Meditation
Meditation is moving into a state of calm; still, open and aware. It is in this state that health flourishes, Universal wisdom can be received and healing can be assisted in most profound ways.
You can meditate for 10 seconds, 5 minutes, 20 minutes, an hour, whatever feels right to you. It will only help.
There are countless forms of meditation. Here I will share a silent mantra form with you. This has been immensely beneficial to many. A mantra is a repeated phrase which gives your mind an activity other than thinking of anything else. Some use mantras with understandable meanings which help them to focus on specific things. Others use words which have no specific meaning, Transcendental Meditation (TM) being one example.
From the beginner to the advanced, meditators may experience times when their mind seems to just “take over”, thinking about to-do’s, obsessing about events or relationships, being distracted by a car passing by or a fly in the room, and so on. These are just habits of the mind. We can all learn to change these habits. One tool I have found to be effective is, when you notice you are thinking, silently acknowledge the thoughts and tell them, “I will come back to you later”. Then return to repeating your mantra.
Mantras
Here are some mantras you may find beneficial:
Peace To My Universe – Here you refer to your soul, body and its energy field as “my Universe”.
Open Allow Trust Love Now – This can be read like a sentence, but each word holds its own world of meaning too.
We Are The Love, Release The Fear – “Fear” could be substituted with “pain”, “sorrow”, “loss”, “shame”, “guilt”, “worry”, or anything else which would benefit you to stop carrying around. When you refine it, it all winds up being some sort of fear anyway, so I usually just use the word “fear”.
I encourage you to see if any new mantras come to you in meditation or from other sources, and experiment with mantras containing sounds with non-specific meaning.
Sounds
Here are two recordings I have made for you to meditate with if you like.
The first is, "We Are The Love, Release The Fear". This recording features voices of a woman, a man, a girl and a boy singing the mantra, with Tibetan singing bowl in the background. After a ‘releasing’ phase, the voices just sing, “WE ARE THE LOVE” for a bit, while the listener refills the spaces left from releasing the negative stuff they no longer needed to carry. In all the singing lasts 18 minutes, followed by just the singing bowl for an open period of meditation. The whole program is 33.3 minutes long, easily used as an 18 minute meditation if you choose.
The second recording is just 33.3 minutes of the one singing bowl. Listening to just the one bowl drone makes for a certain kind of very focused-feeling meditation for me. Most of the time however, I listen to nice recordings of multiple bowls, such as my fave, Seven Metals: Singing Bowls of Tibet by Benjamin Iobst.
Of course meditating in silence is also beneficial.
Let's Begin
Find a place devoid of interruption. If you are in a very chaotic environment and you’re searching for a spot for a short meditation try a bathroom, people don't usually bother you in there. Turn off your phone.
Sitting in an upright position with a vertical spine is best, but you can meditate in any position.
Remember: if you find yourself thinking just go back to focusing on the mantra or your breathing.
Close your eyes. Very quietly and slowly, but as deeply as possible take three breaths in through your nose and out through your mouth.
Silently repeat your mantra. Allow the mantra to get faster and faster naturally, until the words fall on top of each other and it becomes one calming sound in your mind. If it feels natural for the words to remain slower and separate that is fine, there is no wrong way to do this.
Picture the top of your head opening and connecting to the highest source energy from which you came.
“Invite” all of the cells in your head to repeat the mantra with you, as if you are their choir director. Move through each area of your head until it is vibrating with the mantra and then move slowly down to include your neck, then lungs, then heart and so on through your organs and whole torso, then your shoulders, arms and hands. Include your legs and feet until your whole body is vibrating with the mantra.
Now, with your whole body vibrating with the mantra, take three more very deep breaths in through your nose and out through your mouth.
Give thanks in any direction you wish and slowly allow your eyes to open, leaving you refreshed and relaxed, more aware and consciously connected to your source.
Attitudes
If you find yourself frustrated with distracting noises and events while meditating simply remind yourself, “This is good practice” and return to the mantra, or if you must stop, at least be glad you tried.
We are all just students of life after all. If we practice meditation then we are students of that, there is no “graduation”. After some practice people find extremely positive results from meditation leading to great joy, but then occasionally may find times when their daily life seems to “keep them” from practicing as often as they would like. If you find yourself feeling disappointed that you haven’t been meditating as often or as well as you have wished, try to move your thoughts back to, “I’m glad I’m remembering about meditation and how it will help me to practice; it feels so good!” If your mood when it comes to the topic of meditation is kept positive you will be more inclined to practice, and this will help you flourish and feel great in ways you can’t even imagine.
So hurry up and relax!
Love and light, Hershel