Question
When i begin to meditate, should i focus on breathing, like picture the air coming in and out or is their something or more stuff that i could do to improve my meditation? Is meditation used for relaxation, and/or does it have other benefits?
Thanks,
Nick
Answer
Hello Nicholas
Sorry for the late reply. I was out of town. Here is what I had blogged on meditation some time back and I think it will answer all of your questions.
What is Meditation?
It is a technique to reach a stage when there is no mind (no thoughts) to be precise the conscious mind, the mind which keeps thinking. So when there is no mind what will happen? Good question, the experience is different at each time for the same person who is meditating. So for each person it varies, just experience it! , do not consider meditation as a product of a company which requires to show legal statements before one starts using it!. This is because human tendency especially who are logical/rational wantsto know what will happen to start practicing anything, there should a metric to define the output :-). There is no need to be in Padmasana (yoga posture) or to wear saffron dress with rudraksha to do meditation. Any human being can meditate irrespective of his/her caste or religion because there is no concept of GOD in meditation. As soon as one hears or reads about the word meditation the first impression or idea which comes into ones mind is that the person who meditates is a sanyasi or swamini who has left all his/her family to achieve enlightenment. It is not true, any one can meditate at any time, any day and any where.
So what is the technique used in meditation?. There are many techniques, each guru or a spiritual researcher has introduced new techniques or refined the existing techniques. The goal is to quite the conscious mind or the talking mind. As you know though our mouths are shut, still we will be talking in our mind though no one hears that talk. The best way to reduce the number of thoughts is to pick a thought and keep your attention on that single thought then release that thought itself, means no thoughts a.k.a meditative state. It is not easy as we think, because the mind ensures that there are more thoughts , though we want to have just one thought it is difficult. Mind wants you to be busy, either be in past or future always away from the very present moment.
The technique
My favorite technique is, switch-off the cell phone, keep away all your gadgets, and excuse yourselves from spouse, children and other family members. Sit straight wherever you want and take THREE deep breaths. Let your belly be full of breath when you inhale and empty the belly when you exhale. Return to normal breathing; now watch the breath for a minute. Just witness your incoming breath and out going breath, see what is happening when you breathe. This technique is to create just one thought which the thought of your breath. Even if there are thoughts about persons or places jut ignore the thoughts.Because mind is very cunning,it will inject one thought and we will create a chain of thoughts by having one thought, so be prepared. Increase the duration by a minute each day and see how long you can sit by yourselves without creating thoughts. Do not expect something to happen or even if something happens just witness it, do not judge or arrive at a conclusion on any experience or do not try to get same experience each day, just watch the breath.
Thanks,
Vinod
