Meditation

As I was browsing through the questions on Quora, I realized that there is a lot of confusion about meditation and spiritual practices. Yes, everyone is free or feels entitled to answer questions, and most people have good intentions, but without sufficient knowledge and understanding we can easily confuse those looking for guidance.
I will try to raise in this article many points that we need to consider when looking at mediation practices.
First of all, we must understand that even though we come from the same source, we are different and unique. And the characteristic that makes us different in the first place is our experiences. Imagine one person born in the Middle East and another in America. Experience is completely different. In fact, the influence of community and society can be an important factor in shaping one’s uniqueness.
Religions can be a factor that pits us against each other or promotes the idea that we are better than others.
Choosing to be born into a rich family can have a different impact than growing up in a poor family.
All these experiences and the environment can influence our consciousness and take us in different ways, or make us believe in society and its leaders, or follow a religious path and put our faith in God.
I’ve always imagined life as a tree that we build as we go. Every day we make a decision and create a new branch. Every choice we make can give us a unique experience, and in the end we may be able to gather the fruits of our tree.
With all this said, let’s return to mediation. Let’s again choose two different experiences of two people. Both would like to explore meditation as a tool for self-realization.
And here I have noticed that in Western societies, where meditation is becoming more and more intertwined with society, all teachers are trying to highlight its benefits.
I have heard so many times that meditation is great for health, relaxation, stress or depression, and people who like these ideas start these practices. Many fail from the start because they don’t realize that we need practice and patience. Others are successful in achieving the mission of mental health care.
But this is not the role of mediation. As we look further east, we discover that meditation practices were intended to connect with a higher consciousness. We can call it God, Source or whatever we want. But that’s what mediation is for. Everything else is the residual effects of mediation. Mental health, physical health, tranquility or inner peace are just the side effects.
This all happens when we mediate and return to the pure consciousness we used to be. Because when we do, all the so-called problems of the physical world are revealed as nothing more than mind-created problems. We understand that all contradictions, debates and competitions are only obstacles to our spiritual development.
However, because Western societies place more emphasis on science and promote the idea of ​​an atheistic-humanist person, no teacher, if he wants to be successful, will bring God into the picture. Once they do, their audience will decrease significantly.
The one who wants to learn and practice meditation must be open-minded and more than open-minded. These are the conditions for using meditation at its true potential.
Now let’s talk about practice. To practice we need patience because, like everything in life, we have to work hard and have the patience to achieve our goals, whether it is science, sports or perhaps meditation techniques.
As I said, this is the main reason a large percentage give up after a few tries.
We often hear the expression, “This isn’t for me; I can not do it. I tried it, but it doesn’t work.”
Another reason why many people who think about mediation don’t even start is that they use their mind to find an excuse. In that regard, we hear “I don’t have time” as the most popular excuse. I even heard someone say, “I’m too busy; I’m going to start meditating when my kids go to college.” In fact, we are stuck in the physical world, and as long as we have the feeling and intuition that there is something left to explore, we ignore it all and continue in the same direction that leads nowhere.
So the first lesson in meditation is to begin and be patient. Simple, right?
How do we do meditation? The idea is simple. We need to stop the thoughts from coming in, and more than that, we need to stop entertaining those thoughts.
As a physical being I think and say it is impossible. I can’t stop thinking! As a spiritual being, the story is different.
To stop the flow of thoughts flowing into our brain, we need to find a little distraction, and the first thing we will learn during meditation is to focus on breathing: inhaling and exhaling. That said, we use a bit of our imaginative brain. Let’s imagine we see the air coming in and then coming out again. Surprisingly, we realize that fewer thoughts occur to us. We all know this intuitively. How often do we see people panic and hear that we need to breathe in and out to calm down? Well, this process that science calls oxygen transfer is more than that. It is a transfer of energy that balances our body. Yes, science tries to explain everything in the language they know, saying that we give more oxygen to the brain and therefore relax our body. The brain stimulates the production of relaxing chemicals, and we relax.
But what if we no longer remember to explain everything in scientific terms? Because as soon as we try to explain everything scientifically, we set the brainiac thinking in motion again and defeat the mechanism of mediation.
Breathing in and out is an easy step in the pursuit of meditation. Some of us still have some problems, so we tell them to count every breath from one until then. And again, counting distracts us from thinking.
Now the time. How long should we meditate every day? It is one of the most popular questions. Some want to have a fixed number of minutes or hours, but that is not the case. When we start, we must be consistent and not give up. Let’s say starting with five minutes a day is fine, but we shouldn’t skip it. That’s really important. The more we do it, the better we become at it. In a short period we increase the time to ten minutes, twenty or thirty minutes. We get better and better every day, and with more extensive practice we begin to experience the real benefit: our spiritual connection.
The last step we need to follow is to experience and practice different techniques. We can use visualization with white light, a series of repetitive words (mantras) or images of loved ones. These are all later techniques that we can learn. The point is that we don’t have to use them all at any given time. We should use the one that resonates with us. Some of us may listen to relaxing music, Tibetan gongs, or someone providing guided meditation. Whatever suits us, we will use it. That’s the best rule.
Another thing I would like to talk about is the meditation posture. Should we try using those yoga poses? Should we sit or lie down? The answer is that we should use the position that is most comfortable for us, with the proviso that it should not be so comfortable that we fall asleep.
The last piece of advice about meditation that many asked is whether we need a teacher. Some of us need a teacher, and others may be inspired by videos on the Internet. It’s up to us, and we have to be honest with ourselves. How do we make progress? If we remember that our progress is within our expectations, we can continue with it. If not, we can always look for an instructor, teacher or master.
And as far as expectations are concerned, I would say that we should not have ambitious expectations. Mediation must take place within a natural process. I know when we start out, we may want to experience what masters or gurus experience, but again, patience is a virtue. Even after years of meditation, we may not become the experts we want to be, but that doesn’t matter; only practice counts.
There are still many things we can discuss during meditation, but I will stop here tonight. I’ll try to post another article later with a more advanced view and techniques we can use.