A Beginner’s Guide to Meditation CD

You’ve chosen to learn the art of meditation. An excellent practice that will calm your emotions, strengthen your immune system, and generally improve your relationships and work. Meditation is the best alternative to stressful conditions and situations.

So where do you begin? Look around your home or office for a space that is free of noise. A space not brightly lit; rather one that feels peaceful to you. Chose a space where you can regularly spend a quiet hour without any disturbance from phones, children or adults. Keep in mind that you can always leave your meditation to handle an emergency, but avoid interruptions for ordinary affairs.

Equip your space with comfortable seating; a favorite chair or sofa in which you can sit upright, feet flat on the floor, with no back strain or effort. Don’t choose a chair that is hard or that inclines. You want to meditate, not squirm or sleep. Place your hands in your lap.

How often and how long should you meditate? Beginners will find that twenty minutes once or twice daily will suffice. As you progress in feeling the flow of meditation, you can lengthen the time, perhaps as much as one hour. But don’t use your meditation to avoid engaging your life; it is not intended as an escape.

Regular meditation will equip you to enjoy your life and to be active with vastly improved productivity and creativity.

Seat yourself in your comfortable chair.  In your first sessions, plan to spend fifteen minutes learning how to observe your breathe. Begin breathing deeply, letting your stomach expand. Exhale slowly and completely. As you continue this slow breathing, move your attention to your breathe. Focus on the air moving in your nose and out again. If you wish, you can breathe into your nose and exhale out your mouth. Just notice your breathe.

Many beginners will soon find that they lose their focus. Thoughts intrude and take attention. Memories rise to the surface. Before you know it you are swept away in a train of thoughts and feelings. This is normal. As soon as you become aware that you are no longer aware of your breathing, gently detach from the thoughts and return your attention to watching your breathe. It is very important that you feel no guilt nor punish yourself in any way for losing your concentration. As you learn to gently release the thoughts and memories, it will become easier for you to do.

If you find that after ten or more times of practicing focusing on your breathing, it is difficult or even impossible to remove yourself from a flow of thoughts or inner pictures, there is a remedy that never fails. Imagine that you are watching a large screen television. Choose one intruding thought or inner picture and make it huge on the screen. Imagine it colored with brilliant shades so it really stands out. Now, with your wonderful imagination, fade the color and turn it into a small grey lump. Make the television set itself shrink. Take it from a large screen to a screen the size of a piece of lint. In your mind, notice a door or window opening and the lint carried outside by a small wind until it moves away across the landscape. All the while the television set is becoming smaller and smaller until it totally disappears. As it leaves return immediately to noticing your breathing.

You are now ready to begin holding a chosen thought in your mind. Take the words, “I am deeply relaxed and at peace.” Repeat this sentence over and over. You may find it useful to say it aloud a few times and then repeat it silently. As before, if other thoughts or pictures intrude, release them gently and return to your phrase, “I am deeply relaxed and at peace.”

This phrase will become the truth for you as you practice holding it in your mind. Eventually you will hold it without saying the individual words; you will only experience the relaxation and peace. You will find yourself becoming increasingly calm and quiet inside.

Finally you will enter an inner consciousness where you feel a sense of presence without your doing or thinking anything. The presence will enfold you in welcome and you will feel loved and appreciated. your sense of being separate will fade away and you will become one with the presence. You are now meditating. After awhile – it may be only a second or several minutes – when you become aware of yourself again, hold a thought of thanks for the presence and the experience. Your meditation is complete and you re-enter your life with a feeling of enthusiasm, excitement and expectancy.

Now listen to a summary of this information for learning to meditate: Chose a comfortable seat in a quiet place where you will not be disturbed. Sit upright with feet flat on the floor, your hands in your lap. Breathe deeply and exhale completely, noticing the breath moving in and out. Allowing yourself to become more and more quiet you begin holding the phrase, “I am deeply relaxed and at peace.” As you become inwardly still, going deeper and deeper, you become one with a presence where you feel loved and appreciated. Your sense of self dissolves in the inner presence for a brief instant, and you become aware of yourself, give thanks and notice that you are renewed and well, ready for life.

This completes your introduction in a beginner’s guide to meditation.