You need to set aside some time to practice meditation.

 Meditation is the art of focusing 100% of your attention on a specific subject, which, through proper practice, can easily be linked to well-promoted well-being, including its concentration, anxiety reduction, and a general feeling of happiness.

 

Although a great number of people try meditation at some point in their lives, a small percentage stick with it for the long-term This is unfortunate, and one possible reason is that not many start new with the mindset needed to make the practice sustainable. 

 

The purpose of Raja Yoga meditation, of life itself, is to find God. We have fallen from spiritual consciousness to our present, very limited state of ego consciousness. Spiritual evolution is a very long and slow process for countless lifetimes which can be vastly hastened by our conscious efforts of meditation, service, and devotion. “He that overcomes, shall inherit all things.” Revelations 21:7 He that overcomes will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out [shall reincarnate no more].” Rev 3:12

 

 

Techniques of meditation explained and some essential advice

 

To know yourself is what we are attempting to do through the various techniques of meditation. Yet what is it about ourselves that we attempt to know? Is it an attempt to know about our ego, our personality? If so then we practice meditation every time we visit a psychoanalyst.

 

To my mind, through the various techniques of meditation, we learn to be free of our ego and our fretful personality – with all its hopes, fears, lusts, desires, and so on. Only by dropping the fretful part of ourselves does our true nature stand revealed. It is that which is not our body, nor our emotions, nor our mind but which is a silent witness to all that happens to us – both internally and externally.

 

I have an important piece of advice to all aspirants who wish to practice any of the techniques of meditation. It is this. Your mind will wander about as you are attempting to meditate. Accept this when it happens and welcome the thought or feeling into your consciousness – no matter how disturbing the thought or feeling might be. Hold the thought in your awareness without any felling of liking or repulsion. 

 

And the thought will – of itself – get released and you will be free to continue with your meditation practice. This tip is of the utmost importance; since if you try to control the mind, it means that you are still in the grip of the ego with all its likes and dislikes. You will only get frustrated, see no progress, and will be tempted to give up your meditation practice. 

 

While meditating we attempt to go beyond the mind and experience the Ultimate, to experience our oneness with the Universe. This can only be done by dropping the ego while meditating, by an act of choiceless awareness, when we are engaged in the practice.

 

I would recommend that you get into the habit of welcoming all your thoughts and feelings, whether you are meditating or not. This simple method will do wonders for your well being.

 

 

11 Practical Tips for Creating a Meditation Habit That Sticks-

 

1. Learn why you want to meditate. To give yourself the necessary push to get started with your meditation practice, you need to be clear on the reasons why you want to take up meditation. The stronger your reasons for "why", the more likely you are to drown and try to meditate.

 

As an example, the following are bad reasons to start meditating:

 

“Well, everyone else is doing it, so I thought I might as well do it too.”

 

“My spouse wants me to.”

 

“I am out of focus in the field of action and as a result, my productivity is suffering. I’m going to start meditating so I can improve my ability to focus and concentrate.” 

 

“I don’t sleep well at night.  I'm going to try to meditate to see if it helps with insomnia."

 

 “My mind is always going at a million miles per hour. I am going to take meditation to try to calm my mind. Knowing "why" you want to start meditating means you have to start getting started.

 

2. Start Small. Try Mini-Meditations. I meditated daily for a long time. Then, I stopped. Things got hectic at work and I made the wrong decision and stopped meditating. For the longest time I wanted to take up meditation again, but I just couldn’t get myself to do it.

 

Then, at the very start of 2017, I made it one of my New Year’s resolutions to start meditating again. However, the first week of January went by, then the second, and then the third, and I wasn’t meditating. Then, one day during the fourth week of January I got fed up with myself and my inability to create a meditating habit. I was having breakfast and I told myself:

 

“That’s it. As soon as I’m done eating breakfast I’m going to close my eyes right here where I’m sitting and I’m going to meditate for 30 seconds.”

 

And I did. So I told myself that’s what I would start doing from that day on. That same day I mentioned to my sister that I had started meditating for 30 seconds a day, and she looked at me like I was nuts. But, guess what? It worked. It got me to start meditating again.

 

After meditating for 30 seconds for a few days, I increased my meditation time to one minute. Then, I extended it to two minutes and then to three minutes. I have extended my meditation time, from one minute to ten minutes.

 

3. Tie Your Meditation to a Trigger. You can’t just say, “I’ll start meditating” and leave it because then you won’t. To create the habit of meditation, you need to determine it. Even better, tie it to what you’re already doing.

As you can see from the top, finishing breakfast was the trigger for my meditation. Breakfast is a very important meal - it can either make or break your day. And as soon as breakfast is over I know it’s time to meditate, and I do it.

4. Set Up Your Environment To Help You. Although at first, I was meditating on the table where I was eating my food, I decided to start meditating by extending a yoga mat in the living room. Every night I set up yoga mats for the next day.

 

I passed the yoga mat in the morning as I walked to the table after breakfast. I am going to meditate after eating it again. Once I have breakfast I don’t have to get up and look for a mat for my yoga exercises, because it’s already decided where to stay.

 

This means that I know when I’m going to meditate, I know where, and everything is set up so I just have to get up from the table, walk a couple of feet to the yoga mat, and sit down. My environment is set up to help me.

 

5. Choose a Meditation Method. Suppose that you, too, decide to meditate on a yoga mat, in your living room, right after breakfast. As soon as you’re done with breakfast you sit on the yoga mat and are ready to get started. Now what? Well, you have to have decided ahead of time how you’re going to meditate.

 

Fortunately, there is no shortage of meditation methods you can try. Here are just a few you can choose from:

 

Take 100 breaths and count them. Try not to think of anything else. Follow along with a guided meditation. Choose one from Amazon or search for a free guided meditation on YouTube. 

 

Try visualization. Close your eyes and imagine that there is a door in front of you. You open the door and it leads to a beautiful garden. Can you see Is it full of fruit trees? Is there a pond in the garden? Don't you hear? What birds are chirping there? Can the leaves hear the wind? Create the most beautiful and peaceful garden you can from your mind and stay there throughout your meditation.

 

Try a meditation channel like Meditation and Relaxation Area on YouTube. As you can see, there are many meditation methods you can choose from. Try as many as you like until you find one you feel you can stick to.

 

6. Make Meditation Fun. Let’s face it, if something bothers you, it’s just a matter of time before you stop doing it. Therefore, try to make your meditation time as fun as possible. Here are some things you can try to make your meditation sessions more fun and formal:

 

• Light a candle that gives off a scent that you love. Old Factory Candles are a popular choice. 
• Get some incense.
• Hit it to turn on some meditative music or the sound of nature.
• In some Buddhist practices, singing bowls are used as a sign of the beginning and end of silent meditation. Get yourself a Tibetan singing bowl and hit it to signal the start and end of each of your meditation sessions.

The truth is, you don't need any props to meditate. However, if candles, music, and more help your meditation experience to do what you expect it to do, then use it anyway.

 

7. Find a Way to Hold Yourself Accountable. One of the secrets to the success of the practice is being held accountable. If you want to succeed in creating a habit of meditation, if you do not follow it, find a way to create a negative outcome.

 

A common form of accountability is starting a habit with someone else. Then, if you fail to follow, you will lose face to that person. Do you know anyone who wants to start meditating? If so, agree to send each other an email every day after meditation. That way, you hold each other accountable.

 

8. Do It Every Day. To harden your meditation habit, do it every day. Andy Warhol once said the following:

“Either only once, or every day. If you do something exciting once and if you do it every day, it is exciting. But if you do it, say, every day or twice a day, it's not good anymore.”

By meditating daily you can avoid having the following debate in your head every day:

 

“Should I meditate today? I’m not sure . . . I have a lot to do today. I won’t meditate today. I’ll do it tomorrow.”

 

“I meditated three days in a row, so I’ll just take the day off today.”

 

“I’m not really in the mood to meditate today. I’m just not feeling it.”

 

Avoid mental controversy by making meditation a daily habit.

 

9. Track Your Progress. To keep up with your newly formed meditation habits, track your progress. Do the following:

 

You meditate that put an ohm sticker on your wall calendar every day. Keep a meditation log. Use an app that helps you track your progress toward your goals.

 

10. Reward Yourself. Each habit can be divided into three parts:

 

• The cue: For our purposes, the cue is the trigger to start meditating (in my case, it’s finishing breakfast).
• A routine: Here the routine is your meditation ceremony.
• A reward: Once you’re done meditating, reward yourself.

 For me, meditation is its reward. I feel calm and at peace, while I’m meditating, and meditating gives me a mood boost that I can then carry with me throughout the day. However, I realize that this is because I’ve already been meditating for a few months.

 

When you’re first starting you’ll probably want to reward yourself each time that you meditate to turn to meditate into a habit that you’ll stick to. Here are three tips on how to reward yourself:

 

• After each meditation session, place a piece of dark chocolate (with sea salt, if you can get it).
• When you’re done meditating switch from nature sounds to your favorite song and dance along with it.
• Have a cup of flavored coffee.

 There’s an infinite number of ways you can reward yourself for meditating. Get creative.

 

11. Notice when your interest in meditation begins to wane. Meditation is hard work, and you’ll inevitably get to a point where it doesn’t seem to fit the picture. This is when your practice is most needed and I advise you to go back to the book (s) or the CD you listened to and reconnect with the practice. Chances are that losing the ability to focus on meditation parallels your inability to concentrate on other areas of your life!

 

The importance of practicing various techniques of meditation are illustrated by the following tale of ancient Greece- "A sophist approached one of the wise men of ancient Greece and thought to puzzle him with the most perplexing questions. But the sage of Miletus was equal to the test for he replied to them all, without the least hesitation yet with the utmost exactitude.”