There must be thousand of different techniques of meditation,
all of which have varying degrees of success on different people. The best
is to experiment and see which one works best for you. I will explain the
technique which I use. I don't have a name for this technique as it has
been adapted from others over the years to suit me. I hope it will work
for you.
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1 -
The most important thing in meditation is relaxation,
so before you begin, remove any tight or uncomfortable clothing or jewelry
like belts, watches, etc. (my pet hate is shoes - must have been living
in Africa too long). Now find a good comfortable chair to sit in. (It's
better to sit at first rather than lie down, as you will probably fall
asleep if you try this on a bed) Sit in any position you feel comfortable
with (Not cross legged etc.)
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2 -
Starting with your left or right foot begin to concentrate
on relaxing your toes. Now slowly move your concentration up the rest of
your foot imagining each little muscle relaxing. Keep moving up to
your lower leg, calf muscle, shin, Knee-cap etc. concentrating as you go.
Keep going until you have your entire leg relaxed. Now, repeat this process
on the other leg. Next step is the arms. Repeat the relaxation process
on each arm, one at a time. Then comes the torso/body (pay special attention
to relaxing your back and neck muscles). Last but not least is your head
(here again pay special attention to the muscles around your face). At
the same time as you are relaxing your body in this way, try to get your
breathing down to a slow and even rhythm.
Sometimes I like to listen to some soft music while
I am doing this, but make sure its soft (Deff Leppard is a no-no)
Try something like Enya or Kenny G.
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3 -
Focus on one of those colourfull spots you see when
you close your eyes. Try to control it by making it increase and then decrease
in size. Try to empty your mind of any thoughts other than this spot. Now
try changing the shape of the spot. Once you have mastered the ability
of changing the shape and size of this spot, then continue with the next
step. (It takes a bit of practice at first, so just sit and play with it
until you get it right.)
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4 -
Using your newly learned spot manipulation technique,
slowly turn your spot into a number 9 and hold the image for a few seconds.
Now, slowly fade it back down to a spot. Repeat this again, but this
time change your spot into the number 8. Keep fading the numbers in and
out until you reach the number 1 (or 0 if you prefer). You should now be
either totally relaxed or fast asleep.
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5 -
Now concentrate on your spine, visualize your spinal
cord stretching from the base of your skull to the tip of your coccyx.
Now pretend you are some kind tree and that your spinal cord is a root.
Slowly imagine the root beginning to grow down through the chair, the floor
etc until it is growing into the earth beneath you. Keep growing your root,
making it branch out into many smaller roots. As a tree would absorb water
and nourishment through its roots you must now start absorbing the energy
of the earth through yours. Imagine this energy flowing up into your body
and giving you power. Reverse the process now and let all your negative
energy flow out of your body and be absorbed by the earth.
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6 -
Great. We are now at the final step. Visualize yourself
standing on a cliff with a bridge stretching out before you. Above and
below the bridge is absolutely nothing, no bottom, no top, nothing but
empty, infinite space. If you look across to the other side of the bridge,
it ends at another cliff not too far away. Walk onto the bridge and proceed
until you are half way. Stop. You should now make a promise to the Goddess,
the Universe and yourself that you wish to enter the land on the far side
and that whatever you do from here on will in no way be harmful to any
other. (If you can remember the Wiccan Rede, now is a good time to recite
it in you mind). If you have any doubts whatsoever at this stage, Turn
back now, otherwise walk across to the far side and look around, let
your imagination run wild, use your senses to touch, smell, see and hear
things. Stay as long as you want. When you have finished, walk back across
the bridge to the land that you came from. Now, slowly bring yourself out
of your meditation state by doing the thing with the numbers again, but
this time in the reverse order (from 1 up to 9).
So what now ?
It make take you a while to be able to perfect this
technique, especially if you are new to the whole meditation thing. Don't
give up. Keep practicing until you get it perfected. This is just the beginning,
once you have mastered this then you can begin to learn some of the wonderful
things that can be achieved by meditation.
When you feel ready, lets explore some of the things
we can do:
