What, why, how of Meditation

Meditation

What is meditation? Why meditate? How to meditate? What goes on in the mind when you meditate? What benefits can I expect from meditation? “My mind is constantly racing – can I still do meditation”? Can I meditate in a reclining position? When to meditate and for how long? etc …

If you have ever tried meditation, it is more than likely that you have encountered the above and possibly many more questions related to your meditation practice. So, let us try to understand the concepts and practice of meditation and learn how to establish an on-going home practice.

As you may know, Yoga Sutras by Patanjali is the most influential text that gives us an in-depth understanding of the concepts of yoga practice. In this text, Patanjali provides us with the eight-fold path of yoga, called Ashtanga Yoga (eight limbs of yoga), for the attainment of the goal of yoga which is self-realization. Of these eight limbs, the last three – dharana (focus), dhyana (contemplation) and samadhi (absorption), constitute the practice of meditation.

What is meditation?

Patanjali defines meditation as the ability to maintain the same content to flow in the mind, without other content intruding in, for a long period of time (Sutra 3.2). For example, if I am looking at a flower, an image of the flower may be the content of the mind at that time. If I can maintain the same image in my mind for an extended period of time, without letting other content (thought, sense perception, feeling, emotion etc.) creep into the mind, I would achieve a deep state of meditation with the image of the flower being the object of meditation.

Why meditate?

As given by Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras, the definition and the purpose of yoga practice is to suppress the constant chatter that goes on in the mind and make the mind perfectly still. As noted above, Patanjali provides the 8-fold path as the means to attain the goal of yoga (goal of life!). However, the emphasis is mainly on the practice of meditation as it is only through meditation that we can attain the final goal. All the other limbs are practiced to develop a body that is strong and flexible enough to sit for meditation for long periods of time and a mind that is amenable to becoming still and peaceful.

Even though it might take a long time, possibly many life times, to achieve the ultimate goal of yoga, you will start seeing many side benefits when you develop a regular, ongoing practice of meditation. If you do a web search on benefits of meditation, you will come across a huge number of research reports and articles describing such benefits. For example, this webpage titled, “76 Benefits of Meditation and Mindfulness (Scientific Research)”, lists many of the common benefits attributed to meditation grouped under different sub-headings.

Styles of meditation

Meditation, as a means to calm the mind, has been practiced for thousands of years by people belonging to different faiths, cultures and belief systems. As such, there are many different styles of meditation that have evolved over time. Some of the more commonly practiced meditation styles include Buddhist meditation (Vipassana, mindfulness, walking meditation, Zen meditation etc.), Hindu systems of meditation (mantra meditation, Transcendental Meditation – TM, “who am I?” self-enquiry meditation, yoga meditation based on Patanjali’s system of philosophy, nada yoga – meditation on sound etc.) and several other styles.

Object of meditation

The style of meditation that I practice and teach is based on the yoga meditation system presented by Patajanjali in the Yoga Sutras. In this system, meditation is practiced by focusing the mind on an object of meditation. How to choose an object for your meditation? After giving guidelines for a few different objects to focus on, Patanjali, in sutra 1.39, states that one can meditate by focusing on any object of one’s choice. You can use a thought, an idea, a feeling, an emotion, any of the five sense perceptions (sense of smell, taste, touch, sight and hearing), any physical object internal or external to you etc. as your object of meditation.

As meditation practices have evolved over time, one of the most commonly used objects of meditation that has emerged is a “mantra”. In the ancient times, the tradition was for a student to study under the guidance of a teacher at an ashram (called Gurukula) for up to twelve years. This would be like a regular school but would also include training in spiritual disciplines. At the time of graduation, the teacher would give each student a mantra for meditation that they would use for the rest of their life. Of course, in modern times that system does not exist any more. These days, when students go for yoga training at an ashram, they can choose to get initiated into a mantra by the teachers qualified to do so. Many students also get a new name usually in Sanskrit. In the absence of any such facility, the best guideline is to choose your own mantra. You can pick a monosyllable word, any other word or even a short phrase as your mantra. You should try to pick something that resonates well with your faith or your belief system and you attribute some positive value to it. A common mantra used by people from the Indian sub-culture, for example, is “om namo Shivaya” (I bow down to Shiva).

You can try to experiment with a few different mantras to find out what suits you the best. Having decided on a mantra, though, it is strongly recommended that you stay with the same mantra for all your subsequent meditations.

How to develop initial focus (dharana practice)

As mentioned above, there are three stages of meditation – dharana, dhyana, and samadhi. It is the dharana stage which helps us develop the initial focus. Many techniques are available for the practice of dharana. In the meditation programs that I offer, I use some of the following techniques for dharana:

• Simple breath awareness
• Counting the breaths backwards
• Five sense awareness (I call it pratyahara meditation)
• Trataka (candle gazing)
• Pranayama techniques like bhramari (humming bee), sama-vritti (equal rotation), interrupted breathing etc.

You can use one of these dharana techniques for some time to develop initial focus of the mind. Then you can transition to your mantra meditation.

Technique of meditation

Having decided on a mantra, it is time to sit down and meditate. If you have ever meditated before, you already know that no sooner you start chanting the mantra, the mind seems to get inundated with multiple thoughts. Many of my friends and students tell me that they do not meditate because they cannot keep their mind quiet even for a “minute”. I would like to share a “secret” with you – even the most advanced practitioners who have meditated for many years are not able to keep their mind quiet for a minute. A minute is too long a time for the mind to stay focused on one object – even for experienced yogis.

Yes, keeping the mind quiet for a period of time is the ultimate goal of the practice of yoga. But that goal is not something that you will achieve after meditating for a week or a month or even a year! That’s going to remain “work in progress” for a long time.

Once you begin mantra meditation, you will realize that very soon the mind begins to drift away from the mantra. When that happens, rather than fighting with the mind, you need to gently bring the mind back to the mantra. In an earlier article I gave a simple technique to help bring the mind back to the mantra. In this technique, whenever it seems that the mind has drifted too far away from the mantra, you can go through a sequence of body, breath and third eye awareness before resuming mantra chanting.

In the early stages of meditation, the mind drifts away with thoughts of mundane activities that we go through in our day-to-day life. Be it some situation at work, home, supermarket or any other nagging thought that you may be harboring, these will tend to distract your mind while you are sitting for meditation. Once the practice has been established for some length of time, may be a few months or even longer, you will notice that the mind is able to stay on the mantra for longer periods of time. The mind continues to fluctuate between short periods of one-pointedness followed by longer periods of distraction.

When you find that the mind is less distracted by mundane thoughts, the next wave of distracting thoughts actually may come from “stuff” that comes to surface from deep down in the sub-conscious levels of the mind. These distractions can sometimes be quite disturbing as they might bring up old, suppressed emotions. However, we need to look at them as a part of the cleansing process that is going on with the meditation practice. With this internal cleansing come many of the well-known benefits of meditation – less stress, reduced levels of anxiety, improved self-image and a positive attitude in life, being more in the present moment, deeper focus and longer attention span and many others. Once you start realizing some of these benefits, you will automatically be more inclined to maintain a regular ongoing practice.

In a subsequent article, I plan to discuss how to establish a home-based, regular, ongoing practice.