Meditation

My preference would be to call meditation relaxation, conscious relaxation, chosen relaxation. These are words that are more universally understood, more comfortable. Constantly working toward the goal of discovering my own ability to reach a state of serenity, I have learned to meditate.

Meditating is actually easier than you might imagine. Most of us have dabbled in meditation by participating in conscious relaxation. Maybe during an exercise class or to manage pain at the dentist or anxiety before a test. We start by paying attention to our breathing. The practical effort to focus completely on our breathing takes our minds away from the "mind clutter" that constantly tries to invade our mind and eliminate feelings that will lead to a time of calm. With repeated effort the goal of clearing your mind  to think of nothing, does occur and the process of meditation takes on its own energy. The result is, and I guarantee this, peace, serenity, calmness, eventually opening yourself to new insights

1. BREATH

Yoga and other disciplines offer many techniques for breathing which are worthwhile to learn for further development, but we'll concentrate on abdominal breathing for now.

You do it constantly without ever thinking about it, right? Now I'm going to ask you stand up and think about it for a minute. Put the palm of one hand on your chest, the other over your abdomen, and take a deep breath. Did your chest expand and your abdomen contract? Exhale. Did you chest contract and your abdomen expand? Wrong.

If you watch a newborn baby breathe, you'll notice that it's the abdomen that expands during inhalation and contracts during exhalation. That's correct breathing; expanding the lungs fully provides a rush of fresh oxygen to all parts of the body. Somewhere along the way to adulthood, we're conditioned to hold it in, suck it up, show no fear. When life teaches us to be filled with fear and anger, it seems we forget how to breathe. Oxygen isn't getting to the brain so we can't think straight, the brain gets its signals crossed. Under stress, we fall apart or explode in rage. Constant adrenaline poisons the system it was meant to protect and illnesses result, organs break down. Panic attacks, phobias, fear, obsessions, rule our lives. So just some time doing abdominal breathing calms the body and mind, and allows all systems to return to normal. Definitely beneficial to your health and sense of well-being.

EXERCISE:

Sit or lie down, whatever is most comfortable for you. Allow your abdomen to expand as you inhale, count slowly to yourself 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (or whatever number works for you), hold for a few seconds counting 1, 2, 3, then contract your abdomen as you exhale, counting 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, hold counting 1, 2, 3. Expand your abdomen, etc. Some people find this difficult to do at first, don't pressure yourself, if you get confused, start again. Do it about ten times then just continue breathing normally for a few minutes and experience the feeling of relaxation. When you are ready, do another ten breaths then relax. Continue for about 20 minutes. You may get a head rush and feel dizzy at first if your brain hasn't gotten much oxygen lately... it'll pass.

After doing this for several days, try it without counting but keep the same rhythm. Don't be concerned whether you do 10 or 6 or 15 breaths, just do what feels right. Focus your attention on the breath, the coming in, the going out. Imagine a warmth coming into your body, filling every cell of your body each time you inhale. Imagine toxins and negativity flowing out through your fingertips and toes each time you exhale.

You may become aware after this breathing exercise that the thoughts that normally run through your mind, ceased. You were able to suspend normal consciousness for a short period. This is what you are working toward achieving during meditation for longer periods. If you find that thoughts do intrude, think of them as doves flying around a belfry. Some fly on through, some stop for a while then move on. Notice them but don't dwell on them. When you become aware of thoughts, return to focusing on the oxygen flowing in and out of your body or resume counting to yourself as you inhale and exhale. Most people need practice shutting off their customary stream of consciousness. If you need it, take a month or more of just doing the breathing exercise before moving to the next step, but just work on the breathing for at least two weeks. A way to remind yourself to tune in to your breathing during your day is to set a time, like on the hour or at 15 after. Most people are constantly looking at their watch or looking for a clock, so it can be used as a reminder. If you happen to look at the time and notice it's 15 after an hour, that's your cue to pay attention to your breathing. Notice if your breathing is shallow or if you're so tense, you're not breathing at all, then find a place to sit quietly to do a few minutes of abdominal breathing. Notice the diference in how you feel afterwards.

2. RELAXATION

If you're really stressed out or hyperactive, you probably don't recognize the difference in your body between relaxation and tension. This exercise will help you become aware of where your body holds tension, learn to relax all your muscles, and retrain your body to maintain a relaxed state.

The human body can be isolated into muscle groups and to begin we will start with the small muscle groups, then move to the larger muscle groups, and finally the body as a whole.

EXERCISE:

Lie down in a comfortable place, remove or loosen tight clothing, belt, shoes. You're going to tighten each small muscle group, one at a time, as you inhale, then relax each group as you exhale. You can use the count you found comfortable in the abdominal breathing exercise, including the hold in between.

As you count from 1 to 5, inhale and tighten the muscles of your right foot, hold-2-3, exhale and relax the muscles (count 1 to 5), and hold-2-3. Do each muscle group twice.

Next do the left foot, then the right calf, left calf, right thigh, left thigh, pelvis/stomach, buttocks, chest, back, right hand, left hand, right forearm, left forearm, right upper arm, left upper arm, shoulders, neck, face. You'll notice that in tightening one group, another may also tense (e.g., foot/calf), but your attention should be on directing oxygen to only one muscle group at a time.

Focus your attention on the life-giving oxygen flowing into each area as you tense, and the toxins and negativity flowing out as you relax. Notice the difference in your muscles. The areas where pain is experienced are where you hold your tension. For most of us, it's in the neck and shoulders. When you finish the whole body, go back to those painful areas, and tense and relax them several more times. You are getting in touch with your body, learning to read its signals.

Progress at your own rate, but after doing the above once a day for several days or weeks, do the same using the large muscle groups: the right leg, left leg, lower body, upper body, left arm, right arm, shoulders, the head. Do this for several days or weeks.

When you feel you have mastered the muscle groups, you can do the abdominal breathing while tensing and relaxing your entire body or isolate large or small muscle groups as needed. Notice that the time it requires to do these exercises has lessened considerably from small muscle groups to whole body. Use the rest of your 20 minutes to include a Focus exercise (below).

After several months of practice, you should be able to use this exercise, tensing and relaxing your whole body and taking one or two breaths while stopped in your car in rush hour traffic, standing in line at the grocery store, waiting on hold for tech support or just before you go to sleep at night to shift into a peaceful state of relaxation.

3. FOCUS

Now that you've learned to relax your body, increase the oxygen flow, and, if only momentarily, distract your conscious mind, we're going to turn to focusing the mind on one point and listening for the Silence. This is probably the most difficult part for most people because the ego/personality puts up such a fight for attention. It fears annihilation by the Soul. You can tell its the ego/personality because it goes on and on about physical matters. This is when most people quit meditating. Their ego/personality tells them they don't need this or it's a waste of time or it isn't making them any richer. And it's likely to throw up all sorts of roadblocks, including some of those nasties I talked about earlier. Anything to keep you from waking up.

If the ego/personality only knew that the Soul doesn't want to be in control nor kill the ego/personality, but there's no way of convincing it. Your ego/personality thinks it's protecting you, which it did during your childhood, but as an adult, it's actually harming you by keeping you from self-actualizing, truly knowing who you are and your purpose in this life. When you try to concentrate, the ego/personality sends distractions, like suggesting you go out and buy a new widget or get a pizza instead. Resistance is not futile.

Be patient with yourself. People have been working on this a long time and have come up with various tools to help focus the attention on a single point, and I'm going to share some of them with you. When you are able to do that, you will be looking back at your Self. You will have reopened the connection to your Higher Self and it will remain open, in a sense to transmit information, as long as you remain focused on that single point. In this state of consciousness, God's Love is able to pour down to you through your open connection to your Soul Grace.

Some Buddhists call it the Blue Jewel. It appears out of the darkness as a tiny, brilliant spark of white light about a zillion miles away. As you maintain focus, in such deep concentration that you are hardly breathing, it moves closer, becomes brighter, but doesn't hurt your eyes, then it bursts into its colors, like sunlight through a prism. Against pure blackness, a tiny jewel sparkles, first as a brilliant, glowing red orb with a yellow-white center, which transforms into the most brilliant, shimmering blue jewel. It is composed of zillions of tiny vibrating particles of all the colors of the spectrum. It is the most beautiful thing you will ever see. And the more often you meditate on it, the longer you will be able to keep it in focus, and keep the window open to the down pouring of God's Love. Much of this happens at the subconscious level. You may be aware of seeing the Blue Jewel but not of the gifts you receive through the experience. They will often manifest in your life without you're even being aware until after the fact. You will become more loving and compassionate, and will change your life and your thinking to a more peaceful way of being in the physical world.

But I digress. You just wanted to learn to relax, right? I'm just letting you know that you can take meditation as far as you want to go. You are always in control. With practice, you should be able to tell yourself that you want to meditate for 20 minutes or 60 seconds and you will come back to full consciousness in that time. It's better not to lie down unless you want to go to sleep right after. If you doze off while sitting, your head falling over is enough to remind you to get back to your meditative state. If you want to play a CD while you're doing any of these exercises, that's also a good timer as you're likely to wake up when the music ends. Meditative type music or chants are more conducive to meditation than rock or rap. Ocean waves, running rivers, rain storms, also are good background sounds for meditation.