Hydrangea

I have not written on meditation for a while. I have been busy offering free meditation classes in my home town of Oxford and in York. I always learn quite a few things when giving meditation classes. These are some tips which will help learning your meditation.

Regularity.

If we want to enjoy listening to a music concert, we can take part whenever we feel like it. But, if we want to perform in a classical music concert we would expect to practise everyday. To develop our meditation capacity, it is important to practise at least once a day. Sometimes, our meditation, may feel unproductive; it feels like we are not getting anywhere. But, these more difficult times are just as important as the times when meditation seems effortless. We cannot expect to eat the most delicious food everyday, but, still we need to eat everyday. With regularity, and if possible, punctuality, we will be able to make the fastest progress.

Meditating with others.

To meditate with others, we can benefit from their silence and their focus. We consciously or unconscioulsy benefit from the meditative consciousness that builds up. So these group sessions can be beneficial to our own practise.

One Four Two exercise.

In Meditation, Sri Chinmoy describes this powerful breathing exercise.

The rhythm of your breathing is most important. If you breathe in for one second or for one repetition of the name of the Supreme, then you should hold the breath for four seconds or four repetitions. Then, when you breathe out, it should be for two seconds or the time it takes you to repeat the name of the Supreme twice. The breathing should be done softly and silently. When you breathe in and out, you should do it so gently that, even if there were a thread right in front of your nose, your breathing would not move it.

In normal breathing both of our nostrils are usually functioning. But when we breathe properly through alternate nostrils, we get immediate relief from mental anxiety, worries, depression and many other things that cause disturbances in our nature. Alternate nostril breathing is a most important breathing exercise. We start by using our right thumb to close our right nostril. Next we breathe in with the left nostril, silently repeating the name of God, Supreme or puraka, just once. Then we close the left nostril with the fourth finger of the right hand, and with both nostrils closed, silently repeat the name of God, Supreme or kumbhaka four times while holding the breath. Finally we lift the thumb from the right nostril, still keeping the left nostril closed, and exhale, repeating God, Supreme or rechaka twice. (from: Pranayama)

I find it very helpful for meditation. It gives my mind two things to focus on:
My breathing and counting the mantra. I find this very effective for absorption in the meditation exercise.

Like all meditation exercises, it is important to not just do this mechanically. It is not like counting sheep when we are trying to get to sleep. We repeat the mantra with soulfulness and the aspiration that the mantra embodies a certain quality. You can choose Supreme, Aum or anything that inspires you most.

• An Introduction to Meditation
• Basic Steps of learning meditation

Readers Question: Can you recommend some meditation music you mentioned in this post Introduction to Meditation

These links will help provide some inspirational music for meditation

• Flute Music for Meditation by Sri Chinmoy m4a
• Esraj by Sri Chinmoy – haunting, tradition Indian instrument
• Sitar music by Adesh Widmar

Other Links of Meditation Music

• Meditation Music at Radio Sri Chinmoy
• Relaxation Music

Using Music For Meditation

I often use music whilst meditating. It has to be music composed and performed in a meditative consciousness. It is not the music that excites and stimulates, but the music that inspires us to dive deep within.

Music can be useful if you meditate in a noisy environment (e.g. student flat) The right kind of music can also help still the mind.

The power of soulful / spiritual / meditative music is that it has the capacity to awaken our inner aspiration. It is this inner cry that is the most important aspect of meditation.

Meditation and music is quite a personal choice, but it is well worth exploring.

Related

• Basic steps for learning meditation
• Things I have learnt from meditation

A guest post by Jogyata Dallas

A deep meditation is one of the most beautiful and fulfilling of all possible experiences. Once we have learnt how to find our way into that inner stillness and desireless peace that is always there inside us, our life will never be the same. Here in the sanctuary of the heart, free of time and the burdens of the mind, everything is clear, everything is already done. Out of this silence comes wisdom, understanding and delight.

It is helpful  to extend our practice of sitting meditation gradually out in to the everyday aspects of our life – karma yoga – and train ourselves to keep the meditative feeling sustained as long as possible. Walking through a park, sitting on a bus, waiting for somebody, traveling to the next moments of our life, we can bring these feelings of calmness, poise, inner happiness to the fore, string them together as a necklace of  day-long happiness-moments.

At this stage in our practice we don’t need to think about technique or meditation exercises, but simply allow the feeling of meditation to arise spontaneously like an inner fragrance of the soul. In this way we begin to free  meditation from it’s initial dependence on our being alone at our shrine, or a special time and place, and begin it’s extension into all of our life. This is a very important next step in our spiritual journey, the ‘living’ of meditation, for our own consciousness is the single most powerful determining factor in the quality of all experience.

If we practise meditation long enough, there is an accumulation of all the tiny breakthrough moments and glimpses of peace, and these gather in momentum. A wave rider makes the effort to reach and finally catch the wave that will carry him ashore….the student of meditation also strives in his practice and eventually his own slow awakening grows into a wave of spirit that sweeps him beyond thought and technique. He finds and  rides the forgotten ocean of joy that has always been there inside him.  This is why we need to commit to regular practice, to have patience and discipline, to find and catch the rising wave.

At first, the experience of meditation itself relies upon environment and some combination of time, place, correct technique. But then it goes beyond these needs. We begin to realize that while our increasing moments of ’success’ have been possible through  some combination of factors – a workshop we attended, group practice, a new exercise we tried or inspiring music – in reality they merely reconnected us with our deeper self, and that ’self’ is always there inside us, where ever we are.

Each human soul is so very powerful. Consider the impact of Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, Mikhail Gorbachev , or the great spiritual masters. They come to embody values and principles that transcend and outlive their own lives, personify qualities that inspire all of humanity. I always marvelled at how my own teacher, Sri Chinmoy, would walk alone on to a concert stage before audiences of up to 18,000 people, fold his hands together over his heart  and simply by standing there , through the force of his love and the power of his meditation, bring a hushed, pin-drop silence to the entire auditorium. His  tranquility and the great achievement of his realization were felt by everyone and for many would be life-changing.

Each one of us also has that same potential to change the world, for as Sri Chinmoy once said , ‘every human being is a very special dream of God’. Someone who has great inner peace or love or compassion can walk into a room and change the whole feeling there, simply through the power of consciousness. They embody and radiate some unique beauty of the soul, teach us about our own possibilities. And that is why many students of meditation will often seek a Guru or an advanced  teacher – through even one encounter with an enlightened being we can see first-hand what is also possible for us. Their detachment and poise, their unconditional love, their freedom from suffering, their oneness with God, these will one day be our own achievement.

Meditation takes us past our identification with our body, thoughts, personality to a deeper understanding of our true nature. The space in our lives where we put aside the burdens and preoccupations of the day’s dramas, silence our thoughts, venture past the many attachments and distractions of the mind to a growing stillness, this space allows us to rediscover the very source of all our creative, intuitive, spiritual capacities. The closer we move towards this ‘intelligence of silence’, our ‘inner pilot’, the more perfect our outer lives become.

Meditation comes easily today, sitting on the grass in a park in Auckland under a wide blue summer sky, a sky of such startling clarity and endless transparency as to illumine things and gather close  the silhouettes of far-off, unfamiliar mountains. There is this lovely sense of stepping outside of the story of one’s life into a state of just   ‘being’,  at rest in the here and now, a lovely inner space of pure consciousness. Over in the western corner of the park the tai-chi practitioners are also touching the lives of passers-by and strollers with their children, their calm and gentle movements reminding of other realities beyond the ordinary. And I remember Sri Chinmoy’s words, reminding us that we co-create this world, that ‘ just one smile immensely increases the beauty of the universe’.

• By Jogyata Dallas. Jogyata teaches meditation classes in his home town of Auckland. Auckland Meditation.co.nz includes some more articles on meditation written by Jogyata.
• Introduction to meditation
• Things I have learnt from meditation
• Photo by Pavitrata Taylor

I occasionally give meditation classes in my home city of Dublin. The great thing about giving classes is that they attract amazing people from all different corners of the globe and walks of life. Many of them are there looking for techniques to relieve the increasing amount of stress and anxiety that they face in their lives. Others, though, come looking for something that goes beyond just stress relief; they feel that meditation can somehow give them a deeper sense of themselves, and expand their awareness of who they are. And they are right. It can.

Many of the exercises we teach in our classes stem from one very simple secret I learned from my meditation teacher, Sri Chinmoy – to meditate on the heart instead of the mind. Seeing as our overactive mind is the source of many of our worries, meditating in the mind can often lead to tension and stress. On the other hand, the heart is that space in the middle of the chest we point to when we refer to ourselves, so naturally it is a very good place to begin any journey of self-discovery.

This meditation exercise works on two levels – it helps to purify the mind of all the superfluous chatter that gets in the way of our self discovery, and (more importantly) it makes us identify with a much deeper part of our nature that goes beyond the body or the mind. When we are in the heart, we see that it is always aspiring and reaching towards a greater sense of happiness. And according to all the great meditation teachers, that sense of perfection and true happiness lies within us, in the highest part of our being – for example, Zen Buddhism talks about how we are already enlightened, we just need to uncover it, and of course there is the famous utterance of the Christ “the Kingdom of Heaven is within you”. We call this highest part of our being the soul, although many people have their own language to describe it.

Method:

1. It doesn’t matter if you use a cushion or a chair to sit; the important thing is that you keep your back straight. For this exercise, you can keep your eyes closed and your hands turned upwards on your lap.

2. For the first couple of minutes, just slowly scan through your body from to bottom, making sure that everything is relaxed. Make any little adjustment you need to make to ensure your body is relaxed and free of tension. Pay particular attention to your neck and shoulders as this is where a lot of tension builds up.

3. When we are fully relaxed, we will begin the meditation proper. When you breathe in, slowly repeat to yourself “I have no mind, I have no mind. What I have is the heart.” As you say this, try to feel that at this moment the mind does not exist, that the only part of you that is truly real is the heart. As you feel more and more that the heart is the only real part of you there, your attention will be focused there more and more. If the mind interrupts with its thoughts, don’t worry, just bring your attention back to the exercise.

4. After 3 or 4 minutes, we can take a step further, from the heart into the soul. This time repeat to yourself “I don’t have a heart. What I have is the soul.” Feel that deep inside the heart lies the soul, the highest part of your being, which is all beauty and all light. Again, feel that the soul is the only real part of you – this will naturally bring your attention more and more to it.

5. After another few minutes, you can take a further step, saying this time “I am the soul”. This beauty, joy and peace is not just something lying dormant inside you, it is what you truly are. As you say this, you are far beyond the limitations of your mind and body, and you can feel as tremendous feeling of purity and inner freedom enter your being. Try and stay in this beautiful space for as long as you can.

Photo: Sri Chinmoy Centre Galleries

The first time many of us encounter the concept of meditation is through images in TV and movies, showing cross legged yogis sitting in serene bliss for hours on end. However, any of you who have ever tried meditation know that that is a pretty advanced state, and not something that can be attained by just going to a workshop or two! In fact the journey can be broken into three different stages – concentration, meditation and contemplation, as described below:

Concentration

Many meditation teachers recommend their students to learn the art cof concentration before they embark on meditation proper, and indeed many of the exercises taught in introductory meditation classes could more aptly be called concentration exercises, as they teach the art of quieting the mind and bringing the multiplicity of thoughts buzzing around our minds to just one – focusing on the object of concentration. From a personal perspective, I can definitely vouch for how important this is – I have lost count of the times I was having a very nice meditation experience, only to lose track of it by being carried away by the most mundane thoughts. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about a very nice concentration exercise you can use; you can also begin with something a simple and as natural as focusing on the breath, letting your attention follow the breath as it moves in through the nose and out through the mouth.

Meditation

Once we have stilled the mind and brought our focus down to one thought, we can then move into meditation proper. We move beyond the mind and expand into the space of vastness and peace that lies beyond out thought. We have all had meditative moments before – looking at the sun setting over the beach or holding a newborn child in your arms, moments where in the silence all of life seemed to be contained and where everything just seemed to make sense. Through meditation, we expand this state of awareness and make it a real and permanent part of your daily life.

Once we gain regular experiences of meditative stillness, we can live our lives knowing that there is a core of contentment inside us that does not depend on how things are going on around us – that the true source of happiness is within.

Contemplation

In contemplation, we move beyond merely experiencing these realms of peace and bliss inside ourselves; we try to merge and become one with the experience, so that we are the peace and bliss we are experiencing. In other words, the lowest part of our being enters into and unites with the highest part. People usually do not embark upon contemplation until they have spent at least a few years concentrating and meditation, and there are very few people who have absolutely perfected this art.

As children we believe that we can be anything we want, and then begin settling for less all throughout our adolescence and adulthood. In contemplation, our sense of self-awareness expands and we realise that anything is truly possible, that there are no limits is we truly believe in ourselves. At that stage we truly begin to realise and act from our highest potential.

Recently, Shane offered a simple and easy to learn concentration exercise.

The essence of concentration is the ability to focus on one thing at a particular time. This focus and one pointed concentration is essential to good meditation. If we practice concentration exercises it will definitely help our meditation.  In this meditation exercise, we are again concentrating on one particular thing. This time it is our breathing.

As well as concentrating, the secret to meditating well is the ability to silence our thoughts. Although this might feel difficult at first, it does become easier with practice.

Simple Meditation Exercise – Breathing

1. Be conscious of your breathing. It should not be forced, but, gentle and relaxed. If someone placed a feather in front of your nose it should barely move.
2. When you breathe in, feel that you are breathing in solid peace. Imagine that this peace is peculating your whole body.
3. When you breathe out feel that you are exhaling any tension, worries or anxieties.
4. Just for a moment, you can hold your breathe after the inhalation. When you hold your breathe concentrate on the absolute stillness and silence. No thought should enter your mind.
5. The aim is to become fully aware of our breathing. We are trying to identify totally with this simple action. But, it is more than just breathing in mechanically. We are exercising our imagination to feel new life and real sense of peace entering our being.
6. By focusing exclusively on the relaxing movement of our breathing, we switch off from the usual mental thought processes. By doing this we are able to enter into meditation.

In the beginning, we can practise this exercise for 5 minutes. But, we should try to lengthen the time we meditate from 5 minutes to 10 and then 15 minutes.

However, there are no prizes for sitting in a chair for a long time. What matters is not the length of time we meditate, but, how sincere and soulful our meditation is.

The exercise is very simple. But, meditation is supposed to be very simple. The only problem is that we are used to complexity, difficulties and problems. We aren’t so used to an activity that is inherently simple and natural. – Don’t analyse your meditation with the mind, but, try to enter into the flow of a new experience. If you can maintain real inner silence for just 5 minutes, you will feel a very new consciousness.

“Meditate Silently.
You will be able to create
A totally new life
For Yourself.”

- Sri Chinmoy

Photo by Ranjit, Sri Chinmoy Centre Galleries

More on Meditation

Concentration is the secret key to a whole world of possibilities, enabling you to keep out distractions and focus on attaining your life goals. In addition it is an absolute prerequisite if you want to learn the art of meditation, as it helps ‘clear the road’ of any mental obstacles. However if anything the average concentration span is decreasing as life gets busier and busier and the world becomes filled with more things to distract and scatter our attention.

Here is one very easy-to-learn concentration exercise which was taught to me by my meditation teacher Sri Chinmoy. It can reap tremendous rewards in terms of clarity, productivity and efficiency in your life, and it can be done with just a few minutes practise every day. People commonly view concentration as purely a mental exercise; but here we are also going use our heart centre, that space in our chest we point to when we say ‘me’ – helping to take some of the burden away from our tension filled minds.

Requirements:

An object of concentration – best is to use a candle or flower, but you can even use a dot on the wall.

Method:

1. In this exercise, we will use the candle, although you can adapt the exercise to whatever object you are using. Sit with your back straight, and place the burning candle at eye level.
2. First bring your awareness to your breath. Gradually your breath becomes slower and more relaxed. Try to imagine a thread placed in front of our nose; you are breathing so quietly it will not move to and fro.
3. Now we look at the object. Gradually bring your attention to a tiny part of the candle flame, for example, the very tip of the flame.
4. When you breathe in, feel that your breath, like a golden thread, is coming from that point on the candle and entering into your heart. And when you breath out, feel that your breath, feel that the light is leaving the heart, passing through a point in your forehead between the eyebrows and a little above (in Eastern philosophy this is a powerful concentration point) and then entering into the object of concentration. Try to feel that nothing else exists except you and the object you are focusing on.
5. When you do this exercise, thoughts will invariably get in the way. When this happens, don’t be annoyed or upset, just bring your attention back to the exercise. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and similarly it will take time to rein in your mind.
6. (if you have the time) You can go one step further, and use your power of concentration to identify with the object’s existence. Try to feel on the inbreath that the existence of the flame, and the qualities it embodies such as radiance, serenity and aspiration, are entering into you and becoming part of your own existence. On the outbreath, feel that your existence is expanding and spreading out from the centre of the chest and entering into the candle. In this way, you concentrate on the object to such an extent that you feel no separation between you and the object; your existence has expanded to include the candle. In this way you can identify ourself with the entire world.

Start off with a modest goal – i.e 3-5 minutes a day, and then gradually increase with time. After only a couple of weeks of doing this exercise, you should notice the progress – a clearer mind, better ability to cope with tasks, less stress, more serenity.

If you are inspired to try, please let us know how you got on! Good luck!

Shane Magee regularly gives meditation classes in Dublin on behalf of the Sri Chinmoy Centre. For more information visit Dublin Meditation

Related:

• An Easy to learn Meditation Exercise
• Introduction to Meditation

“It is impossible not to notice that, in some of the poorest parts of the world, most people, most of the time, appear to be happier than we are. In southern Ethiopia, for example, the poorest half of the poorest nation on earth, the streets and fields crackle with laughter. In homes constructed from packing cases and palm leaves, people engage more freely, smile more often, express more affection than we do behind our double glazing, surrounded by remote controls. This is not to suggest that poverty causes happiness…but while poverty does not cause happiness, there appears to be some evidence that wealth causes misery. Since 1950, 25-year-olds in Britain have become 10 times more likely to be affected by depression. And it is surely fair to say that most of us suffer from subclinical neuroses, anxiety or a profound discomfort with ourselves.”

George Monbiot, The Guardian, 27 August 2002

Since childhood, we are subtly yet continuously guided to look to the outside world and the material benefits it offers for contentment and happiness, such that for many of us, it is the only real way we know. Yet as we become repeatedly disappointed by outer events, we begin to lose faith in the possibility of there being any happiness at all. Instead of looking to outer events for inner happiness (living from the outside in), let us consider instead what happens when we instead look inwardly for happiness and then bring what receive from there to the outer world – living from the inside out. To those who have been embittered against the possibilities of happiness, the life changing effects this simple change in philosophy can bring may sound too good to be true, and yet millions of people from all over the world can attest to a happiness that comes not from chasing after the material things of the world, but from being grounded in the joy and inner peace of their own being.

A sense of purpose

When we start the day by going deep within through some practice of meditation (or prayer for those who are religiously inclined), slowly we begin to get in touch with the deepest parts of our being, and feel a connection to something vast and infinite, a greater sense of purpose than our own narrow desires and wants. In this space, – who you are, and what you are supposed to be doing with the short span of life you have on earth.

The funny thing is, each of us instinctively know this, and deep within we are always meaning to stop and catch some space to find out what we want – we always tell ourselves we will do it when we finish whatever it is we are caught up in at the moment! The Tibetan Buddhist teacher Sogyal Rinpoche called this ‘Western laziness’ – “cramming our lives with compulsive activity, so that there is no time at all to confront the real issues.” The outside world is often guilty of driving this behavour along, as if it knows that if we ever slowed down, the whole thing would just fall apart.

Intuition

In silence we learn that there are other ways of making decisions besides the mind, and that the mind isn’t even particularly good at making important life decisions. When the mind is silent, we can go beyond it and get in touch with our intuition, the inner feeling that comes from the depths of our being and which is an expression of our yearning . When we learn to listen to and trust this voice, we get a tremendous sense of peace and relief – we feel joy even before we embark on the course of action it suggests. “If the message comes from the soul, you will have tremendous conviction that you are doing the right thing.” writes meditation teacher Sri Chinmoy. “Also, both success and failure you will take with the same equanimity. While executing a message that you got from within, you will not expect anything in your own way. You will not expect any particular result. No, you will only follow the inner command. If you have this attitude, you will be able to know if a message has come from within.”

Simplicity

There are so many things we keep doing because in our minds we have imposed an obligation on ourselves, or because out of pride that ‘we have to finish it’, or some other reason completely unconnected with our own happiness. Many people report once they start spending some time with themselves on the journey of self discovery that this excess baggage begins to drop off, as the inner voice of intuition comes more to the fore and protests against these constraints on its inner freedom.

Spontaneity

When we go beyond the mind, we begin to rediscover some of the most beautiful qualities we had before our mind became fully developed. As children, we ran around from one place to the next, invented games on the spot and lived truly from moment to moment. Rediscovering this spontaneity gives us a tremendous freedom, liberating us to a great extent from the dullness of routine. In other words, the inner approach turns life from a chore into an adventure.

A sense of wonder

The mind gets bored with everything constantly requires new stimuli to keep it occupied, something the material world gladly provides. However when we go beyond the mind and into the heart, we feel a constant sense of new discovery and new wonder at life. Nothing becomes old or stale; the whole world becomes a giant playground where we eagerly await the next discovery that comes our way

Giving joy to others

Through meditation, your heart expands and you feel an increased sense of goodwill towards your fellow man. Happiness no longer comes from accumulating, but by giving what you have and what you are to give others joy. There is no conflict between helping others and following your own purpose – such is the interconnectedness of mankind, that by following your inner purpose, you automatically make others happy and the world a better place.

Picture: Kedar Misani, Sri Chinmoy Centre Gallery

I have been practising meditation for 9 years. Since I started, I never recall missing a day. Meditation has become something automatic and instinctive; whatever is happening externally, meditation is a constant undercurrent in my life. During the past 9 years, these are some of the things I have learnt from meditating.

It is Easy To Meditate Badly.

It is easy to sit down in meditation and spend 30 minutes with pleasant thoughts going through your mind; but, this is not really meditation. Unless there is a conscious and deliberate effort to silence the mind, your meditation is of little benefit. There is nobody who is going to reward you just for sitting in a chair for a long time. What counts is our ability to silence the mind; this is the essence of meditation, no matter what path we follow.

Meditation is part personal effort – part grace.

In the beginning we feel meditation is all personal effort. But, when we meditate well, we paradoxically feel that we are not making any effort at all. It feels like there is something that is meditating on our behalf. This experience occurs because the soul comes to the fore. Good meditation doesn’t involve our mind; but, our inner being or soul. This is why there is a strange feeling of not actually doing anything.

Good Meditation Always wants to Share.

One of the most surprising features of meditation is that when you meditate well, there is an unmistakeable desire to inwardly share this consciousness with others. There is a feeling that the peace you experience, instinctively belongs to others. It is not possible to separate the meditative consciousness and keep it for yourself. Meditation expands our sense of awareness; it gives an unexpected sense of connection with other people. This is not a mere intellectual idea of oneness; but something that can only ever be felt and experienced.

Gratitude.

If you have a powerful meditation there is a strong sense of gratitude; this is much more than our usual polite way of saying thank-you. It is a spontaneous feeling that our meditation is a gift which we can only feel gratitude for.

The Ego wants to Spoil Meditation.

It is quite common that good meditation becomes spoilt by the intervention of the ego. Our meditation may go very well, but then the ego starts to spoil it by creating a sense of spiritual pride. When we feel pride in our meditation, we know it has taken the wrong turn. To meditate well, we have to give up all idea and concept of displaying anything to other people. When we meditate well there is no desire for anyone to outwardly know. Meditation is something sacred that can only be shared inwardly. In the best meditation there is no sense of self; perhaps momentarily we forget about our sense of “i ness”. We feel that the meditation is impersonal, and just about consciousness.

The World Makes Sense.

It seems justice has never been born in the outer world, and perhaps never will. But, in meditation, there is a feeling that somehow everything makes sense and will work out. I cannot explain this or even attempt to justify it with words; but, that is definitely an experience of meditation.

There is Nothing To Learn.

I remember a couple of meditations where the only feeling was that I was merely remembering something I always had. The meditation did not give anything new, it was merely the recollection of something from a distant past. At the same time there was a feeling, why had this innocence and sense of being ever been lost?

Inspiration.

There are many techniques for meditation; but the real secret of meditation is the inner cry, the aspiration to transcend the mental world. This inspiration can come in many forms, but it is far more powerful than any technique.

Meditation in Every Day Life.

The mind wants to criticise and feel a sense of separativity. Meditation encourages us to live in the heart and forget mistakes and criticism. I often feel a split personality in life. The mind is prone to depression and negativity; the heart just experiences, without negativity. Life is a constant choice between the two. Meditation encourages us to forget the pedantic criticisms of the mind and live in the heart. Once we have experienced real inner peace, we become more sensitive to cherishing the opposites of anger and frustration.

Music and Meditation.

The right kind of meditative music can definitely inspire our meditation. I am fortunate to have access to many excellent recordings of meditation music. The highest meditation is in absolute silence; but meditating to music can definitely inspire us.

Psychic Centres.

In many spiritual books you will read about the seven main ‘chakras’ or energy centres. Through meditation these centres can be opened, at least partially; they can be felt as a real physical sensation. My meditation teacher, Sri Chinmoy, advises meditating on the spiritual heart or anahata chakra; this is in the centre of the chest, near the physical heart. In meditation we can feel the energy of the spiritual heart; there is an uplifting sensation of the energy spinning and revolving. It is an excellent thing to focus on during meditation.

Meditation and Sleep.

Meditation when you are sleepy doesn’t work. For meditation you have to be awake and alert. Meditation is a heightening of awareness; it is completely opposite to the relaxation of being unconscious.

Meditation Has No Fixed Goal.

After meditating for 10 years, I feel I have barely made it to the starting line. There have been good experiences, there have been times when meditation has proved difficult. But, there is also a feeling that I have only experienced a glimpse of the real consciousness of meditation. Reading the writings of saints and spiritual masters gives an insight into the nature of pure consciousness and encourages us to strive for more.

There is an Underlying Unity in Religious / Spiritual Experiences.

If we examine the scripture and religions of the world with our mind, we see many differences and conflict. But, meditation teaches us to place less emphasis on outer ritual and more on the inner life. Through the experience of meditation I have come to appreciate that different spiritual traditions lead to the same inner experiences. The meditation of a Christian saint offers the same consciousness as the meditation of a Sufi or Buddhist. The way we approach the goal doesn’t matter, ultimately we are aiming for the same goal, the same consciousness.

It is impossible to describe meditation because the experience far transcends the mind; no words can ever do it justice. But, through poetry and other writings we can get a glimpse an inkling of what lies within. If we have no experience with meditation, these words might not make much sense. But, if we meditate and discover our own inner reality we come to appreciate and value the offerings of the Saints and Spiritual Masters.

“No mind, no form, I only exist;
Now ceased all will and thought;
The final end of Nature’s dance,
I am it whom I have sought.”

- Excerpt from The Absolute, Sri Chinmoy

Other Meditation Links

• Introduction to Meditation
• How To Control Your Thoughts
• Basic Steps for Learning meditation

Photo by: Unmesh Swanson, Sri Chinmoy Centre Galleries

A new study shows that meditation can help bring forward the quality of compassion. – Meditate on this.

I think the reason meditation brings forward the quality of compassion is that when we meditate we transcend the mind. The mind is by nature critical; it thinks of things to judge and criticise. When we meditate we quieten the critical mind and bring to the fore the inner qualities of the heart. In meditation we also expand our sense of self. We do not just identify with our ego, but feel a greater sense of oneness with other people.

We have written a few posts on meditation including

• An introduction to meditation.
• How To control your thoughts.

Other Recommended Links

• Alex Shalman shares his experiences of practising meditation in – The Monk’s way to inner peace. As Alex suggests, meditation is not always easy but, if you create a regular discipline it becomes more natural as you progress.
• Albert from Urban monk shares a thoughtful contribution on Love and Aloneness It is strange that we can spend so much time with other people, and yet still feel a sense of loneliness. It is often the ego that creates barriers and a sense of separation; it is this that really creates a sense of loneliness. It reminded me of a post by Shane on the difference between love and emotional attachment
• Another article I liked very much recently is How To Find Your True purpose by Todd at We The Change. I think it asks very thoughtful questions and doesn’t overcomplicate the essential process of self inquiry and self discovery.
• Sumangali wrote a good post – 7 Surprising things that are good for your health. – good news for chocolate lovers!

Thanks

Thanks to all our commentators, especially Chris Cade of Spiritual Short Stories, whose comment on The Art of Forgiveness was worthy of a post by itself.

Random Links

If you are looking for a really good laugh, I can highly recommend this British film classic staring Peter Sellers and a plethora of stars. – The Wrong Arm of the Law had me laughing all the way through.

Photo by: Tejvan, Oxford Botanic Gardens