Meditation
What is the right way to Meditate?
This is the question I have gotten asked to most in my yoga teaching experiences.
There is a mysticism around this word. There is a lot of general confusion about what it is.
My favorite way to meditate is in nature for sure! But that’s me! There is a special quality about connecting to nature in your meditation practice.
When people ask me how should I meditate, I always ask them how do you want to meditate? what do you know about meditation?
Ask yourself Where do you feel the most at peace?
After hearing their response, my answer is always the same.
There is no one right way to meditate.
Some think you need to be seated cross legged chanting ohm.
A straight spine is ideal for breath flow of course.
BUT REMEMBER….
There are as many different ways to mediate as there are people on this planet. 7.8 billion times 2 or 3. That’s how many kinds of meditative practices there are.
Your meditation practice is as unique as you. Anything that helps you along this journey, like music, beads, guided scripts, necklaces, classes, groups are ALL certainly valuable. no one can tell you how top embark on this journey.
But using the breath is a valuable, free and ever-present internal tool you have within that can very effectively guide you on your meditation journey.
Some say Yoga itself is a moving meditative practice. Anything you immerse yourself in totally can be considered meditative.
We need not discriminate.
See meditation isn’t really about doing anything specifically and yet neither it is doing nothing!
“Meditation involves a type of inner attention that is quiet, concentrated and at the same time relaxed.
There’s nothing difficult or strenuous about creating this inner attention”
“you may find it challenging to accomplish this as the mind is agile and tends to maintain a certain amount of chatter”
-Swami Rama in his book
Meditation and its Practice
Well then
what
the heck is it?
and why
do people
develop a
crazy
notion they
are
no good at it?
.
“In the beginning, the greatest difficulty is that the mind has never been trained to create this inner attention.”
But c’mon, what does Meditation mean?
I like to go to the word and the root. Swami Rama says in his book the word meditate is similar to the word Medical or Medicate.
Etymology Dictionary affirms Med- to mean “take appropriate measures”
or “attend to” “pay attention to”
So far we have “the act of paying attention”
Okay paying attention to what?
We can simplify it to just that paying attention to one thing.
Multi tasking is a total myth, our brains have one stream energy. HUMANS ARE MEDITATIVE CREATURES BY NATURE for heaven’s sake.
But I like to go further again if we trace the word we find in latin meditation means “thought or reflection of thoughts.”
Okay so now we see
The act of paying attention to one’s thoughts.
Yes Yes!!!
Try this…look around your world, notice how much of your external world you begin to notice as you look around.
Now how often do you look into your internal world?
how often do you go within?
Try this… close your eyes, breathe and breathe out, notice the breath, trace it like a line on a chalk board. try this exercise for 1-3 minutes to begin.
Long periods of meditation are not required, unless the practitioner develops a practice that begins the lengthen time spent in meditation
But as the research at the end of this blog confirmed by Harvard, states 1-3 minutes is optimal time to increase grey matter in the brain.
You can look at an MRI before and after meditating, its different.
I would potentially wonder if increasing this grey matter, means more nerve connections?
Would this practice and knowledge of it be good for the brain injured community?
I wonder to myself why no one studies the affects of meditation on the area of stroke in the brain, does it decrease the damaged area”?
I might just go back and get another MRI and find out for myself,
“We are taught how to move and behave in the outer world, but we are never taught to be still and examine what is within.”
This is a real issue plaguing humanity today.
It may feel scary at first, only because it is unfamiliar.
There is nothing wrong with you.
We need to remember we are not our thoughts, we are the one watching them.
Our thoughts are simply a record, a recollection of experiences
Samskaras: mental impressions
Our Samskara’s, in Yogic tradition are the mental impressions left by all thoughts, actions, and intents that an individual has ever experienced.
So, yes going there, can feel a bit scary at times, what will you witness?what samskar’s will present today? That is a mystery, as the mind is a true mystery.
You see you have 2 energetic hubs in the body
One in the heart: the strongest one.
One in the mind: the most delicate one.
The mind records everything and can be threatening in a way at times to the true self, or at least seem that way at first.
But you are not your mind, you are the
QUIET SPACE BEHIND IT.
You have a part of you deep within filled with rivers and beautiful waterfalls, go there.
notice the thought, witness the thought and let it be that, a thought, a thing, something delicate and fleeting.
NOT REPRESENTATIVE OF WHO YOU ARE AT YOUR TRUE NATURE.
Swami Rama calls meditation a process.
“We ask the mind to let go of it’s tendencies to think, analyze, remember, solve problems and focus on past events or experiences about the future”
“We help the mind slow down its rapid series of thoughts and feelings and replace that activity with inner awareness. “
Inner awareness of what, well….
“the body, the mind, the breath.”
So how can we really tap into this inner awareness?
Well, the meditation industry would have you believe meditation is something that comes with a gadget, a song, a device, a timer, body quivers, seeing colors or transcending.
“ No dramatic phenomena required”
Swami Rama reminds
While again, I believe anything anyone uses to guide them is a valuable tool and sometimes you do experience tremors, visions or tears.
The one thing the industry leaves out is you have the greatest gadget within you you don’t have to pay for.
Your breath
Breath or PRANA means life. Or life force energy, first unit of energy or breath. Basically the link between the body and the mind.
“Learning about the science of and how to work with our own breath is vital for anyone who wants to learn advanced meditation.”
There are 4 major issues with the breath, or problems within the breath that create disturbances in the mind that Swami Rama refers to being:
Nort only does Swama Rama encourage us to notice these irregularities
He also references the use of MANTRA as a tool of the mind- support and a focal point given to the mind to help find it’s steadiness.
“A mantra includes, Ohm, Aum, Amen , Shalom and many other religious expressions.”
“There are numerous sound, syllables or words that are used as mantra, not just any word can be a mantra.
See, “there are particular sounds that vibrate in silence.”
Lets take just a few examples:
Om
Omkara
So Hum
….just a few I recommend to Stroke survivors. But there are a wide variety.
Let’s jump to the research on science of breath based meditation as we wrap up on meditation and its practice.