Meditation and visualization will help you stop thinking so much and will help you begin a journey back. Healing will occur. You will begin to use your unused mind. You will see. You will understand. And you will grow wise. Then there will be peace.
Our hearts know the path to happiness and inner peace. Spiritual practices such as meditation and prayer remind us of what we already know. When we forget our heart’s message and fall into life’s ruts and crevices, we feel unfulfilled and unhappy. We get depressed and anxious. We have blurred our perspective, forgotten the bigger picture, and lost the way.
The remedy is simple. Take the time to remember your divinity, your spiritual nature. Remember why you are here. Meditation is one way of triggering your memory.
Meditation is the art or technique of quieting the mind so that the endless chatter that normally fills our consciousness is stilled. In the quiet of the silent mind, the meditator begins to become an observer, to reach a level of detachment, and, eventually, to become aware of a higher state of consciousness.
By pulling us out of the rut of our everyday awareness, meditation serves as a reminder of what we have been learning about higher, more spiritual values. To meditate regularly is to remember regularly. You are reminded of the bigger picture, of what is important to us in our lives and what is not.
It takes practice and discipline to rid the mind of its thousand everyday thoughts. I had to meditate daily for three months before I was able to reach a deeper awareness. It is important to be patient and to try not to get frustrated as you practice. Success at meditation does not happen overnight.
You do not need to sit in the lotus position in order to meditate. You can meditate while lying down, while sitting in a chair, or even while walking. The goal is to stop thinking, to observe and detach, to become mindful and aware.
As you teach yourself to meditate, you may find it helpful to try visualization and hypnosis as well. In both of these techniques you are listening to a facilitator’s voice, which may help you to focus your concentration.
Whether meditating, visualizing, or under hypnosis, you never give up control to someone else. No 'forces' take over your mind or body. You do not enter a time machine. You are merely concentrating very deeply, and there is no danger whatsoever. In these states, you can be inspired, you can touch higher levels of awareness, you can be re-awakened to your divine nature. These are pathways to enlightenment.
Here is the essence of meditation. Every step you take is sacred; every breath you breathe is holy. If you understand and practice these precepts, yyou will be mindful and your consciousness will shift from the everyday to the 'other' perspective. You will become observant, detached, and free from judgement.
I had been teaching a patient of mine, a business executive, how to meditate. At the beginning of one session, she remarked, "I just saw the most beautiful tree!"
'Where did you see the tree?" I asked.
"In front of my house," she replied. IT had always been there.
When we learn to quiet our minds, we see the most beautiful things.
In my workshops I teach a simple meditation technique that requires only two minutes.
During the first minute, I instruct the group members to close their eyes and to take a few deep breaths and relax. For the next forty five seconds, they are told to keep their minds completely quiet, to try not to think. Of course this is very difficult for most people. Our minds abhor emptiness, thus we fill them with ordinary thoughts, such as:
"My back hurts."
"I hear that person coughing."
"I never should have eaten that for breakfast."
These are not cosmic inspirations. We do not need these thoughts when we want our minds to be quiet, detached, observing.
During the second minute the group is instructed to imagine themselves sitting at the bottom of a beautiful pond. They can breathe perfectly normally.
"Every time you have a thought," I tell them, "put the thought in a bubble, watch the bubble float up to the surface of the pond and disappear. Then bring your mind back to quiet. If you have another thought, put it in another bubble and let that bubble float up and disappear. Keep repeating this process."
For people who are afraid of water, I tell them to imagine themselves sitting in a beautiful field and to use a buoyant helium balloon instead of a bubble.
For the next minute, they are using those bubbles and balloons.
They have begun to meditate.
This is called a bubble meditation, but you can use a word instead, focusing your mind on that word. If your mind wanders, gently and without judgement bring your attention back to the word.
The word you choose can be a neutral word, like the number one. Or it can be a Sanskrit word, which is called a mantra. Or it can be an emotionally loaded word, like the word love. Observe what feeling that evokes.
You can use a visual object instead, such as a candle or a flower. Or you can use an ancient technique of focusing on your breathing, counting each inhalation and exhalation.
Try the bubble meditation. You will surprised by the benefits.