How to Engage in Meditation

How to engage in meditation.

Your awareness is so used to focusing on the outside that we forget there is an inside.

Your awareness will be drawn to experiences of the senses – a loud noise, a nice car you see.

You do have the ability to disengage from sense awareness and move within.

Once we do this we are then inside ourselves with our thoughts.  And again – our thoughts often develop and grow with our emotional connection to them. Often we see our thoughts parading before us creating images and emotional connections which become physical feelings. Thoughts and emotions become stronger the more we concentrate on them. They become deeper and heavier and harder to let go of.

If you can witness the thoughts and make statements such as ‘I can’t meditate because I get distracted by my thoughts’.  Then you are declaring that you are not your thoughts – you are the ‘self’, witness to the movement of the mind.

The constant pull of the mind towards the distractions of the senses and the thoughts has to be counter-acted by an equally strong focus on letting go.

This is where we practice letting go of the thoughts. As a river will flow past you as you sit on the bank, so to can the thoughts move on by if we do not give them our attention. We let them come and go. Moving through our field of consciousness. A thought only remains a thought when we are unable to let it go.

We are not trying to change the mind, or fight with it, we are simply becoming conscious of our consciousness. We are becoming aware of the mind and encouraging it to do what is helpful. Who tells the mind what to do…that’s you.

When we practice yoga – through relaxation, pranayama and meditation, we realise our centre of consciousness, our self, sits behind all these sense and thought distractions. We realise that we are able to work with the mind to create calmness and harmony. To create positive emotional connections with our selves and the world around us.

Who is aware of these thoughts – it is you – your inner self.

The brain is a control department managed by the mind. The mind is managed by you.