Recently I was invited to give a session on meditation for the staff of a hotel. I asked them what image or words come to their mind on hearing the word ‘Meditation’. The answer came that it brings the picture of a sadhu clad in white or saffron clothes sitting on a mountain top or beneath a huge tree with closed eyes and hands in Gyana mudra.
So I asked, as a house holder, why should I talk about meditation to the youngsters who are leading a worldly life?
To have a stable mind
If we look at anybody’s life, the experiences that come over a period of time is like this – ‘sadness... tension.... stress... fear... happiness... sadness... tension.... stress... fear...happiness..’ and it keeps repeating in that order. During all the negative experiences, one is worried and not in a stable state.
What about experiences that bring happiness? Let us take an example, when a father gets to know that his daughter got first rank in the Pre University examination, he is overjoyed. How long do you think that the happiness remains? Various thoughts follow. “Now that she has got first rank, I need to put her in a good college, but my financial situation is tight...” “For further education she will go to a big city and I have heard horrible stories of the bad influences in those cities. What will happen to my daughter?” And in so many other ways his mind will wander and in no time that extreme happiness turns to negative thinking.
Regular meditation helps one to go beyond these obvious thinking streams, to keep the mind in a neutral position so that correct decisions can be taken.
How to meditate?
The simplest way is to just observe the breathing, because breath and mind are closely connected. Doing this even for five minutes before going to sleep and on getting up in the morning can bring wonderful changes over a period of time.
Mindfulness during every act/work one does is also a type of meditation. The mind will keep wandering, but bring it back to the current moment.
Chanting mantra with full awareness is also akin to meditation.
And then there are guided meditations.
The experience
I helped them to meditate by being aware of the breath through watching the rising and falling of the abdomen.
Then I took them through a guided meditation. It was a partly cloudy day and Sun was not visible when we started. I designed the meditation to strengthen their health and immune power by accessing the power of Sun, our life giver. It was a great experience to them and when we finished and they opened their eyes, the Sun came out of the clouds and was shining bright, bringing sun light into the area where we were sitting.
That was the indication from the Sun God that He had accepted our effort and blessed all of us!
