MEDITATION for Beginners- Part 1

There are a lot of misconceptions and confusions surrounding meditation prevalent nowadays. While it has been popular in Hindu and Buddhist cultures since ages there has been growing awareness and interest among the Western countries since the last couple of decades. Traditionally meditation has been prescribed as means to attain enlightenment which refers to realization of our purpose in life and achieving a connection with the Supreme power or God.

These concepts are quite esoteric and complex to fathom for a person who does not belong to a culture where meditation has been practiced as a part of life. It is also less popular among the youth in Asia today owing to the fact that it does not belong to regular curriculum at school and inflow of western practices in the east. Another constraint people face is that benefits of meditation are not easy to measure and quantify. This makes it difficult to understand the benefits that meditation has to offer, plus the fact that meditation requires time and needs to be done for extended periods makes many people give up midway if they are expecting some quick miracles.

I would propose the following guidelines to someone who is thinking of experimenting with meditation for the first time:

• START SMALL: Start by smaller time intervals for meditating eg. 10-15 mins at a stretch

• STRETCH: Depending on your progress and how quickly you are able to control the initial restlessness, extend this duration gradually by slots of 5 mins

• TARGET: Gradually after a month or two you should be able to meditate continuously for 40-45 minutes at a stretch. This is sufficient and as a beginner you should not go beyond 45 mins

• ROUTINE: Try to fix a set time for meditating so it is easier to build a routine. Ideally you should meditate early in the morning as your mind is fresh but if due to personal or professional constraints you get time only in the evenings or nights that is also fine

• DISCIPLINE: Make sure you set aside some time everyday regularly, even on your busy days. Try to stick to this for at least 2 months before you make a decision if you want t continue further or not

• JOURNAL: Make a daily note of your progress, you can also add some note about your experiences. Some days you might find it extremely challenging and on some days you might be overwhelmed by a feeling of bliss after your session

When you start meditating a natural question will come to your mind that how do you know if you are doing this right and there are any improvements in your life by this. Undoubtedly you can’t expect to achieve enlightenment in your first month or feel the divine presence of god (though there are some people who report out of the world experiences within the first few months but those are rare case). Still there are some changes you certainly will start to observe within the first month if you have been meditating properly.

• REDUCED STRESS & ANXIETY: The first impact of meditation is controlling and calming the mind. The mind is by nature flickering and restless. It keeps worrying about insignificant things which leads to build up of stress. You will start noticing that you don’t easily get stressed by situations which earlier used to make you anxious

• IMPROVED SLEEP: This is linked to previous point. As your mind calms down you will not be up night worrying about myriad issues of the world. You will feel you are able to sleep deeply, specially for people who have problems like disturbed sleep and wake up frequently during the night

• IMPROVED MEMORY: As meditations strengthens your mind you will see improvement in memory very early in your meditation journey

As you would have noticed most of the benefits are directly related to your mind which is the first to receive benefits to meditation. Once your mind is on the right track it boosts your confidence and outlook towards life. This in turn leads to physical benefits like improved health and enhanced immunity levels which protects you from common illnesses. These mental and physical benefits are stepping stones in your meditation journey and as you keep meditating your mind keeps expanding preparing you for the eventual enlightenment.

I will you all the best for your meditation journeys, and will soon be writing a post about the process of meditating effectively.

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Originally posted on my blog at - http://millenialsoul.com/2018/11/01/meditation-for-beginners-part-1/