Meditation for Absolute Beginners

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Meditation for Absolute Beginners

• Yoga 1103.001, 002, 200
• Amrit K. Khalsa

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Slide Content

• Introduction
• Meditation
• Diet and Cautions
• Mantra the Use of Sounds
• The Use of Breath
• How to Dress

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Introduction
Foreign and strange only 30 years ago, YOGA and
MEDITATION are everywhere! In media, hospitals,
clinics, exercise programs, athletic fields, and
even in the boardrooms of the corporate world.
Many find it useful to meditate while at work.
They use meditation to shift their mind out of a
rut and to become clear. Formerly only practice
d by famous musicians such as the Beatles,
hippies and liberal academia in the late 60s and
70s, it is now practiced by everyone.
Yogi Bhajan began openly teaching techniques fro
m Kundalini Yoga to everyone in 1969 declaring
these techniques were for everybody and a science
to be shared for the benefit of all. You can get
these techniques in books, the internet, my SPC
website and from 3HO Kundalini Yoga centers on
every continent and most countries around the
world.
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Introduction

• Meditation IS
• for everyone
• a daily shower to clean the mind
• a technology using what you already have - your
  senses, your mind, and your body. It uses a
  few refined patterns to create a communication
  between you and your mind and between your
  mind and your body.
• Meditation is NOT
• magic
• a religion
• Benefits
• helps you avoid mistakes,
• focus your energy,
• stay healthy,
• become kind in your heart.

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Meditation Generates Time

• a morning or evening practice of meditation and
  Kundalini Yoga generates time,
  
• meditation gives you time back in multiples of
  what you put in to it.
  

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Meditation Generates Time

• We lose time
• by losing our focus on what is really important
  
  
• meditation hones that focus
• because our mind drifts and becomes unconscious
  with daydreams and with unintentional
  thoughts
  
• Meditation clears the subconscious and helps
  you keep your clarity. It lets you be present
  to what you are doing
  
• - because we do not see resources and
  opportunities that are
  
• already present
• we narrow our view under stress and pressure
• Meditation integrates the broad lens of the
  mind with the narrow
  
• focus of action
• So we save time in many ways as we go through our
  day alert, energized, and victorious.

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Meditation The Process

• You can quickly become comfortable processing
  all kinds of feelings and thoughts
  
• Intent determines the direction of the
  meditation and its benefits
  
• When you go more deeply into a sound or a focus,
  the subconscious that is filled with thoughts
  and feelings dumps itself
  

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Meditation The Process
When that dump occurs you may wonder what is
happening. Nothing. It is just like cleaning out
an old closet. Some things are still useful, and
you can keep them others are long outdated, and
you toss them. Soon you have more room to take in
life and more room to think and feel your own
self, rather than all the subconscious clutter.
The mind never stops. But you can create a
stillness within you where you do not react to
the mind. This stillness often calms the flow of
the mind and creates a quiet spot in the center
of the storm. This rejuvenates and relaxes almost
everyone who experiences it.
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Meditation Environment

• any place you can be undisturbed
• a spot that is not too cool and not too hot
• something supportive but soft under you to sit
  on (a wool or cotton blanket)
  
• If they are stiff, some have a firm pillow, 4 to
  6 inches high, under the buttocks to take away
  any pressure from the lower spine.
  
• If you cannot sit comfortably cross-legged on
  the floor, then sit in a chair (condition be
  sure your feet are flat on the floor and your
  weight is equally distributed on both feet. The
  spine should be straight. It acts like a
  central channel for the energy of your nervous
  system.)
• Many people create a special spot. So the
  meditation spot has some objects that uplift
  them and/or remind them of nature.

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Diet and Cautions

• Diet
• The recommended diet for yoga practitioners and
  meditators is to eat lightly with health in
  mind
  
• Many have become vegetarian for health reasons
• Choosing the lightest diet lets the mind be
  calm and focused. Lowering all the protein and
  acidity from meat
  
• helps
• Cautions
• As a rule practitioners do not take any drugs
  medicine is an exception
  
• LSD, marijuana, amphetamines, and other
  psychoactive compounds may have an imbalancing
  effect
  
• The breath is a powerful force in the body and
  needs to be done correctly as in any sport or
  exercise. If you have any question about your
  capacity to do simple exercises or sitting,
  see your doctor for a check-up first

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Mantra the Use of Sounds

• Real silence is the goal
• It is when you can hear your own self above the
  chatter of your mind
  
• You may not speak out loud for years but still
  have a huge clamor inside
  
• Meditations often use sounds
• Sometimes they are simple sounds, like a
  do-re-mi for the mind
  
• When you use basic sounds with rhythm it
  penetrates the mind, and it redirects the flow
  of thoughts so something new can come in
  
• They are always big thoughts. Thoughts that
  break our narrow confines and our fears and
  elevate us.

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Mantra the Use of Sounds

• The words come from many traditions and can be
  in many languages.
  
• A mantra in English is I am, I AM." It can be
  used in German as Ich Bin, ICH BIN."
  
• Many of the words used in well-tested classical
  meditations are from Punjabi or Sanskrit.
  
• Punjabi and Sanskrit are languages made up in
  ancient times, of primary sounds for the
  purpose of meditation. They are still effective
  today, for they are timeless syllables.
• What is needed are words you do not make up,
  because you want to go beyond your own
  patterns, affirmations, and confirmations.
  
• What is needed are sounds or words that give you
  a taste of the state you want to dwell in.

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Mantra the Use of Sounds

• Many ask if meditation is a religion or a belief.
  It is not a religion. It does admit you are body,
  mind, and spirit. But it clears the mind, pure
  and simple. This lets you bring more energy and
  spirit to whatever your tradition or religion may
  be. You can practice it as a human, even as an
  atheist. It is about human capacity and the
  relationship to your mind and whole self. It
  doesnt give you some specific belief. It does
  make you more believable about your beliefs
• Do any of the words used mean we are chanting to
  some god that we dont know? No. You are chanting
  in your mind to evoke a state or to feel your own
  sacredness and soul. There is no concept of
  chanting to someone. It is an energetic act
  that changes your brain, stimulates hormone
  balance, and engages you in a special
  conversation with your own mind about vastness
  and truth.

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Mantra the Use of Sounds

• Some cultures are used to using sounds, singing
  in public, and addressing their own mind. Others
  are more reticent and private with sounds. The
  yogi is free to use all the senses in meditation
  sight, touch, sound, and even smell. You will
  find many silent meditations, many with sounds
  used mentally, and many with sounds repeated out
  loud. It all depends on the effect and impact
  you want to produce.

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The Use of Breath

• Many meditations use the breath as part of the
  technique. Some meditations require you to
  simply shift your attention to the flow of the
  breath. Breath is your life. Its depth, rate,
  and pattern are correlated with your moods and
  level of energy, so the breath can be used to
  change them. Some meditations control the breath
  in specific patterns by regulating the ratio of
  the inhale and exhale by breaking the inhale or
  exhale into segments by changing the speed of
  the breath or by using mantra.
• Whenever you use the breath be sure to follow the
  instructions carefully and ask an instructor if
  you have any questions. Begin the practice of a
  breath meditation for a short time and gradually
  increase the length as you accommodate to the
  changes it induces. If you ever feel dizzy when
  using the breath, stop and be sure you are using
  proper technique, have not taken any drugs, and
  are not sick.

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The Use of Breath

• When used correctly, breath meditations create a
  lot of
  
• change and you feel comfortable, as well as
  balanced.
  
• Check to be sure you breathe with a complete
  breath pattern begin the inhale by letting the
  belly relax and go out, then fill the middle
  chest, then finally the upper chest. Exhale by
  letting the upper chest deflate, then empty the
  central chest, and finally pull the navel point
  in to expel the last bit of breath. This is the
  normal pattern of breath when you are healthy and
  breathe correctly.
• About 30 percent of people do not breathe
  correctly. Check your breathing pattern by
  holding one hand over your belly and one in the
  center of your chest to observe yourself
  breathing. If you learned incorrectly, it is easy
  to change and will have a profound positive
  impact on your vitality, metabolism, and moods.
  Unless otherwise specified in the meditations,
  breathing is through the nose.

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How to Dress

• Dress any way you like that is comfortable and
  unrestrictive. There are three considerations
  when you think about dress. The first is simple
  comfort, so you can relax and freely do any
  exercises associated with your routine. Second is
  sacredness. Many people think of meditation as a
  special time, as a time to put themselves in
  front of the mind, consciousness, and soul. So
  the clothes are clean, fresh, and often light in
  color and composition. Third is subtle
  energetics. Meditators who have become very
  sensitive to the subtle currents of energy in the
  body report sensing channels of energy called
  meridians and centers of energy called chakras.
  Thy noticed that mediation is helped by letting
  the hair grow, since the hair acts like antennae
  for etheric and solar energy to enter the body.
  To maximize this source of energy you may see
  traditions that curl the hair on top of the head.
  That was called the rishi knot or the knot of
  the wise ones.

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How to Dress

• They would also cover the head with something
  cotton. That is why you see prayer shawls,
  turbans, yarmulkes, and other ways to put a
  cotton filter over the chakra at the top of the
  head. It is not required, but evolved from the
  sensitivity and sophistication of regular
  practitioners.