The Many Ways Of Doing Meditation

Mediation has multiple facets. Selecting the one that fits your physical health, profession, nature, and time available, forms the core. 5-7 am and 6-8 pm are the best times for practising. Dhyan establishes mental poise, enhances confidence and concentration, reduces mental agitation. It provides solutions to cardiac problems, high blood pressure, aches, ulcers, acidity, etc.

Dhyan – A Blissful Meditative State

Do you remember the time when you were totally absorbed in what you were doing? Hours may have passed, yet it seemed like only a moment. Remember what a good feeling it was to be completely absorbed in those moments, how accurate your perception was, how clear your thinking was, and how alive you felt?

The simple example to illustrate Dhyan (meditation) in action is of a mother cooking for her family. When she devotes her total mental attention, warped in emotional warmth, in the process of cooking, the cooked food is distinctly different than when cooked otherwise.

The Principles Of Meditation

There are numerous methods of practising meditation, but select the one that fits your physical health, profession, nature, and time available. Follow these principles whenever you meditate:

• Decorate your place of meditation with inspiring pictures of great saints, prophets, great teachers, and God.
• Wash your hands, legs, and face before beginning meditation.
• Early morning 5 to 7 AM and evening 6 to 8 PM, are the best times to meditate.

The Different Types Of Meditation

OM Mantra Dhyan

1. Sit in a comfortable meditative pose with eyes gently closed.
2. Keep your back straight and stretched up, with the shoulders relaxed.
3. Silently recite Om Mantra, focusing your mind on the rhythmic flow of mantra.
4. Practice for a minimum of 10 minutes daily, and slowly increase the time.

Jyoti Dhyan

1. Sit in a comfortable meditative pose with eyes open.
2. Keep a burning candle 4 feet from you, at your eye-level.
3. Initially watch the flame (Jyoti) without focusing too hard.
4. After a while, start gazing at the Jyoti as long as you can, without blinking the eyes.
5. After some time, close the eyes and mentally watch the flame.
6. Visualize the pattern and color of the Jyoti.
7. Concentrate on flame for as long as your can hold your concentration.
8. Do it daily for a minimum of 10 to 15 minutes.

Jyoti Dhyan is also one of the parts of “TRATAK SHATKARMA”.

Walking Dhyan

1. When you feel agitated or restless, walk for a minimum of 10 to 15 minutes down the corridor, or at your work place or home or in the park.
2. Try to harmonize your steps with your breathing.
3. The repetitive and rhythmic motion of your legs and arms, help you to enter a meditative state which takes away the anxiety and anger.

Advertisement

Image Dhyan

1. Place a picture of the God in front of you.
2. Sit in a meditative posture, concentrate gently on the picture till your eyes become watery.
3. Keeping your head still, move your gaze on the various parts of the picture like, feet, legs, body, and the crown of the head.
4. Then, close your eyes gently and visualize that picture.
5. Repeat the same process as many times as you can.

Memory Dhyan

1. Read two to three pages of a book.
2. Then, close the book and focus your mind on what you have read.
3. Allow the mind to associate, classify, group, combine and compare.
4. If you attend the subject on hand very carefully, you will receive a clear impression.
5. If the impression is strong, you will have a very good memory.

Dhyan On Thoughts

1. Sit comfortably in any meditative posture.
2. Keep your back upright, neck and shoulders relaxed.
3. Close your eyes gently.
4. Concentrate on whatever thought comes to your mind.
5. Let these thoughts come and go without trying to hold on to them and being judgemental.
6. After some time, thoughts will disappear and your mind will become completely quite and calm.
7. To get better results, starting with 15 to 20 minutes a day is good. Increase as per your comfort.

Naad Dhyan

1. Sit in your favorite Asana.
2. Gently close your eyes with your index and middle fingers, and close the ears with your thumbs.
3. Try to hear the Anahat sound (mystic sound).
4. After practising for two to three days, you will hear various kind of sounds such as flute, thunder storm, humming of a bee, etc.

Advertisement

5. You will hear sounds in your right ear initially. Occasionally you may hear in your left ear also.
6. Try to stick to the sound in one ear as this is an easy way to control the mind.
7. Doing this repeatedly will lead to a state where you will not hear any sound.

Chakra Dhyan

This is an advance meditative practice in which the concentration is focused on the various energy centers or 7 chakras.
There are 7 chakras in human body and they are described corresponding to different endocrine gland.
a) Mooladhara – Root Chakra
b) Swadhisthan – Sacral Chakra
c) Manipura – Solar Plexus Chakra
d) Anahata – Heart Chakra
e) Vishudha – Throat Chakra
f) Ajna – Third Eye Chakra
g) Sahasrara- Crown Chakra

1. Hold your attention on each Chakra for as long as you please.
2. Imagine you are breathing in and out from the chakras on which you are holding attention.
3. Try this method of Dhyan for 10 to 15 minutes every day.
4. Perception of these psychic centers will bring in development of the endocrine glands, and corrects unbalanced psychosomatic and metabolic activities.

Benefits Of Meditation

• Mental agitation and aggressiveness get dissolved, and helps develop reasoning abilities.
• Improves mental poise and confidence, and enhances your stress tolerance capacities.
• Improves concentration level, enhancing your ability to do tasks more efficiently and skillfully.
• Helps control anger, and improves your temperament.
• Helps improve interpersonal and organizational skills.
• Improves analytical and reviewing abilities.
• Allows easy detachment from materialism and consumerism of modern life.

Advertisement

• Makes us live in the present moment.
• Provides preventive solutions to cardiac problems, high blood pressure, neck pain, back pain, ulcers, acidity, etc.
• The larger benefit of meditation covers most of the diseases which are psychosomatic in nature.

Combating Depression with Yoga

Adding yoga to your life when you are struggling emotionally can be an excellent adjunct therapy. While this isn’t the advice of a doctor or mental wellness expert (and please see one if you feel you need one), yoga can be an excellent tool when combating depression.

Physically speaking, it releases your body’s chemistry. Emotionally, it can be liberating to absorb some of the core values of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra philosophies as you practice.

Combating Depression with Yoga

When we calm down and address the physical symptoms of depression, the emotional ones can be a little easier to see through. Yoga uses inversions like Dolphin, Down Dog, and Headstand to reset the parasympathetic nervous system. This helps to calm any anxiety and stress physically in our bodies.

We also use long deep holds like Pigeon, Lizard, and Butterfly to help open particular aspects of our bodies that store emotions. We have all heard our instructors telling us to release anger from our hips, sadness from our chest, and stress from our shoulders. Storing emotions physically in our bodies can hinder us from opening to our fullest capacity, and vice-versa. Not opening our bodies can lock those darker feelings in place and lend towards depression, and sometimes even injury.

Being physically active is known for procuring higher serotonin levels via an endorphin rush. (Very simply put, serotonin is the hormone your body produces to maintain a good mood.) The Vinyasa Flow and the Sun Salutes themselves are a great way to get active in between postures and create enough heat to produce this effect.

Being physically active encourages endorphins to be naturally produced by your body instead of adding them from the outside. This in turn re-teaches your body how to lift those serotonin levels by itself when needed.

Mantras are often curbed as cliché yoga tools. However, therapists and psychiatrists use them all the time, and guess what — they are effective. So let’s use them where they are truly needed. Your mat.

Posture and Mantra Combos

Here are few holds with mantras that are centered around the five basic goals of practicing yoga: Purpose (Shraddha), Peace (Samadhi), Mindfulness (Smriti), Wisdom (Prajna) and Commitment (Virya).

Together, these will help you in the three physical areas of procuring better mind and body wellness; calming residual stress and anxiety, releasing emotion from your muscles and joints, and also increasing your bodies endorphin levels and serotonin uptake naturally.

1. Eagle Pose

  

Eagle Pose forces you to concentrate on the here and now. It takes you out of your brain and into your body in the present moment.
The twisty binds help your body to balance the parasympathetic with sympathetic nervous system to reset your mood.
Eagle Pose opens your hips and the back of your chest to release grief, frustration, and resentment, and the intensity of the pose will build heat to produce those much needed endorphin levels.
Mantra: “SHRADHA: May the past be the past, the present be crystal clear, and the future be everything I dream.”

2. Dolphin Pose

Dolphin Pose opens your hamstrings and triceps as well as lengthening your spinal muscles and deepening your forward fold. These are all places we stash emotional baggage.

The upside-down factor will calm you way down within 30 seconds as per the parasympathetic nervous system reset button. The heat and hard work of this posture will produce a higher endorphin rush more quickly then a simple Down Dog or a lengthy headstand. This lends to a blissed out and happier yogi.

Mantra: “SAMADHI: Peacefulness comes from seeking — and finding — happiness in the smallest of things”

3. Lizard Pose

Take a Yin Lizard Pose: relaxed and on cold muscles. You are likely holding deep and heavy emotions in your pelvic region. Namely in the biggest joint in the body — the hips. Holding a cold, relaxed Lizard Pose for 3-5 minutes on each side deepens your hip flexibility and entices a moment of quiet while you rest.
In true Yin yoga fashion, allow your thoughts to come and go as you hold the pose — try to practice detaching from any concerns that come up. Witness them and allow them to leave you. This makes room for newer, possibly slightly happier thoughts, to enter your mind.
Mantra: “PRAJNA: I am not the divine. I don’t need to be perfect. I am here as a student to make mistakes and to learn. This makes me stronger.”

The final Mantra is Virya- commitment. You made it to the end of this article, which in itself shows you already are committed to your mind and body wellness. No mantra needed.