Here comes the practical part.
The first question comes to mind: how to do or start meditating?
I think that I should take one more point here before that. As i said before in this thread that mind and consciousness exist in very much amalgamated form in the body. As we all know that the mind is connected to each and every body part through nerves, thus being amagamated with the mind, Consciouness also spreads through the whole body. So, when we concentrate mind at any one point or thing, Consciouness has no option but to concentratrate itself too. Meditation takes advange of this default mechanism.
Now, let us get into the methodology of mediation.
The first thing to do here is to be into a confortable position. This may be of any type like sitting with crossed legs, sitting on the chair with legs down or even lying on the bed, either straight or at any side. Postures do not matter. Different people may feel comfortable in diferent postures. For myself, sitting does not work well so i lie down stright on my back. The only important thing regarding the postures which is important, is that once coming into the desired posture, you are not supposed to move your body, not even a bit, as long as you are meditating. This condition should not be violated otherwise that whole session would go in vain.
Now, let us assume that a person has gotten into his/her comfortable posture. The second thing to do is to close eyes. I also have mentioned its reason already in the thread above. The next thing is to find something to concentate upon. That object may be anything, a picture of anyone or sound byte. I can tell from my personal experience that a sound byte suits the most. You have to chose a small sound byte according to your taste. That may be a small mantra according to your belief, like Ya Allah, Om Namo Shivay or whatever. Please remember, It is not necessary to chose any religious thing, though that may be helpful but it also can be done without that.
The only important thing regarding the sound byte is that it should not be long, but consisted of merely 3,4 words, otherwise it would not work porperly.
After choosing a sound byte, you have to repeat it, slowy and alertly, preferably in the mind, though it may be difficult in the starting. You tounge will move slightly automatically even if you do not want. That is fine and no need to force the issue. And, you will realize that the image of the words of the sound byte will keep poping up before your mental eyes, as you repeat those. That is natural thing to happen. If you can focus on that images too along with the sound byte. that would enhance the speed of the process.
That is all you have to do, nothing else. Just keep repeating that sound byte in your mind, as long as you can. The process looks very simple on the paper but quite difficult to implement. The reason is our subconscious mind, which is forced to go against its own will by our effort to focus on one thing. So, subconscious will keep distracting from the goal . As the result, conscious mind forget what it was doing and go with the thoughts popping in the subconscious. This will happen again and again but you have to keep it bringing to that sound byte.
If one closely observes this struggle, he/she will be surprized to see how much is stored in the subsconscious and how it keeps popping up, even against one’s will. One will get totally unrelated waves of thoughts like from the childhood or what may happen in the distant future. This subconscious is an uncontrolable beast inside us and needs to be tamed down. And, if we keep patience, it will untimalely surrender.
There are some fine points and explanations are also pertinent here which i will take in the next post.
With love,
sanjay