Exploring Meditation:
A Learner’s Guide to Different Forms of Meditation
- Have you wanted to start a meditation practice but can’t get it to stick?
- You may just have not found the right type of meditation for you.
- Or are you a therapist or healer and want to learn more about meditation to use with your clients?
- Meditation is not one size fits all, and individualizing meditation techniques to fit your client’s needs is optimal for healing
Part One: Yoga Meditation
With it’s popularization in the West, many know of yoga in the context of physical fitness. However yoga is so much more than that. Created as a tool to help the mind cease jumping from tree to tree like a wild monkey, the ultimate goal of yoga is enlightenment through meditation. The popularized postures, or asanas, within yoga only makes up one of the eight limbs (ashtanga) of yoga. These eight limbs detail the steps one must take in order to reach a meditative state, and are as follows:
- Yama (Abstention: compassion for all living things, commitment to truthfulness, non-stealing, sense of control, denying greed)
- Niyama (Observance: inner and outer purity/cleanliness, contentment/gratitude, self-study, and spirituality)
- Asanas (Body Postures)
- Pranayama (Breath Work)
- Pratyahara (withdrawing of consciousness
- Dhyrana (Concentration)
- Dhyanan (Contemplation or Devotion or Meditation on the Divine)
- Samadhi (Being or No Mind or Union with the Divine)
The last 4 limbs of yoga describe the meditative possibilities once one has done the work of the first limbs. However, I propose that your growth through this model may be dynamic and you may fluctuate on the spectrum of each of these limbs. Hence complete mastery of each limb is not necessary to reach a meditative state involving the final stages. Here is quick guide with more information:
Resources to Learn More:
Book: Living Your Yoga: Finding Spiritual in Everyday Life by Judith Lasater, PhD
Book: Meditation the Complete Guide by Patricia Monaghan and Eleanor Viereck
Book: Yoga Sutras of Patanjali by Swami Vivekananda
Link: The Eight Limbs of Yoga
Link: Beginning Yoga Meditation
Yoga Meditation: How to Begin
1. Start with a few stretches if not a full series of yoga postures
2. Sit in comfortable seated position
3. Bring your attention to your breath and body. Most people suggest monitoring the rise and fall of the belly however I find it easier to focus on the sensation of the air flowing through the nostrils.
4. Give yourself a few moments in this space, using your attention to notice your thoughts without indulging in them.
5. When you feel comfortable (maybe even in the next session), pick an object to focus on physical or mental such as a candle, beads, a prayer, affirmation, or mantra. Concentrate on this object either by repeating the mantra, prayer, etc or lightly gazing at your physical object like a candle
6. After you have spent some time concentrating, (maybe even many sessions later), see if you shift your awareness and focus away from concentration to contemplating your awareness and perspective of your own existence contemplating your object.
7. Possibly (could be MANY MOONS LATER) you will be able to move even deeper into your yoga meditation practice and merge your being with the object, going beyond contemplation or a separate perspective.
Happy Meditating
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