Meditation Techniques -
"Get To Know You" Methods

1. Transcendental Meditation (TM)

Simply put: it is one of the meditation techniques that helps 'chill out' the mind.

This is a particular form of the mantra meditation techniques; and there are many. The repetition of the mantra turns your mind within itself.

It helps you to calm the mind until you reach a 'chill spot.' Sports people can it 'the zone.'

It can be self-taught or can learnt be with guidance from an expert. The recommended duration is about 20 minutes morning and evening each day.

Once know how to do it, it is easy, effortless, yet supremely a profound technique. You are give a mantra, taught how to use it and off you go.

Unlike other meditation techniques, TM does not involve contemplation or concentration. The goal is to calm and free the mind so as to reach the root of thought.

The sensations involved with TM include a feeling that one transcended the body. It allows your mind to progressively abstract fields of awareness.

Ultimately, you settle down in the space between your thoughts. This space, between your thoughts, is pure consciousness, a field of possibilities, a field of creativity but it is also a field of uncertainty.

It is a field where intention actualizes it own fulfillment. TM technique allows you to access this field; the primordial and the ground state of your existence.

At the source of thought, you experience this field of pure bliss, pure consciousness, pure creativity, pure intelligence and pure love.

Your experiencing it enlivens this field and makes it grow. You start unfolding your full potential and becoming more powerful from the inside.

TM has nothing to do with religion but it is not against religion. People from any religion use TM.

Although on the surface we are different, we are like flowers in the garden. At soil level we all feed from the same source.

TM is like a flower diving within, going to the roots and experiencing all the nutrients in the soil can offer.

This experience is what you are meant have; it is the self and it is so familiar yet, so beautiful. Every human being should have this experience. You are born to have this experience.

2. Guided Meditation

This is when you are guided through the meditation process. I talk about two techniques:

First Approach

You listen to a professional on a CD or read your own and play it back to yourself. You are lead in through the process and you are expected to follow.

The idea is to let go of any thoughts you may have and allow your subconscious mind to follow the words that are spoken.

The guided communication may dwell upon this topic in slow, sweet, persuasive manner.

This leads you to actually believe and experience the process and realize the bliss as a result of that journeying in imagination. It does not allow you mind to go astray.

The guided meditation may help you see in your inner world and develop new perspectives on looking at your life, relationships and its problems.

If you are new at meditation, you may need guided meditation to keep your mind on track. Also, even if you fall asleep whilst meditating, you will still benefit from it subconsciously.

Second Approach

Guided meditation may take the form of positive affirmations (mantras) or involve the use of sweet, calming, melodious and emotional music which may be either instrumental or vocal.

You may be asked to repeatedly affirm that:

“The breath I am taking in is re-energizing me.”

Sweet music has the power to mould the mind and help in concentration. You feel uplifted with joy, peace and bliss that is altogether different from the fake and fleeting pleasures of this world.

You will find that guided meditation becomes an integral, easy and natural part of your thinking habits. Then guidance may not be needed.

It is a good idea to try out other meditation techniques to find which suits you most.

3. Buddhist Meditation

Buddhist meditation is a mental exercise that helps in having a clear state of mind. Feeling detached from everything is the path to a clear mind.

Imagine having complete control over your mind, your thoughts, instead of the other way around. It is amazing what you can do when you are mentally focused.

If you are disciplined enough, this is one of the meditation techniques that can give you that power. If you can master your mind, you can master anything!

Buddhism compares an untrained mind to a monkey that jumps from one tree branch to another. It is never still, constantly moving.

Thoughts are very much like that, darting from one random idea to another. So Buddhist meditation is the training of the monkey.

Unlike some meditation techniques, this is a disciplined practice and must be done on a regular basis to enjoy the good effects on your mind, body and soul.

In other words, training yourself to be aware of the stream of thoughts and then calming them down, then meditating. There are no worries, no connection to this physical world, no cares.

I think of it as a way to “retire” my mind, if even for only a few minutes a day, from the world.

Instead of taking a vacation once a year to free your mind and body from the daily stresses and anxieties: gain control over your thoughts and feelings and you can do it every day.

4. Zen Meditation

Zen Meditation or Zazen is a part of Zen Buddhism. Zazen means ‘sitting meditation’ and is usually done in a variety of sitting postures.

Unlike other meditation techniques, you don't hold a thought in your mind or repeat a phrase over and over. Stray thoughts may arise but they are neither good nor bad so you don't focus on them.

Zen meditation accepts that thoughts are a natural faculty of mind and should not be stopped, ignored, or rejected.

Instead, thinking, especially repetitive thinking is acknowledged but then put to one side so that the mind is not carried away by worries, anxieties, and endless hopes and fears.

This is liberation from the corruption of the mind, the suffering of the mind, leaves you free to be in the NOW.

Zen is about living in the present with complete awareness. Zen teaches how to be focused even when doing everyday tasks. Such focus is an opportunity to encounter reality.

This is one of the meditation techniques that require you to just be in the moment. You can sit, be in the meditative pose, walking or just be.

As you become adept at this technique, you will able to turn off the automatic pilot that most of people operate from throughout the day.

You will be able to notice all the things that are going on around you or within your own mind. You will be able to experience each moment directly: everything you see, hear, feel, taste, and smell.

You will be completely at one with what you are doing with no memories, fears or hopes getting in the way.

5. Mindfulness Meditation

Mindfulness Meditation, also known as Insightful Meditation, is one of the meditation techniques which essentially involve focusing on your mind on the present. Basically, any activity done mindfully is meditation. Being mindful means you stay aware of all the physical and mental activities of the present.

Unlike some meditation techniques, you can practice either formally e.g. yoga, or informally by relishing and enjoying the experience of each moment.

It focuses your attention on your thoughts, actions, and present moment non-judgmentally. And when you achieve that, your mind naturally feels content.

This is one of the meditation techniques whose aim it to develop and strengthen the harmony of your mind, activity and body - complete synchronization.

It helps you develop a sense of sensitivity in being in every moment as opposed to being in a trance, hypnotized or being asleep. It means staying in touch with who is doing the doing.

As you become more mindful, you begin to discover is that this calmness or harmony is a natural aspect of the mind. You start recognizing sanity.

Eventually you are able to remain peacefully in this state of mind without struggling. You learn to accept stressful situations instead of avoiding them.

In other words, it means living in the NOW - open to whatever happens. You are completely at one with what is happening right here, right now.

The future and the past have no relevance - the very essence of most meditation techniques.

6. Chakra Meditation

This is another of the meditation techniques that is concentrative. It recharges and cleanses the body. This is done through balancing the 7 focal points of energy in your body.

Blockage of these energy points prevents you from truly being happy and ascending in your spiritual journey. They can even cause you mental and physical disease.

So Chakra meditation focuses on making sure that all on the chakras in your body are in tip top working order.

Chakra is a Sanskrit word for vortexes of energy. These are basically energy areas in your body. There are seven of them and they control different aspects of your physical and spiritual lives.

• The first chakra is the root chakra located at the base of the spine represented by the color red. The health, security, and sense of connection to the world is contained within this chakra.

• The second chakra is naval chakra located at the naval. It is represented by the color orange. It is tied into the more physical feelings of love, passion and sexuality.

• The third chakra is the solar plexus chakra, yellow in color, and located at the solar plexus. It is lied to the force of will and our sense of transformation.

• The fourth chakra is the heart chakra of love, romance, relationships and communication. It is represented by the color green.

• The fifth chakra is the throat chakra, the primary focus of communication and action. It represented by the color blue.

• The sixth chakra is the brow chakra, indigo, in color. It is located directly between the eyes and controls the third eye, your intuition, and the way you picture your future.

• The seventh chakra is the crown chakra, violet in color. It is connected to the spirit and the mind.

Breathing rhythmically would help slow your vibration at the beginning of the meditation.

Visualization technique is used to take your awareness, from the crown chakra all the way down to your chakra.

When your chakras are balanced, you feel healthy in a physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual sense. When your chakras are not balanced, energy gets blocked in specific chakra areas of your body.

7. Healing Meditation

This is one of the meditation techniques whose intention is to bring about healing of a specific ailment or situation.

This technique can be simple or very complex. It could be as simple as you sitting and becoming present to the ebb and flow of the breath.

This then allows you to get calm and to have a clearer idea of what is going on in the area of concern. Getting into a calm and relaxed state of being is the first healing response.

It allows you to get inside the issue and give it more specific attention. With experience, you will be able to command and direct healing energy to the area in need of repair, whether it is physical, emotional, mental or spiritual.

Spiritual enlightenment is helpful in being able to tap the 'Unlimited Source' for purposes of healing.

Healing meditation is most successful if you also know the art of receiving healing. So it is how much you believe that healing will actually take place and indeed that the healing will come from within, that will determine the level of success.

It is your faith and knowing how to use that will do the healing.

8. Walking Meditation

It is one of the meditation techniques during which you are active and you keep your eyes open. It is almost like mindfulness meditation when walking.

So the activity of walking is its focus. The beauty of Walking Meditation is that it can be fitted into the gaps in your life quite easily.

The aim is for you to become aware of the experience of walking and to keep your awareness involved with the experience of walking.

The different between Walking Meditation and just 'normal' walking is that you are not trying to get anywhere. Instead it is about fully there with every step.

You bring your attention to your feet. Of every step, you feel the contact of your foot with the ground. As if you are caressing the ground you are walking on, and the ground is caressing you back.

For each aspect of walking – the lifting of the foot, moving, placing, shifting –you are in touch with the full spectrum of the sensations associated with walking.

Another thing to note is that when you’re sitting still in meditation, the sensations that arise in the body are much more subtle. Those that arise while you’re walking are more intense.

So you will experience your body more intensely, and you can also find intense enjoyment from this meditation technique.

9. Mantra Meditation

This is one of the meditation techniques that consist of two parts: the mantra and the meditation itself.

Mantra means pure divine awareness and meditation means giving due respect to the Supernatural Being.

The technique requires concentrating the mind upon the repetition or echo of a specific sound-vibration; a mantra.

By repeating such a vibration verbally or mentally, the mind gradually becomes more focused on that specific sound-vibration.

This eventually results in the cessation of all other thought. Then the mind enters a one-pointed, restful and serene state of mind.

This meditation technique centers the belief in the sacred power of words and how saying them out loud or internally can have an effect beyond the physical realm.

So mantras are words or phrases that are chanted out loud or internally as objects of meditation. The mantra is traditionally given by a guru, but there is nothing wrong with choosing your own, one you find appeals to your mind.

If you are choosing your own, make sure the words have not specific meaning. The power of the mantras lies in the vibratory effect of the sound rather than on meaning.

If the mantra can be translated, then the sound vibration is altered and lessens its strength.

Mantra chanting creates powerful vibrations which are directed to the right "chakras" to connect to or attract divine universal forces. You can’t do mantra, or any, meditation half hearted - it won't work.

It is important that when the mantra is chanted, the words and their rhythm is enjoyed and you surrender yourself to this experience. The result is spiritual, physical & psychological well-being.

10. Breathing meditation

Breathing: you do it automatically – and therein lies the challenge. This meditation technique is involves practicing the correct type of breathing to maximize the benefits of meditating.

Think of breathing, it is a life force - your life depends on it. It follows then that the better your breathing, the stronger the life force and the more the benefits of meditation.

With proper breathing, meditation can bring wonderful results to the mind, body, and spirit. So Breathing Meditation has an impact on the quality of all other types of meditation.

All meditation techniques need a strong mind. A strong mind generates easily within healthy body and a healthy body must have a good tempo of breathing.

Breathing meditation technique involves pure focus on the breath as it goes in through your nostrils, your lungs and out again. It is mindfulness of breathing.

The aim for you to purposely tune into your breathe sensations. You body dissolves. The mind and the body breathe together.

You stop thinking of the breath or its sensations but rather you start feeling the breath. Riding the wave of the breath like a feather - giving yourself over to the breath sensations.

You and the breath becomes one beyond thinking, underneath thinking and before thinking. There is no 'you' anymore.





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