Which meditation routine would you recommend?

Answer 1

The whole aim of meditation is,
1. to calm your mind, and
2. to focus the mind on one thing.

Healthwise it will help you to control anger - high blood pressure patients will realise that their pressure is coming under control.

The mind of a normal person is like an uncontrolled monkey jumping from one thought to another. To process all these thoughts a lot of body energy is used. Thus if your mind cease to process thoughts you will be saving a lot of body energy which can be used to cure a lot of ailments in your body. That is why a person who continues to meditate regularly even gets a nice body complexion.

If you sit down and close your eyes you will notice that your mind is jumping from one thought to another. Even though you want to concentrate on your breath you will find other thoughts also coming in between.

In learning to meditate you must first learn to calm your mind. You do this by following every thought that comes into you mind. You must be like a Manager of a Hotel who stands at the entrance and observes the customers coming in. Without getting attached to the thoughts try to observe them. You will find that a thought comes in and that it goes nowhere and another thought follows it - try following that too - with same results. This way you will find that your thoughts gradually subside. Do not try to force out your thoughts.

Of course do not expect results in one or two days. Practise it for at least 40 minutes every day for at least 2 months you find that you have 'killed' your train of thoughts. I have practised for 1 1/2 years and still vagrant thoughts come in.

Thereafter start concentrating on your breath. Notice the breath coming in and going out. You should not concentrate only on the tip of your nose. Notice the breath coming in and thereafter your lungs getting filled and then gradually exhaling the breath.

After you finish that for the day start to think of a person or several persons whom you hate most. Having those people in mind start to think in a compassionate manner "may he be healthy, may he be happy, may he go up in life, may he live long". Keep on doing this for about 10 minutes a day for a few months you will find that you do not get angry even when you have to get angry.

You should be able to get some guidance from the following sites,

1. http://www.dhamma.org/vipassan.htm
2. http://www.meditationexpert.com/ and click on the free articles on yoga meditation - it includes articles on all types of meditations including christian and muslim meditation.

Answer 2

The easiest for me has been japa which is taking prayer beads (mala) and repeating a mantra or name of the Divine over and over again. I'm a Hindu. I have a personal mantra that I repeat while doing my mala, but sometimes I just repeat the name of my ishta devata (personal name and form of the Divine) which is Ganesh. My mala has 108 beads and I have one that has 12 beads (which is the smallest a mala gets in Hinduism) that I used to recite the Gayatri Mantra every morning. I also use it when reciting other prayers (mantras are like prayers, but can just be words...technically repeating the name of the Divine over and over again is a mantra).

The only other meditation technique I found very useful for myself was one I learned at a Zen center. The technique is counting your breaths. You sit in meditation and as you breath in you count "1" and then breath out. You do this until you get to ten and then start the process over again. "1 ... 2 ... 3 ... 4 ... 5 ... 6 ... 7 ... 8 ... 9 ... 10 ... 1 ... 2 ... 3 ..." it is a good way of focusing the mind (just like chanting the name or mantra) and does help calm the mind.

I've been told that meditating while staring an image of the Divine or an object is also very good, although I have not done this. It still focuses the mind, though.

However, those are the two meditation techniques that I have personally found useful. You can try them and see if you agree. The best way to find out what meditation technique works best for you is to try them. Usually try it for a month and keep a meditation journal. The journal doesn't have to be super descriptive it can be simple. On that day how many times did you meditate? How long did you meditate? How would you rate the quality of each sitting? And then you can mention other details that you think are important if you'd like. It really works, that's how come I know that the two meditation techniques I mentioned worked so well for me.

And with the chanting of the mantra or name, if you need to, you can make it sort of like a song in that you 'sing' the mantra or name over and over rather than just say it. I have met people that do this and while I don't 'sing' in the sense of giving it special tones, I do find that the rhythm of the chant does come to you as you continually do it. You can do it with a mala (prayer beads) or without. The mala is just for counting if you have a goal to do it so many times. I usually use my mala, but not always.

Answer 3

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Answer 4

Try this for sure shot results

The idea of meditation is to bring your mind home, our mind is wandering all the time with unnecessary thoughts. Our mind is like jar filled with water and mud, less disturbed the jar is the more the mud in it will settle down, the more you meditate the calmer your mind will get. Even when we meditate we will be constantly getting thoughts, to prolong the gap between the waning of old thought and rising of a new thought is meditation. The most basic meditation is to sit down in a comfortable position with you eyes closed and your mouth opened little so that your nervous relax, once your mind settles down open your eyes slowly and fix your gaze on an object of your choice which could be an object of natural beauty or your deity. While meditating you will get thoughts but don’t worry about them just answer them and let them go, don’t hang onto them. The Second practice is to recite a mantra, most of the religions have mantras, you can choose one from them or recite something of your choice, a mantra should essentially be able to create vibrations ( OM has the highest vibration ) which your body and mind can feel. The third practice is to breathe in and out, breathe naturally with mindfulness and pay little more attention when you breathe out, breathe as if you are letting out all the toxins in your body. All the three methods can be used as one, fix your gaze on an object and recite the mantra of your choice, let your body and mind calm down then slowly breathe in and breathe out.

Answer 5

I use simple conscious breathing or Tibetan Tonglen for compassion geneation. A description of this can be found in the Tibetan Book Of Living And Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche available in Hodges Figgis or Waterstones Bookshop on Dawson St., perpendicular to Grafton (great bookshops).

Answer 6

Meditation is dangerous. No route is safe. They all lead to demonic possession. Bible meditation is more about thinking of the word of God rather then trying to enter into some other realm as modern day mediators do.

Answer 7

A quiet room, a candle burning, some quiet light music playing (not necessarily religious) and a bowl of flowers.
Start with some spiritual reading which appeals to you and then try to keep your mind on one point and how it affects your life. Don't mind if your mind wanders, just start again.
Some people find a mantra is good to start with, ie a very short prayer or an expression like 'Jesus, Son of the Living God" repeated over and over again. Try to let go of any worries and cares of this world.

Answer 8

I have been practising the Pranahuti Aided Meditation for the past 9 years. You can read more about it at: http://www.sriramchandra.org/

Answer 9

Meditate the Word of God for success in Life. Joshua 1;8.
I Corinthians 13;8a Love never fails!!!

Answer 10

firstly start with samatha, which is when you concentrate on your breathing and learn to calm your mind.
When you feel you are ready, move onto vipassana, which is where you try to realise that your body is made up of different parts that all return to the ground once you die, and this should lead to insight and a higher level of conciousness.
of course, these details are only sketchy, and i suggest reading u for more detail on them.