Hello. In this article I will help determine the choice of techniques of meditation, as promised. There are several types of meditation on my website, this is meditation with the Indian mantra that I practice. I also translated from English six lectures on meditation, which were given by famous masters of this practice. With lectures you can read the links from this article. Each of them presents a specific meditation technique.
So which meditation to choose? What will suit you personally? It is difficult to navigate the sea of various teachings and techniques, when each of them offers something different from the others. Well, let me make it easier for you. First you need to understand some thing.
There is not much difference between different meditation techniques.
Different techniques of meditation, in fact, differ little from each other in terms of effect and the general principle of effects on the body. At least those of them that are based on concentration on the image, the word, the breath. I do not include any exotic meditations here. It turns out that the choice of the most appropriate meditation is much easier than you think.
I believe that the difference in the effects of different schools of meditation is only imaginary and is dictated partly by faith in the uniqueness of one’s own technique, by who it represents, and partly by some kind of marketing policy. I will explain why. One schoolteacher can claim that his meditation allows you to relax, the next one says that his technique will reveal the love of life in you, the third promises improved health. One advises to read the mantra, the second to represent the luminous point, the third - to concentrate on breathing.
Seeing a big difference here is the same as evaluating the effect of two drugs for headache differently, if one of them contains sugar, currant extract to improve taste and analgin, and the other contains vitamin C, bilberry extract and analgin. The first in green packaging, the second in blue with yellow circles.
It is clear that both drugs will help for headaches equally, as analgin will be held back here and there, and all other additives will only affect the taste and, like the packaging design, are present there only to distinguish this product from a mass of identical goods on the market.
Meditation teachers do about the same thing; they try to present their product as unique. But despite this, those lectures that I translated as part of the Meditationfest cycle are very valuable and contain a lot of useful tips and interesting techniques. For example, five-minute meditation in the morning and before bedtime.
Regarding the recommendations on how to meditate and what meditation provides, I found interesting in this respect the lecture of the Himalayan guru Swami Veda Bharati, who tells how it is possible to stop the internal dialogue and whether it is possible to fall asleep during meditation. And I got great pleasure from the lecture of the Jedi Mali, in it she talks about how meditation helps get rid of the illusions with which we are all exposed and about the physiological aspects of the brain in a meditative state.
The general principle of all meditation
But, nevertheless, in my opinion, all these different techniques of meditation are also based on similar principles. Whatever you imagine purple light or space filled with stars, whatever you focus your attention on mantra or on breathing, all the same, the basis of all this is one general principle. When you keep attention on one thing, you stop all that flow of thoughts that is in your usual state, you replace it with some kind of one phrase or image.
This volitional exercise greatly helps to relax, bring thoughts in order and relieve the brain from excessive information. You fall into a state of rest, when all the muscles of your body are completely relaxed, your mind is directed to one point, it is resting, it is not tormented by hundreds of thoughts and does not embrace worries. If you do this every day, then after a while you will feel a sense of well-being, calmness, an awakening of consciousness, which may even entail a certain overestimation of values. You will realize that you have become more in control of your body, have begun to listen to your mind, and not to be led by passions. In general, the effect of meditation is much wider and deeper than you can imagine.
Meditation gives a lot more than you can imagine
I started meditating in the hope that it will act on me as an antidepressant: relieve depression and constant anxiety that tormented me for several years. And after some time, I got rid of mental distress, anxiety and panic attacks (panic attacks) through meditation, as I wanted. Now my state of mind can be described as even, stable and constantly elevated without noticeable fluctuations in one direction or another. I learned to relax and stopped needing alcohol, smoking or something else in order to calm down or cheer myself up.
But I could not even imagine that this practice would provide incomparably more than just getting rid of depression and stabilizing the emotional background. She allowed a more sober look at herself, at her shortcomings and to do a lot of work on herself without which this site with all its articles and conclusions would not exist. Maybe later I will write about what I got from meditation (I have already written), since this is a topic for a separate article, but it gave me a lot and is able to give you too. And therefore, I firmly believe that if a person does not meditate, then he voluntarily gives up the whole mass of advantages that meditation can give, it may even doom itself to suffering and life less happy and full than that which it would have if he was meditating.
More details about what meditation gave me in the article by reference.
The choice of techniques of meditation. Is this important?
But okay, we are not much distracted. We continue. So, as for the differences of different types of practice: it’s not true that one technique of meditation helps to relax, and the second, will improve health. Any meditation will help you achieve all of this at once and no matter which one you choose.
In short, if we are talking about choosing a particular technique, then I would not say that it should be approached with particular care, take what is closer to you. I think that you can even allow a certain scope for creativity: you can think of what you will imagine when you are meditating, or you can combine several different techniques in one session! The main thing is not to miss the general principle: you should relax as much as possible, try not to think about anything, immerse yourself in silent contemplation of an image in your imagination or words, prayers, free yourself from worries, memories and plans for the time of the session.
Personally, I practice a 20-minute meditation with a mantra, it is a simple meditation, there is nothing difficult to master. I gave the link at the beginning of the article. And with a list of Indian mantras can be found at this link. I combine meditation with a short, two minute breathing exercise to quickly relax. You can use the same technique, you can do it differently, but I would recommend to still read the mantra if you yourself do not know what to choose, although, as I said, there is not much difference.
Some lectures, including those whose translations I published on this site, recommend concentrating on the energy flows that circulate inside the body. I am not a supporter of such meditation, since I cannot be sure of the existence of such flows. But again, all this is your choice.
Myths and prejudices about meditation
On this perhaps all that concerns the choice of techniques of meditation. Here I said that there are different ways to meditate and, in my opinion, they do not differ much from each other in terms of effect and are based on a general principle. This applies to different techniques. Naturally, I don’t even touch upon such nonsense as love meditation or money meditation, i.e. practices that are supposed to attract money or love.
Of course, meditation attracts money and love, but indirectly, if you practice, then over time you become more confident, morally strong and independent. Having such qualities to earn money or find love is much easier than when your personality does not have such properties.
But I doubt that you can directly attract money with some kind of prayer during meditation. The conviction of such magical properties of mantra or prayer is a reflection of the archaic and greedy belief that the gods will give you handouts, find you a love partner and act as a financial sponsor if you ask them to.
Meditation is not a request addressed to an unknown higher reason, not a magical way to get something, but a method of self-development, an exercise of concentration and relaxation, which will undoubtedly improve your life, but only when you make efforts for it, and not with handouts from the gods. Everything depends on you and only you build your life, you should not wait for heavenly mercy, or gifts of fate, you are responsible for everything.
