A Million Thoughts: Learn All About Meditation from a Himalayan Mystic

You are free to open your eyes and gaze at the pebble again to regain the lucidity of your object of meditation. It is important to visualize internally because remember you are meditating on a form and not simply concentrating on it. Let me explain the subtle difference between the two. When you are meditating, your mind is flowing like a continuous stream and you become more mindful of the boulders of thoughts that may come your way. Meditation is the art of being aware, super-aware in fact. Concentration is simply a way of maintaining your focus. Good concentration leads to great meditation.

You are also free to choose an internal visualization without any external physical form. To meditate like this, just think of anything that pleases you. It should not be something that excites or arouses you physically or emotionally. Just something you find pleasing, joyous. It could be an image of your chosen deity, the sight of the ocean, a peacock with its covert spread into a fan, anything at all. Close your eyes and start visualizing the object. The image will keep disappearing from your vision, gently keep bringing it back. It requires great concentration to hold the mental image in front of you.

After about 3,000 hours of practice, you’ll be able to hold the mental image without the slightest of fading for roughly four minutes. After 10,000 hours of practice (if you fancy being a siddha), you will be able to hold the image in your mind for as long as you wish. It’s a remarkable state, beyond any description, to have such supreme one pointed concentration.

Meditation on Breath

Meditating on your breath is the easiest form of concentrative meditation. While strengthening your mindfulness and alertness, it also has great calming effect on the mind. It is particularly useful in tackling restlessness that one experiences during meditation. While meditating on the breath, do not practice pranayama (alternate breathing) or any other yogic forms of breathing. Just breathe normally and watch your breath, pay attention to inhalation and exhalation. Concentrate on your breath. You can keep your eyes open or closed as you like. Here’s how to do it right:

Sit comfortably in the yogic posture.

Breathe deeply and normally for a few minutes with both nostrils.

Close your eyes, or lower your eyelids a bit if you don’t wish to completely close your eyes.

Simply listen to your inhalation.

Pay attention to the small pause that occurs when inhaling ends and exhaling starts.

Listen to your exhalation.

It’s the best meditation to do when you feel restless or anxious. It empties your mind and calms you down. Please note that you must not hold your breath after inhalation (as done in some breathing exercises). Instead, simply just listen to your breath going in and breath going out. Over time, the duration of your breath (both while inhaling and exhaling) extends automatically helping you retain more prana, vital life force, from your breathing.

On a side note, sometimes when you can’t fall asleep at night. Just lie down in your most comfortable posture. Be absolutely still and meditate on your breath. A great calmness will come over you and you will fall asleep. Some sleep on their left or right side, some like to sleep on their tummy and some on their back. Before meditating on your breath to fall asleep, it is important to lie in the posture you normally go to sleep in. Whether trying to meditate while sleeping or meditating while awake, physical movements disrupt meditation.

Meditation on Sound

This is one of the most ancient forms of meditations and I’ve personally invested many thousand hours in this form. Meditation on sound requires you to meditate on a repetitive sound. It can be a mantra or any pleasant sound you like – vocal or instrumental. The only condition is that it must be repetitive because you are training your mind to stay on one thing for very long periods of time.

Once again like meditating on a form, meditation on sound is not simply listening to a certain music or mantra. It’s not about chanting that mantra. Parrots do relentless chanting, they don’t gain enlightenment. Chanting a mantra, even mentally, is not the same as meditating on a mantra. There is a subtle but significant difference in chanting or meditating. Even if you are chanting out loud, whispering or mentally chanting, it is still an act of speaking. It will not allow you to merge in the sound.

The auditory consciousness will be a hindrance. Meditating on a mantra means recalling that mantra gently, one after another. Recollection is quite different from speaking. Recollection requires certain visualization. Before you recall, your brain visualizes it. It happens fast but nevertheless it happens.

Here is how to do it right:

Sit comfortably in the yogic posture.