What is meditation and the benefits of practicing it?

Meditation is a spiritual practice which helps to experience the state of consciousness by resting your mind which is completely different than your waking state. It is a silent inward journey which can help to clear your mind, make you feel relaxed, and help to acquaint with your eternal existence or consciousness. Your physical existence is not who you are rather you are a consciousness or soul which lies within you. This is the best spiritual practice to access your infinite intelligence, creativity, hidden greatness, soul energy and helps to minimize your ego, anger, stress, heart rate, blood pressure and so on.

The entire Universe is within you and you can alter the quality of your life to a higher dimension once your mind, body, and soul are in a positive harmony. You can harmonize your mind, body, and soul in a positive manner once you practice this spiritual technique on a regular basis. Your life consists of personal, professional, relationship, health and spiritual life which can be balanced in a positive way through a spiritual practice called meditation. The regular practice of meditation can help to heal your emotional issues, traumatic issues, grief issues and lot more.

The source of all existence lies within you and you can access it wisely once you have a spiritual alignment with your eternal self or consciousness or soul which is your real existence. Actually, you don’t need to be a meditation expert to practice meditation in your day to day life rather it is experientially learned. When you invest your 30 minutes to 1 hour every day on practicing meditation then you can experience a self fulfilled and divinely destined version of your life. You can practice it on a daily basis once you expand your awareness regarding its impact on your key areas of life.

Types of Meditation techniques?
There are various kinds of meditation techniques but it depends which works for you while practicing it. Everyone has their own preference regarding the meditation technique and the most popular types of meditation techniques are given below.

*Mindfulness meditation
*Spiritual meditation
*Focused meditation
*Movement meditation
*Mantra meditation
*Transcendental meditation

What is focused meditation?

I have been practicing and teaching “Focused meditation” to my coaching clients where the focus of attention is “breath”. In focused meditation, you can focus or concentrate by using your 5 senses. You can focus something internal like your breath or you can use external influences to focus your attention like staring at a burning candle, counting mala beads or listening to a gong. Breathing technique is one of the easiest and the most effective technique I have been practicing and recommending to my clients.

Most of the people have misunderstanding and misconception regarding the working mechanism of the meditation practice but once you understand its working mechanism then you can practice it easily. You might not feel comfortable to practice it in the beginning phase but once you keep practicing it persistently with the right level of awareness regarding its working mechanism then you can master it sooner or later. You are subconsciously conditioned to live your life in your own pattern of habits and when you are introduced to do something different than usual then it takes some time to get used to it.

How to practice a focused meditation where the focus of attention is your”breath”?

You can practice meditation in a very quiet location either sitting on a chair or floor. It will be more comfortable and relaxed once you practice it by sitting on the floor being in comfortable clothing. Never practice meditation being in uncomfortable clothing and in loud music. Your meditative posture should make you feel relaxed. You just need to fold your legs, make your spine straight, head up and close your eyes without stressing on your forehead region. When you are in a complete meditative posture then focus your attention on your inhalation and exhalation of breath.

While inhaling and exhaling your breath, you can use one mantra “So Ham”-(By DR Chopra Mantra) in your mind, not by your voice. The mantra is used to focus your attention on your breath without being judgmental. During the meditation period, your thought, emotions, body sensations and external environment may distract you a lot which can be minimized through focusing on your breath using a mantra. Your thought chattering is simply like a street dog and once you engage yourself with it being judgmental then it can engage you more. Suppose if you stare at a street dog then it will bark at you but if you ignore and keep walking on your own path then it will stop barking at you within few seconds.

It’s better to focus on your breath despite countless distraction then you can reach the state of thoughtlessness where your thoughts will have no power to distract you or rule over you.  When you reach the point of thoughtless state then you can align with your eternal self or spiritual self spiritually which can help to make you a limitless being. You can be the best version of yourself and experience a life of self-fulfillment, inner joy, and inner peace once you practice meditation on a regular basis being disciplined. Finally, you can be an enlightened and awakened soul with a higher level of intelligence, creativity, and pure love once you practice meditation on a daily basis.

When and how often to practice it?

You have to practice it for at least 15 to 20 minutes twice a day being disciplined. The best time to practice it is before you sleep and once you wake up in the morning. You might not be able to practice for straight 20 minutes, in the beginning, so you can practice for 5 to 10 minutes for 4 days then increase up to 20 minutes at the end of that week. ​I would highly recommend you all to practice it for the lifetime since it is an essence of your life to harmonize your mind, body, and soul which are the solid foundations for harmonizing your key areas of life.

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