Beyond Mat:Initiating Meditation

Meditation is an important component in the yoga system, perceived as incomplete without learning meditation. Achieving a balance between mind and body may appear challenging while attempting meditation. However, the process can be smoothened with a focused mind and proper positioning. Meditation aim to relax the mind, improves concentration, heals insomnia, control anger and many other million good reasons. There are several areas to be considered while performing meditation including posture.

   

Posture helps one to remain focused and also the source of distractions too. Ideally, should sit upright on the ground without leaning to the wall or object while meditating. Apart from sitting, you may lie down facing ceiling too with legs and hands apart. The limitations for meditation are age and physical disabilities so meditating while sitting in the chair still acceptable, possibly by keeping the spine straight. In addition, sitting straight upright helps to align the chakra(energy circles in the body).

    Next, meditation duration frequently appears to be the source of misunderstanding. There is no ideal timing nor duration to carry out meditation keeping in mind that meditation is a practice to mind and body. Beginners may find it difficult to even remain 1minutes idle so rush in mind result in early abortion of the practice. So let meditation be stress-free, convenient and self-paced. Start by relaxing mind and body for 3-5minutes, then begin by focusing on one specific point before closing eyes tight before getting deep into meditation. Remain as long as you can or motivate your mind to remain silent for a certain duration as per your comfort. You may exit if your mind started to create too much havoc. But this may improve over time , proportional to practice frequency.Thoughts appearance is a common phenomenon while meditating. Stopping those thoughts is not the aim or goal of meditation.