per second, I had no chance of letting them be. It took six months of practice every day to open up the gap between thoughts. Even then, it was only for about a half second. But it was a start, and it made all the difference. Now, I can clear my mind of thought and experience the bliss of stillness.
But long before you’ll do that, you will notice your world changing for the better all around you. Really, it is you that is changing.
You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
~ Mahatma Gandhi
The aim of meditation is a destructive one. It destroys all the false in you. It calls out the false, conditioned thoughts and feelings you have accrued over the years, and you will slowly realize that you are not those things. You are not your
mind, your thoughts or your emotions. You have thoughts and emotions (in fact, you will experience your life more
fully when you become aware that you are not those things), but you will no longer be controlled by them. Learning how to meditate will open your conscious awareness and catapult your personal development.
Every student I have taught how to meditate has reported positive change in their external results very soon after learning this simple technique.
So, let me know how it goes for you.
