Basic Meditation

A Basic Meditation

Dear Friends,

If you don’t know of the benefits of meditation already you can do some research on it, but you will find almost universal agreement that there are only benefits to it. Mostly you’ll find the usual references to relaxation, unwinding, chilling, and stress reduction, better health, preventative benefits, and so on. And all of these are true – on the physical and mental (psychological, emotional, etc.) levels. You also balance both brain lobes, circulation and memory improve, and the nervous system is energized. And much more.

The benefits are truly numerous and significant. The stress of life is immense. Booze and drugs, and TV and other mind-altering things – well, those are really just temporary chloroform that bring with them other even more troublesome issues, and so they lead us from bad to worse. Meditation is a lot less chemical, more direct and much more natural, and it does not require resources in addition to what you already have.

I know some of you are anxious to start meditation, but let’s just run through the preliminaries guidelines again first – they are important and you should probably make some effort at memorizing them.

Find a quiet place to meditate. You don’t want interruptions, so silence the cell phone and other items that can disturb you.
Meditate at regular times – I suggest early morning and late evening.
It would be cool to have an asana (a ‘comfortable posture’). Don’t overanalyze this – sit in a way that you can be comfortable in to sit for about 20 minutes without moving around. Keep the neck and the spine erect. Keep the body (all parts) perfectly still.
Stick to 20 minutes – no more (initially) and no less. Don’t have a gong announce the end of the 20 minutes. Figure something more quiet for yourself.
Close your eyes and slow the movements of your eyeballs to the point where they do not move – this, like keeping the body perfectly still, will be difficult in the beginning, but hang in there. It is worth it.
It would also be cool to have a sound – in yoga we talk of a mantra. Usually a nice little rhyme or even a single word like OM will do just fine. Something monotonous and repetitive. Keep repeating this sound throughout your meditation (specially in the beginning). Don’t ‘say’ the mantra as much as listen to it, and even better, listen to the echo of the mantra.
Relax your body in stages – in parts. Start with your scalp, then your jaw, cheeks, neck, shoulders, upper and lower arms, wrists, hands, torso, belly, upper and lower legs, and feet.
Breathing is very important. The yogis talk of Pranayama, which means ‘control of the life force’ (and I’ll say more on this later in another writing). Rhythm is the key with your breath. Usually one can settle for a 7-1-7 pattern, which means that you breathe in for a count of 7, hold for one, breathe out for a count of 7, hold for one, and so on. You can count initially if you want to, but try to just feel the lengths of the breaths after a while. Maintain the rhythm throughout.
Feeling positive vibes is also part of the experience. Use your imagination to visualize a really nice place that you have been where you felt totally relaxed and at peace – preferably a place you were at alone that was not unnaturally noisy. Feel the positive vibes moving into you and making your entire consciousness feel the same positive feeling. Feel it all around you as well. When you visualize other things or people, surround them with the positive vibrations as well. Have an inner smile.
Keep this feeling up for the remainder of the meditation.
Slowly open your eyes and stare at a place about six to eight feet in front of you and keep staring at whatever your eyes have landed on for a minute without blinking. It is said that this action seals in the memory-consciousness of the vibrations and then, when you meditate the next time, the feelings will return more easily.
Blink your eyes a few times, gently stretch your body, slowly get up and move around a little. And that is the end.

Granted, this is the most basic of ‘meditations’ that there is, but getting used to this routine with its elements will prepare you for some more serious meditation later on when you feel ready. Go ahead, try this for a week or two, twice a day. What better thing can you think of doing for yourself for two 20-minute periods out of your 24 hour day?

If you can manage these steps, and you feel the urge to go further and deeper, then you should probably find somebody who can help you a little more with the finer details. Meditation is a science but also an art and it does take some time to master the higher levels thereof. The above ‘meditation’ is basic and deals mostly with the physical and mental aspects, but in truth, meditation is a spiritual practice that can lead to Enlightenment, so there is a lot more to it later on if you are so inclined. Then it would also be enriched with a life philosophy that supports it. But that is for later. One step at a time.

Namaste.

Thus ends the Basic Meditation